"How I should like to try my fortune with Prince Diamond in the Golden Islands!" said a little boy to his mother one fine sunshiny morning. "Little Steel, our neighbour's son, has been, and has come home with a fine new coat covered with gold buttons, and a pocketful of money. Do let me go too, mother." "Well but," said the mother, who was commonly called Dame Pewter, "do you know what is required of those who go on the yearly expedition under the command of Prince Diamond? First, they are required to be bold and firm-____99 "Well, mother, and am I not that?" interrupted Brass, strutting about the cottage, with head thrown back, and arms akimbo. "Yes, my son," said Dame Pewter, smiling at his selfconceit, "perhaps a little too much so; because, to succeed under Prince Diamond, a person must unite modesty and caution with the other qualities." "I am the boy for that, mother," spoke up Lead, the second son; "I think I will go too." "And I!" shouted little Iron, the youngest boy. "No, no, one of you at once," said the mother; "when Brass comes back again, then you, Lead, shall try in your turn." So Dame Pewter baked a large cake, stuffing it with fourpenny pieces instead of plums. Meanwhile Brass dressed himself in his best suit of clothes, and got out his little portmanteau, and his mother having placed in it the cake, and a bottle of milk, he set forth on his travels. The whole of the first day he traversed a sandy desert, where there was not a single rock or tree to shelter him from the heat of the sun, so that he was often obliged to lie down on the sand to rest his wearied limbs, and take a drink of the milk in the bottle. Towards evening he discerned in the distance, what seemed like a huge wall, stretching quite across the desert. He was almost in despair at the sight, for he said to himself, "It is almost night, cannot climb this wall,-I am too tired to go round it, the wild beasts will soon be abroad,—and what shall I do?" Repenting that he had ever left his kind mother and comfortable home, yet ashamed to return, poor Brass continued to walk on; and when he came to the supposed wall, he found that it was not a wall, but an immense ledge of rocks, that towered almost perpendicularly to the sky. No sooner had he made this discovery, than he heard a tremendous roar, and a lion put forth his head from a cave just under Brass's nose. The boy turned to fly, but the lion called after him, and he paused, for he had never before heard a lion speak. "Well, what do you want with me?" he said. pardon for standing between his majesty and the light, and entreated permission to rest himself a little in the cave. "How do you know that I shall not eat you? I ain hungry enough!" growled the kingly beast. "Oh! I will trust you," replied bold Brass. "A lion who talks could not be so unpolite." "Couldn't he though? However, you are welcome to enter, if you dare." Brass accepted the invitation, for he really could not stand any longer; and stooping his head as he entered, he found himself in a tolerably capacious cave, with a heap of dry leaves in the further corner. "Come!" said the lion, as the boy remained staring about him, "I like your spirit, and you may breakfast with me, if you like.' "Thank you, but I am not in the least hungry; and if your majesty would permit me, I would take a nap on this very inviting couch." Brass scarcely waited for leave from the lion, ere he sank down upon the dry leaves; and though the stalks tickled him, and a spider or two ran over his nose, he fell into a sound sleep, which lasted till morning. When he awoke, the cave was full of light, which came from an opening almost immediately above his head. Looking round, he perceived the lion crouched in the doorway. "Now," thought he to himself, "it just depends upon the success my host has had in hunting during the night, whether he will be tempted to make a meal of me or not. How fierce he looks as he lies there! I have a good mind to take French leave, and climb out through this hole." So, raising himself cautiously, he placed his hands upon a ledge above his head, and gradually drew himself up. Just as the soles of his shoes were disappearing, he was saluted by a loud roar from below, and giving a desperate spring upwards, he found himself on a platform of rock, whence he could look down upon the lion, who was growling and lashing his tail to and fro in the cave beneath. "Good morning, old gentleman," said Brass. "I am much obliged for your hospitality; and if I prosper in my adventures, I will make a point of bringing you a couple of deer on my return." So saying, with a low bow, he turned his back upon the enraged animal, and began to scramble up the face of the precipice. But he found this terribly hard work; sʊ, as soon as he could no longer hear the roars of the lion, he sat himself down in a little niche of the rock, and taking his cake and bottle out of his portmanteau, which he had made a pillow of in the night, and now carried upon his shoulder, he commenced breakfast with a good appetite. But, on putting the bottle to his mouth to have a hearty pull, nothing would run out save a little sour buttermilk. "Dear me," said