is clouded with a swarm of evils and mortifications, which none but disappointed men-a pretty large category just now-can fully know or imagine. This state of things, it may be said, has always existed is a law, and a useful one, of nature and society, stimulating man-a sloth when unexcited to action and enterprise. True; but only in degree, and with this distinction, that it applies to ordinary times and circumstances only. Men are governed in their hopes and expectations by the average difficulty of the thing they undertake: this regulates the degree of energy and ability which they aim at acquiring, and which is attained, like all other mental qualities, by long meditation and constant effort. In this particular case, therefore, they are prepared for the difficulties of establishing themselves in life, which their father had to contend with before them; but when, as in the present times, new and arduous circumstances arise, or the old ones are virtually altered by intension, they are sure to be found, as a mass, wholly unprepared for, and unequal to the new and unexpected obstacles which present themselves. It is my first purpose to show, that such is eminently the case at the present time; and that, therefore, we are puzzled to know, "What to do with our young fellows;" always meaning, be it understood, those tens of thousands of genteel striplings who are pampered and sublimated in drawing-rooms, far above the ordinary businesses and pursuits of life; and pass their winter evenings, surrounded by mamma, and three or four sisters, who are working knick-knackeries by the mild lustre of an Argand lamp; or reading en haut some fashionable novel, full of aristocratic disdain and unutterable refinement. something of their feudality, and, on the other the most humane, seems, to his patient, harsh And first, as to the cause. I have said that there has been a vast increase in that part of the middle class who consider themselves above trade, and require for their sons a pursuit in which they will not lose grade, as they call it. So strong is this feeling, that not only prudence, and what constitutes real and solid respectability, are often sacrificed to it, but even natural affection. Many a delicate youth has been sent out to our colonies with a poor and subordinate Government appointment, rather than enter a merchant's or trader's counting-house, Thus, during the first twenty years of the present century, the development of our powers, as a nation, was truly astonishing; all the sources of wealth-commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural-were opened up, and flooded the country with prosperity. Farmers became country gentlemen; changing the frock for the shooting-within the genial influence of home; left to pine jacket, and the spattle-hoe for the riding-whip. The country gentleman was equally delighted and puzzled with his doubling and trebling rents, and did not know very well what to think of, or even to call himself. As to the nobility, mere and absolute, they were carried clean out of sight by the expansive force, and, after a time, seldom descended to earth, but, like Homer's gods, hid themselves from mortal sight on some aristocratic Olympus, and were, like them, much talked of but little seen. One of the consequences of this sudden influx of wealth, and disturbance of the ranks of society, which had not made so much advance since the time of the Tudors, as during this twenty years, was the great increase of a class, which, even previous to that time, was perhaps larger here than in any other country, namely, a superior sort of the middle class a neutral grade, whose station is one step below the old and indisputable gentry, untarnished by trade, and still smacking in the wilds of New South Wales, or the unhealthy climates of the East, far away from all that is dear and valuable to him; and, on the other hand, a never-ceasing source of anxiety to his fond, but unwise parents-sacrificed (like the children of the Ammonites to Moloch) to the "grim idol" of gentility. This feeling of parents, about trade, is the real cause of the dif ficulty complained of; but they, passing over their own false notions, attribute it wholly to the change of circumstances, in respect to the professions themselves. According to this view, the form in which the evil exists is simply this:The candidates, or competitors, for those favoured pursuits at home which are called liberal, or genteel, and give a certain rank or grade in society, have greatly increased; but the professions themselves have not increased in anything like the same ratio. In short, they are overdone tenfold, in respect to the number of those who adopt them as a pursuit. It is very evident, which are proper to the great mass of middleclass society, and claim for themselves a profession which combines distinction and profit. Is this mere pride and selfishness, or a mode of that love of elevation and refinement which is the great source of all that is valuable in society? It is in most cases, perhaps, a mixture of the two; though pride, which is only a mode of selfishness, is, I fear, in much larger quantity than the other and nobler ingredient. The mass, therefore, is a bad and adulterated form of a good thing. The evil, however, which I have been noticing, has a tendency, like most others, thanks to the vis medicatrix of things, to correct itself; for property is, in fact, the only permanent basis of rank, especially in a country like England, where material refinement is more closely connected with that of mind and manners, than in most other countries, with their more genial climates and fewer artificial