(To be continued.)

"WHERE shall we go first ?"

The question was put by one of my companions as we entered the eastern end of Princes Street, Lambeth. The reader shall be told on what business; but we warn him that he will not find the story a very attractive one, unless the facts we have to mention, or facts similar to them, have impressed him with their importance before now. He is very likely one of that preponderating class of readers who expect their magazine to be merely amusing. If so, we must ask him to forgive us for devoting a portion of our space to a serious subject, and he will find the entertainment he has a right to expect by turning to another page. Our present mood is a sad one, for we have been compelled to think of the frightful contrasts presented by the civilization of the age. On the other hand, mary, we are sure, will sympathize with the object we have in view, and, without the need of a hint from us

Feel for the wrongs to universal ken
Daily exposed, woe that unshrouded lies;
And seek the sufferer in his darkest den,
Whether conducted to the spot by sighs
And moanings, or he dwells (as if the wren
Taught him concealment) hidden from all eyes,
In silence and the awful modesties
Of scrrow-feel for all, as Brother Men!

To such we are sure no apology is necessary for the attempts we shall make from time to time to impress our readers with the reality of the misery of which many of them may be but vaguely informed, and to give publicity to the means, of whatever kind, that may be suggested for its removal. "It is pretty generally confessed," Professor Kingsley once observed, "that we possess sanitary knowledge (could we but apply it) to exterminate pestilence, and probably most forms of zymotic disease; that we could make our cities very nearly as healthy as the country; could considerably lengthen the average of human life; and could bring up the rising generation under circumstances almost certain to produce the highest health and vigour. But it is confessed, on the other hand, that though we know how to do all this, we are not doing it!" The truth is, the public conscience is not yet sufficiently aroused to the sin and shame of this neglected duty. Men do not yet realize the truth that a wrong done to one is done to all; and that vice and misery can no more fester with safety to the community, in one part of the social body, than a mortification can exist in any part of the material frame without endangering life. To make the majority of men really sensible of this may not be easy, but at least the thing should be attempted; and to this end it is of the

highest importance that facts, of which all know by hearsay, should be impressed upon us by the force of experience. Let us really see these lairs in which the people live so unwholesomely; the cellars, and garrets, and small overcrowded rooms in which the poor workers are huddled together, living and dying with less material comfort about them than humanity would afford to the brutes. Let us see this hard sordid fact with our own eyes; let us stretch forth our hands, and feel the loathsome thing from which we have hitherto shrunk, half in abhorrence, half in unbelief; and let us try if we cannot, by some word spoken in time, however weak, some additional bit of testimony, however small, contribute to its amelioration. We had reached the eastern end of Princes Street, and having conferred together a few moments, continued our walk until we arrived at the corner of Eagle and Child Court, on the right, leading through from Princes Street to Fore Street. My guide pointed to a structure of dilapidated lath and plaster and broken boards, called by courtesy a house, in which he told me six families resided, numbering in all about thirty-five persons. It looked as if a vigorous push would convert the whole affair into a heap of rubbish. One would have pitied a starved cat had it sought shelter in such a den. Half doubtingly, I first looked at my friend and then slowly followed him, wishing, as we went, that he had the gift of Le Sage's demon, and could lift the roof and walls like the crust of a pie. Wanting this magical power, we had to grope our way through the fætid gloom as we best could. Foetid" is a very mild expression, for at the entrance a drain had been opened, communicating with a closet just within the door (common to the whole household), from which a

loathsome smell ascended and filled the entire habitation.

In the room we first entered a family of six persons resided-and when we speak of "residence" in these places, it must be remembered the term includes living, sleeping, cooking, washing, and the entire economy of the family; the only place besides to which the poor creatures have access being the foul staircase, and we can hardly say the fouler-street. In another room the number of persons condemned to this state of sordid misery was seven. The father of these children sold watercresses, and the tub to wash them in was one of the most conspicuous articles of furniture in the room. A third apartment was occupied by a woman whose husband had been seized with cholera, but had recovered in spite of all that might have been predicted to the contrary. A fourth-but here I am ashamed to confess that I hesitated to explore further these foul recesses. The confined atmosphere, and the horrid smell which ascended from below, and pervaded the house in every part, had already brought on a feeling of nausea, and I gladly descended into the court. A crowd of melancholy thoughts pursued each other through my brain. What was I, that these miseries should not touch me? and what were these poor wretches, that I should fly from their presence as from a pestilence ?" I thought of the streets, almost within view, crowded with palaces, in contrast with these hovels, and of the lordly men and queenly women who throng their halls; but these were too remote in their grandeur to make the contrast affecting. The picture of a happy fireside in humble life was more to the purpose the children climbing their father's knees, and the babe nestling in its mother's arms. Were such scenes ever witnessed in these repulsive abodes? Possibly so, for here, too, "Man's image, loved so well, though so distorted," is still faintly visible, and many of the children's faces have still a lingering beauty about them which even dirt and wretchedness cannot altogether obliterate.

