the hills and woods, where he gathers herbs. For forty years, or more, out of the seventy, has he been a herbgatherer. He is familiarly called the old herbalist; and, for miles round the village wives come to purchase his decoctions. He believes that the sun never shone on a more beneficial herb than wormwood; that camomile flowers will cure the severest cold; and that agrimony-tea is far before any other. The roof of his cottage is thatched over with herbs, placed in the sun to dry; while, from the ceiling of his low room, hang a hundred varieties of plants, which he believes, "by the blessing of Heaven," (a sentence he never omits) have power to cure every disease. But half their virtues, it must be borne in mind, consist in their having been gathered at fitting seasons,-under the influence of certain favourable planets, at twilight, midnight, before the sun rose, and even in the dry, burning noon of a summer's day. And at all such seasons is the old man out alone; for he knows their time of flowering, and is familiar with every nook in which they grow. His life has been passed in solitude, among silent moors and wild commons, steep windy hill-sides and pathless woods, where he but rarely sees the face of his fellow-man. On the wide heath you might sometimes see him standing motionless as a stone; or, when he stooped down to gather the plants at his feet, his old grey coat, seen from a distance, looked like some weather-beaten land-mark. Sometimes you might see him shivering in early spring, helping the osier-peelers.

His whole life is one unvaried record of poverty; he was nursed in it; and, from the cradle to the grave, he will know no change; yet he beareth the badge of endurance patiently, and looks calmly forward to the end. He has never eaten the bread of idleness, though many a time the hard crust has been moistened with tears, as they fell down his cheek upon his hand. Nature has been his only

comforter; the flowers of spring, the green leaves of the wood, and the sun and breeze of summer, have added more to his happiness than man. And what has man done for him, during the course of that long life? When he lost his wife and child, he was young, and he parted with all that was worth money, to pay their funeral expenses with, rather than trouble his brother man. When he was old and ill, man offered to remove him from his ancient home to the workhouse; to sell what few articles he had still left; and bury him, if he died. But his old age required quietness; he could not have lived amid the noise and murmurings of those walls: so man left him to die, or live, as he best could; for there was a law made, that if he could not endure the

complainings of the workhouse, he must dic, for his brother man dare not help him. So women came, old, and poor, and inoffensive as himself, and stood between him and the Law, which would have killed him in a week; they broke through the Act of Parliament, which would have carried him so quickly to the grave,-and Nature soon cured him; for, with the spring, he was out again in the fields, and on the hill-sides; and, when he was wearied of wandering in the woods, he had his home to return to, his bed, his table, and chair, which would long ago have been sold to have paid for his funeral, had be been removed into the workhouse.

For what purpose was he born? what gap has he filled up in the world, during his long life? Reader! that old man is set up before us as an example of patience, endurance, and long-suffering,-one of those set up to show, that

"They also serve who wait."

All his life-long has he had to battle with poverty. What veteran ever endured such continued hardships, without murmuring? His very rags are venerable medals, won in a long warfare with privation and want. They tell of the hard campaigns he has weathered, while his placid countenance bespeaks that all is calm within. Is he forgotten by the rich? No! there are moments when his silver hairs, and his calm, resigned features rise up before them, and they feel as if they ought to touch their hats, and pay respect to him, instead of receiving such an act of undeserved honour when he passes. Behold him at church! in the centre of the free sittings,-seems he not as if pointing out the path to Heaven? Moralize, and dwell upon his life, his privation, suffering, and piety,-then go,

"Dine with what appetite you may."

Teach him that he was doomed to endure; that want has prepared him for a better world; that happiness dwells not here below; that he will take his place amid saints and angels in heaven: lend him a tract; and, if you are bold enough, carry out the solemn mockery, and bid him still to "look above for comfort," and tell him that a few more brief years will end all his sufferings.-Then walk home, ring the bell, and order dinner; and, while sipping your choice old wine, and cutting through the well-fed capon, picture to yourself how happy that venerable man must be, enjoying his tract, brown bread, and mint tea!— Then look into your own heart, and see if you are worthy to take a place in heaven beside him? Inquire what you have done and suffered; what real sacrifice you have ever made to add to his happiness; what animal pleasure you ever deprived yourself of for his sake: how many times you visited him when ill; how often you looked into his lonely home, to see that he lacked neither fire, food, nor covering?-Alas! alas! your name was paraded in a long list; you had subscribed for the conversion of no end of "niggers ;"-but the old herb-gatherer-the good old man-who stood on the very threshhold of heaven-Him, oh! to think that you should have neglected-"Go To THE LEFT AMONGST THE GOATS."

Next comes the village postman, a character thoroughly English, and bearing no more resemblance to your London postman than the smoke-blackened tree in Cheapside does to the moss-covered oak of Sherwood forest. A "postman's knock," that ruse of bailiffs and writ-deliverers, and bearers of beggars' petitions and puffing circulars, is unknown to him; for, saving at gentlemen's houses, he uplifts the "sneck," or latch, and walks in, with his civil "Good day to thee! I've brought a letter, and I hope it contains good news." Nay, so accustomed is he to the

handwriting of the limited correspondence he carries, that he knows at a glance whether it is from John or Mary, or uncle William, or aunt Betsy; and feels almost as much interest in knowing how they are, as the party does to whom the letter is addressed. And what would the poor villagers do who cannot read, were it not for the postman? Oh! for the genius of Wilkie, to sketch one of those homely scenes!-to draw him seated with his spectacles on, first conning the letter to himself, whilst the cottager and his wife sit anxiously watching his countenance, as if they sought to learn the coveted tidings from the expressions it assumes. Add to the group a gossip or two in the doorway, the child snatched up from the midst of its playthings, and seated on the mother's knee, and there with difficulty kept still, and you have at once a pleasing picture of the interior of an English cottage. For thirty years has he been the bearer of sweet and sorrowful tidings: carrying to and fro records of marriage, birth, and burial, and all those changes which make up the shifting scenery of busy life. With what reluctance he delivers a letter, with a black seal and a mourning border. You may tell by his countenance when he has one of these in his "mail" -for so he calls his little leather letter-case. Nay, he has been known to bear such an ill-omened document to some near relation, rather than take it to the party to whom it was addressed. "They may break the tidings gently," the old man would say, "and bad news can never come too late." But let it be a love-letter to some farmer's handsome daughter, or buxom country lass, and see with what glee he carries it; inquires if the day is yet named, or the ring bought, and bids her remember the white riband he is to wear in his button-hole. Rumour does say that he has lost more than one lawyer's letter during his lifetime, and that "notices to quit," &c., have not always arrived in