better things of you." Here Betty Plane begged, with all humility, to put in a word: " Certainly," said the Doctor, "we will listen to all modest complaints, and try to redress them." "You are

pleased to say, sir," said she, "that we might find much comfort from buying coarse bits of beef. And so we might; but you do not know, sir, that we could seldom get them, even when we had the money, and times were so bad." "How so, Betty?" Sir, when we go to butcher Jobbins, for a bit of shin, or any other lean piece, his answer is, 'You can't have it to-day. The cook at the great house has bespoke it for gravy, or the Doctor's maid, (begging your pardon, sir,) has just ordered it for soup.' Now, sir, such kind gentlefolks are not aware that this gravy and soup not only consume a great deal of meat, which, to be sure, those have a right to do who can pay for it, but that it takes away those coarse pieces which the poor would buy, if they bought at all: for, indeed, the rich have been very kind, and I don't know what we should have done without them.'

"I thank you for the hint, Betty," said the Doctor, "and I assure you I will have no more gravy soup. My garden will supply me with soups that are both wholesomer and better; and I will answer for my lady at the great house, that she will do the same. I hope this will become a general rule, and then we shall expect that butchers will favour you in the prices of the coarse pieces, if we who are rich buy nothing but the prime. In our gifts we shall prefer, as the farmer has told you, those who keep steadily to their work. Such as come to the vestry for a loaf, and do not come to church for the sermon, we shall mark; and prefer those who come constantly whether there are any gifts or But there is one rule from which we never will depart. Those who have been seen aiding or

not.

abetting any riot, any attack on butchers, bakers, wheat-mows, mills, or millers, we will not relieve; but with the quiet, contented, hard-working man, I will share my last morsel of bread. I shall only add, though it has pleased God to send us this visitation as a punishment, yet we may convert this short trial into a lasting blessing, if we all turn over a new leaf. Prosperity had made most of us careless. The thoughtless profusion of some of the rich could only be exceeded by the idleness and bad management of some of the poor. Let us now at last adopt that good old maxim, every one mend one. And may God add his blessing!"

The people now cheerfully departed with their rice, resolving, as many of them as could get milk, to put one of Mrs. White's receipts in practice and an excellent supper they had.

The whole of this instructive history is founded on fact: and the advice given to the poor in the latter part, was actually carried into practice in some of the villages near the residence of the author, and also in the immediate vicinity of Bath and Bristol.-ED.

HESTER WILMOT was born in the parish of Weston, of parents who maintained themselves by their labour; they were both of them ungodly, it is no wonder therefore they were unhappy. They lived badly together-and how could they do otherwise? for their tempers were very different, and they had no religion to smooth down this difference, or to teach them that they ought to bear with each others faults. Rebecca Wilmot was a proof that people may have some right qualities, and yet be but bad characters, and utterly destitute of religion. She was clean, notable, and industrious. Now, I know some folks fancy that the poor who have these qualities need have no other-but this is a sad mistake, as I am sure every page in the Bible would shew; and it is a pity people do not consult it oftener. They direct their ploughing and sowing by the information of the almanack, why will they not consult the Bible for the direction of their hearts and lives? Rebecca was of a violent, ungovernable temper; and that very neatness which is in itself so pleasing, in her became a sin, for her affection to her husband and children was quite lost in an over* See p. 183.

anxious desire to have her house reckoned the nicest in the parish. Rebecca was also a proof that a poor woman may be as vain as a rich one, for it was not so much the comfort of neatness, as the praise of neatness, which she coveted. A spot on her hearth, or a bit of rust on a brass candlestick, would throw her into a violent passion. Now, it is very right to keep the hearth clean and the candlestick bright, but it is very wrong so to set one's affections on a hearth, or a candlestick, as to make one's self unhappy if any trifling accident happens to them; and if Rebecca had been as careful to keep her heart without spot, or her life without blemish, as she was to keep her fire-irons free from either, she would have been held up in this history, not as a warning, but a pattern, and in that case her nicety would have come in for a part of the praise. It was no fault in Rebecca, but a merit, that her oak table was so bright you could almost see to put your cap on in it; but it was no merit, but a fault, that when John, her husband, laid down his cup of beer upon it so as to leave a mark, she would fly out into so terrible a passion, that all the children were forced to run to corners; now, poor John having no corner to run to, ran to the ale-house, till that which was at first a refuge too soon became a pleasure.

Rebecca never wished her children to learn to read, because she said it would only serve to make them lazy, and she herself had done very well without it. She would keep poor Hester from church to stone the space under the chairs in fine patterns and flowers. I don't pretend to say there was any harm in this little decoration, it looks pretty enough, and it is better to let the children do that than do nothing. But still these are not things to set one's heart upon; and, besides, Rebecca only did it as a trap for praise; for she was sulky and disappointed

if any ladies happened to call in, and did not seem delighted with the flowers which she used to draw with a burnt stick on the white-wash of the chimney corners. Besides, all this finery was often done on a Sunday; and there is a great deal of harm in doing right things at a wrong time, or in wasting much time on things which are of no real use, or in doing any thing at all out of vanity. Now, I beg that no lazy slattern of a wife will go and take any comfort in her dirt, from what is here said against Rebecca's nicety; for I believe, that for one who makes her husband unhappy through neatness, twenty do so by dirt and laziness. All excesses are wrong, but the excess of a good quality is not so common as the excess of a bad one; and not being so obvious, perhaps for that very reason requires more animadversion.

John Wilmot was not an ill-natured man, but he had no fixed principle. Instead of setting himself to cure his wife's faults by mild reproof and a good example, he was driven by them into still greater faults himself. It is a common case with people who have no religion, when any cross accident befals them, instead of trying to make the best of a bad matter, instead of considering their trouble as a trial sent from God to purify them, or instead of considering the faults of others as a punishment for their own sins; instead of this, I say, what do they do, but either sink down at once into despair, or else run for comfort into evil courses! Drinking is the common remedy for sorrow, if that can be called a remedy, the end of which is to destroy soul and body. John now began to spend all his leisure hours at the Bell. He used to be fond of his children; but when he could not come home in quiet and play with the little ones, while his wife dressed him a bit of hot supper, he grew in time not to come home at all. He who has once taken to