According to the House of Commons' returns in 1815, there were no fewer than 925,439 individuals in England and Wales, being about _one-eleventh_ of the then existing population, members of _Friendly Societies_, formed for the express purpose of affording protection to the members during sickness and old age, and enabling them to subsist without resorting to the parish funds. "No such unquestionable proof of the prevalence of a spirit of providence and independence can be exhibited in any other European country." We have to add, that these must be the happiest people in the social scale. * * * * * In the year 1300, Giovanni Cimabue and Giotto, both of Florence, were the first to assert the natural dignity and originality of art, and the story of those illustrious friends is instructive and romantic. The former was a gentleman by birth and scholarship, and brought to his art a knowledge of the poetry and sculpture of Greece and Rome. The latter was _a shepherd_; when the inspiration of art fell upon him, he was watching his flocks among the hills, and his first attempts in art were to draw his sheep and goats upon rocks and stones. It happened that Cimabue, who was then high in fame, observed the sketches of the gifted shepherd; entered into conversation with him; heard from his own lips his natural notions of the dignity of art; and was so much charmed by his compositions and conversation, that he carried him to Florence, and became his close and intimate friend and associate. They found Italian painting rude in form, and without spirit and without sentiment; they let out their own hearts fully in their compositions, and to this day their works are highly esteemed for grave dignity of character, and for originality of conception. Of these great Florentines, Giotto, the shepherd, is confessedly the more eminent; in him we see the dawn, or rather the sunrise, of the fuller light of Raphael. --_For. Rev._ * * * * * A REAL HERO.