Scotland 1,925, and in Ireland 918. And under the head of 'rag-cutters, dealers, and gatherers,' we find in England 1,316, in Scotland 108, and in Ireland 881. Of boot and shoe makers,' we find 187,943 in England, 26,837 in Scotland, and 50,334 in Ireland; and of 'butchers,' 45,495 in England, 3,202 in Scotland, and 5,832 in Ireland. The inferences here are obvious. Of clock and watch makers,' there are 13,577 in England, 1,202 in Scotland, and 885 in Ireland. Of grocers and tea dealers,' there are 41,929 in England, 7,277 in Scotland, and 3.434 in Ireland. In all occupations ministering either to necessity, comfort, or luxury, the proportions are about the same, excepting in the case of pig-dealing, rag-collecting, and several minor callings. We find in England 662 pig-dealers, in Scotland 9, and in Ireland 969! Under the head of tavern-keepers' -which includes beershop-keepers, hotel and innkeepers, publicans and victuallers, and spirit merchants-we find in England a total of 59,779, in Scotland 8,546, and in Ireland 12,652. Ireland has the services of a smaller proportion of professional men than the other parts of the United Kingdom. It has rather less than double the number of medical men for four times the population that Scotland has. In clerical gentlemen, its supply is the largest.

THE POET AND BRIGAND. THE evening shadows were falling from the lofty Apennines into the bosom of the valley of the Pescara, and the bells of the sheep and zampogna of the shepherd were mingling in merry harmony, as two mounted travellers, attended by four lacqueys, were winding through the mountain pass which is the gateway of the Abruzzi, immediately above the romantic town of Castel di Sangro. The two travellers were men of distinction; the gay beaver, cloak, and rapier of the younger, and the rich vestments of the elder, were sufficient attestation of this, although they had not been attended by squires; but even supposing their attendants and garments had been of a very inferior order, their personal bearing would have marked them out from the vulgar crowd. The senior of these travellers was a priest, whose tall portly frame was encased in robes whose richness of texture seemed to mock their sacerdotal modesty of fashion; he was mounted on a beautiful black horse, which he managed with the ease and grace of a practised equestrian, and his keen penetrating eye and haughty bearing showed that the priestly office to him was nothing more than a family arrangement. He was grave and taciturn, and seemed to be absorbed in his own reflections—a state of mind which his companion did not seem anxious to disturb, for his large black eyes rolled incessantly over the lofty rugged scenery which rose before them. This second traveller was tall and slender in his form, and his long black hair fell luxuriantly over his shoulders. His extremely handsome face seemed to reflect the ever-varying aspect of the wild and rugged landscape which lay around him, for it would lighten with a gleam of wild enthusiasm as the setting sunbeams would burst through an opening of the hills, or it would darken into a look of almost sullen wrath as the shadows would deepen on his path. The gentlemen travellers seemed either to be totally absorbed by the aspect of the country, or the reflections incidental to some important mission, as they rode along; for neither the place where they rode nor the approaching twilight called forth any remarks upon the necessity of finding shelter for the night.

the death-like silence of the glen, and, as it was intended, roused the travellers from their reverie.

'I hear old Pietro grumbling, Torquato,' said the ecclesiastic, rousing himself with an effort, and smiling as he turned to his companion; there must be a wine-shop within a league, and he is anxious that we should push on.'

If he thirsts he may drink of the waters that flow from yonder grotto,' said the younger traveller, pointing to the clear stream that issued from a dark cave, and sprung from rock to rock until it was white with foam; his head will be clear and his finger steady if he drinks nought else,' he continued, gloomily.

Come, come, Torquato,' said the cardinal, speaking gaily and even affectionately to his companion, thou must not let these moods get the better of thee. We shall quaff our good Falernian in time, I trust; and then, when with me at Arreti, thou wilt forget the contumely and the injustice thou hast borne.'

Have I not been immured for years in a dark and gloomy dungeon? Have I not been insulted by the carrion crows of literature? Have I not been driven from principality to principality, like a wolf without a covert?' said the poet, while his eyes glared wildly; and thinkest thou, Arreti, that I can enter again into the joys and loves of life? No, no; the happy may quaff wine, or those who wish to forget their misery. I, who am not happy, and do not wish to forget my wo, am content with the clear stream, or tears if they could be found in sufficient libations.'

This is a lovely country, Torquato,' said the cardinal, as he drew up his steed and looked around him, evidently with the intention of distracting his friend's thoughts from himself.

