but steers right onward, singing over his work, without bluster or self-gratulation, for very joy at having work to do. There is a keen practical insight about him, rarely combined, in these days, with his single-minded determination to do good in his generation. His eye is single, and his whole body full of light. It would indeed (writes the grocer's boy, encouraging his despondent and somewhat Werterean friend) be hangman's work to write articles one day to be forgotten to-morrow, if that were all; but you forget the comfort--the repayment. If one prejudice is overthrown, one error rendered untenable; if but one step in advance be the consequence of your articles and mine--the consequences of the labour of all true men--are we not deeply repaid? Or again, in a right noble letter to his noble mother: That money of R.'s hangs like a millstone about my neck. If I had paid it, I would never borrow again from mortal man. But do not mistake me, mother; I am not one of those men who faint and falter in the great battle of life. God has given me too strong a heart for that. I look upon earth as a place where every man is set to struggle and to work, that he may be made humble and pure-hearted, and fit for that better land for which earth is a preparation--to which earth is the gate . . . If men would but consider how little of real evil there is in all the ills of which they are so much afraid-- poverty included--there would be more virtue and happiness, and less world and Mammon-worship on earth than is. I think, mother, that to me has been given talent; and if so, that talent was given to make it useful to man. And yet there is a quiet self-respect about him withal: In my short course through life (says he in confidence to a friend at one-and-twenty), I have never feared an enemy, or failed a friend; and I live in the hope I never shall. For the rest, I have written my heart in my poems; and rude and unfinished and hasty as they are, it can be read there. ***** From seven years of age to this very hour, I have been dependent only on my own head and hands for everything--for very bread. Long years ago--ay, even in childhood--adversity made me think, and feel, and suffer; and would pride allow me, I could tell the world many a deep tragedy enacted in the heart of a poor, forgotten, uncared-for boy . . . But I thank God, that though I felt and suffered, the scathing blast neither blunted my perceptions of natural and moral beauty, nor, by withering the affections of my heart, made me a selfish man. Often when I look back I wonder how I bore the burden--how I did not end the evil day at once and for ever.