A house at the Fore Street end of the court next invited our attention. My guide might have said, as

Thy countenance a little as before,

That thou may'st closely with thy vision reach
That unclean slut, with ringlets tumbled o'er,
Now standing up, now lolling on one side,

Her flesh, with dirty nails, who scratches sore! She came forward, grinning through the dirt which almost hid her features; and lolling, now this side, now that, as we talked to her, she looked the very picture of squalid contentment and good nature. The best rag she had (the remains of a smart printed muslin) was hung up to dry between the window and the heap of rubbish called a bed, on which her baby lay. In answer to a question, she said the baby was very well, "at least ways, as well as it could be;" and "she had nowheres else to hang her washing out.' I could not prevent my eye from wandering uneasily round the dirty and dilapidated walls and ceiling, until it rested on large patches of a yellowish mouldy paste, which had the appearance of some loathsome skin disease breaking out in the plaster. I called the woman's attention to it, when, drawing the ragged garment she wore across her bosom with her left hand, she grinned more broadly than before, and, with a swing of her right arm, made the sign of tippling, and with a comic look pointed above. This little bit of pantomime was meant to inform me that a woman who lives overhead occasionally gets drunk, and as she vomits on the dilapidated floor, and is not the least careful in other respects, the ceiling is soaked with filth. 'As for the landlord, bless yer, he'll do nothing." Turning to go, I remarked how pleasant it was to see her so cheerful in the midst of her troubles. "Lor, Sir," she replied, with another loll and a grin, "it's no good as I knows of being any other ways; and you see I only pays one-and-six a week, so what can I expect!"

The adjoining, or back room, not more than eight feet square, and six and a half feet high, contained a family of six, father, mother, and four children. “Oh, Sir! he's very ill," said the poor woman, in answer to the inquiry of the kind-hearted missionary; who then whispered to me, "Her husband has been lying ill some time." The bed on which the poor man lay was not at first visible. It was at the back part of the room, hidden by chairs, on which various rags were hung. The invalid was slumbering uneasily. Not willing that he should be disturbed, we silently withdrew.

The

We visited but one of the upper rooms in this house. It also contained a family of six-the mother a drunkard, the father a hard-working man. only furniture consisted of an old form, about thirty inches long, a small table, and a box, for the whole of which it is very doubtful if a broker in "The Cut" would have given half-a-crown. The poor children were all but naked, and very dirty. Mother was out,' and they were minding the place. It made one's heart ache to leave them in such a den-the "loving bonds of Nature's social ties" all wanting, and the poor children more helpless in their misery than the young savages who run wild in their native forests.

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Descending again into the street we continued our walk westward, and in a few moments arrived at the corner of a turning to the left, called York Wharf. The general aspect of the place is represented in our engraving; but immediately after this sketch was taken the fronts of the houses were whitewashed, and are now perhaps a shade less squalid and picturesque. The inhabitants here pride themselves on the tradition that one of the old wooden houses was the residence of Jack Sheppard! Is there not, in this fact alone, a world of sad suggestiveness? (To be continued.)

THE BRAVE SHEPHERD.

A TRUE STORY OF THE AUSTRALIAN DUSH.

SOME years ago two men, Charles Storey and Edward Ladbury, had charge of an outlying sheep-station, belonging to Mr. John Hassall, a wealthy Australian squatter. The first named was the shepherd, the second the hutkeeper. Their hut stood in the midst of a scene of primitive nature. Except the folds for the flocks, there were no enclosures of any description. The country was an open expanse of grass, with a few undulations dotted sparsely with evergreen trees, mostly of the stringy-bark species. The walls of the hut were built of rough stakes, with mud and reeds between them; other long poles formed the roof, which was covered with rushes. The fire-place was constructed of stones collected from the neighbourhood, and in this the men baked their daily damper, composed of flour and water and salt, and boiled their kettle of tea. Their stores consisted of salt beef and pork, flour and rice in casks, a chest of tea, some sugar and raisins, and a few other articles. Tin cups and plates, and two or three knives and forks, formed their dinner and tea service; a kettle and saucepan and gridiron were their chief cooking utensils; some rough slabs of the stringy-bark trees on tressels, ticking filled with wool, a couple of blankets, and a kangaroo-skin rug a-piece, formed their beds.