'Beautiful!' exclaimed the enthusiastic Italian, entering at once into the cardinal's design, and his dark eyes flashed, and his nostrils expanded as he threw his keen glance around him. This is the land of Ovid-this is the early home of the bard of love and beauty; it was to these mountains that the goddesses came and breathed into his spirit the sounds which themselves delighted afterwards to hear! You have not the vine-clad, grape-festooned elms of the Campania Felice here,' he continued, neither do you see the broad-bladed corn that sparkles in the dew of Favoro; there are no flowering orchards, tall shady pines, nor hedgerows of clymatis or eglantine; but there is peace, rest, contentment, and truth,' said the enraptured poet, whose mind had evidently suffered from his misfortunes; and he clasped his hands together and gazed steadily upon the mountain-peaks and then on the flocks that were gathering on the hills and seeking the lower pasturage.

'Let us on, Torquato,' said the Cardinal Arreti, gently, in the ear of his friend; the night-shades are falling, and Castel di Sangro is still a league distant from this glen. Let us hurry on.' As the cardinal spoke, the loud tinkling of goat-bells fell close upon the ears of his band, and directly a few of these creatures sprung from a hollow close beside the travellers, followed by a shepherd clad in the picturesque habiliments of the Abruzzi.

The old equestrian's voice sounded loud and harsh in

protection and retaliation. Sometimes the shepherds, attracted by the adventurous and licentious life of the brigands, would leave their flocks and herds to join in their predatory excursions, and sometimes an Abruzzese would organise a band for himself; but as a people these Italian mountaineers are peaceful and averse to warlike pursuits. At the period, however, when Cardinal Arreti and Torquato Tasso were on their way from Chieti to Naples, the Abruzzi were said to be infested by a band of daring outlaws, whose leader, in addition to the courage and strength of a Rob Roy, possessed all the generosity and sense of honour of that celebrated Scottish outlaw. The cardinal, in addition to arming himself and his friend well, had also provided himself with an escort, dreading an interview with the celebrated outlaw; but, having nearly arrived at the boundary of the mountain district, he had thrown his spicions away, forgotten his precautions, and was absorbed in his thoughts of shelter and a supper, when the Shepherd crossed his path. The mountaineer was a short spare man of weather-beaten aspect, but with a clear, calm, satisfied eye, and the reserved taciturn look of one who had passed much of his time in the solitudes of the hills; his sheepskin jacket fitted tightly to his handsome agile frame, and his sheepskin buskins clung round his clean active limbs; over his shoulder hung a long ox-horn; a straight, sharp-pointed knife was encased in a bark scabbard that was suspended from his waist-belt; and in his Land he carried a long strong pole, while a large white shaggy wolf hound bounded along by his side. When he aw the strangers, he stopped and looked at them with lent surprise; then, touching his cap to the poet, and lifting it to the priest, he bent reverently and crossed their

Hilo, my son!' cried the cardinal, observing the peasant about to pass, canst thou tell us the way to Castel li Sangro?'

Fou are on the way, good father,' replied the shepherd, quietly.

Shall we arrive there before sunset, my good shepherd?' inquired the cardinal.

Ah, I do not know, father,' said the mountaineer, smilng and shaking his head; the road is smooth enough, and your steeds are strong; but who knows what cause your reverence may have to turn aside to the sheilings on the way??

Tuts, cause have we none to make us tarry,' replied the cardinal, rather shortly, unless some unforeseen one may intervene: they say that that most famous of thieves, Marco Sciarra and his band, are in these parts. Dost thou know that such is the fact?'

The peasant stood for a few seconds as if musing, while Pietro and the escort gathered close round him; then, slowly raising his eyes to Arreti, he exclaimed, 'I will not say that Mareo Sciarra is not in the lower Abruzzi, for I did hear the shepherds speak of him having been seen at a gathering at Sulmona two days ago.'

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He is ubiquitous, this Marco,' exclaimed the cardinal in surprise; I heard that he had been prowling round Chieti four days hence.'

Ay, and how felt the good burghers of Chieti?' said the peasant, with a meaning smile. Did they feel their coffers lighter for Marco's visit?'

Come now, master shepherd,' cried Pietro, angrily, the shadows are falling too deeply for us to stand parley ing here; thou mightest rather put us on the nearest track to Sangro, for I for one am indeed a-weary of this mountin-land of yours, and would fain taste the wine of the plains. I shall lead thee the nearest way to Sangro in good Sooth,' said the peasant, with a good-natured smile, and I will cheer thy way into the bargain." So saying he unung his horn, and, waving the travellers to follow him, tured into a broken narrow ravine, and began sounding e notes of his instrument.

The shepherd was light and agile, and he strode over the broken ground as nimbly as if he were bounding over the turf; but the gloomy aspect of the ravine and the broken

Hillo there!' cried the irascible old Pietro, unslinging his carbine and imperiously ordering the guide to halt; ‘if thou dost not lead us by some more practicable way than this to Sangro, or restore us to the valley from which you have decoyed us, I will send something in an easy way through you ere long, master peasant.'

