villages, were supplied with food by boats from Bonn. It was a common thing at this time to see large boats afloat half-way up two or three of the streets of Bonn, taking in bread from a baker's shop. One of the first of these bread-boats was engaged by some English residents, who rowed away forthwith to the inundated villages, plying in and out" among the roofs and chimneys and other tops of things" to distribute bread, and relieve in other ways the occupants of upper floors, or other unromantic Venetian situations. The fanatic clergy who had excited the poor to their ruinous Pilgrimage were by no means equally "prominent" on any of these occasions.

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The waters soon began to subside, and the warm sun came forth. The Rhine provinces may be said to have no season of spring: winter ends, there are a few warm clearing days, and summer begins. The steam-boats were again on the river, before the inundation was half abated, and ran close along the borders of the still half-submerged villages, in order to gratify the curiosity of passengers. In doing this, however, they produced a long surging swell, which, not being now stopped by banks, or able to expend itself over a space of shallow water, rolled in full force against the upper stories of houses, and the gradually emerging roofs and top windows of cottages, and either deluged the only habitable rooms, or fairly swept off chimneys, gable-ends, and roofings. These cool aggressions being repeated, the habitually imperturbable peasantry were roused by the emergency of the case, and declared they would fire into the next steam-boat that ran so close to the villages. The very next steam-boat, with characteristic indifference, and no sort of belief that so peaceable and stolid an animal as the peasantry of their fatherland could be really excited to any actual violence, did run in as close as the others, "to have a look"-and to the utter astonishment of all the worthy Germans on board, was actually fired upon from one of the upper windows of the village, with a musket charged with gunpowder and a sort of grape-shot of bits of brick and pebbles. The steamer that next followed kept far enough off; in fact, ran so closely along the opposite shores, that many of the inhabitants set up a shout of laughter.

-

When the inundation was quite gone, the devastation it had committed upon these poor little villages was but too visible;houses and cottages unroofed, or with the lower parts so injured that they would not be safe to live in, and required to be re-built; many cottages completely "gutted," or with only the upright posts

or piles left standing, and some had been completely swept away. It will be readily understood that these were cases of total loss; the poor people had no "insurances," nor food, nor money, nor place to lay their heads, nor clothes, nor implements of trade, craft, or husbandry. They were only saved from death by subscriptions which were raised throughout the whole of Prussia, the lists beginning with the King (though the subscriptions actually began with the merchants and other private individuals), and immediately followed by the nobility, army, merchants, English residents, and, indeed, by the principal inhabitants of all the cities and towns, according to their several means.

What must the poor people have thought of such a calamity as this inundation following their recent Pilgrimage to the Holy Coat? and what must they have thought of its healing and preserving properties, if their minds had been at liberty to think of the matter?

THE "POOR MAN'S FRIEND."

He comes, he comes, his chariot wheels
Are flashing in the sun,

And everything around reveals

Earth's gay and gilded One:

The breeze with gentler breathing steals,
The very roadway prouder feels,
The honour'd dust appears to fly

With air of stifling dignity:

The cawing rooks suspend their flight,
The gnats are dancing with delight,
And aged men, whose ragged dress,
And air of passive wretchedness,
Bespeak them sons of toil,

Bow humbly down as past them flies
The God of their admiring eyes,
The lordling of the soil!

While others on the pathway stand
With greasy hat in horny hand,
And over all there seems to dwell
A mute, but strangely mighty spell;

And on the listening ear,

The sounds that float across the plain
Condense themselves into a strain
Of voices soft and clear,
That in a tone seraphic say—
Good working folks attend,
And fit respect and homage pay,
And bless the bright and glorious day
That sends across your vulgar way

His Grace, the "Poor Man's Friend."

