I think the Duke of Wellington has said that “no man who’s nice about religion should be a soldier!” Perhaps you never heard of this, and thought that to hunt the French out of Spain was almost quite as great as to cast out devils. “The greatest man since the time of our Saviour!” And there have been no other men, Sir James, sent into the world to pick their fellow-creatures, as I may say, out of the mud? There have been no Shakspere? No Newton? No Howard? No! Ball-cartridge has been the true manna of life; and the words “Feed my sheep” are nothing to “Make ready, present, fire!” But, Sir James, I’ve done. I know you didn’t mean what you said. No: the truth is, you’re a regular Conservative, and so--like other darkened folks--you must make an idol out of something. Rather than have none at all, you’d set up the Duke of Wellington’s bootjack. Still, among the True Blues, you overshot the mark, and must be by this time perfectly ashamed of yourself. Nevertheless, your wickedness ought not to go unpunished: and because, in a port-wine moment, you compared the Iron Duke to the Lamb of the world, I’d make you undergo a month’s penance. You should be covered all over with pipeclay, and eat parched peas off a drum-head. JUNIPER HEDGEHOG. LETTER XXII.--_To Mrs Hedgehog, New York._ DEAR GRANDMOTHER,--As I don’t think you have any liking for railways--being, like Colonel Sibthorpe, one of those folks loving the good old times when travelling was as sober a thing as a waggon and four horses could make it--I really don’t see how I’m to write you anything of a letter. There’s nobody in town, and nothing in the papers but plans of railways, that in a little time will cover all England like a large spider’s net; and, as in the net, there will be a good many flies caught and gobbled up by those who spin it. Nevertheless, though I know you don’t agree with me any more than Colonel Sibthorpe does, it is a fine sight to open the newspapers and see the railway schemes. What mountains of money they bring to the mind! And then for the wonders they’re big with--why, properly considered, aren’t they a thousand times more wonderful than anything in the “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments”? There we have a flying carriage to be brought to every man’s door! All England made to shake hands with itself in a few hours! And when London can in an hour or so go to the Land’s End for a gulp of sea air, and the Land’s End in the same time come to see the shows of London, shan’t all of us the better understand one another? shan’t we all be brought together, and made, as we ought to be, one family of? It’s coming fast, grandmother. Now pigs can travel, I don’t know how far, at a halfpenny a head, we don’t hear the talk that used to be of “the swinish multitude.” And isn’t it a fine thing--I know you don’t think so, but isn’t it--to know that all that’s been done, and all that’s to do, will be done because Englishmen have left off cutting