he, half aloud, "where can all the milk be?" "Churned into butter, to be sure!" answered a croaking voice. "Were you not jogging along with it all day yesterday under a hot sun?" Brass turned in the direction whence the voice came, and saw a strange-looking little man peeping over the pinnacle of a rock, at a short distance above him. "Take my advice, young man," continued the intruder, "and don't sit dallying there over your breakfast. Put the bottle back again, break off a piece of the cake, and eat it as you climb up to me by the help of this crook." And the little man extended towards him a long ebony pole, with a stout hook at the end of it. "Thank you," said our hero, coolly, "but I don't intend to climb any farther. I am only waiting until our friend below is likely to be fast asleep on his bed, and then I shall descend, and make my way round the rocks." "But do you know that Prince Diamond marched down to the shore this morning, with ten thousand men and boys,-I saw them myself from the summit, and that he is only awaiting a fair wind to set sail for the Golden Islands?" "Well, never fear, I shall be in time; the wind is not likely to change for a few days. I tell you, I would not climb another hundred yards of your horrible rocks for all I hope to gain by my journey." So down Brass tumbled, as fast as he could, to the foot of the precipice, not without bruising his elbow and both his knees; and shaking his hand at the little man above, who still held out his crook, and remonstrated, he set off running as fast as he could. We shall not detail his adventures for the next few days. He lived upon his cake and butter, and at night he climbed a little way up the precipice, and drank of the rain water in the fissures of the rock, and slept in any hollow he could find. Thus he proceeded until the fifth day at noon, when he suddenly arrived at the termination of the rocky wall. And now he could see, like a high round hill in the distance, the glittering ocean that lay between the main land and the Golden Islands. But nearer, and more precious at the moment than all the treasures that there lay awaiting him, a clear brook of fresh water issued from the rocks at this point, and ran with quiet current towards the sea. Brass hastened on, and prostrating himself upon its flowery bank, was about to drink his fill, and lave his hands and face in its refreshing tide, when the same little man who had accosted him on the rocks came up to him with his ebony pole, and hooking him by the collar of his jacket, threw him backwards on the turf. Brass jumped up in a great rage, and clenched his fists. "Don't be in a passion," said the little man; "instead of that, you ought to be much obliged to me, for I have prevented you from drinking of the Leaden Waters, which would have retarded your footsteps, and caused you to be too late to set out with Prince Diamond." head. "But I am dying of thirst," said Brass. "One must endure some hardships in the pursuit of what is desirable. Look at that tiny cloud above your In a couple of hours it will have covered the sky, and will come down in torrents, then hold your hat to catch the refreshing shower, and you will not need to drink of this fatal stream, as you will overtake the Prince before to-morrow evening." The little man hobbled off, leaving Brass on the edge of the brook. The boy extended his weary limbs upon the flowers that were spread like a brilliant carpet beneath his feet, and fell fast asleep. In his sleep he dreamed of going to a grand banquet, and drinking cider and champagne; and the dream made him so thirsty that he awoke in a frenzy, and bending over the water, drank deeply. No sooner had he done this than he remembered the counsel of the queer little man, but he tried to persuade himself that it was all malice. So plucking up a bold spirit, he set himself to climb the rocks at the source of the stream; and jumping from one to another, soon found himself on the other side, in the direct path for Prince Diamond's camp. But the exertion had accelerated the effect of the water, and with all his determination the boy made but little way. The morrow evening came, and Brass was toiling up a steep ascent just as the sun was sinking. The lead in his limbs cause him to falter and pause more than once; but at length he gained the top of the hill, and there a glorious sight opened upon him. Almost at his feet extended the ocean, and along its shores marched a gay troop, with trumpets sounding and banners flying, in the direction of a fleet that lay anchored near the shore. Brass's heart sank within him; the wind had changed, and Prince Diamond's troops were about to embark. He could distinguish the Prince himself at the head of his men, clothed in armour that reflected the rays of the sun in every prismatic tint. Brass feebly stretched out his arms, and waved his cap, and hallooed after them as well as he was able, but in vain; company by company they filled the boats, and rowed towards the ships; and just as the fleet weighed anchor, Brass reached the shore. We shall leave him standing there, alone and desolate in the twilight, and return to Lead and little