ing unfair statements and omissions, with reference to the people and their rulers; to affairs at home, and to foreign wars, particularly America, and France, and in India. This little tract is Forster's Essay on Popular Progress,' which may be relied upon as a faithful historical account. And this is the most full and concise history of Rome yet published: it is by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz, a profoundly learned, and impartial man. These will be enough for some months, if slowly and carefully read. Stay, here is a volume of the most delightful kind of intellectual gossip, equally full of instruction and amusement, unaffected sterling thought, and variety. It is called Hazlitt's Conversations with Northcote the painter.'

Harding remained silent. He sat eyeing the pile of books with a very grave countenance.

"But there is one thing," pursued Archer, "which I ought to have inquired more particularly about at the outset. I assumed that you were a thorough master of your work, as a shipwright.' “I believe I may say I am so, as far as I have to do.' "So far as you have to do. No farther?

"I do not quite understand your question, Mr. Archer." "Could you build a ship from the foundation?"

"If I had plenty of good hands under me, I could lay down a ship's keel, and build her up in a good shape, so that she would be very strong for a cargo, or for fighting, and sail well, and look handsome on the water. I should not like to say more.

66

"In the name of all the Tritons, what more is there to say?" Why, I could not say she would be made, on the whole, nor in every part, to a mathematical nicety, not to a hair's breadth or two, nor perhaps to half-an-inch. I could only use my pocketrule and a plumb-line. The rest would be matter of eye and

hand."

"Then you know nothing of mathematics or geometry?

"I do not."

"But you can work any questions in fractions and decimals?" No, I cannot."

66

"The admiralty, I hear, has issued an order that no one shall be a leading man without he can do this."

"Yes; but probably it is only done to fire up the young shavers," replied Harding, with a smile at his accidental they persevere in it, actually, I shall leave the dockyard." "What! rather than study the thing required? If this theo

pun.
"

"If

retical acquirement be useless to you as a leading man, there can be no doubt but it will be absolutely necessary to enable you to rise to the next gradation of-whatever it is."

"Inspector."

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Well, and again yet more would be required for the next above the inspectors."

"Foreman of the yard."

“And again more still, in a master-builder."

"This is all very true, Mr. Archer, as to the inspectors and foremen; but I do not wish to rise beyond a leading man." "No! why not?

"I have several reasons, sir."

"I should much like to hear them. We have talked of written books of poetry and history, which are almost equally to be ranked as dreams; the one of past events, the other of everflowing but intangible springs-and we now come to the book of things present; a mechanic's day-book."

"In the first place, Mr. Archer, when a working man rises one degree out of his own class, it increases his cares, and is a loss of independence, contentment, and happiness. It is also more difficult for him to live, especially if he should be married, because he is obliged to make an appearance that costs far more than his increased means can bear. I had some ambition for rising, once, but I got cured of it in Canada.'

"How?

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I was induced to leave my position in the Plymouth Dockyard, giving up my time and chance of a pension, to go out with a shipbuilder, who had a contract for building boats for the Greenland and Newfoundland fisheries. I was placed at the head of his boat-builders, and was to be junior partner in the concern if it succeeded. I never had so many bad thoughts in all the rest of my life put together, nor did and suffered so many little paltry things to feel ashamed of-though I could not help myself, either—as in the six months I staid at this business, managing knaves, and building hopes upon the sands. I was really not sorry when the whole concern broke up."

"But these are the pains and penalties of proprietors and speculating contractors. Why not build upon security? Why not rise at least to be an inspector, or the foreman of a yard ?"

"Because, sir, besides the necessity of keeping up an appearance beyond my means, and being at the same time looked down

500

THE DREAMER AND THE WORKER.

upon, and only tolerated by those of the middle classes, who have been born in that station to which I should have slowly clambered up-besides this, I have many new thoughts come into my head and new hopes in my heart, since I first met you in Wales, and heard you talk; and I do not intend to leave my class. If I can rise in my mind by your kind assistance and my own efforts, that shall be my But, as I was born a future aim; and my ambition shall be to help others of my class to the same advanced state of mind.

mechanic, I intend to live and die a mechanic."

"This is a new view to me, and a new thing in the world. Great men have risen among the working classes, but then they have immediately left their class, to swell the honours of the A few only of these have nobly held middle and upper classes. heart with those they have left, and used their vantage ground to assist the struggles of the suffering operatives. And you really You will escape many anxieties, no doubt; wish not to rise?

still

"Oh, sir, not only anxiety, but poverty and humiliation. Even acknowledged men of ability have suffered all this. I have read of the life of Robert Burns, the unfortunate ploughman-of Bloomfield, the half-starved shoemaker; and in our own day, with all its societies and institutes, and the men known too-of the poor weavers Thom and Prince-and heaven knows who, besides. What am I compared with these men; and look at what they brought upon themselves by leaving their class!"

