The superstitions sweet that charmed our youth;
     The large belief that bade us still dream on;
The dear illusions we mistook for truth;
     The "shaping power" that gave them grace—
          are flown!

Yet these fair fictions of our earlier day
     We have but changed for guides less kind and
          bland;
The glittering cheats that lead us now astray,
     Are falser far than those of Fairy Land!

Love, Friendship, Hope, Ambition, Glory, Pride,
     All, ignis-fatuus-like, by turns, invite,
But when we follow, make a circuit wide,
     Where fields are dank, and there withdraw their
          light!

Though poets still, as they were wont of yore,
     With filial love to fairy legends cling;
The charm is half-dispelled, for they no more
     " Believe the magic wonders that they sing!"

Yet, till the Muse from earth is driven away,
     And young Romance hath broken too her wand;
Will elfin lore still grace the poet's lay,
     And his heart's home be still in Fairyland!

GUNPOWDER AND CHALK.

SIR VALENTINE SALTEAR was a worthy
gentleman, who had made a large fortune by
constantly exporting Irish linens and lawns
to France (from whence they came over to
England as fine French goods), for which
service to the trade of the three countries a
discerning minister had obtained him the
honour of knighthood. This fortune he had
in part expended in building for himself a
great mansion on the sea-coast of Kent,
commanding a fine view of the country from the
back windows, and the great ocean from the
front. Every room on the first and second
floors was furnished with a brass telescope,
that could be screwed on to the window-sash,
or by means of a pedestal, into the window-sill.

In the front of his house was a great field,
in which he and his visitors used to play at
cricket. It was bounded by the high, white
chalk cliffs, which descended precipitously to
the sea.

The cliffs, however, were unfortunately much
undermined by natural caverns; so that every
year, and, in fact, every time there was a
storm at sea, a large portion of the chalk-
rock fell down, and in the course of six or seven
years he was obliged to rail off as
"dangerous " a part of the already reduced field
in front of his house. He could now only play
at trap-ball, or battledore and shuttle-cock.

Still the sea continued its encroachments,
and in a few years more the trap-ball was all
over,—it was too perilous, even if they had
not continually lost the ball,—and he and his
sons were reduced to a game at long-taw,
and hop-scotch.

Clearly perceiving that in the course of
a few years more his field sports would be
limited to spinning a tee-totum before his
front door, he engaged the services of an
eminent architect and civil engineer to build
him a sea-wall to prevent the further encroachment
of the enemy. The estimate of expense
was five thousand pounds, and, as a matter of
course, the work, by the time it was finished,
cost ten thousand. This was nearly as much
as Sir Valentine Saltear had paid for the
building of his house.

But the worst part of the business was, that
the very next storm which occurred at sea,
and only a few weeks after, the waves dashed
down, and fairly carried away the whole of
this protective wall. In the morning it was
clean gone, as though no such structure had
been there, and a great additional gap was
made in the cliff, plainly showing that the
watery monster was quite bent on swallowing
up Sir Valentine's house. He brought an
action for the recovery of the money he had
paid for his wall; but while this was pending,
he saw his house being undermined from day
to day, and in sheer despair felt himself
obliged to apply to a still more eminent civil
engineer. The estimate this gentleman made
for the construction of a sea-wall—one that
would stand—was ten thousand pounds. It
might be a few pounds more, or less probably
less. But the recent experience of Sir
Valentine making him fear that it would
probably be double that amount, he hesitated
as to engaging the services of this gentleman.
He even thought of sending over to Ireland
for fifty bricklayers, carpenters, and masons,
and superintending the work himself. He
was sure he could do it for six thousand
pounds. It never once occurred to him to
pull down his house, and rebuild it on high
ground a quarter of a mile farther off.

In this dangerous yet undecided state of
affairs, Sir Valentine one morning, breakfasting
at his club in Waterloo Place, read in a
newspaper a notice of the grand mining
operation and explosion that was to take place at
Seaford, the object of which was to throw
down an immense mass of chalk cliff, the
broken fragments whereof would, at a
comparately small cost, form a sea-wall, at an
elevation of about one-fifth the height of the
parent rock. Why, here was Sir Valentine's
own case! His house was upon a very high
chalk rock, and a sea-wall of one-fifth the
height would answer every purpose. The
only difficulty was his present proximity to the
edge of the cliff. Still, he thought he could
spare thirty feet or so, without losing his door
steps, and this width being exploded down to
the base of the cliff, would constitute, by
its fall, a very capital mound of protection
which might last for a century or more. He
therefore determined to see the explosion at
Seaford, and if it proved successful, to adopt
the very same plan.

Sir Valentine, accordingly, on the nineteenth
of September, swallowed an early cup of
chocolate, and hurried off to the Brighton
railway terminus, and took his place in the
Express train for Newhaven. It was a