you the commerce of cinnamon. I have
learnt that a small demand at high prices,
for any useful commodity, is neither so safe
nor so profitable as a large demand at moderate
prices. I have learnt, further, that the
end of commerce is not to make individuals
rich, and support public expenditure by heavy
duties, but to diffuse all the productions of
nature and art, amongst all the inhabitants
of the globe. You have taught me a lesson.
The old trade of the United Provinces has
died under monopolies and restrictions. We
may once more be your honest rivals under a
wiser code. You want two hundred thousand
pounds weight of nutmegs yearly; we will
deal like merchant princes and good men and
true."

"Agreed!" said Mr. Oldknow.

A West Indian Sugar Plantation is now
mirrored—with its canes ripening under a
tropical sun, and its mills with their machinery
of cylinders and boilers. The GENIUS OF
SUGAR is a freed Negro. It was said that in
freedom he would not work; he has vindicated
his privileges in his industry and his obedience.
The grand experiment has succeeded
in all moral effects. But the nation that
demanded cheap corn would not be content
with dear sugar. We must buy our sugar
wherever the cane ripens. We use seven
hundred millions of pounds of sugar annually,
which yield a duty of four millions sterling.
Mr. Oldknow thought this, but was silent, when
he saw the negro sitting under his own fig-tree;
for the political questions which his freedom
involved were somewhat complicated. He
would trust to the ultimate power of a noble
example, and in the meantime rejoice that the
great body of the British people could buy
their sugar at half the price that their fathers
paid.

Mr. Oldknow, being somewhat at fault upon
the sugar question, grew confused as new
forms flitted before him. The solitary EGG-
COLLECTOR, of Cork, was there, in her blue
cloak and her kish on her back. Her step
was brisker than in the famine years, and her
light grey eye was once more laughing under
her long black eye-lashes. She had walked
from cottage to cottage some twenty miles;
and her kish was to form part of the many
hundred egg-crates that England required for
her Christmas puddings. " May the daughters
and sons of Erin," soliloquised Mr. Oldknow,
"never again suffer as they have suffered!
May plenty smile upon their fields, and comfort
in their cottages! May they have just
masters and wise rulers! May they rely
upon industry, and not upon agitation! May
they "—the Blue Cloak was gone.

A figure started up, half Gnome, half
Nereid. Mr. Oldknow was thinking of his
evening gambols of " Yes and No;" so with
half-consciousness he asked—

"Animal kingdom?" "No." "Vegetable?"
"No." "Mineral?" "Yes." " In England?"
"Yes."

"Here," continued the figure, " I am free.
I fly through the land, scattering blessings as
widely as the dews of heaven. I bring my
treasures out of the bowels of the earth and
from the depths of the sea. I make the fields
fruitful; I forbid your food to perish. Without
me the sustenance of man and beast is
imperfect. The herds of unfathomable forests
wander to the plains in search of me; the
child that loves me not, loses the bloom of its
cheek and the odour of its breath. I am the
universal friend. And yet kings have impiously
dared to deny me to their subjects, even
though they should perish—their crimes
have been punished. Even now, the Hindoo,
whom you have benefited in so many things,
is deprived of me by your fiscal injustice.
Learn to be wiser. You have freed me
from the burdens of your home taxation, and
your industrial wealth is quadrupled. I
am,—"

"SALT!" guessed Mr. Oldknow.

To Salt succeeded a singular figure as
the MILKY GENIUS. It seemed one-half
dairy-woman, with her pail and stool, decently
clad in woollen petticoat and black
stockings; but above was a Naiad of the
Thames, with dripping locks held loosely
together with a wreath of rushes. Mr. Oldknow
was about to harangue, when a brisk
power-loom weaver stepped forth, with pudding-
cloth in hand. " The water boils," said he;
"the ingredients are mixed. Be it mine to
bind them together!"

"Right," cried Mr. Oldknow. " Again our
country's emblem. The bundle of sticks
and the pudding-cloth have each the same
moral. Our ancestors in their ' civil dudgeon '
made 'plum-porridge.' We, in our united
interests, well bound together, produce
Christmas pudding."

There was a silence and a pause. Mr. Oldknow
peered out. The mirror had lost its
brilliancy. But suddenly the great pudding-
bowl expanded into a mighty flat dish. The
pudding swelled into an enormous globe,
black with plums, and odorous with streaming
sauce. A holly-tree, with its prickly
leaves at bottom, its smooth leaves on high,
and its bright red berries, grew up under a
crystal dome. On the edge of the dish were
grouped the Andalusian with the Cashmere
shawl, the Ionian islander with the wings of
Corinth, the Kentish ploughman in the smock-
frock, the Flying Dutchman, the Negro without
the chains, the Irish market-woman, the
Gnome-Nereid, the London Naiad, and the
Weaver with the cloth; and they all took
hands, and thrice danced round the edge
of the dish. And, lo! out of the holly-
tree dropped a moustached denizen of the
Palais Royal. He had a flask of brandy
in one hand, and a huge silver bowl in the
other.

"Oh, nation of anti-chemical cooks," he
cried, " you put the cognac into the pudding,
and nine hours' boiling drives off all the spirit