week, and who does nothing all that day but
gloom and grumble and deteriorate, is put
out of sight as if none of us had ever heard
of him! What is it to the holders forth, that
wherever we live, or wherever we go, we see
him, and see him with so much pity and
dismay that we want to make him better by
other human means than those which have
missed him? To get rid of his memory, in
the murdering way, and vaunt ourselves
instead, is much easier.

Bankrupts are declared, greedy speculators
smash, and bankers break. Who does not
hear of the reverses of those unfortunate
gentlemen; of the disruption of their
establishments; of their wives being reduced to
live upon their settlements; of the sale of
their horses, equipages, pictures, wines; of
the mighty being fallen, and of their
magnanimity under their reverses? But, the
murdered person, the creditor, investor,
depositor, the cheated and swindled under
whatsoever name, whose mind does he
trouble? The mind of the fraudulent firm?
Enquire at the House of Detention, Clerkenwell,
London, and you will find that the last
great fraudulent firm was no more troubled
about him, than Mr. Dove or Mr. Palmer was
by the client whom he "did for," in the
way of his different line of business.

And, lastly, get an order of admission to
SIR CHARLES BARRY'S palace any night in
the session, and you will observe the
murdered person to be as comfortably stowed
away as he ever is at Newgate. What In said
to Out in eighteen hundred and thirty-five,
what Out retorted upon In in eighteen hundred
and forty-seven, why In would have been
Out in eighteen hundred and fifty-four but for
Out's unparalleled magnanimity in not coming
in, this, with all the contemptible ins and outs
of all the Innings and Outings, shall be
discoursed upon, with abundance of hymns and
pæans on all sides, for six months together.
But, the murdered old gentleman, TIME, and
the murdered matron, BRITANNIA, shall no
more come in question than the murdered
people do in the cells of the penitents—unless
indeed they are reproduced, as in the odious
case with which we began, to show that they
were expressly created for the exaltation of
the speech-makers.

THE WORLD UNSEEN.

Several of our most proficient adepts in
natural philosophy—including even Sir
Humphry Davy—have amused themselves by
guessing the forms and constitution of the
living creatures that dwell on other planets
belonging to our system. For instance, Saturn
himself, lighter than cork, must be the
habitat, it is supposed, of creatures incomparably
lighter still, the grossest of whose
circulating fluids are essential oils and
alcoholic ethers. It is probable that these
hypothetical beings do not differ from those
composing the earth's past and present faunæ
so much as many persons might suppose.
That some, at least, of the material elements
of other worlds are identical with our own, is
proved by the inspection of aërolites, which
supply us by their fall with new-imported, if
not novel, samples of mineral. The zones of
Jupiter—which cannot be other than
equatorial, tropical, and temperate,—and the
arctic and antarctic snows visible in the
polar regions of Mars, offer conditions so
similar to those of our own earth's surface,
that it would really turn out an improbable
fact, and an unexpected discovery, if a
Jovine or a Martial menagerie were to exhibit
species more extraordinary in their
organisation than the antediluvian animals
discovered by Cuvier. But, however that may
be, one point will not be disputed:—if a
balloon-load of wild creatures were to reach
the earth from either of our neighbouring
planets, the Zoological Society might charge
a five-guineas entrance to their gardens, and
would make their fortune within half-a-year.

It happens that, in a little world more
accessible to us than either Jupiter or Mars,
there really exist, unseen, wondrous living
creatures, unknown to the large majority
of the human race. If we could fit
ourselves with a pair of spectacles that would
enable us to see the inhabitants of Venus,
distinctly,—to note what dresses they wear,
how their fashions change, what is their
ceremonial at births, weddings, and deaths,—
the spectacle-maker would have a long list
of customers, and our publishers would give
us periodical illustrations—coloured and
plain—of the phases which Venus's fashionable
society, as well as her crescent and her
waning self, assume. Yet eyes, with which
we can look into another invisible world,
are procurable at a reasonable rate.

"I want to make Tom Styles's young people
some handsome present, but I don't know
what on earth to give them;" is the
oft-uttered complaint of many a worthy
godfather. "They are already well set-up
with dolls, rocking-horses, and baby-houses;
and cakes and Christmas-trees are out of
the question. Styles likes to select his
childrens' books himself, even if Mrs. Styles
were not so very particular, and a little too
strait-laced in her views, not to say, sectarian.
A present of books would be a risk to
run. Do tell me, my dear Sally, what shall
we give them, this time?"

Sally, a matron with her own ideas also,
mentally runs the round of things presentable,
and finds nothing but a list of negative items.
We will step in to Sally's aid, and suggest—a
microscope! It is neither high-church, nor
low-church; savours neither of Puseyism, nor
dissent; is perfectly unexceptional in its
political tendencies, and is free from all charge of
immorality or irreligion.

The microscope arrived, what is to be done
with it? "See the vermin in your cistern-water,"