"Ah, but these men were poets-or of the poet-class-workingmen who were also dreamers; and, from time immemorial, the world has starved them without one moment's misgiving. Poetry is an art that no one likes to pay for, and which therefore ought not to need payment. But the poets must live somehow, and as society does nothing to help this, they must just take their fate. But what can excuse the selfish vanity and short-sightedness of wealthy men, and patrons, in bringing poetical-minded men out of the working-classes-making lions of them for a season, and then leaving them? Of course they fall into distress. What can such men-who are only wonderful in their class, or considering their circumstances-what can such men do, in a great capital full of genius, knowledge, long-practised talent, energy, worldly needs, All this, however, applies in a far and powerful competition? less degree, or not at all, to other arts, such as painting, sculpture, and music, or to the useful arts, to learning, political literature,

and the sciences. Men, highly gifted by nature for such studies, who work perseveringly for years, succeed at last. I do not therefore see why you should not rise as Arkwright, and many others, have done—men who have risen above others by absolute, as well as comparative excellence, independent of all class considerations." "I know it has often been done, sir; even the master-builder of our dockyard rose from a working man. By-the-bye, if he understands fractions and decimals to perfection, it is as much as he does. He is no scholar, nor no mathematician he is only a master of his craft-better than the more learned ones. But, as I said before, I am determined not to go out of my class. I would not change places with him. I was born and bred an artisan, and I should not like to feel and look awkward among noblemen and gentlemen. It would take me ten years of my life to learn to behave and speak like a gentleman—that is, with ease -and I should never be able to look like one. I have hacked and hammered, and heaved and carried, too much for that. As I said, I have come to feel a new kind of ambition. If I could set a good example to my class of being much more in themselves than they are at present, I think I should do a thousand times more good by staying among them, than if I rose, as an example of how to leave them. And I never will leave them."

Archer sat ruminating some minutes; "I like all this," said he at length; "perhaps you are right. Indeed I am sure that it is at least a right thing for you to do, as you have so strongly felt it, and so well reasoned it out; and I believe, that if such a principle could be acted upon by a number of men of your class, it would do more for them than can be estimated. The workingclasses are rapidly rising, and more particularly the mechanic or artisan class, who are, comparatively, the most advanced of any other class in the world."

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How

Oh, Mr. Archer," said Harding, with an emotion quite unlike his usual manner, which was somewhat hard and self-restrained, "do not flatter the working-classes. I know you would never mislead us; but indeed you help to give us a higher opinion of ourselves, our position and prospects, than the facts warrant. many writers, men of intellect and full of the spirit of liberty, and the wish to see justice done by society and the laws to our hard work-how many say, and how constantly say, that we are the great rising class of the present time. How have we risen? Where do we stand? It seems to me, sir, that all other classes

have risen, and are rising around us, and that we should be buried alive, if it were not that they need the use of our spades for themselves.'

"You surprise me, Harding, by talking in this way. The millions are rising like a great tide that will know no ebb; the mighty shadow of the masses is already rising visibly upon the base of the lofty pyramid of hereditary power, darkening its lustre, and threatening its downfall."

"I cannot see it. A working-man's ears may hear it, but his heart cannot rejoice, because he is unable to see it. What does he really see? Excepting the best hands-the skilled artisans and craftsmen-what does he see? You tell me, sir, of the millions, and the masses-where are they? When you enter a great city you are struck by the magnificent palaces, and churches, and institutions, and theatres, and club-houses, and hotels—the large airy squares-the fine broad streets-the shining rows of shops filled with all manner of things-and by the great numbers of houses-always in splendour by day or by night. These are all for the upper and middle classes. When a gentleman at home, or a traveller abroad, has seen all this, he considers he has seen this city. Well, sir-but where are the millions we hear about? -the masses we read of? He has only seen the localities belonging to the few,' and the comparatively few. Is there another city— not so fine, nor so commodious, of course, but very much larger of course, where the many '-all these millions, these masses, reside?-their public and private work-shops, and their innumerable colonies of homes? There is another city-what a city !— not quite a city under ground, but a straggling series of holes and corners, and side-lanes, and attics, and lofts, and cellars, and nooks behind dark walls, and dung-heaps, and hovels and dens close to cess-pools and slushy passages, and all the dirty people crowded and jammed together in these family-places-far behind, and round about, and out of the sight of the city which gentlemen and travellers walk through and admire. This is the second city of all great capitals-the city kept out of sight-the unknown town within the famous town. The city with the name does not itself know anything about our place. And this unknown region of the millions and masses, bears the same relation to the city of the upper and middle classes, which the drains and sewers, with the rats, toads, and efts, bear to a splendid river with all its shipping upon it-except that the populations of the sewers work for them