As soon as I wear out one snuff-box I get another--a silver one, and I, parted company long ago. My customary boxes have been _papier-maché_, plain black: for if I had any figure on the lid it was suspected to be some hidden device; an answer of direct negation was a ground of doubt, offensively expressed by an insinuating smile, or the more open rudeness of varied questions. This I could only resist by patience; but the _parlement_ excise on that virtue was more than I could afford, and therefore my choice of a black box. The last of that colour I had worn out, at a season when I was unlikely to have more than three or four visitors worth a pinch of snuff, and I then bought _this_ box, because it was two-thirds cheaper than the former, and because I approved the pictured ornament. While the tobacconist was securing my shilling, he informed me that the figure had utterly excluded it from the choice of every one who had noticed it. My selection was agreeable to him in a monied view, yet, both he, and his man, eyed the box so unkindly, that I fancied they extended their dislike to me; and I believe they did. Of the few who have seen it since, it has been favourably received by only one--my little Alice--who, at a year old, prefers it before all others for a plaything, and even accepts it as a substitute for myself, when I wish to slip away from her caresses. The elder young ones call it the “ugly old man,” but _she_ admires it, as the innocent infant, in the story-book, did the harmless snake, with whom he daily shared his bread-and-milk breakfast. I regard it as the likeness of an infirm human being, who, especially requiring comfort and protection, is doomed to neglect and insult from childhood to the grave; and all this from no self-default, but the accident of birth--as if the unpurposed cruelty of nature were a warrant for man’s perversion and wickedness. Of the individual I know nothing, save what the representation seems to tell--that he lives in the world, and is not of it. His basket, with a few pamphlets for sale, returns good, in the shape of knowledge, to evil doers, who, as regards himself, are not to be instructed. His upward look is a sign--common to these afflicted ones--of inward hope of eternal mercy, in requital for temporal injustice: besides that, and his walking-staff, he appears to have no other support on earth. The intelligence of his patient features would raise desire, were he alive and before me, to learn by what process he gained the understanding they express: his face is not more painful, and I think scarcely less wise than Locke’s, if we may trust the portrait of that philosopher. In the summer, after a leisure view of the Dulwich gallery for the first time, I found myself in the quiet parlour of a little-frequented road-side house, enjoying the recollections of a few glorious pictures in that munificent exhibition; while pondering with my box in my hand, the print