ry of this
country, were entirely done away with. A hare, as the law now stands,
makes many friends. Caius conciliates Titius (knowing his _gout_) with
a leash of partridges. Titius (suspecting his partiality for them)
passes them to Lucius; who in his turn, preferring his friend's relish
to his own, makes them over to Marcius; till in their ever widening
progress, and round of unconscious circum-migration, they distribute
the seeds of harmony over half a parish. We are well disposed to
this kind of sensible remembrances; and are the less apt to be taken
by those little airy tokens--inpalpable to the palate--which, under
the names of rings, lockets, keep-sakes, amuse some people's fancy
mightily. We could never away with these indigestible trifles. They
are the very kickshaws and foppery of friendship.

XII.--THAT HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY

Homes there are, we are sure, that are no homes: the home of the very
poor man, and another which we shall speak to presently. Crowded
places of cheap entertainment, and the benches of ale-houses, if they
could speak, might bear mournful testimony to the first. To them the
very poor man resorts for an image of the home, which he cannot find
at home. For a starved grate, and a scanty firing, that is not enough
to keep alive the natural heat in the fingers of so many shivering
children with their mother, he finds in the depth of winter always a
blazing hearth, and a hob to warm his pittance of beer by. Instead
of the clamours of a wife, made gaunt by famishing, he meets with
a cheerful attendance beyond the merits of the trifle which he can
afford to spend. He has companions which his home denies him, for the
very poor man has no visiters. He can look into the goings on of the
world, and speak a little to politics. At home there are no politics
stirring, but the domestic. All interests, real or imaginary, all
topics that should expand the mind of man, and connect him to a
sympathy with general existence, are crushed in the absorbing
consideration of food to be obtained for the family. Beyond the price
of bread, news is senseless and impertinent. At home there is no
larder. Here there is at least a show of plenty; and while he cooks
his lean scrap of butcher's meat before the common bars, or munches
his humbler cold viands, his relishing bread and cheese with an onion,
in a corner, where no one reflects upon his poverty, he has sight of
the substantial joint providin