The German woman-we speak, of course, of the larger part of the women of Germany-may not feel her existing condition so much as others feel it for her, owing to habit. She is at least mistress of her own house next to her lord—all in Germany must be absolute authority; but the time will come when she must feel it, because Germany has made, and is making, such rapid advances. German woman will then, like her mother, Eve, open her eyes too suddenly upon the revelation of the knowledge of good and evil. She will see how equal rights have been withheld from her. The men will find it politic to promote a disclosure which cannot be long delayed, and to obviate its effects, abandoning their filthy habit of smoking half their time in each other's society, and theorising until reason is lost in misty speculation. Let them make women intellectual companions. No one who knows anything of Germany visits it without bearing testimony to the virtues of its inhabitants. Let them cast away the remnant of the northern leaven, yet remaining in the depression of their females as regards mental culture, and place woman where she ought to be. Already the example is visible in the states bordering upon France of the elevation of the female mind-it is to be hoped all Germany will profit by it. Everywhere let woman but feel the innate strength of her own influence, and not be slow to exert it. Even the woman-degrading dogmas of the Eldons and other Chancellors of England may this way be set at nought, unworthy as they are either of reason, humanity, or law. Let woman look to it!

T. T.

MARYLEBONE MERCY.

BEAR her forth-the earth hath one
Suff'rer less now she hath gone-
Bear her forth from that chill hearth,
Where the voice of song or mirth
Never woke ; but day by day

Cold and hunger watch'd their prey—
Watch'd their prey, while every week,
Waner grew the suff'rer's cheek;
And her thin frame, wasting slow,
Starting bones and sinews show-

NO. XXV.-VOL. V.

D

Starting through the shrunken frame,
Parch'd with fever's burning flame-
Parch'd with fever, hunger bred,
Had she better not be dead?
Foodless, fuelless, scarce was left
Of her wretched garb the weft;
And her half-clad, feeble feet,
Shiver'd in the wintry street-
Shiver'd, while the hopeless one
To the poor-house gates crept on.
Not less chill, and cold the grave,
Than the charity that gave
Stintingly its meagre dole,

Pauper's bread-for which the whole
Of the live-long day stood she

Dying of inanity.

Dying, oh! how dull must grow

Eyes inured to human woe;

Since none mark'd, what all might trace,

Want and sickness in her face.

She had work'd, and she had moil'd,
Labour'd, striven, over-toil'd,
Till disease and famine grew
Stronger than the will to do.
Then, and not till then, did she
Ask them for their charity.
There had rested on her name
No dark shadow, blight, or blame;
Honest, womanly, and meek,
Loving not her woes to speak;
Such the spotless fame that death,

Gather'd from her neighbour's breath;
But these virtues wanting gold,

Left her famish'd, naked, cold-
Cold to death, the snow-wreaths lie
Over all her misery.

But its plaining sharp and drear,
Crieth in the nation's ear;
Crieth from her pauper shroud,
From the earth to Heaven aloud!

HEADS AND TAILS OF FAMILIES.

BY PAUL BELL.

No. I. THE DISCIPLINE OF THE DABLEYS.

I PERCEIVE among the deaths of the past year, sir, the name of an old neighbour of mine, whom the world knew as a good man, and a just citizen; and myself, as one of the most active commissioners of sewers, the most punctual attendant of workhouse boards, the most eager propounder of sanatory receipts (as the jargon goes), when fever was out among the poor, that ever alighted upon the earth. "So Dabley is gone!" was my Mrs. Bell's remark; 66 why, I was thinking of him only this morning-fancying him up to the elbows in Indian meal; but eating none of the bread himself.' It is many years since he removed from our neighbourhood, though not before we had learned that Dabley at home was a perfectly different man from what Dabley represented himself to be when abroad among Hospital Doctors, and Churchwardens, and Schoolmasters, and Turnkeys.

"Neighbour Dabley —as he used to be called, by way of testimony to his substance and usefulness, I suppose-was a rich man, with a comely presence, and an address which, as Mrs. Hardcastle says of Tony Lumpkin, "could charm the bird from the tree," provided that the bird was not a very old one. Though Mrs. Bell declares I found out nothing of the kind, at the time— it was always too hearty, too cheerful, too caressing, for my taste. Were you ever so busy; in the street-on a market day-the east wind blowing, and your profligate tooth aching, Dabley would not let you pass without a shake of the hand, which you felt till the next milestone. He always found you "looking your best,"—a communication most unpleasing when you know yourself to be as bilious as a marygold-always asked after all your family, particularly recollecting your wife's mother-and used to provoke me especially, by reminding me as often as we met, of "that capital cup of tea Mrs. Bell gave us,' on an evening many years old; it being perfectly known in our house, that my valuable wife, otherwise Mrs. Peerybingle's equal, is particularly unlucky over the

