tially merged in the convenient class of "sundries,” Mr. D. was pretty certain to find the eighteenpence which had been paid for his cab-hire, or the halfsovereign that he had caught up when going out in a hurry, or the few shillings disbursed for his gloves, put down with scrupulous and undeviating exactness in the admirable family account. It was only to cite these small sums of which he knew, to show him clearly how the fifty pounds had been spent.

True," he used to observe, "I did snatch up a half-sovereign from the table one morning; I recollect it; it was on Tuesday week. What a thoughtful little soul it is! Bless her, how carefully she does keep her accounts!"

Mrs. Dipple always took excellent care of the pence, and Mr. Dipple was always perfectly satisfied that the pounds took excellent care of themselves.

Mrs. Dipple managed all her household matters not merely without stinginess, but with "liberality; yet when that rage, which no great while ago ran from one end of middle life to the other, that feeling which may be supposed to have possessed the bosoms of all Aladdin's neighbours, at the cry of " Who will change their old lamps for new ones?"—that running after new lights that led the great bulk of the lamp-burning community into the seventh heaven of economy, in the use of "common oil," when that consuming rage first seized upon families, rousing them to repurchases, to exchanges, or to alterations of their old lamps, Mrs. Dipple could not be insensible to the obligation of proving herself at least as disinclined to extravagant expenditure as the chariest of her acquaintances.

This was not enough; she must outstrip them all. They had their lamps altered instanter, at the cost of a guinea. Mrs. Dipple resolved to wait; the new in

vention would infallibly cheapen itself. It did, and at the expiration of a year and a half, she succeeded in having the necessary improvements effectually rendered for eleven shillings per lamp! The figure looked remarkably low, considering the saving, when introduced into the domestic account; though to be sure a loss of several pounds had been incurred, by burning the more expensive oil for a year and a half after their neighbours had dispensed with it.

Among the human eccentrics that compose the common stock of our acquaintances in this droll place, the world, is one who, when a heavy shower came on, went into a shop and asked permission to leave a large cotton umbrella there for a few hours. He didn't like to put it up, because it was quite a new one, and had never been used; so he walked home through the rain. We half suspect that Mrs. Dipple was a distant relative of his.

What we are far more sure of is, her descent from a famous economist, whose name we shall not mention. When his magnificent mansion was found to be on fire, and all eyes and hands were turned, naturally enough, to the pleasing range of fire-buckets that ornamented the outer court, this prince of economists positively interdicted the use of them; peremptorily prohibited everybody from even so much as touching them; the buckets had been newly painted, and the crest and initials were in gold.

Whether, by any peculiar kind of calculating machine to be hereafter born of Babbage's, domestic economy may become simplified; whether by a new system of summing up or of subtracting, the annual expenditure of a hundred pounds, and the annual saving of eight, may be shown to be identical with a gain of eight per cent. per annum; whether the assemblage of all the

important items of an account under the head of sundries, may be found to be the most lucid and explanatory method of book-keeping, we cannot yet say; but we hear that when the Rev. Barnabas Shaw, missionary to southern Africa, first commenced ploughing, in the presence of a number of chiefs, one of them pithily remarked that “one plough was equal to seven wives !”

Now only think of one silent, senseless, figure-manufacturing, unintellectual, unhandsome calculating machine, merely because it might be exact in its accounts, being for a single instant considered equal to seven charming, delightful, inexact, half-reckoning, arithmetical non-economists, like Mrs. Dipple!

WANTED A NEIGHBOUR.

I NEVER catch a glimpse of the Monument from that distant part of the metropolis where I reside, without sympathising most deeply with the man who, from early dawn to set of sun, is stationed at the top to prevent people of a lively turn of mind from jumping off. He must be so sadly in want of neighbours.

There are glorious views among the Alps, and magnificent sites for villas on the Himalayan Mountains; but I should not like to take a house there for any lengthened term of years; the neighbourhood, or rather the want of a neighbourhood, would be highly objectionable. There may be snug living enough upon Salisbury Plain; but I always prefer having somebody residing within gun-shot. And there is very snug living no doubt (if without presumption the allusion may be hazarded) in Buckingham Palace; yet is there in the position of its Illustrious Inhabitant, one pecu

liarity from which most of her subjects are happiest when they are exempt. It may be thus described: Thousands of people live around and about the Palace, but the Queen has no neighbours.

Man's duty towards his neighbour has many branches, but mine has one branch extra. In fact, the leading point of my duty towards my neighbour, is to find him. When a boy, the adventures of Robinson Crusoe exercised over my mind an irresistible fascination; and for three years I dreamed of nothing, day or night, but the charms of shipwreck and the seductiveness of a desert island; but I could not help thinking that a 'pleasant neighbour or two would have materially improved the solitary condition. To be sure, there were the cannibals; but they could hardly be said, in the strict sense of the word, to be animated by a neighbourly feeling. If Alexander Selkirk could have heard his sound of the church-going bell," for which his ear thirsted, he would still have wanted a neighbour on the next rock, or the valley ten miles off, to call for on his way, and to return home with. But after all, their situation was only just as neighbourless as mine. True, this little suburban district is not a desert island; on the contrary, there is scarcely an acre of ground within a mile of my fireside, that is not thickly planted with brick and mortar, and houses come up faster than small salad; there is scarcely an edifice among the congregated specimens of eligible mansions and commodious residences that is not tenanted; and not a few of the vast number can boast of more than one set of inmates. But it is true, nevertheless, that I haven't a neighbour. There are seasons, says Wordsworth, when the heart luxuriates with indifferent things, "wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones." I have often wasted mine on the statue of the Duke of York on Carlton-terrace,

and now watch the progress of the new column in Trafalgar-square with proportionate interest. Nelson will certainly prove a most desirable neighbour.

I have remarked that we are surrounded with houses, and that every one is tenanted; this is scarcely saying enough. A friend of mine (alas! he is no neighbour), whose family increases rapidly, is said to have such a "house full of children," that he cannot shut the streetdoor for them. If he did, they would be oozing out at the key-hole; and legs and arms, in inevitable submission to the law of physics, would be insinuating themselves out of the window, or escaping as by a safetyvalve through the chimney. This appears to be equally the case with numerous residents in my vicinity. Lodger upon lodger, visitor upon visitor, each staying a twelvemonth, fill most of the buildings even to an overflow; but in all this multitude, is there no neighbour for me,

not one.

The people next door are a charming family. They have resided there fifteen years, while my term of tenancy has been seventeen; but to speak of them as my neighbours, would be like speaking of the elasticity of castiron, or the saccharine attraction of a cranberry-tart. The family over the way, the Higgses (we know the name to be Higgs by the brass-plate on the door), well, they have lived almost opposite to us upwards of twelve years; and yet to expect a call from any one of the two dozen in family, to expect a "good morning," or any slight sign of neighbourly recognition, why, it would be as startling as the knock of a penny-postman at the door of Robinson Crusoe's cave.

The French have many generous and brilliant qualities; but I believe the chief reason why I am so partial to them is, not that they have sent us Rachel, but that they are always called "our lively neighbours."