Iron, of whom my young readers shall hear more in another "Lesson." CHEERFULNESS IN CHILDHOOD. I may be permitted for a moment to urge the high importance of preserving in children a cheerful and happy state of temper, by indulging them in the various pleasures and diversions suited to their years. Those who are themselves, either from age or temperament, grave and sober, will not unfrequently attempt to cultivate a similar disposition in children. Such, however, is in manifest violation of the laws of the youthful constitution. Each period of life has its distinctive character and enjoyments, and gravity and sedateness, which fond parents commonly call manliness, appear to me quite as inconsistent and unbecoming in the character of childhood, as puerile levity in that of age. The young, if unwisely restrained in their appropriate amusements, or too much confined to the society of what are termed serious people, may experience, in consequence, such a dejection of spirits as to occasion a sensible injury to their health. And it should furthermore be considered, that the sports and gaieties of happy childhood call forth those various muscular actions, as laughing, shouting, running, jumping, &c., which are, in early life, so absolutely essential to the healthful development of the different bodily organs. Again, children, when exposed to neglect and unkind treatment, (for to such they are far more sensible than we are prone to suspect), will not unusually grow sad and spiritless, their stomach, bowels, and nervous system becoming enfeebled and deranged; and various other painful infirmities, and even premature decay, may sometimes owe their origin to such unhappy source.- Sweetser's Mental Hygiene. EVERYBODY THINKS OF SELF FIRST! We see how every man in the world has his own private griefs and business, by which he is more cast down or occupied than by the affairs or sorrows of any other person. How lonely we are in the world; how selfish and secret, everybody! You and your wife have pressed the same pillow for forty years, and fancy yourselves united. Psha! does she cry out when you have got the gout, or do you lie awake when she has got the toothache? Your artless daughter, seemingly all innocence, and devoted to her mamma and her piano-lesson, is thinking of neither, but of the young Lieutenant with whom she danced at the last ball; the honest, frank, boy, just returned from school, is secretly speculating upon the money you will give him, and the debts he owes the tart-man. The old grandmother crooning in the corner, and bound to another world within a few months, has some business and cares which are quite private and her own; very likely she is thinking of fifty years back, and that night when she made such an impression, and danced a cotillon with the Captain, before your father proposed for her; or, what a silly little over-rated creature your wife is, and how absurdly you are infatuated about her-and as for your wife-Oh, philosophic reader! answer and say-do you tell her all? Ah! sir, a distinct universe walks about under your hat and under mine-all things in nature are different to each-the woman we look at has not the same features; the dish we eat from has not the same taste to the one and the other; you and I are but a pair of infinite isolations, with some fellow-islands a little more or less near us.-Pendennis. HOW MANY? How many golden glorics have array'd Amid the mountain cloudland of the sky? How many poet-birds have sweetly sung And anthemn'd God, though with a wordless tongue? How many woods have echoed, in reply, Fair spirit-tones that thoughtless minds Have heedlessly let die? How many, oh! how many such Have thus gone fleeting by? How many silver streams have laughed their way, And all that in their path might chance to be God knows-though man cares not to know How many burdened children of the earth Must toil and work, with weary head and brain, Though they're the bulwark of that other's gain? That hath not lived in vain, How many such poor weakling sons of clay- Or drudging clerk, consumptive, weak, and pale, Yet bear their cross with patient smiles, How many, oh! how many such Are known to thee, oh God? God knows-though worlds care not to know That laugh, bloom, shine, in spite of woe. RICHES OF INTELLECT. To be perfectly free from the insults of fortune, we should arm ourselves with these reflections:-we should learn that none but intellectual possessions are what we can properly call our own-that all things from without are but borrowed-that what fortune gives us, is not ours-and whatever she gives, she can take away. DIAMOND DUST. DUTY is not only pleasant but cheap. EVERY man's actions form a centre of influences upon others; and every deed, however trivial, has some weight in determining the future destiny of the world. PATIENCE a virtue which some people think every one wants but themselves. WE should pause and consider even before we eat and drink, for that should be done with reference to eternity. Book- -a voice which may appeal to many minds ere one shall feel the music which it utters. SILENCE the applause of true and lasting impressions. THE good fruits of