laughter as of yore. Thus it spends its age, and in a few years it
will become unintelligible, and then, in the dust-bin, like poor human
mortals in the grave, it will rest from all its labours. It is
impossible to estimate the benefit which such books have conferred.
How often have they loosed the chain of circumstance! What unfamiliar
tears--what unfamiliar laughter they have caused! What chivalry and
tenderness they have infused into rustic loves! Of what weary hours
they have cheated and beguiled their readers! The big, solemn
history-books are in excellent preservation; the story-books are
defaced and frayed, and their out-of-elbows, condition is their pride,
and the best justification of their existence. They are tashed, as
roses are, by being eagerly handled and smelt. I observe, too, that
the most ancient romances are not in every case the most severely worn.
It is the pace that tells in horses, men, and books. There are Nestors
wonderfully hale; there are juveniles in a state of dilapidation. One
of the youngest books, "The Old Curiosity Shop," is absolutely falling
to pieces. That book, like Italy, is possessor of the fatal gift; but
happily, in its case, every thing can be rectified ay a new edition.
We have buried warriors and poets, princes and queens, but no one of
these was followed to the grave by sincerer mourners than was Little
Nell.

Besides the itinerant lecturer, and the permanent library, we have the
Sunday sermon. These sum up the intellectual aids and furtherances of
the whole place. We have a church and a chapel, and I attend both.
The Dreamthorp people are Dissenters, for the most part; why, I never
could understand; because dissent implies a certain intellectual
effort. But Dissenters they are, and Dissenters they are likely to
remain. In an ungainly building, filled with hard gaunt pews, without
an organ, without a touch of colour in the windows, with nothing to