Long after “Sam Slick, the Clockmaker,” first appeared, it was by many persons referred to as a store-house of practical wisdom and common sense, and a _vade mecum_ as to the affairs of every-day life. Forty years ago an able but very eccentric Danish Governor at St. Thomas, in the West Indies, was noted far and wide for his excessive admiration for Sam Slick’s works. Whenever a very knotty point arose before him and his Council, which consisted of three persons, he used to say “We must adjourn till to-morrow. I should like to look into this point. I must see what Sam Slick has to say about it.” A traveller on reaching the most northern town in the world, Hammerfest, found that Sam Slick had been there before him, for the “Clockmaker” was a hobby and a textbook of a humorous Scotchman, who was the British consul there at that time. Judge Haliburton was very fond of youthful society; old men were too old for him, for he used to say that a large majority of men when they begin to grow old become very prosy. On the other hand, his humor and conversational powers were very attractive to young men. In illustration of this, the late Sir Fitzroy Kelly, who considered him the most agreeable talker he had ever met, used to tell of meeting him once during the shooting season, at a country house. Next morning, to his surprise, he found all the young men gathered around the Judge in the smoking room, instead of their being among the turnips. They preferred hearing Sam Slick talk to the delights of shooting. [Illustration: LIBRARY, GORDON HOUSE, ISLEWORTH.] In 1859, he consented to run for Launceston, where his friend, the Duke of Northumberland, had great influence. On his election he thanked his constituents, “in behalf of four million of British subjects on the other side of the water, who, up to the present time, had not one individual in the House of Commons through whom they might be heard.” It seems almost providential that when an advocate of the Unity of the Empire was most sorely needed, he had for a quarter of a century been writing in favor of the colonies. But for the strong public opinion as to their value among the masses, whom the popularity of his works had enabled him to reach, fanatical free-traders, in order to prevent the possibility of a return to “the Colonial System,” might have persuaded the nation to burn its ships by getting rid of its colonies. A solitary colonist at that period in the House of Commons soon found that he had fallen on evil times, and that among all classes above the mass of the people, but especially among politicians, Conservative as well as Liberal, there was a growing hostility to the colonies. “Oh! was it wise, when, for the love of gain, England forgot her sons beyond the main; Held foes as friends, and friends as foes, for they To her are dearest, who most dearly pay?”