An unhappy culprit, who combined with an innocent taste for green peas a thievish method of acquiring their usual savory accompaniment, is reported to have been addressed by an English judge in the following felicitous terms:--"Prisoner at the bar, Providence has endowed you with health and strength, _instead of which_ you go about the country stealing ducks." Providence has endowed John Arthur Roebuck, member of the Parliament of Great Britain, with fair talents and some power of speech, _instead of which_ (to use the accurate judicial ellipsis) he goes about using violent and vulgar words of menace against those who have never offended him, and scattering firebrands as if there were no gun-powder anywhere to ignite and explode. This would be a mean and mischievous occupation for the dullest man; but for one who has proved by his very failures that he is not devoid of intellect or energy, it is a monstrous perversion of mental gifts, even if they are small. A portion of the fiery heat of his nature may be traced, perhaps, to the fact that he was born at Madras; but as on the mother's side he is descended from the poet Tickell, the friend of Addison, it would not be altogether unreasonable to have expected in him some few of the amenities of the _literæ humaniores_. He soon, however, exchanged the torrid scenes of Oriental life for the snows of Canada, where he received his education; and when we remember what the bizarre oddities of his subsequent career have been, it might be interesting, if we had the materials for the purpose, to inquire what that education was. The British Provinces, however, were not deemed a sufficiently ample theatre of action for the energy of the capacious soul that dwelt in that not over-capacious body; and so, at the age of twenty-three, he repaired to England and commenced his studies for the profession of the law.