After having passed an unsatisfactory hour in Mr Treherne's library, in which the only books which I cared to look at were very wisely locked up, on account of their rich binding, too beautiful to be touched, I sauntered once more through the broad streets of the city, and, in my solitary walk, philosophized upon the busy spirit of trade which pervaded them. It is at such a time and place that the quiet and observant mind is startled by the stern and settled appearance of reality and continuance which all things take. If the world were the abiding-place of man, and life eternity, such earnestness, such vigour, such intensity of purpose and of action as I saw stamped upon the harassed brows of men, would be in harmony with such a scene and destination. HERE such concentration of the glorious energies of man is mockery, delusion, and robs the human soul of--who shall say how much? Look at the stream of life pouring through the streets of commerce, from morn till night, and mark the young and old--yes, the youngest and the oldest--and discover, if you can, the expression of any thought but that of traffic and of gain, as if the aim and end of living were summed up in these. And are they? Yes, if we may trust the evidence of age, of him who creeps and totters on his way, who has told his threescore years and ten, and on the threshold of eternity has found the vanity of all things. Oh, look at him, and learn how hard it is, even at the door of death, to FEEL the mutability and nothingness of earth! Palsied he is, yet to the Exchange he daily hies, and his dull eye glistens on the mart--his ear is greedy for the sounds that come too tardily--his quick and treble voice is loud amongst the loudest. He is as quick to apprehend, as eager now to learn, as ravenous for gain, as when he trusted first an untried world. If life be truly but a shadow, and mortals but the actors in the vision, is it not marvellous that age, and wisdom, and experience build and fasten there as on a rock? Such thoughts as these engaged my mind, as I pursued my way alone, unoccupied, amongst the labouring multitude, and cast a melancholy hue on things that, to the eye external, looked bright, beautiful, and enduring. I was arrested in my meditations at length by a crowd of persons--men, women, and children--who thronged about the entrance of a spacious, well-built edifice. They were for the most part in rags, and their looks betrayed them for poor and reckless creatures all. They presented so singular a feature of the scene, contrasted so disagreeably with the solid richness and perfect finish of the building, that I stopped involuntarily, and enquired into the cause of their attendance. Before I could obtain an answer, a well-dressed and better-fed official came suddenly to the door, and bawled the name of one poor wretch, who answered it immediately, stepped from the crowd, and followed the appellant, as the latter vanished quickly from the door again. A