A gentleman, plain, pious, and excessively virtuous (such has ever been our aversion from mentioning proper names, that we decline saying who), resident, however, in a suburban villa, with a well-mown lawn in front, and charmingly-clipped evergreens standing thereupon, a bright-yellow gravel sweep to the door, a shining weathercock on the coach-house, a large dog in the yard, an old peacock on a rail, and a couple of enormous shells on either side of the entrance steps,--a gentleman, we say, resident in such a house, having descanted upon the horrors of slavery, lighted, last Tuesday evening, his bedroom candle, and betook himself to rest, his exemplary partner having preceded him thither after family prayers. To doubt the quiescence of such a couple, to imagine that anything could ruffle their serenity, or disturb their slumbers, would be to libel the fraternity to which our excellent friend belongs. In the morning the exemplary man arose; and the first thing he did when he went down stairs, was to look into his hot-house, where he carefully examined a specimen of sugar-cane which he had planted some months previously, with a view to the cultivation of free sugar upon Dartmoor. He then sat down to breakfast with his lady. "Dear Rachel," said the exemplary man, "how excellent this free sugar is. You get this, I presume, of William Heywood?" "To be sure, my dear," replied the partner of his joys. "It is gratifying to think," said the husband, "that no slave has been flogged to produce this." Saying which, the mild and humane gentleman dropped a lump of it into a cup of chocolate, upon which excellent beverage, or the slave-labour required to cultivate it, he made no observation. "I have but one fault to find with free sugar," said the lady, sighing. "Name it," said the saint. "It is fourteen-pence a pound, my love," said his spouse, "and we can get better anywhere else for ten-pence." "That signifies little, my dear," said the saint, "provided we use nothing that has cost the slave torture." And then he blew his nose with a cotton pocket-handkerchief. "Confinement and slavery," continued the pious man, "are incompatible with humanity and feeling." Saying which, he walked up to the cage which held his lady's Jamaica parrot, and indulged the moping captive with a lump of Heywood's "free and easy." At this moment his dennett was announced, and, rising from his bamboo-chair, he proceeded to leave ten guineas with his lady for a charitable donation;--he put on his hat and gloves, and his amiable partner having attended him to the door, as he stepped into the vehicle, expressed her tender fears lest the slightness of the shafts should endanger her exemplary husband's neck. "They look very slight, dearest," said the "saint;" "but they are perfectly secure, they are made of lance-wood!"