wants. Gentility, therefore, without means, like flowers cut off from their roots, will soon pale and dwindle, and lose all its ennobling qualities. Pressed on by the durum telum, poverty, it must give way in some direction. Most frequently it begins by sacrificing the substance to preserve the show of it, and descends to all sorts of shuffling and shift-making long before it gives up its exterior pretensions. It would be digressing too far, or I could mention many curious and even ludicrous instances of family manœuvres, in which the substance was altogether sacrificed to preserve this show. How much more wisdom and real dignity, for those whose means have failed them for supporting the figure which a flood of prosperity therefore, on this statement, which is perhaps | fortunes, think themselves above the pursuits much within the line of truth, that the quantum of disappointment to that of success, will be as nine to one; and that the much greater part of those who devote themselves to these pursuits will fail in their efforts to reach the honour and profits of them, and will inevitably stick short in the limbo of disappointment, carrying about on them in society the marks, so easily detectable by a practised eye, of disappointed men. Some indeed have private fortunes, and cover their failure by affecting indifference as to their professional pursuits; others, however, and perhaps the larger part, have little to depend on besides their profession; and, failing in this, are driven indeed among the rocks and shallows of life; repining deeply that their parents, having no private fortune to leave them, did not give them a trade or calling to secure the means of subsistence. Some of these who possess talents branch off into other and lower pursuits: they become newspaper sub-editors, reporters, schoolushers, and (O, the vile phrase !) hack writers; or what the French, more skilful to pad out and disguise a meagre and forlorn image, hide under the flowing drapery of the term homme de lettres. As to those who have neither money nor talents, to stop the downward course of professional failure, Heaven knows what becomes of them!-perhaps in the guard of a stage-coach, or a policeman, urging, ex officio, at the station-house, a charge against a drunken coal-heaver, we may have seen one who was intended-but fell short -for an attorney-general; or a disappointed candidate for the woolsack. All this refers chiefly to the legal profession :—but does the Church or College of Physicians furnish a very different result? I have it from very good authority, that of the physicians of London in actual practice, not one in twenty makes, by his profession, enough to pay his expenses; and in the Church, how many thousand curates are there with a stipend which a good cook would turn up his or her nose at!—or filling the irksome and dependent situations of schoolmasters, ushers, &c! If we turn to the army, the navy, diplomacy, the fine arts, the same plethora will be found to prevail: the same cause-the horror at the idea of an ungenteel pursuit-has deluged them all in an equal degree. Even those which, though not strictly within the so vehemently desired pale of gentility, derive some value from their contiguity, have long felt the effects of this state of things, and are undergoing the process of being reclaimed and enclosed from the open field of common life, in order to accommodate those who cannot get into the Goshen itself. So in country theatres, on a patronized night, when the boxes will not contain all the noblesse of the place, some seats in the pit are roped off and called boxes, to save the dignity of the rest. too rapid to be lasting or without a corresponding reaction-induced them to make in the world, to fall back on, and be content with respectability and honest industry, as their fathers were before them! With right notions in this respect, the dire perplexity of placing their sons out in life would be found to be wholly factitious and imaginary ; and nothing, but having their sight impeded by their cobweb ideas of gentility, could prevent their seeing and adopting this wise and necessary course. Trade is the great vocation of England and of Englishmen. In one or other of its forms or branches, it offers a highly respectable, lucrative, and exciting pursuit to the youth of the middle classes of this country. Out of every hundred young men who belong to this class, nine-tenths may, perhaps, properly and advantageously be devoted to trade; the remainder, with the younger and unprovided branches of the upper classes, (a numerous set just now, in the disastrous state of landed property,) and the irrepressible talents which will, now, more than ever, force their way upwards from the lower ranks, will amply supply the demands for the learned professions, army, navy, diplomacy, &c. Commerce is indeed a most honourable and liberal mistress, and offers to talents and energy, of every degree, from the highest to the lowest, adequate scope and magnificent rewards. It 2 P 1 is not here, as in other countries, where trade is a mean and subordinate pursuit. Here it is ennobled by its magnitude and effects, and by being the predominating interest of the state: it is also the source and foundation of our present national greatness; and-unless the present course of things be disturbed by some of those great interpositions which baffle and sport with human predictions-of a future destiny, compared to which the grandeur of past empires, viewed positively, will appear meanness and barbarism. At present even-and without anticipating ought -English commerce is paramount, and without a rival in the world; and