his Sunday state; and if we were First Lord
(really possessing the indispensable qualification
for the office of knowing nothing
whatever about the sea), we would give him a
ship to-morrow.

We have a church, by the bye, of course—a
hideous temple of flint, like a great petrified
haystack. Our chief clerical dignitary, who, to
his honor, has done much for education both in
time and money, and has established excellent
schools, is a sound, shrewd, healthy gentleman,
who has got into little occasional difficulties
with the neighbouring farmers, but has had a
pestilent trick of being right. Under a new
regulation, he has yielded the church of our
Watering Place to another clergyman. Upon
the whole we get on in church well. We are
a little bilious sometimes, about these days of
fraternization, and about nations arriving at a
new and more unprejudiced knowledge of each
other (which our Christianity don't quite approve),
but it soon goes off, and then we get
on very well.

There are two dissenting chapels, besides,
in our small Watering Place; being in about
the proportion of a hundred and twenty guns
to a yacht. But the dissension that has torn
us lately, has not been a religious one. It
has arisen on the novel question of Gas. Our
Watering Place has been convulsed by the
agitation, Gas or No Gas. It was never
reasoned why No Gas, but there was a great
No Gas party. Broadsides were printed and
stuck about—a startling circumstance in
our Watering Place. The No Gas party
rested content with chalking "No Gas!"
and "Down with Gas!" and other such
angry war-whoops, on the few back gates
and scraps of wall which the limits of our
Watering Place afford; but the Gas party
printed and posted bills, wherein they took
the high ground of proclaiming against the No
Gas party, that it was said Let there be light
and there was light; and that not to have
light (that is gas light) in our Watering Place,
was to contravene the great decree. Whether
by these thunderbolts or not, the No Gas party
were defeated; and in this present season we
have had our handful, of shops illuminated
for the first time. Such of the No Gas party,
however, as have got shops, remain in opposition
and burn tallow—exhibiting in their
windows the very picture of the sulkiness
that punishes itself, and a new illustration of
the old adage about cutting off your nose to
be revenged on your face, in cutting off their
gas to be revenged on their business.

Other population than we have indicated,
our Watering Place has none. There are a
few old used-up boatmen who creep about in
the sunlight with the help of sticks, and there
is a poor imbecile shoemaker who wanders
his lonely life away among the rocks, as if
he were looking for his reason—which he
will never find. Sojourners in neighbouring
watering places come occasionally in flies to
stare at us, and drive away again as if they
thought us very dull; Italian boys come,
Punch comes, the Fantoccini come, the Tumblers
come, the Ethiopians come; Glee-singers
come at night, and hum and vibrate (not
always melodiously) under our windows. But
they all go soon, and leave us to ourselves
again. We once had a travelling Circus and
Wombwell's Menagerie at the same time.
They both know better than ever to try it
again; and the Menagerie had nearly razed
us from the face of the earth in getting the
elephant away—his caravan was so large, and
the Watering Place so small. We have a fine
sea, wholesome for all people; profitable for
the body, profitable for the mind. The poet's
words are sometimes on its awful lips:

And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

Yet it is not always so, for the speech of the
sea is various, and wants not abundant resource
of cheerfulness, hope, and lusty encouragement.
And since I have been idling at the window
here, the tide has risen. The boats are
dancing on the bubbling water; the colliers
are afloat again; the white-bordered waves
rush in; the children

Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back;

the radiant sails are gliding past the shore,
and shining on the far horizon; all the sea is
sparkling, heaving, swelling up with life and
beauty, this bright morning.

A PENITENT CONFESSION.

I SHALL merely premise that I am a private
gentleman of small means, but very lively
imagination. My name is Sparks—Mr.
Simon Sparks—related to the Sparks's and
Snipetons of Somersetshire, where their farm-lands
are very considerable. For myself, as a
point of character, I have to confess to one pre-dominant
taste. I have always had a sort of
passion for beautiful jewellery and precious
stones. I have always been very choice in my
rings and shirt-pin; and every five years I have
invariably exchanged some of my trinkets
for others, by way of indulging in variety at
the least cost. I add to my stock as often as
I can afford it. It don't do to boast in
presence of great names, yet I do possess
both a turquoise and a cairngorm which are
almost unique. But I can also admire in the
abstract. One of my greatest delights in
going to the Opera, is to see the blaze of
diamonds that are assembled in this delightful
resort of all that is chaste and splendid.
But, to my painful confession.

Like everybody else, I have been, of course,