314 DECEMBER. 



who never had a groat honestly acquired ; men 

 of fictitious miseries, who are most at home on 

 the road or in the lodging-house, and who live 

 upon the pity of the simple ; for them I ask no pity. 



Then there are those little, nomadic mer- 

 chants, that from every large town diverge in all 

 directions, and penetrate to every village and 

 lonely house with their wares. There is the 

 chair-bottomer, with his great sheaf of rushes on 

 his back, who, seated on the sunny side of the 

 farm-door, or under the shade of a tree, as the 

 season may require, enriches the good people 

 with news worth more than his work. There is 

 the wandering milliner, an old woman of the true 

 picturesque school, short, broad, plentiful in her 

 own attire of coat, apron, and petticoats, with 

 her strong staff in her hand, her spacious, wea- 

 ther-beaten face, and a great cage-like basket of 

 open wicker-work on her back, large enough to 

 hold herself; and beside these, sundry bearers 

 of shallow baskets of tapes, braces, laces, pins, 

 cotton-balls, and so forth. These, and occa- 

 sionally the Highland drovers with their plaids 

 and dogs, and flocks and herds, bringing with 

 them the wildness of their native moors, are all 

 very well in their way — they look well ; but 

 they are the casual wayfarers about whom 

 gathers the deepest interest. 



Of all the melancholy spectacles which every- 