Such a life as they led, in spite of its sameness, its solitude, and danger, has its charms for many men. They were contented. May be, their early days had been spent in poverty and starvation in some crowded city, amid scenes of profligacy, squalor, and suffering. Here they enjoyed pure air, a bright sky, and abundance of food, and were removed from the temptations which had once beset them. Those who have once occupied nearly every position in life will be found among the shepherds and hut-keepers of Australia-brought to poverty either through their own faults or the faults of others. Few like to speak of their early lives. Whatever had been the position of Storey and Ladbury, they were now steadily performing their duty. Having despatched their early breakfast, the two men counted and examined the sheep as they came out of the fold, and picked out those requiring any particular treatment. Storey then started with the flock to a distant pasture.

:

Ladbury had no lack of duties. There was the fold to repair here and there, some sick sheep to doctor, the roof of the hut to patch, and a piece of garden ground, which he had wisely begun to cultivate, to attend to. His dinner was quickly despatched. His usual companion, a favourite dog, had disappeared he could not tell how, but much feared it had been bitten by a snake and had died in the bush. He lit his pipe, and smoked and thought awhile. Again he busied himself out of doors, and once more returned to the hut to prepare the evening meal for himself and his companion. He was about to hook the freshly-made dampers out of the ashes, when he heard a low moan. He listened the sound was repeated. He hurried out and looked about him. It must have been fancy, he thought, and was about to return to the hut, when the same sound again reached his ears. It came from a cluster of bushes at a little distance off. With an anxious heart he ran to the place, and there found his companion lying on the ground, bleeding from nume rous wounds, and with a spear-head still sticking in his body. Lifting Storey in his arms, he carried him to the hut and laid him on his bed.

wound, except for a short time, when he poured some warm tea down the sufferer's throat. Every moment while thus employed he expected the natives to attack the hut. He had no longer Rover to give him warning of the approach of a foe. There was little doubt that his poor dog also had been speared. The pain being soothed, Storey at length, to Ladbury's great joy, returned to consciousness, and explained that he had been attacked early in the day by natives. He had run from them after receiving several wounds, but nad been speared again half a mile or so from the hut, and had crawled the rest of the distance, till he fainted from loss of blood and the pain he was suffering.

Sad indeed was the condition of these two poor fellows, with no white man nearer than twenty miles, and no surgeon within, probably, two hundred. Night at length came on, when, as the natives never move about in the dark, they knew they were safe. But they both felt certain the attack would be renewed by daylight, and the event proved they were right. Soon after dawn Ladbury, who, overcome with fatigue, had dozed off, was startled by the sound of a spear being forced through the reed-made door of the hut. Another and another followed through the slightly formed walls. "We shall be murdered, mate, if I don't put them to flight," he exclaimed, taking his pocketknife and bill-hook, the only weapons he possessed, the first in his left hand, the other partly covered by his coat, so that it looked like a pistol. "All ready. We may never meet again in this world, so good-bye Charley; but I'll chance it." Suddenly he sprang through the doorway, shouting to the blacks,. nearly fifty of whom he saw before him, that he would shoot if they didn't run. They, scarcely daring to look at what they believed to be his pistol, after exchanging a few words with each other, to his great relief began to retire, and as he shouted louder, took to their heels.

"We are saved, Charley," he exclaimed, almost breathless with excitement. "But the niggers will be back again. Do you think you could move along if I were to help you ?"

"No, Ned, that I couldn't," answered Storey. "But do you get away. You'd easily reach Jenymungup before nightfall, and if you can bring help I know you will: if not-why my sand is pretty well run out as it is. God's will be done."

"Leave you, Charley!-that's not what I think of doing," said Ladbury, firmly. "While you have life I'll stay by you, and tend you as well as I can; so that matter is settled."

