We cannot record the fact without an earnest protest against all such practices. A solitary instance ought to be reprehended, but the indulgence of the disposition to excite sudden terror in the breasts of others, and particularly of young persons, is criminal. A moment's consideration must be sufficient to show that what may pass off as a harmless joke when practised upon one of a bold and daring spirit, may produce the most disastrous consequences on another of a nervous frame or a timorous mind. Should facts be required to urge due consideration, they may be readily cited on unquestionable authority. One child thoughtlessly frightened by an elder sister, became totally deaf. Another, terribly alarmed at being placed by a servant in a dark cellar, lost not only the sense of hearing but that of sight also. And to add only one other instance: a school-boy, lifted up in his bed by one of his companions, who crept under it for the purpose without his knowledge, became incurably insane! Those who are inclined to indulge themselves in practical jokes, and many such there are, should seriously ponder such facts.

At the earliest period in which there could be the play of imagination, George afterwards described himself as given to "castle-building;" not indeed "the erection of a stately pile of massy stones with turrets at the top, and towers at the corners, accompanied by a moat, a drawbridge, and a bugle-horn; but the habit of indulging expectations which may or may

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CASTLE BUILDING."

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not be realised in future life. No sooner could my wonder-working hands build a card-house, than I began to speculate on what I would achieve when I became a man. To do what was done by those older than myself was the object of my childish ambition. At four years old I longed to be put in trowsers. At six I wished for a penknife, that I might mend my own pens; for a box of colours, that I might paint red roses and blue violets; and for a fife, that I might make as much noise as my school-fellows. At twelve I had read numberless travels and wild romances, and the desire to wander in foreign countries, to see strange sights, and to effect wonderful achievements was strong within me. I doubted not that the deeds which gave me so much pleasure in imagination, would be actually performed in after life. At this season of my life I was influenced by everything around me. If I heard a poor sailor tell of the dangers of the deep, I longed to contend with the billows of the boundless ocean. If a poor disabled soldier spoke of the battles in which he had been engaged, I sighed to become a soldier, to be dressed in scarlet and gold, and to head a troop of brave fellows against the enemies of my country, while the drums were rattling around me, and the flourish of trumpets sounded a charge. I neither knew nor feared the perils of the boundless ocean, nor the guilty horrors of bloody warfare." The disposition,

he thus characterises, continued strong within him during subsequent years.

If home acts as a mould during the earliest years of life, the school acts as another, greatly altering, it may be, effacing, the character previously acquired. But it was not so with George Mogridge. The promise of his childhood appears so far fulfilled: for he has passed onwards a second stage, in the same kind of growth. Encountering an undesirable severity in his master, and less than the usual amount of violence from the boys, from his own kindliness of heart, his mental faculties have now expanded as well as his physical powers. He has beaten the rest at trigonometry as well as at trap-ball; and in comprehending the terrestrial and celestial globes, no less than in trundling a hoop. Norbury's prediction is verified at school: "He stands at the top of the tree."

Still further: he is not only a sprightly, cheerful, clever, generous boy, but he has moral qualities of greatly surpassing value, the influence of which was felt by many around. Much that was preventive and

counteractive is doubtless attributable to the influences of the domestic circle, during George's schooldays; among them he spent his vacations; and they were constantly exerted by parents ever affectionately concerned for their son's well-being. But now he leaves school and enters the world, and as faithful chroniclers, we follow him thither.

As the useful arts maintain the general honour of physical knowledge, so polite letters allure the world into the neighbourhood of morals and of mind.— MACKINTOSH.

BIRMINGHAM. ITS MANUFACTURES. -GEORGE APPRENTICED TO A JAPANNER. NELSON'S VISIT. GEORGE'S TASTE FOR READING.CHAUCER, SPENSER, OSSIAN.-FIRST EFFORTS AT COMPOSITION.FASCINATION OF THE LITERARY CHARACTER. PEN AND PENCIL SKETCHING. CRITICISMS OF EARLY PRODUCTIONS. -FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT.- GEORGE'S INTRODUCTION TO MR. S. J. PRATT.-RESPONSIBILITY OF GUIDING A YOUNG WRITER.

"BIRMINGHAM, a small village near King's Norton," the description of an old gazetteer-resembles, now-adays, with such a vast extent and immense population, a direction, "London, near Chelsea." Situated not far from the mines of Staffordshire, and placed in a woody district, it afforded great facilities for smelting the ore of iron, which for a long period could be effected only by means of charcoal. Only a few years before the birth of George Mogridge a very ancient furnace was worked, and near it arose a mountain of

cinder, the residuum of this process, which it had probably taken hundreds of years to accumulate.

Burke spoke of Birmingham as "the toy-shop of Europe;" and his description was literally true. There is a familiar couplet :

"The children of Holland take pleasure in making

What the children in England take pleasure in breaking;"

but the Dutch acquired their power of producing carts and horses, guns, drums, and trumpets, and the more complicated fabrics of furnished houses and Noah's arks, from the ingenious artisans-men, women, and children of this flourishing town, the seat of no ordinary industry and ingenuity. Another large branch of manufacture was buttons; and it is a memorable fact, that the far-famed works of the Soho, with which the names of Boulton and Watt stand indissolubly associated, so widely celebrated for its coinage of British and other money, and still more so for the improvement, almost the invention, of the steam-engine, originated in the manufacture of small articles, among which buckles were especially conspicuous.

A more recent branch of business is traceable to John Baskerville, who for some time kept a writing school in Birmingham. He introduced the art of japanning; that is, of producing a highly varnished surface on wood, metal, and other hard substances, sometimes of one colour only, but more commonly