human life are the produce of mingled smiles and tears, as the fruits of the field require sunshine and rain. As without clouds there can be no rain, and without rain no fertility, so without sorrow there can be no tears, and without tears the heart would soon be barren. EMULATION desires to excel by noble effort; Ambition desires to be installed in the seat of honour, no matter how. THE joy that springs from the blending of hope and bright memory with present love, is a state on earth little short of Elysium. A CLOUD upon the soul shrouds and darkens the earth more than a cloud in the firmament. The spectacle is in the spectator. A MAN with the best wings for the ether needs also a pair of boots for the paving-stones. WE generally possess the good or ill qualities which we attribute to mankind. EVERY deceased friend is a magnet that draws us into another world. NATURE made precious stones, but Opinion, jewels. He who toys with Time trifles with a frozen serpent, which afterwards turns upon the hand that indulged the sport, and inflicts a deadly wound. DRESS makes the man, and the feathers are sometimes more valuable than the bird. THEY who are independent in love are generally so in everything else. If weak in this respect, they are generally weak in other respects. MEN fear death because they know it not, as children fear the dark. How rarely do we accurately weigh what we have to sacrifice against what we have to gain. How few faults are there seen by us, which we have not ourselves committed. ONE act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world. HARDSHIPS-pleasures, when they are self-imposed; intolerable grievances, when required by our duty. Do good to all, that thou mayest keep thy friends, and gain thine enemies. THERE is no hell on earth worse than being a slave tɔ suspicion. If you would not have a person deceive you, be careful not to let him know you mistrust him. THERE is a mean in all things; even virtue itself hath its stated limits; which not being strictly observed, it ceases to be virtue. It is happy enough that the same vices which impair one's fortune frequently ruin the constitution, that the one may not survive the other. Printed and Published for the Proprietor, by JOHN OWEN CLARKE, (of No. 3 Canonbury Villas, in the Parish of St. Mary, Islington, in the County of Middlesex) at his Printing Office, No. 3, Raquet Court, Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Bride, in the City of London, Saturday, August 10, 1850. CASTLE-BUILDING. THERE are many persons, with warm temperaments and vivid imaginations, who are peculiarly given to that sort of solitary, soliloquizing kind of amusement, called castlebuilding. They are generally poor sort of people, not over-blessed with any abundance of this world's goods, and often too, they are either folks who have held a better station in life, or the sons of men who have moved in a higher sphere of society, and are, therefore, apt to feel the poverty of their lot more severely than those who have always been poor, in consequence of the comparison unavoidably arising in their minds between their former prosperity and their present lowliness. [PRICE 1d. turn of his own mind, either to or from castle-building. If instead of sitting dreamily down, letting unavailing grief for the past breed extravagant hope for the future, he bestirs himself energetically, and disdaining to accept alms, prefers to earn an honest living in even the humblest capacity there is hope for him; more than hope indeed, for he will already have set his foot upon the lowest round of the ladder, and may yet climb again to the height from which he has fallen. But few, however, have the energy, the strength of mind, or the moral courage to take that course. They could have done it a few years before, but prosperity has made them old-older perhaps than even misery and poverty would have done; and adversity presses upon them like a heavy burden upon the aged, with too great a weight for them to bear up against. Their pride revolts against their positionthey cannot bear the thought of being servants where they had been masters-they are unable to bring themselves to obey where they had before commanded. It seems as though, in once rising, they had expended all their buoyancy, and like fish whose air bladders have burst, they are compelled, by their own inability to float, to remain at the bottom. The world and they part, and without shaking hands too, and they put the seal, powerful and binding as the seal of Solyman over the genii, upon their destiny, by giving themselves up to castle-building. Henceforward there is no hope for them. Just as they make a new world for themselves, they lose their mastery over the old. Just in proportion as they resign themselves to the dominions of images and shadows, they lose their mastery over realities and things; and from being brisk, active men of action, they sink into mere dreamers, and thus often kick down the broken remnants of their former fortunes. No matter how empty the purse of the castle-builder may be, how inconsiderable his station, or how small his influence, he goes on unweariedly piling up his