tried the patience and piety of his powerful mind. Shaftesbury House was then a calm, silent, retired spot-apart from the bustle and business of life.

The philosopher and his philosophic pupil were both sorely tried by sickness; and though there was over thirty years' difference in the dates of their birth, there was little more than nine in those of their departure. We felt it a high privilege to stand upon the old and worn-out stone, that, black almost with age, is nearly embedded in the earth at the entrance of this thrice-honoured ruin. Here we may at least imagine the young and the old philosopher exchanged thoughts-the former expressing himself in the most graceful language, while the latter concentrated his ideas, until each word conveyed a thought worth gold; and yet, when you regarded them stedfastly, neither had the worn-out look attendant upon age. Their eyes brightened with that ever-living fire which is transferred, but never dies.

It might have been that Locke, seeing his kind friend and frequent attendant, Lady Masham, approaching with Lord Shaftesbury, hastened down to meet them, and received them-here; that here she repeated the king's sorrow at his withdrawal from his appointment of commissioner of trade and plantations, and the royal hope that he would soon recover; and the lady, the beloved child of his old friend, Doctor Cudworth, smiled kindly and gently while she spoke, and looked imploringly into his face for the hope she had not, and he smiled also in return; but there was no untruth, no false hope, in that calm sad smile. He expressed his resolve not to hold a situation, to which a considerable salary was attached, without performing its duties; adding, that he would try perfect quiet in the country, and employ himself entirely in the study of the Scripture, for that he felt he should not in this world have very long to live. And he would have said more but for the tears that overflowed the eyes of Lady Masham; and so he turned to ascend to his favourite room, his friends following and as they went Lord Shaftesbury may have murmured, And this is the end of our philosophy!'

We had passed Shaftesbury House frequently without bestowing a thought upon its name, or caring how it was occupied; until we learned that a very aged woman, in whom we felt interest, was within its walls. Our first visit was not, therefore, to inquire concerning Lord Shaftesbury,

but to see an old Irishwoman deprived,' as she said, ' of her liberty for the rest of her days.'

She had been twice married, to soldiers; five of her sons had fallen in the

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service; many of her own years had been spent on the tented field,' both in Europe and in India; and after Waterloo, she retired,' to quote her own words, into private life;' that is to say, she exercised her calling as a cook, and a very excellent one she was, though peculiar in her habits and manners. Every day and all day long, in the house or out of the house, she wore a little stubbed, short, black silk bonnet, the front of which rather resembled the peak of an officer's foraging cap than woman's ordinary head-gear; her features were of long and formal cut, her eyes deep sunk, yet bright; her employer knew her skill and honesty, her fellow-servants never questioned her energy and determination, and whether it was a broom or a rolling-pin she shouldered it musket fashion. Instead of dropping a curtsey she touched her bonnet with her fore-finger; and said the drum beat' when the bell rang; she marched about the house with a measured, yet rapid, step, and never neglected orders.' Once, when out for a holiday, she went to see the guard relieved at the Horse Guards; too intent upon the event (she never saw a soldier without tears rushing to her eyes), she either did not hear or heed the warning of an omnibus-driver, and was so severely injured by the horses as to be obliged, she said, 'to go on sick leave,' and finally, to retire from active service,' childless, and almost friendless; but old Kate's pride did not give way, and she derived much consolation from a source peculiarly her own.

They may call the place what they like,' she said, while, supported on her crutch, she gave her usual salute: they may call it what they plase, but its SHAFTESBURY HOUSE; and if I'm obleeged to wait the word of command here, it's no more than grate lords and fine ladies have done before me in the same place; it's ancient and ould, I've been in worse quarters and had less rations, and thanked God for the one and the other; there's many in it don't care for the honourable name of the place, and would as soon be in Mount Street (the other workhouse of the parish), but I wouldn't,' and she struck the paved hall with her crutch, while her blue-gowned and white-capped comrades looked on at a very respectful distance. 'Sometimes I hear the asylum drums of ould Chelsea Hospital,