besides its other great functions, the great means of carrying forward the most noble and gratifying of all purposesthat of communicating to the remotest and most abject nations the blessings of civilization and liberty. This country possesses, then, in fact, a great advantage over every other, in this very respect in which there is so much irrational complaint, viz. in affording to her sons a pursuit at once vast and various-lucrative and honourableadapted to all grades of talent and energy, and all circumstances of property, if not of rank. The son of a gentleman, with or without much capital, is not at all out of place in the counting-house, the warehouse, or even the shop of the trader. A very large part of our most prosperous men of business began life in this way. To such a one I would say,-The secret of raising yourself from your subordinate situation is simply this: Make yourself useful, necessary to your employer, and capable of higher functions; the result will be certain and rapid promotion. Trade alone has advanced more families from poverty to wealth, from the lower to the upper ranks of society, within the last fifty years, than all the other pursuits conjointly. Stand in the lobby of the House of Commons, and see how many members pass into the House, who were not many years ago serving behind their counters. Nor is the House of Peers without instances of a similar nature. And is it on this great and generous vocation, that this neutral class, this mushroom gentry, are so silly as to look down with contempt, as on a degrading pursuit for their sons? on this—an interest-a power in the statewhich, possessing an expansive and cumulative faculty, whilst others are stationary, or nearly so, is destined perhaps, before long, to overshadow and extinguish the comparatively petty influence of the landed and feudal aristocracy? These persons would, at least, do well to be a little alive to the times, and to imagine that other qualities than contempt for the persons, and disregard of the welfare of their fellow-countrymen, may be necessary to maintain much-any influence in a country like this, possessing so many other, and such mighty elements of power, even now, it is evident, in rapid progress of development. Thus I think it will be allowed, even by those papas and mammas who have been so entêté on this point, that the difficulty of providing for sons is unreal and self-created by them, founded solely on the false and ridiculous notion about trade. There are, however, I believe, very few large families in this class, in which the point is not, at the present time, one of the greatest perplexity, and a standing subject of painful debate in the family cabinet; its piquancy being much heightened by the disastrous state of landed and other sorts of property just now. Rents, however, may fall, property may melt away and cease to be productive-but pride is still clung to; and, long after his fugacious companions and sapporters are gone, becoming, perhaps, dearer by their absence. As to the notion itself, that trade debases, it is, it must be allowed, deeply rooted, and of long standing in the world; and a curious instance how long old and traditionary ideas outlive the circumstances in which they had their origin. Before, or rather in closing this matter, I would therefore say a few, and very few, words on this point, chiefly as a kind of amende to those whom I have been addressing, and to whom, though I really have kindly feelings, yet I have, I confess, shown my friendship in rather an objurgatory manner on this occasion. In the earlier and more irregular state of man, trade, no doubt, was in some degree a knavish and pettifogging sort of affair, in the scanty and desultory traffic or barter of early times, carried on by a sort of wholesale pedlars. All advantages were perhaps taken on both sides; which being, however, well known, was scarcely deceit, except, indeed, to the very inexperienced; but was rather a game at which the most skilful gained the advantage. Modern horse-dealing will illustrate well enough this slippery sort of bargaining; and is perhaps a trace brought down to us by some unknown channel, of the Ishmaelitish manner of transacting business. To this state of things in early times, and to the shuffling ways and customs of these primitive tricksters, may fairly be attributed the origin of the stigma and odium in respect to trade, which have been brought traditionally to our days, and which still exist in full force among the higher and more ignorant (in this respect) part of society. This class, for the most part, know something of mythology, and have learnt that Mercury was the patron of shoplifters, as well as of merchants; and was himself, as his son's namesake in the "Winter's Tale" says, "a snapper up of inconsiderable trifles." But all this has no affinity to modern times; at least it does not apply to British trade and commerce, where the strictest honesty and fair dealing are observed, and are indeed made conventionally necessary to all engaged in it—a state of things which is the fair fruit of the diffusion and establishment of purer religious and moral notions, and a part of the great social fabric which is slowly but solidly rising from these everlasting foundations. THE BEGGAR'S WALLET.