his stump of a besom, and caught her in his arms, she would have fallen, and spoilt her silk dress. And all this was occasioned by the sudden appearance of a shabby-genteel good-looking sort-of-man, who, with a blue bag in his hand, happened to come up at that very moment. She kicked the mud up with both feet, looked at the stranger, then fell back into the arms of the crossing-sweeper, and exclaimed, "It is!" as she sank upon his bosom, imbedding the fur and velvet of her shawl, with the grease of his sleeved-waistcoat. "Have you never a copper, your honour, to bestow on the poor sweeper?" were the last words Gruff heard, as he handed Maria into a cab, nd left the sweeper to hold out his hat, and support Mrs. Gruff, without showing the least symptom of distress. The man with the blue-bag stood staring at Mrs. Gruff in silent astonishment; and when he did speak, he said, "My wife!-By G-! I was in hopes the devil had got her before this!"

CHAPTER XLIX.

IN WHICH WE PURPOSELY PLUNGE STILL DEEPER INTO THE MIRE,' AND FETCH UP SIN OF THE DARKEST MOULD.-A CHAPTER SOLEMN

AS A FUNERAL SERMON, AND 'TRUE AS THE GOSPEL' WRITTEN EITHER TO BE READ OR LEFT ALONE; AND ONE WHICH WILL MAKE THE READER A SADDER AND A WISER MAN.'

THERE is a charm about childhood, which springs from its very innocence; and we feel happy while we think how ignorant it is of the evil which has taken such deep root, grown, and flourished, and thrown its broad branches so wide and far into the world. Then a shadow moves over, and settles upon the beauty of the picture, when we contemplate the coming years, the sin and misery, which, although never brought into close companionship, must be passed on the way, as we journey through life; for they are the Human Mile-stones, which a good driver may, perchance, never stumble upon, though they mark every stage he passes, and hang out, like signs, at every hostel he halts at.

There is also a charm about the Childhood of Authorship, a beauty and an innocence, that send a sunshine amongst the thoughts of a young poet, while he contemplates the calm and loveliness of nature; for he hears only the humming of bees, the singing of birds, the murmuring of pleasant waters, and the gentle rustling of long green leaves;

sees but the sleeping-blue of heaven, and the picture-like tranquillity of the earth; where every figure in his landscape is an image of love-a dove, a lamb, or a girl dreaming in some secluded shade-no sin to sully the scene, no Truth to startle the charm. Life! real life, comes after, laden with all the bitter knowledge of truth, and peoples the landscape with other beings; faces peep out from among the leaves, and from beneath the flowers, and other voices ring out and awaken the dreamer from his delicious reverie, while he rubs his eyes, and stares to see the Truth. This crystal world is magnified, and the clear round drop expands before him-now no longer pure; but filled with living forms, which chase, and tear, and rend, and devour each other! and this he sees is neither poetry nor fiction, but hideous life! The angel-forms that streak and sail through the mirror seem ever to be gliding away, lest the black, the wriggling, and the wide-mouthed, devil-headed monsters, should coil round and devour them. Start not, while we draw up the curtain, or give but one shudder! then silently sit out the scene.

Who, that has ever seen Etty's splendid picture of Ulysses and the Syrens, can forget its awful beauty, or fail to see the fine moral which it presents? The foreground of that island of graves, is not seen by Ulysses his eye dwells only upon the beautiful figures which are trying to allure him to that fatal shore :—the very din of the breakers, which wash over the dead, is not heard above the sounds of the music they awaken. That moral, Homer drew three thousand years ago; and Etty placed it again before our eyes, that we might see more clearly the wisdom of the God of Poets. Ours is a different picture: the Syrens hideous, and the shore strewn with bleached skeletons, and grim skulls, that stretch and whiten below the ribbed rocks, which beetle above this hateful and forbidden coast.

To a house which stands on the way to Hell, going down to the chambers of death,'* situated at the corner of a dark, narrow, and dirty street in the Borough, we must now conduct our readers. The door was open, as it ever was after dark, and a long thin rushlight burned in a glass-lamp, which was hung in the centre of the passage, while a black, dirty staircase, went winding, and yawning up, into the darkness; for the light only just illuminated the filthy entrance at the foot of it, and cast a dim halo upon a large, old, torn, and dirty mat, caked hard as a board, and never shaken. But let a foot pass that ragged mat ever so lightly, and, like a spider startled by the shaking of the remotest line of its web, against which some passing fly might have struck, so

* Proverbs, vii. 27.

would dart out, from an opposite door, an old hag with a candle in her hand, and a dirty cap on her head, from under which streamed her hard iron hair, while the light flashed full upon her blotched and bloated features, as she stood up the presiding goddess of this grim and hideous hell.

It is yet early in the evening,-the end of November, and a candle is burning in the back-room up-stairs; a girl, who once might have looked handsome, is holding a small piece of a broken looking-glass in one band, while with the other she is busied in painting her cheeks; a false front lies ready to be put on, as it rests on a ricketty and dirtylooking table; one end of the long train of curls has fallen into a glass, and floats on a surface of the very vilest gin. Another young woman, her companion, is drying her stockings before the fire; they will have been washed, dried, and worn within the hour. The collar, which is thrown over the chair-back, has undergone a similar process; she ironed it between her hands. Another woman now enters the room; she has fetched a gaudy-looking cotton gown out of pawn; the girl, painting, could not go out for want of it. Her companion lent her the two shillings to redeem it. An old velvet bonnet, with a feather in it, is placed on the bed; a shawl lies folded up beside it—it was stolen out of a passage, two nights before-the border has been narrowed to disguise it. The bed is without any curtaining; the pillow-cases dirty as old dusters; the screws are either broken or lost, and the posts held up by strong bed-cord. A bottle of gin stands on the mantel-piece-the smell of it would make your heart heave; another bottle stands empty beside it which three hours ago, was filled with gin and turpentine. The walls are covered with coloured prints; some in little black frames— others pasted on the wall,―tinselled, and gaudy-looking enough; they are theatrical portraits of well-known actresses, in well-known characters-Diana, and so on; the colouring, however, more bold than chaste. Here there lies an odd volume of a novel,—there, a song-book without covers, beside a hair-brush, nearly worn out, a pot of bears' grease, with hair-pins in it, a broken comb, and part of a pack of cards. The cards they keep to tell their luck by, before they go out. They shuffle and cut them for hours; and as they turn up, black or red, believe that they shall meet with a dark, or a fair man, in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night.'* Their under-clothes are ragged and dirty; but, poor wretches, they have no change! and the

* Proverbs, vii. 9.