"Better that than none," Chandos thought; and accepted, the offer. In a few minutes, the huge pile which a week's accumulation of the Times newspaper is sure to form in the month of January, when parliament meets early, was placed before him, and he opened the one at the top. It was six days old; but the young gentleman's eye rested first upon one of those eloquent and masterly leading articles, where all the powers of language and the acuteness of human reason, sharpened by art and use, are employed to give a peculiar view of some passing subject, in what may well be called an essay, which, if mental labour and literary merit ever obtained reward in England, would raise the writer far above the great body of those who are honoured by the crown and paid by the nation. The vigour, the subtlety, the eloquence, ay, and the wisdom of many passages captivated the mind of Chandos Winslow; but they brought a sad moral with them. He had dreamed of employing his own talents in the world of letters, of seeking fame and recompense by mental exertion. But he now asked himself--"Who is it wrote this splendid essay? What has been his reward in life? Who will ever hear of him? What will be his future fate? A man who can shake public opinion to its foundation, who can rule and command the minds of millions by the sceptre of genius, will live unhonoured but by a few, unrewarded except by the comparatively small remuneration, which even such a journal as this can afford, and die forgotten. Print calico, Chandos Winslow, twist cotton, paint portraits, feel pulses, plead causes bad and good, cut throats, do any thing but follow a course which in England is luxurious to the rich and great, thorny and stony to all else. We are a great commercial people! we are a nation of shopkeepers; and even in the distribution of honours and rewards, those who have them to dispose of expect their material pennyworth in return. Mind is nothing in Great Britain, except as it is employed upon matter." While indulging in such reveries Chandos had laid the paper down; but when they were over, he took it up again; and his eyes fell upon several other paragraphs, one after the other, till they rested upon a brief passage, copied from another journal, and headed "THE LATE DUEL." "We are happy to be able to state," it went on to say, "that Lord Overton, the sufferer in the late duel with Mr. Chandos Winslow, is proceeding rapidly towards convalescence.--Very little fever followed the extraction of the ball, and that which did supervene has quite subsided. The answer to inquiries yesterday at his lordship's house was, that he had been permitted to sit up for several hours. Under these favourable circumstances, Sir Henry d'Estragon and Mr. Winslow have returned to town, but have not yet shown themselves in public."