-No. II. THE LIT DE VEILLE. THE vivid ripeness of the hips and hawthornberries already proclaimed the approach of autumn to the inhabitants of the little village of St. Medards, which lies cozily sheltered in one of the green valleys sloping towards the beautiful bay of Moulin Huet, on the southern coast of the island of Guernsey; and as the evenings closed in, the shrill blasts of the equinoctial made themselves heard, even through the solid masonry of the venerable farm house-the most considerable of the hamlet-which acknowledged the widow Le Tellier as its liege lady. Human dignities, be it remembered, are depen. dent on the scale of a local standard; and it must be admitted, that the "farm" of St. Medards, with its patch of garden ground, its walled orchard, its four-acre pasture, and single field of Lucerne, would have been properly termed a "cottage" in some thriving village of the midland counties of England; nor could the widow Le Tellier, with her humble island costume, and addiction to neighbourly gossip, have aspired to the high agronomic presidency, secured her in the environs of Moulin Huet, by the undisputed purity of her breed of Alderneys, and the high price commanded in the market of St. Peter's Port, by her matchless broods of white turkeys, elsewhere than in her native village. There, however, she reigned paramount. The influence created by her good humour, was fortified by the ascendency of her good sense; for although a plain-thinking, plain-speaking woman, without education, and unenlightened by extensive intercourse with the ways of the world, all that she saw, she saw clearly-all that she felt, she felt honestly. Her popularity, moreover, was by no means decreased by the state of paralysis which had latterly reduced her to comparative helplessness; compelling her to adopt into her household a brother's child,-pretty little Manon of Icart; who now lightened the labours of her elderly relative, by assuming the care of the dairy and the poultry-yard; and her heart, by the constant spectacle of her laughing eyes and cheerful demeanour. The new-comer soon became as universal a favourite in the valley, as the old resident; and St. Medards was a very happy spot, and Maman Le Tellier's farm the happiest of its boasts. The blue hydrangea tree, gracing one side of its old stone portal, and rising even to the thatch, was the largest and finest in the district; the verbena bushes overtopping its garden fence, exhibited their spiral blossoms more richly than elsewhere; and the standard fig-tree, the luxuriance of whose dark verdure was sheltered by the gable-end of the house, afforded an abundance of ripe fruit, while the produce of the Chateau de St. Medard, situated at a quarter of a mile's distance along the Côte, was still green, hard, and flavourless. The peculiar charm, however, endearing both the farm, its mistress, and its mistress's niece, to the hearts of their poorer neighbours, was a sort of tenacious conformity with the ancient usages and habits of their birth-place. Some years before Manon's arrival, the neighbouring Chateau of St. Medards had been adopted as a temporary residence by a distinguished French family, of Norman extraction, compelled by the political vicissitudes consequent on the downfal of Napoleon, to retire for a season from their native country. With these strangers, Maman Le Tellier had been a first favourite. Her kindheartedness, her serviceability, and naiveté of mind, rendered her at all times a welcome guest at the Chateau; and on the decease of Madame de St. Sauveur, it was the good widow who prepared her remains for the grave, and wiped the tears of her three broken-hearted daughters; even as she had previously assuaged the sufferings of the dying woman, by many a night of watchful attendance. And when the changes of government, caused by the expulsion of the elder branch of the Bourbon dynasty, admitted of the recall of Monsieur de St. Sauveur to France, it was their parting from the kind cordial widow which augmented the floods of tears shed by Sophie, Claire, and Antoinette, upon the grave of their unfortunate mother. From the period of their re-establishment in the enjoyment of their noble hereditary estate, the Demoiselles de St. Sauveur had annually addressed to their venerable friend substantial tokens of their regard, consisting of improved implements of husbandry, handsome specimens of household furniture, as well as rich but simple articles of female attire. Yet,-to the credit of female discretion, be it spoken !—even these snares of Satan had the widow Le Tellier strength of mind to resist! After summoning a village synod, and submitting to the judgment of its elders, the new spades and hoes supplied by her Norman friends, she was careful to deposit in the store-chamber of the farm, the mahogany arm-chair, or portable buffet of gilt china, selected for her use by Antoinette and Claire; and to commit to the safe-keeping of a huge walnut-wood press, the mantua of rich black silk, or the corirette enriched with folds of Valenciennes lace, affording an evidence of the grateful attachment of Mademoiselle Claire. "They will form part of Manon's trousseau," the old lady would murmur to herself with a smile, as she scattered bunches of dried orangeflowers over her hoards of finery. "God forbid, that I, in my old age, should desert the homely fashions of those who have gone before me, of those who have bequeathed me the means of comfort, and of bestowing comfort on my fellowcreatures!" And if ever the humble widow could be pronounced amenable to the charge of personal vanity, it was when she cast a momentary glance upon her high-crowned Guernsey bonnet, her black stuff petticoat, flowered chintz gown and boddice, stockings of grey worsted, black velvet shoes, and heavy silver buckles; after thus laying aside, for conscience' sake, the rich but not unsuitable costume provided for her use by her friends in Normandy. First, however, among the evidences of her rigid adherence to Guernsey