genuine old ballads the references to nature are few and simple. It is only when man is unconsciously in a state of nature, or when he is in an advanced stage of culture, that he looks into nature as into a mirror, and sees all humanity and the God of humanity reflected in it. The truth was, Oliver happened to be a young man in more than in reforming zeal, and when he used Wordsworth as a weapon, he had, whether he knew it or not, a private as well as a public end in his mind, for which he burned to employ the philosophy of the chief of the Lake school. When Oliver offered himself as lecturer, he was well enough received. Mr. Fremantle and the rest of Oliver’s old patrons were positively gracious in volunteering their support. Possibly, the manner in which they had first taken up and then dropped their former _protégé_ for his fidelity to trade, had left a little compunction in their minds which rendered them all the blander when an opportunity presented itself for patronising him again without compromising their own principles; though such jars occurred, as when Mr. Wright, intending to be complimentary, suggested that Oliver might lecture in his university hood and gown, to which the future lecturer answered bluntly, he saw no good in that, he would as soon show himself in a cap and apron. The tradespeople, for once, were not offended that one of themselves should do something which all the others could not do, and which they were, therefore, generally pleased to taboo as out of their way. Happily, they regarded Oliver’s purpose as a vindication of their right to do as their customers did, to be as good as they were, nay, a deal better. Because they were the great shopkeeping class with its distinguishing virtues. The tradespeople were at once the thews and sinews and the salt of the nation. They supplied alike its necessaries and luxuries. There was ten times more capital spread over their tills and banking accounts than was to be found in the pockets and cheque-books of their professional brethren. The shopkeepers were the pillars of the pure dissenting churches. It was largely by the votes of the lower middle-class that members got into Parliament, so that it was by the shopkeepers—as they were tempted to boast, without any idea of being profane—that ‘Kings reigned, and princes dispensed justice.’ The shopkeeping ranks of England, with their vigour, their substance, their stake in the prosperity of the country, their stolid but supreme self-assertion, far excelled in power (let the world be thankful) the brute force of the great unwashed.