The consideration of a subject such as the present, it may lastly be remarked, possesses a phase not without some degree of consolation to minds which, if incapable of seeing ‘good in everything,’ may nevertheless believe in the adjustment and counterbalancing of most of Nature’s operations. The repression of animal life by parasites may in one sense prove a gain to nature at large, viewed from a Malthusian stand-point, although humanly considered, there may be differences of opinion regarding the applicability of the opinion to the case of man. But if the ravages of the teredo and its neighbours on the works of man are to be considered as a veritable affliction, we must not fail to think also of the service these animals render in clearing the ocean of vast masses of drift-wood, which, liberated from the mouths of all the great rivers of the world, would speedily accumulate to check navigation and impede commerce in many quarters of the world. The genius of Brunel, which discerned in the manner of the ship-worm’s burrowing the true method of excavating the tunnel associated with his name, and which thus improved engineering science by a happy thought and observation, may also be regarded as bearing testimony to the consoling fact that there exist few evils which are entirely unmixed with good. MY JOURNEY TO BRIGHTON. A few years ago, in the second week of September, I found myself, very much against my inclination, still inhaling the dusty atmosphere of my London chambers, Lincoln’s Inn. I was anxious that the suit upon which I was engaged should be ready for the commencement of the November term; it was unusually intricate; the client a man of high rank and importance, or I should not have allowed it to detain me in town after the 12th of August, at which date all the ordinary temptations had assailed me and had been resisted; and now having relinquished my favourite recreations, both grouse and partridge shooting, all my friends dispersed far and wide, and no companion left in town with whom I cared to spend the remaining weeks of the long vacation, I was quite at a loss whither to betake myself for a change, so necessary to the exhausted legal brain at that period of the year. I turned over the leaves of my _Bradshaw_ in the hope of gaining an idea, but its maddening pages left me more unsettled than ever. At last I suddenly resolved to run down to Brighton by the afternoon express, which I found would just give me time to go home for a portmanteau and make the few necessary arrangements for a short absence; one thing only being clear to my mind, that I should not stay long away.