assuredly questioned whether the specific
alteration is an improvement. On this point the
young and the old will probably differ. Illegitimate
sources of attraction are much sought
by the rising generation, not only in the drama,
but in general literature, and in natural life.
As these prevail, they become lawful, and in
time grow to be classical. Few poems are now
purely natural. The railways have brought the
country and the town into such close relationship,
that the young lady from the former has
already the tastes and airs of the latter.
Simplicity and innocence are not even assumed.
But we should recollect that with them much
rusticity and ignorance have also departed, and
that we get on more pleasantly and smoothly
together than we did. We can scarcely form a
conception of the inconvenience suffered by all
classes of society, even in the century preceding
our own. When Hogarth undertook to paint
the familiar things of our every-day life, the
perils that beset every path of it, whether in
town or in country, were such as would
scarcely be tolerated now, even in imagination.

The state of things in the more remote past
is, indeed, scarcely conceivable at the present
day. It has been justly said that they who
have never experienced the want of the luxuries
and conveniences of every description
which London and other great cities and towns
of England now afford, cannot readily understand
in what manner our ancestors contrived
to pass their lives in any degree of comfort,
with their unpaved, unlighted, undrained streets
—without water conveyed to their doors by
pipes or aqueducts—without hackney-coaches,
hansoms, or omnibusses, or other light vehicles
for travelling—without a general penny post—
without a thousand other petty accommodations,
the privation of any one of which would
grievously disturb the temper and affect the
comforts of the present generation.

If Perdita were now living, she might
considerably modify her opinion concerning
carnations and gillyvors, at least in their social
and moral applications. Have not gas and
police done much for the well-being of society
as well as for its safety? With the march of
material improvement, moral propriety keeps
pace; but the latter is dependent on the former
to a greater extent than is generally believed.
The artificial comes wonderfully in aid of the
natural; and metropolitan manners sit gracefully
on the country youth of both sexes, who only a
few years ago would have been remarked for their
rustic rudeness, timidity, and inexperience. The
hoyden and bumpkin have disappeared, and the
well behaved and competently instructed maiden,
and her well-dressed brother or lover, have taken
their places. They now mix in London society
with an ease and pleasure, of which their
class in former days was incapable. The
old marks of distinction are becoming
obliterated, and the individual characteristics that
grew out of them have become obsolete.
Perdita herself would prove to be a carnation were
she now introduced to a London ball-room, and
yet feel quite as natural as a simple "primrose
by the river's brim."

These remarks might be much extended in
their application, and enforced by reflections
relative to the interaction of the natural and
artificial in modern social arrangements, and the
gay appearance thereby induced on the face of
things in general. Nor need we doubt the
reality of the improvement in manners
witnessed, when we remember that the art
employed in the transmutation, on the word of
the great authority we have cited, is rightly
to be regarded as "itself Nature." There is,
therefore, in these illegitimate doings, a legitimacy
to be recognised; they are, after all, in
due order and course; and have as much right
in our more polished botanical haunts, as the
simple natural products of the earth in the
"rustic garden." So much may be urged to
reconcile the timid and aged to the signs of
change and progress that multiply wherever we
direct our attention; and with this assurance
we close the somewhat fantastical statement
we have ventured to make of a series of facts
sufficiently obvious to the intelligent observer.

THE STUDIOUS RESURRECTIONIST.

MR. PEGDEN spent all his time with his
customers; that is, when he had any to spare,
was not in bed, or nursing the baby, or killing
a pig. He had something to do with smoking
the hams, assisting Mrs. Pegden in that department;
and as he had a "herring hang" at the
back of the premises, possibly he attended to
that line of business too.

The "Three Squirrels " is a very lonely, out-
of-the-way place. It does not even stand on
the high road, but on a sort of parish bye way,
and on the skirts of a little wood in a
district wild and thinly populated. It is indeed
an "ellinge" place, as we say in Kent, but
some how or the other, the Jutes or old
English settlers found it out, and made, twelve
or thirteen hundred years ago, a burying place
within its borders. I had come hither to the
diggings, and finding it inconvenient to go
home while at work on the graves, I put up at
the Three Squirrels. There are no indigenous
supplies but salt pork and smoked herrings,
except when a pig is killed, or a rabbit is
caught in a wire. But zeal in one's profession
gives one the power of digesting salt pork and
smoked herring for many successive days.

I had discovered an Anglo-Saxon cemetery
between the hills, in a field which had been for
ages devoted to tillage. The discovery made
me a happy creature, and when the harvest was
gathered in, I came to my diggings.

One day, after a search more than usually
laborious, I had retired to the inn, and to what
accommodation and refreshment it afforded.
It was late in autumn. The days were short,
the weather was chilly, and after some stiff work
as a resurrectionist I liked the crackle and