air-supported fabrics, and adorning them with all the beauty which imagination lavishes upon the creations of the mind. The ruined merchant who once walked proudly on 'Change, and freighted ships with the wealth of every quarter of the globe, suddenly toppled from his elevation by one of those convulsions which ever and anon shake the very foundations of the commercial world, leaves his sumptuous mansion in a Square of the Ear West; sends his gigantic footman to find another master among those, whom the same turn of Fortune's wheel which brought him down has raised to the summit of prosperity; consigns his proud horses and carriages to the auctioneer, and with his wife, denuded of her feathers and her diamonds, retires to some humble lodging in an obscure quarter of the town. There he changes his smoking vianus for the cold or hashed remnants of yesterday's dinner; the portly butler, and the well fur Still, however, they have their consolation, such as it nished and glittering side-board of plate, are replaced by is; however black the world may be, it is all couleur de rose the hired slip-shod, curl-papered, unwashed maid of all in their own dream-land, and whenever they venture out work, belonging to the lodging house, with a pile of among the cold, gloomy facts and faces around them, they coarse crockery; and the beaded wine, in its crystal reser- fly back for consolation to the Utopia, where all is brightvoir, is transformed into the heavy porter and dull pewter-ness and smiles. There their power has not waned, their pot from the public house at the corner; and so perhaps he exists, mainly upon the kindness of friends who recollect his better days, till they weary of the burden, and he sinks still lower, or till another and happier chance again puts him upon the high road to wealth. The fate of a fallen man is greatly influenced by the prosperity has not faded. Both have grown up to the very topmost point of desire. The castle-builder walks again in the mart where traders congregate, and men bow more obsequiously than ever, and are only too anxious to obey his slightest caprices. His ships grow into fleets, laden with all the treasures of Peru and India, bounding over the waters, to lay their wealth at his feet. The very winds and waves, as well as the men he lives among, seem to minister to his aggrandizement. Fortunate speculations roll up his wealth almost beyond the power of calculation. Immense operations, from which millionaires would shrink in dismay, are mere trifles, which he manages as easily as the schoolboy does his hoop or top. Large, powerful companies court his alliance, and he sits at their councils dictating law with his single voice. Vast establishments, with countless clerks, rise up under his sway, as though created by a touch of the magician's wand. Imagination-the most powerful of all enchanters-heaps one extravagance upon another, and paints them brighter than reality. Fabled wealth brings none of the cares which hover around veritable Bank Stock and Three per Cents. Shadowy business has none of the troubles, losses, disappointments, and anxiety of real commerce. Everything goes "smoothly as a marriage bell." And so he goes on from higher points to higher, till, as Lord Mayor of the first city on the earth, he receives princes, peers, and potentates in his vast banquet hall; and just as he marries a fabled son to a duke's daughter, and an imaginary daughter to a reigning Prince, and endows them with gold and land enough to set up half-a-dozen small monarchs, he is roused by the slatternly servant girl opening the door to announce that the baker's man will not leave any more bread till last week's bill is paid; and sees in the pale, blank, troubled face of his poor wife, that her spare stock of cash has dwindled away till she has not sufficient left to satisfy the paltry demand. Poor fellow! the golden sunshine in which he has been just basking makes the gloom seem all the darker, and after emptying his pockets of the few shillings which linger there to make up the stipulated amount, what can he do but return again for comfort to his glorious visions, and there, in half-anhour, we shall find him. Castle-building is to him such an infatuation, as opium-smoking is to the Turk-it has become at once the pleasure and occupation of his life, and so long as he builds his castles in the air, we may be sure that he will never pile up a house upon the land. So, too, the artist, with aspirations, perhaps, beyond his talents, with notions of grace and majesty in his brain, which his hand cannot embody upon his canvas, betakes himself to castle-building. He is poor, humble, unknown, neglected by the world. His garret is at once his studio, his bedroom, his parlour, and his kitchen; his unfinished sketches are scattered on every side. A picture dealer has just refused him a sovereign for a landscape he has completed. He does not know where he shall get tomorrow's dinner, and is not quite sure that his landlord will not seize his sketches, and turn him into the street, for the month's rent he owes. What should he do? Energy would say, "Set to work, grind fresh colours, take up your brush