The "Poor Man's Friend" who sallies out
With huntsman, hound, and horn,

To waken with his Nimrod shout

The echoes of the morn:

To chase to death the savage hare,
Or seek the stalwart fox's lair,

To break the hedge, to leap the ditch,
And deem it pastime rare and rich,
In combat fierce the brush to win,
And proud as ancient Paladin,
In panoply of armour bright,
The guerdon of the gallant fight
Triumphantly to bear;

And eye with scorn each peasant vile,
As though his presence might defile,
His breathing taint the air;
Then placing to his ducal nose
The otto choice of Cashmere's rose
To bless discerning fate, that he
Belongs to no such pottery,

Such coarse unsightly clay,
For common use alone designed,
A mere machine without a mind,
The pipkin of the day:

A thing when lords are flitting by
With meekest grace to bend,
Created but to steal and lie,

To groan and sweat, to starve and die,

To dress his soul in livery,

And serve the "Poor Man's Friend."

The "Poor Man's Friend," the best of friends, A friend when others fail;

For he the starving poacher sends

To banquet in a jail :

To herd with wretches cursed and bann'd
The very offal of the land,

The living plague-spots that infect

The earth with princely mansions deck'd,
Who still retain their felon maws,
Despite the wise and lenient laws,
And beg with brazen hardihood-
Yes, absolutely beg the food.
Their labour cannot win:
Away with them, our jails were made
For such an outcast pauper grade,
In with the wretches, in.

To bless the crust by jailers giv'n

As though 'twere manna sent from heaven,
While he, the "Poor Man's Friend," may glide
Through royal rooms, with honest pride,
An angel in disguise,

So deck'd with stars, the gazer might
Imagine he had left his bright
Apartments in the skies:

And that to earth alone he came
A grace to earth to lend,

And give that most serene and tame
And meek and modest maiden, Fame,
A chance to trumpet forth his name,
And shout "The Poor Man's Friend."
The "Poor Man's Friend" who proudly stands
Where gather'd densely round

The lords of funds, and lords of lands
With aspect most profound,
Assemble for a nation's weal,

And "learn to feel what wretches feel,"
Until their hearts with pity bleed
At contemplating pauper need,
Maintaining still their golden plan,
To bless and save their fellow man,
Which cannot fail of being right
While taxing heav'n's own blessed light
And taxing heav'n-sent food,
And building union prisons strong
To gather all the pauper throng
In one huge brotherhood,

And guarding with religious care
The sacred birds that skim the air.

And proud this velvet lord must be,
This concentrated charity,

This Moloch of the west,

A sainted thing o'er earth to roam..
A lump of living honeycomb,
All blessing and all blest:

His name through every heart must steal,
And peace and comfort send
To happy Englishmen, who feel
A grateful throb at every meal,
And night and morning humbly kneel
And bless the "Poor Man's Friend."

PINE APPLE SHOT!

A FACT AND A FANCY..

BY PAUL BELL.

Give every man his dessert, and who shall 'scape whipping?
New reading of an old Quotation.

WHAT an odd list of claims to distinction might be made out, by a person curious in the Anatomy of Gentility! Gentleman Smith, as any stage story-teller will corroborate, was wont to pride himself on never having gone down through a trap!-T' other evening I paid a visit to a couple of old neighbours, who married at maturity and were blessed by the arrival of their "olive branch" some years later. It was hard to pay the expected compliment, to such a little fat formal creature-an aged woman on two short legs, as the Mackreth's offspring. But I was not called upon; the fond mother did it herself: "A dear English child she is, Mr. Bell," said that wise woman, with a little tear of pride, "She won't learn any language but her own!" I remember the days when the relations of a man who had escaped from a French prison, gave themselves airs for many a long year on that account, till their next door neighbour's brother-in-law happened to pick up the poor Princess Charlotte's handkerchief, which, of course, snuffed out their pretensions completely and for ever. You Londoners, Sir, have no idea of what makes a Somebody, and why, in country towns. Going to and fro a good deal, as I have done of late, and remembering the things I have seen and heard, during the last forty years, however, has made me able to speak to the