hild is noble! for, though lowly born,
He is the son and grandson of the _Sword_!'"

FIBRILIA.

There are not a few timid souls who imagine that England is falling into
decay. Our Cousin John is apt to complain. He has been accustomed to
enlarge upon his debts, his church-rates and poor-rates, his taxes on
air, light, motion, "everything, from the ribbons of the bride to the
brass nails of the coffin," upon the wages of his servants both on the
land and the water, upon his Irish famine and exodus, and his vast
expenses at home and abroad. And when we consider how small is his
homestead, a few islands in a high latitude inferior to those of Japan
in size and climate, and how many of his family have left him to better
their condition, one might easily conclude that he had passed his
meridian, and that his prospects were as cloudy as his atmosphere.

But our Cousin John, with a strong constitution, is in a green old age,
and still knows how to manage his property.

Within the last two years he has quietly extinguished sixty millions of
his debts in terminable annuities. He has improved his outlying lands
of Scotland and Ireland, ransacked the battle-fields of Europe for
bone-dust and the isles of the Pacific for guano, and imported enough to
fertilize four millions of acres, and, not content with the produce of
his home-farm, imports the present year more than four millions of tons
of grain and corn to feed nineteen millions of his people.

He has carried his annual exports up to six hundred and thirty millions
of dollars, and importing more than he exports still leaves the world
his debtor. He has a strong fancy for new possessions, and selects the
most productive spots for his plantations. When he desired muslin,
calico, and camel's-hair shawls for his family, he put his finger on
India; and when he called for those great staples of commerce, indigo,
saltpetre, jute, flax, and linseed, India sent them at his bidding. When
he required coffee, he found Ceylon a Spice Island, and at his demand
it furnished him with an annual supply of sixty millions of pounds. He
required more sugar for his coffee, and by shipping a few coolies from
Calcutta and Bombay to the Mauritius, once the Isle of France, it yields
him annually two hundred and forty million pounds of sugar, more than
St. Domingo ever yielded in the palmy days of slavery. He wanted wool,
and his flocks soon overspread the plains of Australia, tendering