course, hint that any one of our readers can
remember so very low and humiliating a thing
as the first visit to "My Uncle"—the first
pawnbroker. We have been assured though,
by those whose necessities have sometimes
compelled them to resort, for assistance, to
their avuncular relation, that the first visit—
the primary pawning—can never be forgotten.
The timorous, irresolute glance at the three
golden balls; the transparent hypocrisy of
looking at the silver forks, watches jewelled
in an indefinite number of holes, china vases,
and Doyley and Mant's Family Bible ("to
be sold, a bargain"), in the window; the
furtive, skulking slide round the corner, to
the door in the court where the golden balls
are emblazoned again, with announcements of
"Office," and "Money Lent:" the mental
perplexity as to which of the little cell doors
looks the most benevolent; and the timorous
horror of finding the selected one occupied by
an embarrassed shoemaker raising money,
by debentures, on soleless Wellingtons and
Bluchers. All these, we have been told, are
memorable things.

Another primary— the first death. The tan
before the door; its odour in the house; the
first burst of grief when all was over; the
strange instinctive way in which those who
seemed to know nothing of Death went about
its grim requirements. The one appalling,
never-to-be-forgotten undertaker's knock at
nine in the evening. The steps on the stairs;
the horrible agility and ghostly quietness.
Then, the gentle melancholy that succeeded to
the first bitterness of sorrow.

But, here have we been running over all
these primaries, and forgetting the first time
we were ever treated as a man! O memorable
occasion! It was after dinner
somewhere (we had gone there with our sister;
only a year older than ourself, but universally
admitted to be a woman, while we unjustly
laboured under the tremendous reproach of
boyhood) and were left alone, with an aged
Being—fifty, perhaps—who was our host, and
another patriarch of forty or so. We were
simpering behind the decanters, extremely
doubtful of our having any business there,
when the host uttered these remarkable
expressions:

"Mr. Bud, will you help yourself, and pass
the wine?"

We did it, and felt that we had passed the
Rubicon too. We helped ourself feebly,
awkwardly, consciously. We felt that they
were thinking "Will he take more than
is good for him? Will his eyes roll in
his head? Will he disappear beneath the
table?" But we did it, and bashfully sipped
our wine, and even made impotent
attempts to close our left eye critically,
and look at it against the light. We have
been promoted twice or thrice since, and
have even sat in high places, and received
honor; but our host has never said, with the
same deep significance—

"Mr. Bud, will you help yourself, and pass
the wine?"

TUBAL-CAIN.

THAT is a curious old question—puzzling to
others than children—"Where did the first
brewer get the first yeast?" We should like
to know how some other useful things were
first made, without any pattern or precedent;
—brass, for instance. We may easily fancy
how the wandering men of the East might
light upon lumps of copper, as some Australian
shepherds have lately struck their feet against
masses of gold, or found that a great stone,
on which they had often sat down to rest, was
composed of the precious metal. There is
more copper in the world than any other
metal—than even iron, we are told; or, at
any rate, it appears so to men now. It peeps
up, and lies about, and draws attention by its
colours, when mixed with other matters, in
all quarters of the globe; and there is no
reason why the roving tribes of old Asia
should not have found it, and observed how
easily it can be hammered, as naturally as the
Red Indians in North America have done.
But it is less easy to imagine how it came
into their heads to melt and mix it with other
metal, to make brass. One would like to
know where the first fire was that made the
first brass; and also what was the metal
mixed with copper by Tubal-cain, when he
taught artificers to make utensils of brass. It
is mentioned that he worked in iron, too; but
it is so difficult to make iron and copper unite,
that no extensive manufacture of brass could
have gone on in that way in any age or part
of the world. The old Greeks used to make
their brass with tin. Perhaps the Patriarchs
did the same. Or they might light upon
some ores of zinc, though they had not the
zinc itself, which is a very modern affair.
One might just fancy how the ancient men
might make a huge fire in some of the
limestone caverns which abound in their part of
Asia; those caverns, where all operations
were carried on, which required a better
shelter than a goat's-hair tent; and how the
metal-workers might be heating some copper,
to work it more easily; and how a bit of
calamine, or other ore of zinc, might be
accidentally thrown on among the copper; and
how a wonderful and beautiful light—one of
the most beautiful lights in the world—might
bubble up, and blaze, and suddenly reveal
every crevice and projection of the cavern;
and alarm the people yet more by its horrid
smell; and how they might find, when the
fire was out, some pieces or streaks of brass
among their copper. They would naturally
examine these, and find out that this mixture
was harder than mere copper, and would
bear a better edge. Such a discovery made,
they would easily get on in the preparation
and use of it, till they had master-workmen,
like Tubal-cain. In old Egypt, the artificers