THE MARCH OF MIND.

MR. JOB SPIMKINS, grocer and vestryman of Crutched-Friars, was a stout, easy, good-natured, middle-aged gentleman, who-to adopt a mercantile phrase was "well to do in the world," phrase-was and had long borne an exemplary character throughout his ward for sobriety, punctuality, civility, and all those homely but well-wearing qualities which we are apt to associate with trade. Punctuality, however, was the one leading feature of his mind, which he carried to so extravagant a height, that having formed a scale of moral duties, ne had placed it in the very front rank, side by side with honesty-or the art of driving a good

bargain-and just two above temperance, soberness and chastity. Even in his social hours, this peculiar trait of character decided his predilections; for, notwithstanding he was much given to keeping up feasts and holidays, and had a high respect for Michaelmas-Day, Christmas-Day, Twelfth-Day, New-Year's-Day, &c., yet he always expressed an indifferent opinion of Easter, because, like an Irishman's pay-day, it was seldom or never punctual. Next to this engrossing hobby was our citizen's abhorrence of poetry, an abhorrence which he extended with considerate impartiality to every branch of literature.

But Dr. Franklin's works formed an exception. He pronounced his commercial maxims to be the chefs-d'œuvre of genius, and used to set them as large text-copies for his son, when he and the school-bill came home together for the holidays from Dr. Thickskull's academy at Camberwell. But poetry-our prosaic citizen could not for the

life of him abide it. The only good thing, he used to say, he ever yet saw in verse, was the Rule of Three; and the only rhymes that had the slightest reason to recommend them, were "Thirty days hath September."

To these opinions Mrs. Spimkins, like a dutiful wife, never failed to respond, " Amen.' In per

son, this good lady was short and stoutly timbered, with a face on which lay the full sunshine of prosperity, in one broad, unvaried grin. Three children were her's: three "dear, delightful children," as their grandmother by the father's side never failed to declare, when punctually, every New-Year's-Day, she presented them each with a five-shilling-piece, wrapt up in gilt-edged notepaper. Thomas, the eldest, was a slim, sickly youth; easy, conceited, and eighteen: Martha, the second, was a maiden of more sensibility than beauty while Sophy, the youngest and sprightliest, to a considerable portion of the maternal

simper and the paternal circumference, added a fine expanse of foot, which spreading out semicircularly, like a lady's fan, at the toes, gave a peculiar weight and safety to her tread.

The habits of this amiable family were to the full as unassuming as their manners. They dined at one o'clock, with the exception of Sundays. when the discussion of roast, or boiled, was, fo fashion's sake, adjourned to five; took tea at six supped at nine; and retired to rest at ten. The Sabbath, however, was a day not less of fashion than of luxury. The young folks-Thomas, especially, who was growing,' and wanted nourishment-were then indulged with two glasses of port wine after dinner; and, at tea-time, were made happy in the privilege of a "blow out" with one or more friendly neighbours. Once every year they went half-price to the Christmas pantomimes, a memorable epoch, which never failed to deprive them of sleep, and disorganize

their nervous system for at least a fortnight beforehand. Such were the habits of the Spimkins' family, a family rich, respectable, and orderly, until the March of Mind, which our modern philosophers are striving so hard to expedite, reduced them from wealth to poverty; and, from having been the pride, compelled them to become the pity of Crutched-Friars.

Every one must remember the strange, bewildering enthusiasm excited by Sir Walter Scott's first appearance as a novelist. All the world was Scott-struck. His songs were set to music; fair hands painted fire-screens from his incidents; playwrights dramatized his heroes; and even the great Mr. Alderman Dobbs himself was so enraptured with his descriptions of Highland scenery, that he actually took an inside place in the Inverness mail, in order, as he shrewdly remarked, “to judge for himself with his own eyes❞—a feat which he would infallibly have accomplished, but for two reasons;