every time he walks by so stupendous a monument of it."

Verily, I know not how my father could bear to look at those dumb fragments of himself—strata of the Caxtonian conformation lying layer upon layer, as if packed up and disposed for the inquisitive genius of some moral Murchison or Mantell. But, for my part, I never glanced at their repose in the dark lobby, without thinking, "Courage, Pisistratus! courage! there's something worth living for; work hard, grow rich, and the Great Book shall come out at last."

Meanwhile, I wandered over the country, and made acquaintance with the farmers, and with Trevanion's steward—an able man, and a great agriculturist—and I learned from them a better notion of the nature of my uncle's domains. Those domains covered an immense acreage, which, save a small farm, was of no value at present. But land of the same sort had been lately redeemed by a simple kind of draining, now well known in Cumberland; and, with capital, Roland's barren moors might become a noble property. But capital, where was that to come from? Nature gives us all except the means to turn her into marketable account. As old Plautus saith so wittily, "Day, night, water, sun, and moon, are to be had gratis; for everything else-down with your dust!"

CHAPTER II.

NOTHING has been heard of Uncle Jack. Before we left the brick house, the Captain gave him an invitation to the tower—more, I suspect, out of compliment to my mother than from the unbidden impulse of his own inclinations. But Mr Tibbets politely declined it. During his stay at the brick house, he had received and written a vast number of letters-some of those he received, indeed, were left at the village post-office, under the alphabetical addresses of A B or X Y. For no misfortune ever paralysed the energies of Uncle Jack. In the winter of adversity he vanished, it is true, but even in vanishing he vegetated still. He resembled those algo, termed the Prolococcus nivales, which give a rose-colour to the Polar snows that conceal them, and flourish unsuspected amidst the general dissolution of Nature. Uncle Jack, then, was as lively and sanguine as ever-though he began to let fall vague hints of intentions to abandon the

general cause of his fellow creatures, and to set up business henceforth purely on his own account; wherewith my father-to the great shock of my belief in his philanthropy-expressed himself much pleased. And I strongly suspect that, when Uncle Jack wrapped himself up in his new double Saxony, and went off at last, he carried with him something more than my father's good wishes in aid of his conversion to egotistical philosophy.

“That man will do yet," said my father, as the last glimpse was caught of Uncle Jack standing up on the stage-coach box, beside the driver-partly to wave his hand to us as we stood at the gate, and partly to array himself more commodiously in a box coat, with six capes, which the coachman had lent him.

"Do you think so, sir!" said I, doubtfully. I ask why ?"

"May

MR CAXTON.-On the cat principle-that he tumbles so lightly. You may throw him down from St Paul's, and the next time you see him he will be scrambling a-top of the Monument.

PISISTRATUS.-But a cat the most viparious is limited to nine lives-and Uncle Jack must be now far gone in his eighth.

MR CAXTON (not heeding that answer, for he has got his hand in his waistcoat.)—The earth, according to Apuleius, in his Treatise on the Philosophy of Plato,

was produced from right-angled triangles; but fire and air from the scalene triangle—the angles of which, I need not say, are very different from those of a right-angled triangle. Now I think there are people in the world of whom one can only judge rightly according to those mathematical principles applied to their original construction; for, if air or fire predominates in our natures, we are scalene triangles ;—if earth, right-angled. Now, as air is so notably manifested in Jack's conformation, he is, nolens volens, produced in conformity with his preponderating element. He is a scalene triangle, and must be judged, accordingly, upon irregular, lop-sided principles; whereas you and I, commonplace mortals, are produced, like the earth, which is our preponderating element, with our triangles all right-angled, comfortable, and complete-for which blessing let us thank Providence, and be charitable to those who are necessarily windy and gaseous, from that unlucky scalene triangle upon which they have had the misfortune to be constructed, and which, you perceive, is quite at variance with the mathematical constitution of the earth!

PISISTRATUS.-Sir, I am very happy to hear so simple, easy, and intelligible an explanation of Uncle Jack's peculiarities; and I only hope that, for the future, the sides of his scalene triangle may never be produced to our rectangular conformations.

MR CAXTON (descending from his stilts, with an air as mildly reproachful as if I had been cavilling at the virtues of Socrates.)-You don't do your uncle justice, Pisistratus: he is a very clever man; and I am sure that, in spite of his scalene misfortune, he would be an honest one—that is, (added Mr Caxton, correcting himself,) not romantically or heroically honest-but honest as men go--if he could but keep his head long enough above water: but, you see, when the best man in the world is engaged in the process of sinking, he catches hold of whatever comes in his way, and drowns the very friend who is swimming to save him.

PISISTRATUS.—Perfectly true, sir; but Uncle Jack makes it his business to be always sinking!

MR CAXTON (with naïveté.)—And how could it be otherwise, when he has been carrying all his fellow creatures in his breeches' pockets! Now he has got rid of that deadweight, I should not be surprised if he swam like a cork.

PISISTRATUS (who, since the Anti-Capitalist, has become a strong Anti-Jackian.)—But if, sir, you really think Uncle Jack's love for his fellow creatures is genuine, that is surely not the worst part of him!

MR CAXTON.-O literal ratiocinator, and dull to the true logic of Attic irony! can't you comprehend that an affection may be genuine as felt by the man,