will not be any more gulled by this huge Gulliver. He is the Great Humbug and Deceiver, cajoling silly ones into a belief in the marvel of his arithmetic; that all the commonest things of life must be done by his mystical numbers, or will be done ill; that they must count and think of how many joints, bones, muscles, and sinews they have in their toes, before venturing their feet a single step. What is become of civilisation all this while, Eusebius? This Census, which was to tell so much, has not thrown light upon the question. Yet, perhaps, after all, it is a more simple one than you or I thought it to be. I go back to the placidity of the Chinese lady in the picture. I am now gazing on her expressive trustfulness—upon a complexion that, if there be many such, justifies the title of “Celestial Empire.” She, the feminine representative of a nation, the prized pearl of the Romance of the Porcelain Empire, the very “Gentilezza,” the embodied purity of a people’s best thoughts, the endowed growth of a perfection above nature, for so much worship as humanity may, for its improvement in civilisation, be allowed to set up in the garden of imaginary virtues, the very Goshen where grow plants and flowers, and sweet waters glide unknown to working nature, and all courting the enchanting and enchanted beauty. “L’acqua la terra in suo favor s’inchina.” Not to be tedious with you in this fancied passion, Eusebius, I come to the point I aim at. She is the emblem of civilisation, and that is feminine influence. Its ideal has beautified that porcelain world, as it will ever beautify every other where it is felt and maintained. Yes, Eusebius, civilisation, like common sense, aptly called mother-wit, comes from the mother. He who, as child and boy, loved and reverenced for all her purity, truth, and goodness, a mother, when he becomes man will ever do his part in civilising the world. From the first romance of mother’s love groweth every other romance; for romance is a noble and delicate sentiment. To propagate this is to propagate civilisation. But if any lack this reverence, from whatever cause, and would palm upon society, as better than its romance, an idle knowledge, a low spirit of calculation, an accumulation of mere facts and figures, trust him not with the secrets of your breast; all his doings tend to selfishness and rebarbarism. A mother to him is but as poor old Mrs Bounderby ignored. For my own part, Eusebius, when I see such glib statistical calculators boasting of their practical knowledge, I bethink me of the learned dog in the show, who with perseverance has acquired the trick of putting his paw upon letters and numbers, and of arithmetising required ages. Take heed to your pocket on such occasions; for though you have paid your admission-ticket, there remains the last acquirement, the last main trick to be exhibited, the going round the company with the hat in his mouth. A RUSSIAN REMINISCENCE.