The hours passed slowly by. Ladbury cooked their food and nursed his mate as gently as a woman could have done. Night came, and at length they both slept. Ladbury was awoke by a call from Storey.

"Ned, sleep has done me good; I think I could travel if I were once on my legs," he said.

Ladbury silently made up their bedding and the few household articles they possessed into a bundle, which he hoisted on to his broad shoulders.

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Now, mate, come along," he said, lifting Storey up, and making him rest on his arm. It was two hours past midnight, and they hoped to get a good start of the blacks. But they had not proceeded many hundred yards before Storey found he had overrated his strength, and sank to the ground.

"Now, Ned, you must go," he whispered. "Save yourself; I can but die once, and you'll only lose your life if you stop to help me."

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poor Storey's feelings when he saw him disappear in the gloom of night. Death was coming sure enough. Already he repented of having urged his friend to fly. Daylight would discover him to the blacks, and they

would finish their work in revenge for the escape of his companion. Suddenly a footstep was heard. Ladbury appeared without his bundle.

"What! did you think I really was going ?" he asked, in a low voice. "You'll not beg me to leave you again, mate. Come, get on my shoulders; we'll see what I can do,"

Ladbury walked on with the wounded man on his back for half a mile or more. "Now sit down here, and I'll go back for the bundle," he said, placing him under a bush. No one but a man long accustomed to the wilds of Australia could have found his way as Ladbury did. He soon again passed Storey with their bundle on his shoulders, and once more returned for him. Thus they journeyed on till the sun rose, when they reached a stream which they well knew, having travelled about seven miles. Ladbury, however, was so completely exhausted by his exertions that he felt unable to crawl another mile, much less to carry his two burdens. Storey had again become so ill, and his wounds were so painful, that it seemed doubtful that he would survive if moved further. Though the danger was great, Ladbury resolved to camp where they were for some days, till Storey had partly recovered his strength. At last he bethought him, that though Storey could not walk, and he could no longer carry him on his shoulders, he might drag him along, should the blacks not have traced them out. He accordingly, with the aid of some sticks cut from the bush, and their bedding, formed a sleigh, which, without much difficulty, he could drag along. On this he placed the wounded man, with such provisions as remained, and recommenced his toilsome journey over the grass. He could move but slowly, and often had to make a wide circuit to avoid any copses or rocky ground which lay in his course. Even now, too, they were not safe, for the blacks, finding the hut empty, might pursue and overtake them. Still the brave Ladbury toiled on: his own strength was rapidly giving way. Once more he was obliged to halt near a stream.

The

"We must camp here to-night, mate," he said to Storey. "Perhaps to-morrow my legs will be able to move; to-day they can do no more." The night passed away in silence; the morning was ushered in with the strange sounds of the Australian bush, and the sun rose, casting a fiery heat over the plain. Storey had not moved. Ladbury looked at him, anxiously expecting to find him no longer alive. He roused up, however, and after some breakfast, again Ladbury harnessed himself to the sleigh and moved on. Often he was obliged to halt; sometimes he could move only a few hundred yards at a time; a few minutes' rest enabled him again to go on. Still the stages became shorter and the rests longer as the evening approached. He felt that he could not exist another night in the bush. station could not now be far off. A faintness was creeping over him. On, on, he went, as if in a dream. Several times he stumbled and could scarcely recover himself. A sound reached his ears; it was a dog's bark. With the conviction that help could not now be far off, his strength seemed to return. The roofs of the wood sheds and huts appeared. No one could be seen. Even then he and his friend might perish if he did not go on. It was the supper hour at the station. On he must go. He got nearer and nearer, stumbling and panting. The door of the chief hut was reached, and he sank fainting across the threshold. Every attention was paid to the two men. Ladbury soon recovered. Poor Storey was conveyed to the hospital at Albany, but so great had been the shock to his system that, in a short time, he sank under its effects.

We read of the gallant acts of our soldiers and sailors in the face of an enemy, but is there not also heroism in the character of this Australian shepherd-heroism which might never have been suspected had not circumstances occurred to draw it out?

SIR LARK AND HIS WIFE.
BY GEORGE MACDONALD.