You will, proud soldier?' cried the shepherd, as, with a sardonic laugh, he sprung up a shrub-grown cleft of the hill which bounded one side of the narrow pass, then I will send a hundred through thee!' When he ceased to speak he whistled long and loud, and immediately the sides of the narrow rocky mountain-way were bristling with the dark matchlocks of Marco Sciarra's band. Bewildered and surprised, the cardinal first looked upon his friend, next at the escort, and then at the weapons of the robbers, when, making a virtue of necessity, he ordered Pietro and his men to throw away their weapons, and to submit themselves to the clemency of the Abruzzese chief.

The entrapped travellers had scarcely thrown down their weapons, when the tall and picturesque brigands were seen rushing from all points towards them; and then they seized and pinioned them, and began to rifle their portmanteaus of their contents.

We shall send his reverence into Castel di Sangro a lighter man than when he left Chieti,' said one of the band, as he tore some golden ornaments and a crucifix from the case where they had been placed by the pious hands of the cardinal's sister, the Abbess of Chieti.

Lighter in purse, but with a heart a ton weight,' responded a companion, as he dragged a miniature from the bosom of Tasso.

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That is a more precious lady-love than the flesh and blood one it represents,' retorted another of the band; and that lack-a-daisical youth will weep for it more than for the loss of his weeping Cara.'

The dark eyes of Tasso gleamed with the fury of his excited nature; but, checking any outburst of impotent passion, his haughty lip curled, and he maintained a rigid silence.

'And so, gentlemen, you were rightly informed when you were told that Marco Sciarra was in these parts,' said the pretended shepherd, as he walked towards the cardinal. He had exchanged his long staff for a ritie, and his woolly cap for a high peaked hat; otherwise he was clad as when they first saw him. I shall show thy escort the nearest way to Castel di Sangro,' he continued, or any other city they may choose to think of, where thy wealthy friends reside; for thee, and this thy companion, you must be content to remain with me until this old carbineer bringeth thy ransom.'

If thou art Marco Sciarra,' said the cardinal, mildly, I have hopes that you will let us hence upon our words of honour. I travel to Naples upon business affecting the welfare of Italy, which brooks not of delay; and Torquato Tasso accompanies me, to clear his fame from aspersions

and slanders.'

Torquato Tasso!' cried Marco, with enthusiasm, for it was he. Is this Torquato, the poet of the Gerusaleme? Hillo! my men, unhand these travellers,' he continued; this is the poet who has restored to Italy the name she held when Ovid and Virgil sung. What, ho! brethren, he too has been outlawed by the noble and the great; he has been hunted, and caged, and scorned, and derided! Shall we multiply his sorrows, and rob him of the little that the cruel have left him? No. A wreath for the bard, and homage too, for he well deserves thein!'

As Marco spoke he cut the ligatures which bound the poet's hands; and the band, partaking of their leader's enthusiasm, restored to him and his companions the property of which they had robbed them, and taking the horses by the reins, they led them once more out into the

THE CANT OF PROGRESS.'

Ir is an amusing as well as melancholy matter of observation to note the facility with which, in past or present times, a few clever charlatans have succeeded in gulling and deluding the public mind, by ministering to popular vanity and flattering popular foibles. In John Bull's character the love of praise is a prominent feature, and the only one which can be worked to advantage. Let any honest man try to point out his errors, or to benefit him by showing where his weakness and ignorance lie, and immediately the popular tongue will wag against him, and wag loudly and long, till it has silenced him; but let him come with any hocus pocus creed, half-mystic, half-profane, but eminently adapted to minister to the infallible wisdom of the people, and the vanity of the vulgar, and be that creed whatever it may, the panderer will find followers, and his pockets be filled. Few people do think for themselves in the honest acceptation of the term; they receive the thoughts of others into their own minds, without investigating them, and, provided they do not contradict prejudices or prepossessions long cherished, cling honestly by them; and, so long as this is the case, it is no matter of objection that they do not understand what those who profess to guide them, may utter. Nay, it seems to us they prize the incomprehensible all the more because it is so. Any literary quack who chooses at a little labour to acquire a verbose, unintelligible style, only distinct enough to show that he feeds popular passions, the discerning public' will hunt out and uphold as a man of genius. Nor does it seem to matter much that they like their friend the less, although his motives be quite apparent. The parasite may show he is such, yet the oak cherishes him all the more. If he has only ability enough to maintain the hue and cry, when once raised, his success may be considered certain. Of course our observations must be understood with some limitation. There are certain exploded doctrines that those earnest souls' now enlightening the reading public may show up, and successfully. The disadvantages of dirty dwellings and advantages of fresh air-the necessity of education-the right of private judgment the ignorance of superstition, and kindred topies, may all be handled with advantage by those whose mission it is to hasten the dawn of the good time coming;' and as the people are now so far advanced as to recognise such truths or errors, the philanthropy of their advocates will be duly rewarded. These, intermitted with a little superficial dabbling in the sciences, form nearly the limit of what the public, already having learned, will allow the propriety of being taught, and beyond these few of the oneness-of-purpose men attempt to instruct them in. To cry out you are dirty still;' you are ignorant still;' you are socially, morally, and politically retrograding still;' you are feeding on intellectual poison;' you are deceiving yourselves--these oracles, whether they know it or do not, would never for a moment dream of. Their craft would be in danger. But instead of dealing thus honestly, they administer the subtle flattery, ye shall be as gods, and not men. The deluded mass is told it is on the adFance to a better condition-helping itself on-informed that in every point of view it is reaching the acmé of perfection-taught that it is only to struggle and strive a little longer as it is now doing, and the good time' will arrive-that the long dark night of old ignorance and error under which it has groped, it has now already dispelled, and a glorious light is dawning. Such is the burden of the song, the essence of the philosophy, the treasured truth the mass believe, with much more which neither ve nor they can understand, all comprehended under the term 'Progress.'

