merited, that poor Keymis could not stand
up under them. He laid himself down in his
cabin, and committed the sad suicide which
finished the ruin he had begun. When
Raleigh returned home, shattered in health,
broken-hearted and bankrupt, Gondomar, the
Spanish envoy, accused him to the king of
being a pirate.  "Pirates! pirates! pirates!"
cried he; the sole words he spoke in the
special audience which had been granted him.
King James was too much disappointed to be
just. Raleigh was seized, imprisoned, the old
ridiculous myth of his treasonable complicity
in the Arabella Stuart affair was trumped up
again; and on the twenty-ninth of October,
sixteen hundred and eighteen, he was
beheaded on Tower Hill.

No one has found the city of Manoa; but
instead of gold, tapioca, cassava, arnotto,
cinnamon, and all precious spices, tobacco,
potatoes, pine-apples, sugar, dye-woods, sago,
and many more things than we can enumerate
have poured the blessing of the rich
south-west upon us, and given the world both
greater benefit and greater wealth than if all
Guiana had been of burnished gold, and every
rock and crag a nest of precious stones.

           EVERYBODY'S REFEREE.

I AM not aware that I have ever exhibited
any great strength of mind; that I
can boast of any very enlarged experience in
the affairs of the world; that I am remarkable
for wisdom, prudence, and forethought;
or that I am a man to be consulted upon
every emergency by persons who suffer from
a want of self-reliance, or a strong desire to
repose a confidence in a supposed congenial
soul. No man shrinks more than I do
from the responsibility of giving advice;
yet, no man exists with whom consultation
is more frequently sought. Some write to
me to know at what hour they shall call to
take my opinion upon an intricate question
of law (which I know nothing about); others
beg me to meet them at my own time and
place, as they wish to be guided by me in
business of the utmost importance. Young
authors come to me with heavy rolls of
manuscript, wishing me to suggest corrections
in lectures, poems, novels, and plays. Friends
drag me about the streets of London to obtain
the benefit of my taste in the purchase of a
carriage, or the selection of a picture. Mothers
come to me with ailing children, to know the
best medical men who have devoted their
lives to the treatment of measles, smallpox,
or indigestion. Other mothers come to me
with other children (not ailing) to know the
best school in Brussels to which a young
lady can be sent; or to learn the easiest way,
and the exact cost, of getting a presentation
for a boy to Christ's Hospital. I know forty
people who cannot think of taking a house
until I have gone over it, and given my
opinion about it. Because I have never ridden
a horse in my life, I am exactly the unprejudiced
person to be taken twenty miles out
of town, on a cold, frosty morning, to decide
upon the choice of an unbroken colt from a
cattle-dealer.

I have kept a regular account of bets that
I have been called in as an umpire to decide,
and I find the annual average for the last ten
years to be rather more than one a week.
I am not a director of any public company
but I have been nominated trustee
in seven or eight instances, without my consent
and I have narrowly escaped two heavy
lawsuits under executorships, which I have
been weak enough to accept. Fathers come
to me with their fat, hearty, troublesome
boys, at the critical age of fourteen or fifteen;
and, because I am a bachelor, with no family
experience, I am asked to suggest the
occupation best adapted to the temperament of
each particular lad.

People with large families write to me
from the country, stating their intention of
coming up in the mass by a particular train,
and asking me to be kind enough to see to all
the necessary arrangements for their comfort
These arrangements always refer to
lodgings, and sometimes many other things
besides; and I have frequently the satisfaction
of seeing the quarters I have provided
changed, before the expiration of a couple of
weeks, and of being ceremoniously thanked
for the trouble I have taken, which has
turned out so well, considering the very
short time allowed me for selection.

I receive post-office orders from wild settlements
in the country, to be expended in fish,
or other delicacies of the season. About a
week after I have duly despatched my
commissions, I receive another ominous order
for a packet of patent medicine, which leads
me to suppose that my first selection was not
as judiciously made as it might have been.
Well-known charitable friends, who live in
remote parts, and who occasionally receive
the most piteous of begging-letters, take the
liberty of referring to me as a proper person
to investigate the cases.  A stream of unheard-of
misery is, by these means, diverted
to the door of my humble dwelling, which I
should never have seen or heard of, but for
the confidence of my friends.

I have never set up for being a
well-informed man, although I seem to be invested
with that character wherever I make my
appearance.  "Sir," says a pompous
gentleman in spectacles, in the midst of dead
silence, and across a room full of company,
"may I ask your opinion of the present
ministry?  Will they go out, sir, if defeated
upon the Lodger Suffrage Bill?"

I stammer out a reply, in the best words I
have at my command, and am obliged to
admit that I have devoted very little attention
lately to questions of home politics. My
answer is attributed to modesty, and not
to ignorance; and my tormentor at once