Old Matthew Hardcastle kept up his gaiety of heart till his last day, though that day was, to the full, as doleful as his trusty friend Paul Perkins had prognosticated it would be. Reader,—if ever it falls in your way to visit old Gainsbro', you will learn that, in the main, what I am about to relate is too true. In proportion as Matthew became helpless, people were wearied with waiting upon him; and, disgraceful to relate! the old warrior-seaman was, at length, neglected till his aged body swarmed with filth. Instead of respect, disgust was now expressed for him, by an unreasonable world. Paul Perkins' prophecy came true to the letter: the parish "worthies" came to "take care of him;" they took him to the poor-house; he was stripped stark-naked in the wash-house; and cold water was "swabbed," as he himself would have said, upon his aged body to cleanse him! Even in that moment, the brave companion of Howe and Nelson strove to keep up the gaiety of his noble heart, and once essayed his old saying, "Butter your shirt! sing"——But his aged lips quivered, and his jaws chattered with the cold,—and his bold old heart broke with the barbarous treatment he was undergoing! Oh! this is a world of wrong; and it will take a great deal of effort to right it, if ever it be righted at all. Reader! if you even think, with Paul Perkins, that the bad system under which so many groan, will, at length, fall to pieces by virtue, or rather by the vice, of its own imperfections,—is it not, still, sensible and philanthropic to be doing what little we can to hasten what we feel to be "a consummation devoutly to be wished?" DOROTHY PYECROFT'S PREACHING; OR, "CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME."