One is recorded of a great shoemaker, who purchased a villa upon Blackheath, to which he retired with great exultation and delightful views of promised pleasure. A summer-house was to be erected, in which our friends from Aldgate were to enjoy their refreshing pipes; fruit-trees of every kind were to be planted; the flag held out on Sundays as a signal of welcome to all old acquaintances passing that way; politics discussed, and the nation saved from almost irretrievable ruin. Alas! alas! how soon a thing when once in our possession, loses its lustre, its beauty, and its value. After the short experiment of a few months, Mr. Last began to think that something was the matter with him, though he did not know exactly what. The walk on the heath lost its interest, the views from Greenwich-hill ceased to delight, the appetite was not so good, sleep was broken, and a general low-spiritedness ensued, which began to wear a formidable appearance. A celebrated physician was sent for from the metropolis. His sagacity soon found out the cause of the malady, and prescribed a simple but certain remedy. It appeared evident to the medical gentleman, that the mischief originated in the privation of those employments for which the mind of the patient was so constituted, as to be not only the best, but alone adapted. After a minute enquiry into what hands the business, so inauspiciously quitted, had fallen, and ascertaining the practicability of the patient’s being thankfully welcomed as an occasional visitor, to give the benefit of his advice and experience, it was determined that he was regularly to go to town by the stage three times a week, to assist in “cutting out.” The experiment succeeded, and health and cheerfulness were restored. It is by no means intended to insinuate, that our retired bookseller became a victim of similar infirmities, or if he had the propensity to imbibe the miasma, he took care to guard against its pernicious effects. He continued now and then, at intervals, by way of amusement, and at the desire of friends, to dabble a little in the way of his former occupation, and was said, on some critical occasion, to have made a trip to the Continent, partly on the account of declining health, and partly to avail himself of a tempting opportunity to pick and choose, from a very select collection of rare things _in his way_. Who shall pretend to say that there was any harm in all this? But does it not serve to verify the old and homely proverb, “What is bred in the bone is never out of the flesh?” And does it not tend to prove the almost impossibility of blending the love of gain, inherent in a tradesman, with the disregard of it, which is the proud distinction of the gentleman?