574i Familiarities — £.s.d. [June, 



this sense that £. s. d. should be inscribed on tlie huts of savages and 

 stamped upon the diadem. They should be the first letters taught in 

 schools, that the earlier and better interpretation might counteract the 

 deadening effects of that which inflillibly results from a collision with 

 worldly interests. It would be well if they were engiaven on the plough- 

 share ; that the spirit which is now alive only to the labour and thank- 

 lessness of its lot, might tiirn an eye of research into the by-paths of 

 nature, and find a relief in simple and neglected sources which tlie 

 mercenary hope of profit can rarely inspire : in short, that the spindle 

 and yarn, like those of Alcithoe, might be transformed in the hours of 

 rest into a vine and ivy. It might be a measure not unworthy the 

 advocates of moral and religious emancipation, to check the deadly pre- 

 judice which has sprung up wherever these insignia of civilization have 

 appeared, by unveiling the happier and more honorable meaning to the 

 common eye. Lectures may be delivered, and volumes written, to 

 prove the excellence of one axiom and the absurdity of another ; but the 

 entire history of social kindliness and mutual distrust is open to the 

 understandings of all in the little compass of £. s. d. The fertility and 

 barrenness of that " three-nook'd world" can be seen only by contrast ; 

 and human nature will continue to ransack the caverns of earth and 

 ocean, until it be taught the intrinsic value of a flower, and be made to 

 feel the beauty of a blade of grass. Prejudice now runs in favour of 

 gold — another century may see our merchants bartering their manufac- 

 tures for roses and daffodils. Those will be days indeed when the 

 " blue-vein'd violet" passes current througli the kingdom, — when man 

 may grow his own money at his own window ; and instead of objecting 

 to the sound or impression, he may approve the odours and colours as 

 they issue from nature's mint. Thus the £. s. d. which the present ge- 

 neration is so earnest in the study of, may prove only a dull riddle to the 

 next : it will be a wise precaution, then, to attach to them an import 

 which no time can render obsolete. Let us look to the great and 

 paramount objects they may be made to indicate ; or we may find them 

 like the bird described by Spenser, that turned to a hedgehog in the 

 grasp of its pursuer. Finally, considering them in this their grandest 

 signification, it would liardly be a matter of surprise, if, as ccrtiiin signs 

 and letters have been found or fancied in the cups of flowers, some 

 future anatomist, with a little aid from imagination, should trace in 

 the veins of the human heart a resemblance to these alphabetic phe- 

 nomena. 



B. 



E r 1 G R AM 



On a Gentleman who ran his Head against a Bed-post. 



" Deuce take the post, I've broke my head !" 



Roais vehemently Dick. 

 " I give you joy," cries simpering Ned, 



" I thought it was too thick ; 

 " You've made an opening, do not grieve, 



" Although your skull be sore; 

 " For nothing ever, I believe, 



" Has entered it before." 



