were his next words; "has been accomplished
in my time. Do I, who have witnessed the
opening of the Britannia Bridge across the
Menai Straits, and who claim the man who
made that bridge for one of my distinguished
children, see through the Tube, as through a
mighty telescope, the Education of the
people coming nearer?"

He sat up in his bed, as he spoke, and a
great light seemed to shine from his eyes.

"Do I," he said, " who have been deafened
by a whirlwind of sound and fury, consequent
on a demand for Secular Education, see any
Education through the opening years, for
those who need it most ?"

A film gradually came over his eyes, and
he sunk back on his pillow. Presently,
directing his weakened glance towards the
Head Registrar of Births, he asked that
personage:

"How many of those whom Nature brings
within your province, in the spot of earth
called England, can neither read nor write, in
after years?"

The Registrar answered (referring to the
last number of the present publication),
"about forty-five in every hundred."

"And in my History for the month of
May," said the old year with a heavy groan,
I find it written: 'Two little children whose
heads scarcely reached the top of the dock,
were charged at Bow Street on the seventh,
with stealing a loaf out of a baker's shop.
They said, in defence, that they were starving,
and their appearance showed that they spoke
the truth. They were sentenced to be
whipped in the House of Correction.' To be
whipped! Woe, woe! can the State devise
no better sentence for its little children!
Will it never sentence them to be taught!"

The venerable gentleman became extremely
discomposed in his mind, and would have torn
his white hair from his head, but for the
soothing attentions of his friends.

"In the same month," he observed, when
he became more calm, "and within a week,
an English Prince was born. Suppose him
taken from his Princely home (Heaven's
blessing on it!) cast like these wretched
babies on the streets, and sentenced to be left
in ignorance, what difference, soon, between
him, and the little children sentenced to be
whipped? Think of it, Great Queen, and
become the Royal Mother of them all!"

The Head Registrar of Births and the
Chief of the Grave Diggers, both of whom
have great experience of infancy, predestined,
(they do not blasphemously suppose, by God,
but know, by man) to vice and shame, were
greatly overcome by the earnestness of their
departing friend.

"I have seen," he presently said, "a project
carried into execution for a great assemblage
of the peaceful glories of the world. I have
seen a wonderful structure, reared in glass,
by the energy and skill of a great natural
genius, self-improved: worthy descendant of
my Saxon ancestors: worthy type of  industry
and ingenuity triumphant! Which of my
children shall behold the Princes, Prelates,
Nobles, Merchants, of England, equally united,
for another Exhibition—for a great display
of England's sins and negligences, to be, by
steady contemplation of all eyes, and steady
union of all hearts and hands, set right?
Come hither my Right Reverend Brother, to
whom an English tragedy presented in the
theatre is contamination, but who art a
Bishop, none the less, in right of the
translation of Greek Plays; come hither, from
a life of Latin Verses and Quantities, and
study the Humanities through these
transparent windows! Wake, Colleges of Oxford,
from daydreams of ecclesiastical melo-drama,
and look in on these realities in the daylight,
for the night cometh when no man can work!
Listen, my Lords and Gentlemen, to the roar
within, so deep, so real, so low down, so
incessant and accumulative! Not all the reedy
pipes of all the shepherds that eternally play
one little tune—not twice as many feet of
Latin verses as would reach from this globe
to the Moon and back—not all the Quantities
that are, or ever were, or will be, in the
world- Quantities of Prosody, or Law, or
State, or Church, or Quantities of anything
but work in the right spirit, will quiet it for
a second, or clear an inch of space in this
dark Exhibition of the bad results of our
doings! Where shall we hold it? When
shall we open it? What courtier speaks?"

After the foregoing rhapsody, the venerable
gentleman became, for a time, much enfeebled;
and the Chief of the Grave Diggers took a few
minutes' repose.

As the hands of the clock were now rapidly
advancing towards the hour which the
invalid had predicted would be his last, his
attendants considered it expedient to sound
him as to his arrangements in connexion with
his worldly affairs; both, being in doubt
whether these were completed, or, indeed
whether he had anything to leave. The Chief
of the Grave Diggers, as the fittest person for
such an office, undertook it. He delicately
enquired, whether his friend and master had
any testamentary wishes to express? If so,
they should be faithfully observed.

"Thank you," returned the old gentleman,
with a smile, for he was once more composed;
"I have Something to bequeath to my
successor; but not so much (I am happy to say)
as I might have had. The Sunday Postage
question, thank God, I have got rid of; and
the Nepaulese Ambassadors are gone home.
May they stay there!"

This pious aspiration was responded to,
with great fervor, by both the attendants.

"I have seen you," said the venerable
Testator, addressing the Chief of the Grave
Diggers, "lay beneath the ground, a great
Statesman and a fallen King of France."

The Chief of the Grave Diggers replied,
"It is true."