MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 401 



at all, for they only spit on the ground at the smell of you and say, Get away ! 

 these you must avoid altogether." 



" She gave him similar instructions respecting the principal conspicuous 

 characters of mankind, and finally made Bilberry thank her for her seasonable 

 advice. Afterwards she informed him that as people had grown so stingy 

 and uncharitable, it was almost impossible to live amongst them in a common 

 way, it would be well, now he had arrived at years sufficient to enable him to 

 distinguish between stealing a thing and finding it, if, in addition to all the 

 rest, he was to be continually on the look out for what he could find. ' In 

 this world,' she observed, 'nothing is more certain ; it is of full change, and 

 people are always losing something. If we could but find every thing that is 

 lost, I should bid good-bye to this basket : but things cannot be found, if 

 people do not look for them ?' She then told him it would not be amiss, if, 

 when he chanced to alight by mere accident upon any little matter left by the 

 washerwomen on the hedges or the grass, which after being washed and 

 brought out to dry, was not worth carrying home again, he should be sure to 

 put it into his pocket for her, as she could make many of those little worthless 

 matters come in, though every body else turned up their noses at them : at 

 the same time, with the most considerate caution, she warned him not to take 

 up the least trifle if any body observed him, because the world was such a 

 wicked place for judging by appearances and putting the worst construction 

 upon people's actions ; and therefore, he being but a ragged boy, they would 

 be certain to construe it into robbery." 



The sage adviser gives further hints about preventing eggs from going rotten 

 and getting wasted, about putting lamed fowls out of their raiser^ . about re- 

 lieving milch-cows of their burthen when full of milk, &c., for which the lady 

 would undoubtedly deserve some handsome reward from the Society for Pre- 

 venting Cruelty to Animals. Of course, in consequence of these wise instruc- 

 tions, the more Bilberry saw and understood of his mother, the more he 

 admired her excellences and became fixed in his resolve to follow her advice 

 as far as he was able in every thing. 



The various adventures through which Bilberry passes are especially droll, 

 however much our own inclinations are opposed to that mode of life. We be- 

 lieve moreover, if that be any praise, that the author writes not from mere 

 hear-say : the work gives evidence that he has himself been a witness of many 

 of the scenes here depicted. These volumes, then, have the guarantee of pro- 

 bability and truth. Besides this, the author is not deficient in his knowledge 

 of provincial manners ; and we cannot avoid the temptation of giving to our 

 readers another specimen (as an offset for what we consider to be a very ob- 

 jectionable portion of the work before us.) 



" Blunt was a regular English churchman of the right old farmerish religion ; 

 that is he held the Sabbath as a kind of weekly scraper, on which to free the 

 soul from the dirt of the last six days' sin. He went to church with his men 

 in the morning ; he had the Bible read to both men and maids for the exact 

 space of an hour in the afternoon ; and after that they were free to gossip, 

 sleep, or go a-courting, as best suited their inclinations, till six o'clock. Even- 

 ing service he made them all attend together; while he himself either rambled 

 about his homestead to look after things a little, putting a flake into the gap 

 of a broken fence, or giving the neglected waggon-wheels an occasional lick 

 of grease ; or else he smoked a pipe, and drank his own ale, always out of a 

 silver tankard, until his nose grew ripe, and he slided into a nap to conclude 

 with. In doing thus, he believed he fulfilled the main scope of religion ; he 

 put it like his best coat,"on and off with the day ; and for the rest of the week 

 he violated some half-dozen of the ten commandments with the most Christian 

 confidence and indifference. Besides this, he was in other respects an odd 

 man. He made his memorandums of business, and chalked up the majority 

 of his accounts, inside his sheds, stables, and on the walls all about his farm- 