and then I want my liberty; but I did'nt lose it till I could'nt use it, and after all it's Shaftesbury House; there's no such place about this partit's no common workhouse. Wise men, and fine quality altogether, have lived and died in it; and I'm too ould a soldier not to know how to be happy wherever a tent is pitched.' 'One thing,' she added in a whisper, 'I've thanked God many a time that my ould husband died a free man ; there are ould people here who have lived together fifty years and more, in industry and honesty, fought through life together, and thought maybe, as I used, how sweet it would be to die together. But,' she added, while her eyes kindled, they won't let them! They set their workhouse law against the law of God-they force them asunder-put stone walls betwixt man and wife. I know twenty who are just praying for death through that law; and whoever made that law will have to explain it at head quarters one of these days. I wonder,' continued old Kate, emphatically, 'how the Queen, God bless her, would like it; it's none of her doings, I'll go bail.' 'It's no business of mine, to be sure,' she resumed; 'it's a fine place intirely for lone men and lone women, but if my ould man was to the fore, I'd travel the world barefoot and carry his knapsack to the day of his death (as I did, the Lord above be praised!) sooner than be separated from him by the walls of a palace, let alone a prison. I know it well—I 've seen it many a time in the grate orderly book, and read it when the boys were talking lightly of marriage" They two shall be one flesh," and "What God hath joined let no man put asunder." Yet the same law that punishes a man for deserting his wife, and casts away a woman for leaving her husband, forces them to part in old age.' 'A curse will come on those who made it,' muttered old Kate ; a curse dark and heavy, and I'll not say "God forbid.""

Old Kate so thoroughly identified herself with Shaftesbury House, and picked up so much information about it, colouring everything with the strong tints of an Hibernian imagination, that at last she croned over legends of her own creation; and might be said to live amongst the shades of those who have rendered the name of this so strangely-changed residence immortal!

THE DWELLING OF JAMES BARRY.

HERE are few pleasures so cheering or so invigorating as that which, when wearied of daily anxiety or labour, we derive from our memories of pictures. When the volume, designed to be read, is thrust aside, because fatigue forbids its attentive perusal ; when the exhausted mind cannot its thoughts call home;' when ordinary amusements offer no refreshing relaxation; when conversation wearies; and even affectionate zeal becomes troublesome, instead of relieving-(and what worker out of the intellect has not felt all this, often ?)-then come such memories as anodynes to the soul; memories of pictures beheld, perhaps, in childhood, or in youth, or in wiser, though not happier, years, recalled from the gulf of time, brought in their full force before us, claiming and obtaining a blessing upon

the Art that can immortalise.'

Blessings be with them-these unforgotten pictures-the old familiar ' friends, who are ever present with us when we need them; hanging upon these papered walls; crowding every vacant space. One by one, we summon them, and talk with them of gone-by things; they come at times together, but more often singly. Some particu'ar memory is lord of the ascendant; some mighty one fixed in its place by a sort of mental Daguerreotypesuddenly fixed, and indelibly; a thousand matters may cover and conceal it, but it will be erased alone by Death.

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To what vast uses we may turn these shadows of the past. A little child looks upon the storied canvas, or framed print; or cons over the contents of her picture book;' each picture' giving her a new idea, an incident, or a story-a lesson without the aid of words. She has gained something, which, if worthy, will remain with her through life-elevating her nature-teaching her to think, observe, and compare; the education of the eye has progressed, and intellect become expanded through it. This is, indeed, a mighty power by which to teach, and until lately, when pictures (such as they are) have been adopted into the system of infant school education, almost an unused one. We hope, humbly and earnestly, it may be worked out to some great end, so that every public and private schoolroom may be illustrated by PICTURES, tending to promote noble thoughts and noble actions. Let any one, who has observed the effect produced on the minds of the merest children by pictures, think upon this subject, and we are sure they will agree with us in seeing a wide and elevating field of useful and rapid culture, by pure and legitimate means, thrown open to our youths, who usually remember what they see far better than what they hear; and who, if trained to observe, through the medim of high Art as well as through that of books, would grow up with more just appreciations of the sublime and beautiful in life and character, than have yet been taught to those into whose hands the great FUTURE must be, in a few brief years, resigned.

But even admitting that no greater good were to result from pictures than filling the mind with pleasant memories, would it not be wise to add another delight to those which Letters bestow, so that there shall be no lack in the hours of fatigue, solitude, or sickness, of an additional balmin the memories of pictures?

In that old rambling house, on the wild Irish coast, where, in our childhood, our winter's lullaby was the sound of dashing waves against the dark and pointed rocks, and our summer's music the ripple of the waters on the rugged beach;-in that dear old house-every stone of whose mouldering walls is dearer to our heart at this moment than most precious gems-in that, our lonely childhood's home, there was an old-fashioned little parlour' in which we learned our lessons out of old French books, and thrummed a narrow lean piano; the great charms of that small chamber, with its