Now, so long as this word is employed in reference to Eterature, or arts and science, we don't object much. Bet of the way in which it is generally used, and of those Tas do so, we are strongly suspicious. There is a cheap Lerature, some of it of older standing, but most of it recently sprung up, more or less advocating it. There are journals of progress, records of progress, oracles of

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progress, and magazines of progress-progress newspapers and progress pamphlets. No penny periodical seems to consider itself safe without registering this title. All of these are more or less rabid on the subject, and the wilder they are the greater the chance of success. It is not good cheap literature the majority of the public want: they have no desire for that. In proof of this, there was Hunt's London Journal,' and Charles Knight with his second series of the Penny Magazine;' both refused to pander to a depraved taste, and both were shamefully neglected. But the dozens of cheap sheets just now issuing from the London press need only to adopt a few cant phrases-mystify the lower orders a little-praise them largely-give them plenty of filthy poison to drink in, and their success is certain. Does any one question the truth of these assertions, let him gather from a cheap periodical shop an armful of such stuff at random, take them home and read them, and if he be a man possessed of one spark of genuine honest principle, he will rise saddened from their perusal. He will find these journals of three classes: the lowest ministering indirectly to every vile passion, exhibiting vice tricked out in all the draggled finery that can captivate a youthful imagination, and serve to deaden principle and religion in the heart; the next class avowedly hostile to Christianity; and the last, but not the least dangerous, making the melancholy recommendatory boast, that it has carefully avoided every allusion to religion. The real teaching of the first is, Whatsoever seemeth good unto you;' of the last two Self-sufficiency.' We do not speak of the talent with which some of these journals are conducted; many of them have a fair share of it, and delight in displaying some crack names in the list of their contributors; but these all advocate progress, and mainly advocate it. Now it is easily enough observable that, from whatever source this cock-and-bull story proceeds, the obvious aim and tendency of one and all is the same-the exaltation of human nature, and its independence of divine aid or authority. Should any of these parties stumble at the last conclusion, and enter a protest against it, we refer them for proof to their own writings, and ask whether they do not teach human advancement as wholly dependent upon human sufficiency. That cannot be denied, else the existence of the sheets and printing is fabulous. And what else is infidelity-the meanest and most contemptible species of it too-infinitely far behind the doctrines of heathen sages or philosophers?

Like every other species of imposition, this favourite cry will have its day. So long as it pays the promoters well enough, they will keep it up. When the profits cease, the prophesying will cease too. Meanwhile, it answers admirably the end for which it was got up. It is accommodat ing enough to clothe any subject and suit any writer-and, like charity, it covers a multitude of sins.

THE CHARITY BOY. LITTLE George was a timid thing-a mild, retiring, tiny boy, with traces of grief in his pale young face, and sorrow in his soul-lighted eyes. He was not a pretty child, with waving glossy hair that mothers delight to smooth, nor with rosy cheeks and lips that sisters fondly kiss; he was but an ordinary-looking boy, and neither fond mother nor fair young sister had he. If he had had a father to fondle him at even when his labour was done, and to lavish upon him the fullness of his love, the poor child might have been deemed in one respect a happy one; but in all the wide world of hearts there was not one to give a fond and holy throb of love for him. He was alone, although he was in the heart of the busy world. He was isolated in spirit and sad of soul, for he was an orphan and a charity boy.

George Wilson was an inmate of Hartford poor's-house, New England. It was not a large, dull, grim, gloomy workhouse in which he dwelt, like those of Old England; nor was it environed by high dark walls, as if to shut out the sunshine and the fresh winds, that came laden from the green fields with the breath of flowers. It was a rather sweet-looking house, with abundance of wild geraniums