fashions and pre'udices, which tended to conciliate the regard of the younger neighbours of Madame Le Tellier, was her sanction of the village custom of "La Veillée !" In the salle or chamber, "which served for kitchen, and parlour, and all," in the farm of St. Medards, there stood, in the very corner it had occupied for time immemorial, the "Lit de Veille" consecrated to the recreation of the youth of the neighbourhood; a huge bedframe of rude construction, covered with fresh hay or dried fern, so as to afford a rustic ottoman or divan, whereupon, during the winter evenings, the young people of the hamlet were accustomed to assemble, ranged in a circle, to the number of a dozen or more; the maidens occupied with sewing or knitting, the young men entertaining them with songs; while a few droppers-in of maturer years, occasionally enlivened the "Veillée" with some wise saw and modern instance, some tale of the olden or the passing time, of their own beloved island, or of remoter and less-favoured countries. It was a moment of delight to little Manon, and of gratification to her graver kinswoman, to prepare for the simple ceremonial, by lighting the lamp overhanging the Lit de Veille, and adorning the shelves, dressers, and clock-case, with fresh branches of verbena, or festoons of laurel, myrtle, roses, and china asters; nor were vast platters of baked Charmontelle pears forgotten, to refresh the young visiters between the pauses of their innocent gossiping. The widow, indeed, who, since her afflicting attack of palsy, had been deprived of her former summer enjoyments, and made prisoner in her wicker-chair, now began to look forward to the pleasures of La Veillée, even before the island harvest-song had resounded in the fields, or the grapes mellowed on her southern wall; and the arrival of autumn, with its long evenings and stirring airs, was any thing but unwelcome at St. Medards. It was on a fine breezy evening in October; and the tall plants of Michaelmas-daisy gracing the less favoured garden plots of the hamlet, were affording one of the last feasts of the year to the busy ramblers of Madame Le Tellier's hives, when an open boat was seen traversing the picturesque bay of Huet Moulin, manned by a couple of Serkmen, who appeared to ply their oars with more than usual activity, under the directions of a young gentleman, whose fanciful costume of a most amphibious cut, and whose dialect of most amphibious phraseology, might have sufficed to announce to a seamanlike eye and ear, one of the modern "marine monsters" of the R. Y. C.-In spite, however, of the effeminate texture of complexion, discernible when ever the breeze blowing from the shore, wafted away the light brown curls clustering round his somewhat boyish face, it soon appeared that "the Captain was a bold man," as well as a man wise in his own conceit; for he not only persisted in piloting the course, and pointing out the best landing place to his companions, Jean-Marie, and Gros-Pierre, to whom every pebble on the shingly beach was a familiar thing; but in spite of their assurances that no house of public entertainment was attainable within a league's distance from the bay, obstinately commanded them to draw up their little craft upon the beach, and await his return, while he proceeded inland, with the view of obtaining shelter for the night. "Monsieur may possibly obtain a supper and bed at the widow Le Tellier's, at St. Medards," said Gros-Pierre, lifting his blue cotton cap, and rubbing, rather than scratching the huge head, and shock of hair that discovered themselves, on removal of the covering. "And I will step on with Monsieur, and show him the way," added Jean-Marie, drawing up the loose canvas trowsers overhanging his wide-topped, fisherman's boots. "I have a message to Mademoiselle Manon, from her cousin, the harbour-master at St. Helier's." But the hero of the R. Y. C. was apparently as pragmatically bent upon proving his exploratory instincts on shore, as his instinctive seamanship; for after presuming to navigate the Channel Sea, without chart or experience, he persisted in knowing the shortest cut to the unseen, and unknown village of St. Medards. Having admitted to his gallant oarsmen, as they approached the shore, that he now visited Huet Moulin for the first time, he nevertheless adhered to his pretensions of knowing every oarslength, and every step of his terraqueous way; and even Jean-Marie's allusions to Madame Le Tellier's pretty niece, and obliging tenders of assistance, produced no other result than a somewhat surly request, that he would attend to the orders of his employer, instead of intruding upon his society. And while the two jolly mariners stood together on the shore, watching with many a knowing wink, the attempts of the young offi cer, to shorten, by his own ingenuity, the zigzag ascent of the cliffs they had officiously pointed out to his notice, Captain R- - pursued his way with a most Malvolio-like smile irradiating his countenance, as if congratulating himself on having baffled the officiousness of the Arion of the Island of Serk. As he approached St. Medard's, however, clambering over stone fences, and making a pathway for himself, where pathway there was none, as if really guided towards the wished-for spot by some magnetic influence, he was startled to meet at every second step some "Bucolic juvenile," or gentle damsel of the district, and even groups of young persons of both sexes, one and all attired with a degree of rustic coquetry, betraying a more than usual regard to the niinutiæ of the toilet; and one and all replying to his inquiry of "Am I in the right road toward the |