Can ye mark the point of time when the star, before unseen,
Took its place in the high Heav'ns, trembling into light serene?
Noted ye with due exactness how it paled before the dawn,
Fainting back into the vault, beneath the steady eye of morn,
To carry on its burning, viewless, till another night be born?

Can ye tell when the small seedling push'd aside its parent flower,
And the beech-boughs intermingled in the wondrous leafy
shower?
When the throstlecock sang loudest, and the fern was in its pride,
And the first flush of the heather crept o'er all the mountain side?
Did ye watch the dewdrop forming? Did ye see the snowdrop
rise?
The up-breaking of the Seasons—is that done before your eyes?

Has thy mem'ry served thee truly? hast thou certainly defined
When the first ray of intelligence illumed thy crescent mind?
When thy childish thoughts went from thee; when thy boyhood
ceased to be;
And the red sun of thy manhood rose in glory o'er the sea?
Canst thou tell when Love first whispered, low and softly at thine ear,
Thrilling all thy sense with rapture, and a faint delicious fear?
If thou canst not read this closely, how much less the outward sphere!

In this world can no beginning, nor end of aught be shown;
All things blend in one another; only GOD can stand alone!"

THE QUIET POOR.

I DO not mean the workhouse poor—I have
seen plenty of workhouses and tasted many
gruels. I do not mean the criminal poor, nor
the poor who beg in the streets, but the Quiet
Poor: the people who work in their own
homes, and are never to be seen in workhouses
and prisons, who keep their sorrows, if they
have any, quite sacred from the world, and do
not exhibit them for pence. Though, to be sure,
their shades may " glance and pass before us
night and day," to such sorrows, if there be
any, " we are blind as they are dumb." I
thought, therefore, that I should like to know
something about them. The last winter has
been commonly said to be a very hard one,
and I have heard many an old lady cry over
the price of bread, " God help the poor!"
What does a mere penny a loaf matter? I
have thought. A slice of bread less in the
day, perhaps; a little hunger, and a little
falling-in of cheek. Things not entirely
unendurable.

Resolved to see about this for myself, and
to find out perhaps what war prices will
signify to loyal Britons, I obtained leave to
visit the inhabitants of a parochial district in
Bethnal Green, remarkable for its poverty,
for the struggles made by its inhabitants to
keep out of the workhouse, and for the small
number of the offences brought home to their
doors.

The little district of which I speak, small as
it is, contains the population of a country town.
To judge by the eye I should imagine that it
covers ground about a quarter of a mile wide,
and a quarter of a mile long. It is composed
wholly of narrow courts and lanes, with a
central High Street or Church Street of shops
—itself a miserable lane. Although the houses
are for the most part but cottages, with two
floors and a cellar, there are crammed
together in them fourteen thousand people. In
the whole quarter there is not one resident
whom the world would call respectable; there
are not more than about half-a-dozen families.
able to keep a servant; and there is not one
man I believe able to tenant a whole house.
The shopkeepers who make a little outside
show, fare indoors little better than their
neighbours. As a general rule, each room in
each house is occupied by a distinct family;
they are comparatively wealthy who afford to
rent two rooms; but, generally, as the families
enlarge, the more they require space, the less
they can afford that costly luxury. The
natives of this parish chiefly subsist upon
potatoes and cheap fish, buying sprats when
they are to be had, and in default of them
sitting down to dine on potatoes and a
herring. They earn money as they can,
and all are glad to work hard when there is
work for them to do. The majority of the
men are either weavers, or they are
costermongers and hawkers. These two classes
occupy, speaking generally, different portions of
the neighbourhood; the weavers earn a trifle
more, and hold their heads up better than their
neighbours: they are the west end people of
the district. The whole place is completely
destitute of sewerage; one sewer has been
made in a street which forms part of its
boundary; it has its share in that, but nothing
more. The houses all stand over cesspools;
and before the windows, filth, dead cats, and
putrid matter of all sorts run down or
stagnate in the open gutters. How do people,
who are quiet people, live in such a
place?

From a wretched lane, an Egypt watered
by a muddy Nile, I turned into a dark house
like a catacomb, and after some hazardous
climbing reached a chamber in which there
were more people than things. Two women
sat at work with painful earnestness before
the latticed window, three children shivered
round an empty grate. Except the broken
chairs on which the women sat, there was no
seat in the room but an old stool. There
was no table, no bed. The larder was the
windowsill, its store a couple of potatoes.
In one corner was a confused heap of