kettle. Your indifferent questioner can be truly offensive. I meet with a Baronet once a quarter-on public business, sir,-who never fails to ask me, where I am living: whether I am married again: and what is my opinion of indigo; though I have told him, if once, one million of times, that I don't know the article by sight even. And in my forthcoming "Book of Ill-Breeding" (which Lady was to have edited-being competent-had she not died of too great an indulgence in the commodity) I shall not forget Sir Dutton Hardacre. But, I think that a sympathiser without sympathy is harder to bear with, than one who makes no secret of his utter neglect and want of interest. And from the time when Dabley began to take up the chimney of our dining-room as a topic, and never to forget to be sorry that it smoked so, and to recommend Mr. Monk's Cowl as an infallible cure, I began to be quite sure that all his glitter was not gold-and to be as certain as if I lived in the house that he had plenty of smoke, if not of fire, by his own fireside.

But Dabley was, in the world's eye, a pious man. Though no ascetic-being jovial, even, in his air, in the street, and at table, and after "business had been despatched," he enjoyed great renown among those of his own faith for fervent religion. "The cheerful spirit of his family devotions," (to use the language of his admirers and friends), was as familiar to the members of the Reverend Mr. Scrupler's congregation, as Dabley's handsome pew glistening with its well-varnished mahogany, and gay with its crimson and gold service books. If there were rumours of wars on the earth, he was thankful-rejoiced when pestilence broke out-grew grateful over a neighbour's broken leg-and found matter for praise in the teaching which Mr. Stackpoole's sudden and unexpected bankruptcy afforded him. Never was man so sunny, so courteous; so ample in good words and busy deeds; so largely praised by those who knew him little. Strangers wished to pass the house where such Benevolence flourished-still more to feed on the manna of his table—for Dabley maintained a rich and easy hospitality. How he escaped from passing for a Saint upon earth it may be hard to explain to those who have not studied the genus, of which, unluckily, he is not the first nor the last.

My disenchantment (not to speak of the smoky chimney interference) dated from the moment of our knowing Dabley's family -not dining with them-for then all was glossy, and luxurious, and warm, and flowing; but knowing them, at unexpected times;

and out of the routine for which every one may have rehearsed his part. We had been acquainted with the faces and the clothes of the three Miss Dableys, and the two young men, for two years, ere any of this closer intimacy was brought about. Hearty as their father seemed-never did any man keep a house so shut up, save just at his own will and pleasure. He answered for every child he had : young man and young woman. Anne Dabley was an invalid: and was always "in her room for the day, with a blinding headache," if any one wanted to call upon her. Jessie had ridden out with one of her brothers-and "it would have been such a treat for Sara an hour earlier!-Just then, her German master was with her : "—this, for my Mrs. Bell, who used to admire "how, in a house where there was no mother, a father managed so perpetually to watch over his daughters-no one but so indefatigable and excellent a man, etc., etc. For me-who am far more easily backed (as we have it in the north),-it was enough, once simply to be told that Philip was reading before he went to the University, and that Theodore was particularly fond of companions of his own age (no single soul of whom were ever seen by dweller in Halcyon Row), and I soon gave up attempting to make, either for myself or mine, closer acquaintance with young people, whose pleasant looks, and pleasant but rather pensive manners, had disposed me to venture advances.

Truth, however, will out,—at least in Halcyon Row. Had Junius lived there, and kept himself as entirely to himself as the Juniper family at No. 16 A, we should have tracked him out. Had the Man in the Iron Mask been shut up in the back-room at Mr. Dabley's, on the third floor, which had never been opened, no one could tell when, the door barred across, and the key lost (to all which facts the Le Grands were ready to swear,)—we should have known which of Her Majesty's Cousins it was, or whether it was Lord Byron come to life again!-in plain Manchester, "all about it." To this day we can never agree which of us made the discovery, that the invalid Miss Dabley was no Miss Dabley any longer, but a married woman. To whom she had been married was never clearly known. A Pole-a Roman Catholic-a ropedancer-a man of colour-a Frenchman, with a wife at Blois—a banker's clerk, who had made off to No-Man's-Land, with banknotes quilted into his waistcoat-Mr. Dabley's footman, Saul, who stood six feet three in his stockings;-it was ascertained, past doubt, in the Row, that she had united her fortunes to every one