benevolent, solid, and satisfactory a close.

* * * * *




A WORD OR TWO OF THE OPERA-TIVE CLASSES.

BY LORGNON.


"Vai, ch'avete gl'intelletti sani,
Mirate la dottrina che s'asconde,
Sotto queste coperte, alte e profonde!"--BERNI.

In the course of social transition, professions, like dogs, have their day.
A calling honourable in one century, becomes infamous in the next; and
vocations grow obsolete, like the fashioning of our garments or figures of
speech. In barbarous communities, the strong man is king:--

"Le premier roi fut un soldat heureux."

Where human statute is beginning to prize the general weal, the legist is
of high account, and the priest paramount. Higher civilization engenders
the influence of the man of letters, the artist, the dramatist, the wit,
the poet, and the orator. Or when, with a wisdom surpassing the philosophy
of the schools, we tumble down to prose, and assume the leathern apron of
the utilitarian--the civil engineer, or operative chemist, starts up into
a colossus. Sir Humphrey Davy, and Sir Isambert Brunel, are the true