eto I should
gladly have prattled over half a sheet more, and have discoursed on many
heroes and heroines of novels whom fond memory brings back to me. Of
these books I have been a diligent student from those early days, which
are recorded at the commencement of this little essay. Oh, delightful
novels, well remembered! Oh, novels, sweet and delicious as the
raspberry open-tarts of budding boyhood! Do I forget one night after
prayers (when we under-boys were sent to bed) lingering at my cupboard
to read one little half-page more of my dear Walter Scott--and down came
the monitor's dictionary upon my head! Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of
York, I have loved thee faithfully for forty years! Thou wert twenty
years old (say) and I but twelve, when I knew thee. At sixty odd, love,
most of the ladies of thy Orient race have lost the bloom of youth,
and bulged beyond the line of beauty; but to me thou art ever young and
fair, and I will do battle with any felon Templar who assails thy fair
name.

ON A PEAR-TREE.

A gracious reader no doubt has remarked that these humble sermons have
for subjects some little event which happens at the preacher's own gate,
or which falls under his peculiar cognizance. Once, you may remember,
we discoursed about a chalk-mark on the door. This morning Betsy, the
housemaid, comes with a frightened look, and says, "Law, mum! there's
three bricks taken out of the garden wall, and the branches broke,
and all the pears taken off the pear-tree!" Poor peaceful suburban
pear-tree! Gaol-birds have hopped about thy branches, and robbed them
of their smoky fruit. But those bricks removed; that ladder evidently
prepared, by which unknown marauders may enter and depart from my little
Englishman's castle; is not this a subject of thrilling interest,
and may it not BE CONTINUED IN A FUTURE NUMBER?--that is the terrible
question. Suppose, having escaladed the outer wall, the miscreants take
a fancy to storm the castle? Well--well! we are armed; we are numerous;
we are men of tremendous courage, who will defend our spoons with our
lives; and there are barracks close by (thank goodness!) whence, at
the noise of our shouts and firing, at least a thousand bayonets will
bristle to our rescue.

What sound is yonder? A church bell. I might go myself, but how listen
to the sermon? I am thinking of those thieves who have made a ladder of
my wall, and a prey of my pear-tree. They may be walking to church
at this m