Should electro-magnetic engines be brought
into practical working, which many believe
will be done, how great will be the advantage
arising from a supply of almost costless
electricity. The superiority of such machines
for long sea voyages is at once apparent; and
now that electricity for the million has been
provided it would appear more than ever
desirable to bring them into use.

A FALSE GENIUS.

I SEE a spirit by thy side,
Purple winged and eagle eyed,
Looking like a Heavenly guide.

Though he seems so bright and fair,
Ere thou trust his proffered care,
Pause a little, and beware!

If he bid thee dwell apart,
Tending some ideal smart
In a sick and coward heart;

In self-worship wrapped alone,
Dreaming thy poor griefs are grown
More than other men have known;

Dwelling in some cloudy sphere,
Though God's work is waiting here,
And God deigneth to be near;

If his torch's crimson glare
Show thee evil everywhere,
Tainting all the wholesome air;

While with strange distorted choice,
Still disdaining to rejoice,
Thou wilt hear a wailing voice;

If a simple, humble heart,
Seem to to thee a meaner part,
Than thy noblest aim and art;

If he bid thee bow before
Crowned mind and nothing more,
The great idol men adore;

And with starry veil enfold
Sin, the trailing serpent old,
Till his scales shine out like gold;

Though his words seem true and wise,
Soul, I say to thee, Arise,
He is a Demon in disguise!

COLONEL GRUNPECK AND MR.
PARKINSON.

SUSPICIOUSLY approximating to a paradox,
as it undoubtedly did, I can favourably
appreciate, while not positively concurring, in
the dictum of Doctor Johnson, that "he
loved a good hater." With a like slender
logical reservation, I aver that I respect and
admire a good strong prejudice. To be entitled,
however, to respect and admiration the holder
of the prejudice must be consistent, and
should, I think, be old. Toryism in an all-
round collar, a Noah's Ark coat, Sydenham
trousers, and a downy moustache, is simply a
monster; but Toryism in top-boots (the tops
of a mahogany hue), a blue coat with brass
buttons, a grey head, and a fluffy white hat
with a green lining to the brim, is entitled to
be heard with attention and treated with
courtesy. The thing is old, rusty, useless,
and would be all the better, probably, for a
glass case, and a ticket corresponding with a
number in a catalogue; but it is still a curiosity:
it was once powerful, has been brave, is
venerable. I can bear to hear Major
Threeangles bewail the decadence of the lash, and
the abolition of the picket and the wooden
horse in the maintenance of military discipline.
It angers me none when Squire Mittimus
sighs for the stocks and whipping-post back
again; extols the old parish constables, while
sneering at the county police, and bitterly
denounces the appointment of stipendiary
magistrates. I can read with a compassionate
equanimity the speeches of the Earl of Woodenshoes,
who traces the causes of the ruin of
this once prosperous country to the repeal of
the fine old penal laws, which banished the
Papist ten miles from the metropolis, and
forbade him to possess a horse worth more
than five pounds; and who attributes the
increase of crime and pauperism to the insane
disfranchisement of Grampound and the fatal
demolition of Old Sarum. I can have patience
with the staunch old prejudiced people who
yet refuse to use steel pens, lucifer matches,
gaslamps, or railway trains. I should almost,
I fancy, feel inclined to quarrel with a beadle
if he wore a round hat, with a dustman if he
wore trousers instead of the immemorial
velveteens and ankle-jacks, or with a Chelsea
pensioner if he had not a red nose, and did
not, in his accounts of his Peninsular
campaigns, tell me at least sixty per cent. of
lies. What does it matter? In a few years
these harmless old folks, and their
prejudices too, will be all dead. Who would beat
a cripple with his own crutches? Who
would move the House to break up the
Victory for firewood, or burn London Stone
for lime? Who would have shot Copenhagen,
the Duke's old charger—purblind, spavined,
worthless as he may have become. It is no
use sending for Mr. Braidwood and the
London fire brigade to play upon the ruins of
Troy. It is no use when you see a man
knocking at Death's door, and hear the
Skeleton footsteps in the hall, coming to
admit him, to insist upon his scraping his
boots on the scraper and wiping them on the
mat before he enters. Let the worn-out old
prejudice be. It is innocuous, nay, frequently
amusing.

I met the other day (upon a perfectly
amicable footing) a lawyer. I knew him to
be senior partner in a large firm, formerly
doing an excellent practice. He was
complaining to me, in the most dolorous accents
of the utter ruin of the profession of the law
by the establishment of county courts, the
dethronement of those heroes of legal romance
Doe, Roe, and the "lessor of the plaintiff,"