"Good morrow, my lord!" in the sky alone,
Sang the lark, as the sun ascended his throne.
"Shine on me, my lord; I only am come,
Of all your servants, to welcome you home.
I have flown for an hour, right up, I swear,
To catch the first shine of your golden hair!"
"Must I thank you, then," said the king, "Sir Lark,
For flying so high, and hating the dark?
You ask a full cup for half a thirst:

Half is love of me, and half love to be first.
There's many a bird that makes no haste,
But waits till I come. That's as much to my taste."
And the king hid his head in a turban of cloud;
And the lark stopped singing, quite vexed and cowed.
But he flew up higher, and thought, “Anon,
The wrath of the king will be over and gone:
And his crown, shining out of the cloudy fold,
Will change my brown feathers to a glory of gold.”
So he flew, with the strength of a lark he flew.
But, as he rose, the cloud rose too;
And not a gleam of the golden hair
Came through the depth of the misty air;
Till, weary with flying, with sighing sore,
The strong sun-seeker could do no more.
His wings had had no chrism of gold,

And his feathers felt withered and worn and old;
And he sank, and quivered, and dropped like a stone.
And there on his nest, where he left her, alone,
Sat his little wife on her little eggs,
Keeping them warm with wings and legs.
Did I say alone? Ah, no such thing!
Full in her face was shining the king.

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Welcome, Sir Lark! You look tired," said he.
Up is not always the best way to me.
While you have been singing so high and away,
I have been shining to your little wife all day."
He had set his crown all about the nest,

And out of the midst shone her little brown breast;
And so glorious was she in russet gold,
That for wonder and awe Sir Lark grew cold.
He popped his head under her wing, and lay
As still as a stone, till the king was away.

From Adela Cathcart (with the Author's permission).

SHAKESPEARE'S KING JOHN.

In this play, a recent commentator remarks, Shakespeare has softened for the better the principal characters, contrary to his usual custom. His John, his Constance, his Arthur, his Philip Augustus, even his Elinor, are better people than they are found in history. To account for this, it is not sufficient to say that he did not draw directly from the sources of the chronicle; there is also the design in it that the vehicles of the political story should be merely men of ordinary stamp, who derive the motives of their actions from no deep-lying passions; men neither of a very noble nor of a very ignoble sort, but, as it is wont to be in the political world, men who act from selfishness and common interest. The soul of the play is the purpose so finely expressed in the conclusion:

This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.

A POET OF THE PEOPLE.

HE fact that a century has just passed away since the birth of the poet Bloomfield will be remarked perhaps by here and there one. The author of "The Farmer's Boy" was not a Burns or a Shakespeare that he should have his festival and his celebration ode at this distance of time. His muse was a very lowly one, and, like himself, unambitious of distinction. The simple pleasures of "Giles;" the homely virtues of "Richard and Kate;" the natural beauties around "Euston's Watered Vale;" or the impressions of an autumn ramble by "the Banks of Wye," were the themes on which he loved to meditate, leaning on his old oak table" in the garb of a working shoemaker. His poems were for the many, who demand nothing in verse of greater rarity than " 'Spring's morning smiles;" who can themselves smile-and feel it no dis

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forced him, despite his bashfulness, to show himself in society. As he himself has expressed it, he was "flung at arm's length into publicity." But all this occurred in an age of Boeotian simplicity compared with the present. Thomson had written; but Wordsworth was only beginning to write on similar themes, from that deeper insight into Nature, and with that mastery of expres sion, which threw "The Farmer's Boy," and even the charming ballad of "Richard and Kate," far back into the shade. The fact is not to be disputed that a new world of poetic culture and intellectual growth has rolled in its vast bulk between our own times and those of the shoemaker's success. But granting the fact of divergence in its fullest extent, and admitting the oldfashioned simplicity of their subject, there is still something in the poems of Bloomfield that we would not willingly let die. There is, for one thing, that thorough honesty of purpose, that innocence of all intellectual vice, in a word, that virtue of sincerity, for which a higher culture and a richer fancy are but poor substitutes. We, therefore, who address ourselves to simple folk like Bloomfield himself, as well as to those more favoured by fortune, have resolved that the author of "The Farmer's Boy" shall have his little centenary in these pages. Thousands of his simpler countrymen have found instruction and delight in his poems in bygone days, and some few of those thousands may remain who will feel nothing but pleasure that his name and merits should be recalled to their remembrance.

To use a homely phrase, which our readers will not be slow to understand, Robert Bloomfield was his "mother's boy." He inherited her features and her temperament, as we ascertained by examining an excellent likeness of the old lady in the possession of the poet's two surviving daughters, now living in Hoxton, and we