and palette, sit down before a fresh canvas, throw into your work all the powers of your mind, bring out the resources of your knowledge, make your dreams glow upon the blank surface till they transcend the real; work and study, and be great, and rich, and famous." Yes, that is what energy would say, but few men have energy like that. That is almost superhuman energy, and our artist is but a man, and perhaps a poor one, too. Perhaps he thinks that energy might as well tell him to become Atlas, and lift the world upon his shoulders; and so he throws himself down upon the poor truckle bed, with its hard mattress, and scanty covering, and tattered, dirty, patchwork counterpane, and presses his hands upon his eyes, like one despairing; but beneath the closed eyelids come bright coloured lights, like the hues of the setting sun gleaming over an autumn forest, and then memory begins to play her pranks, and brings up before him the woodland cottage where he was born, and where his fancy was nursed; and he remembers himself a boy, sitting at the trellised porch, and sketching a glade of that same forest over which the setting sun is beaming, and the spire of the rustic church peeping in between the green and yellow tree tops, and his tender mother, wnose grave is within the shadow which that spire casts, leaning admiringly over his shoulder, and parting the thick hair from his forehead, and pressing upon his brow the soft, loving kiss, and prophesying future fame and greatness for her darling. And while the tears start out from between his eyelashes, he begins to dream, and starting again from that point, with that prophesy of glory giving the tone to his thoughts, he lives his life-but oh! how differently over again, and by very different steps to those which have led him, through difficulty and disappointment, to that garret, he mounts upwards to the companionship of the inhabitants of palaces. He wields the pencil with the hand of a Raphael; the tints of a Titian start from his brush; he achieves fame, world-wide and enduring; he sees humble pupils crowd his studio; noble paintings are in the Exhibitions, and crowds pushing to get a sight of them, and speaking admiringly the name of the artist-his name!-and he is happy. What a glorious vision! How much higher and nobler than the Mammon worship of mere wealth-the craving after power-but just as unsubstantial, false, hollow, and enervating! Such dreams go far to prevent their own realization. They are circumstances moulding the fate of the dreamer. And what is that fate? It is too dark a picture to paint. The money-seeker may go dreaming on till he sinks into the mere driveller; but the artist's or poet's mind, under such circumstances, becomes only more sensitive. To the one, castle-building is opium, dulling and blunting every sense; to the other, it is ether, wakening every nerve to fresh life. The disappointed artist, who gives himself up to such dreams, is on the high road to madness, and possibly the lunatic asylum or the coroner's inquest will end the chapter. And so, too, with most of the other relations of life. 'Tis pitiful to think that pleasure is so dangerous; but it is as well to remember that only unearned pleasure is so. We cannot say much in favour of castle-building. It is, for the most part, an indolent, enervating habit, unfitting its votary from playing his part in the game of life. It is bad alike for great men and small ones; for those who are beginning life and those who are ending it. Its utter uselessness is a strong argument against it. Its selfishness is a still stronger reason why it should not be indulged. Some will perhaps be surprised to hear castlebuilding called selfish, but it is, in its concealment, as intense a selfishness as any that stalks abroad in the sight of the world. The castle-builder is always in the foreground of his own picture, he is always the hero of his own romance, always the magician of his fairy-land, always the enjoyer of the fancied pleasures he so lavishly spreads before himself. He is the great "I" of the unreal history. It is the very egotism of selfishness. Whoever else walks, he rides; whoever else creeps, he flies; whoever else sinks, he swims. The riches of others vanish, his grow; the power of others wanes, his increases; the joys of others become griefs, his very sadness mounts into happiness; the wants of others o'ertop their means, his means are so ample that he cannot find wants to absorb them. The true castlebuilder fills all the world, he monopolizes all its power, honour, glory, admiration, fame, and wealth. He is the sole sun of the universe he creates; and he shines so brightly upon both hemispheres at once, that he puts out the light of the moon and all the stars; till he rouses up, and finds that this egotistic selfishness is what it should be-a dream; and that instead of being at the top of the tree, looking into the clouds, he is at its foot, grovelling upon the earth. That while he has been dreaming others have been working, and that he is further behind than ever. Still there are some few airy castles we should not like to lend a hand to pull down. They are so beautiful |