Produced by Bryan Ness, Katie Hernandez and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) WISE SAWS AND MODERN INSTANCES. VOL. II. LONDON: Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE, New-Street-Square. WISE SAWS AND MODERN INSTANCES. BY THOMAS COOPER, THE CHARTIST, AUTHOR OF "THE PURGATORY OF SUICIDES." IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: PRINTED FOR JEREMIAH HOW, 209. PICCADILLY. 1845. CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. PAGE THE OLD CORPORATION 7 NED WILCOM; A STORY OF A FATHER'S SACRIFICE OF HIS CHILD AT THE SHRINE OF MAMMON 25 LONDON 'VENTURE; OR, THE OLD STORY OVER AGAIN 42 THE LAD WHO FELT LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER 60 THE INTELLECTUAL LEVER THAT LACKED A FULCRUM 84 NICHOLAS NIXON, "GENTLEMAN," WHO COULD NOT UNDERSTAND WHY, BUT WHO KNEW "IT WAS SO" 111 SIGNS OF THE TIMES; OR, ONE PARSON AND TWO CLERKS 123 DAME DEBORAH THRUMPKINSON, AND HER ORPHAN APPRENTICE, JOE 150 TOBY LACKPENNY THE PHILOSOPHICAL: A DEVOTEE OF THE MARVELLOUS 204 THE OLD CORPORATION. Those words "odd," and "singular," and "eccentric," what odd, singular, eccentric sort of words they are, reader! How often they mean nothing,--being thrown out, as descriptions of character, by drivelling Ignorance, who scrapes them up as the dregs,--the mere siftings left at the bottom of his vocabulary, when he has expended his scant collection of more definite images-in-syllables. And how much more often are they affixed to the memories of the living or dead, who have been real brothers among men, and have thus earned these epithets from jaundiced envy, or guilty selfishness, or heartless pride and tyranny. How little it commends to us, either our common nature, or such corrupt fashioning as ages of wrong have given it, that, if we would become acquainted with a truly good man,--a being to love and to knit the heart unto,--we must seek for him among the class of character which the world--woe worth it!--calls "odd," or "singular," or "eccentric!"