y, we commenced a
toilsome march across the hills to a valley, in which there has lately
been formed a series of embankments for the saving up of water for the
supply of the inhabitants of Manchester. About six in the evening, we
reached a public-house called the 'Solitary Shepherd,' where we had
tea and a rest; after which, a short walk in the dusk of the evening
brought us to a station of the Manchester and Sheffield Railway, by
which we were speedily replaced in Manchester, thus accomplishing our
very interesting excursion in about ten hours.

My final reflections on what we had seen were of a mixed order.
Viewing the inundation as a calamity which might have been avoided by
a simple and inexpensive precaution, one could not but feel that it
stood up as a sore charge against human wisdom. That so huge a danger
should have been treated so lightly; that men should have gone on
squabbling about who should pay a mere trifle of money, when such
large interests and so many lives were threatened by its
non-expenditure, certainly presents our mercantile _laissez-faire_
system in a most disagreeable light. But, then, view the other side.
When once the calamity had taken place, and the idea of the consequent
extensive suffering had got abroad amongst the public, thousands of
pounds came pouring in for the relief of that suffering. The large sum
of L.60,000 was collected for the unfortunates; and it is an
undoubted, though surprising fact, that the collectors had at last to
intimate that they required no more. It is thus that human nature
often appears unworthy and contemptible when contemplated with regard
to some isolated circumstance, as misanthropes, poets, and such like,
are apt to regard it. But take it in wider relations, take it in the
totality of its action, and the lineaments of its divine origin and
inherent dignity are sure to shine out.

REMINISCENCES OF AN ATTORNEY.

THE INCENDIARY.

I knew James Dutton, as I shall call him, at an early period of life,
when my present scanty locks of iron-gray were thick and dark, my now
pale and furrowed cheeks were fresh and ruddy, like his own. Time,
circumstance, and natural bent of mind, have done their work on both
of us; and if his course of life has been less equable than mine, it
has been chiefly so because the original impulse, the first start on
the great journey, upon which so much depends, was directed by wiser
heads in my case than in his. We were school