to have been withheld from illustrating the subject he has chosen, by any dread of the ill effects likely to arise from it, as indicated in that familiar couplet

"Ah me, what perils do environ

The man who meddles with cold iron!"

for, not content with the most elaborate treatment of it in its cold state, he takes it up red-hot, and employs it as much to his advantage as did our old friend Baillie Nicol Jarvie, in a never-to-be-forgotten chapter of "Rob Roy." Indeed, it may be said that he handles it with equal effect in every state in which it exists, from its first appearance in the mine, through every process it can be made to pass, to every shape it can be made to assume. It is treated historically, statistically, mechanically, and commercially, the author very judiciously tracing from the earliest times to the present, and in all iron-producing countries, its progress as a manufacture, an object of barter, and as a means of greatly assisting the knowledge and diffusion of the useful arts. every part of the globe where its application to beneficial purposes is understood, its importance cannot but be highly appreciated; but in England it has long been the great sinew of her strength and prosperity. By her superiority in mechanical skill in the use of this metal, her commerce and her arms have made her name famous in almost every part of the habitable world. The universality of the employment of iron is so manifest, especially in this country, that if any period has deserved the title of the iron age, to none could it be applied so characteristically as to the present. The seas are traversed by iron ships -the land travelled over by iron carriages upon iron roads-we have iron engines employed for nearly every mechanical purpose-water is brought along our streets by iron pipes, and all our thoroughfares illumined by means of gas conveyed to us through a similar channel. Many of our houses have iron floors and iron roofs, whilst the windows are closed with iron shutters. In short, from the gigantic steamer that crosses the Atlantic, to the smallest of ornamental shirt-buttons, this metal has become so prevalent, that the island ought to be ticketed like a laundress's window, with "ironing done here.' But the wealth and comfort arising from this state, makes it equivalent to the much more lauded advantages of the golden age; indeed, iron can assume much of the character of the more precious metal-for a ton of the former at the cost of 17. 10s. can be manufactured into the same weight of ornaments worth 55,000l. For this, and other equally interesting particulars, we must refer the reader to the able work Mr. Scrivenor has produced, which cannot but be acceptable to every mercantile man, and which ought to be attentively read by every one desirous of being acquainted with a subject of such national interest as the Iron Trade of this country.

THE

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND.

A SKETCH ON THE ROAD.

BY THE EDITOR.

"It is the Soul that sees; the outward eyes
Present the object; but the Mind descries,

And thence delight, disgust, and cool indifference rise."

CRABBE.

"A CHARMING morning, sir," remarked my own fellow-passenger in the Comet, as soon as I had settled myself in the opposite corner of

the coach.

As a matter of course and courtesy I assented; though I had certainly seen better days. It did not rain: but the weather was gloomy and the air felt raw, as it well might with a pale dim sun overhead, that seemed to have lost all power of roasting.

"Quite an Italian sky," added the Stranger, looking up at a sort of French grey coverlet that would have given a Neapolitan fancy the ague.

However I acquiesced again, but was obliged to protest against the letting down of both windows in order to admit what was called the "fresh invigorating breeze from the Surrey Hills."

To atone for this objection, however, I agreed that the coach was the best, easiest, safest, and fastest in England, and the road the most picturesque out of London. Complaisance apart, we were passing between two vegetable screens, of a colour converted by dust to a really "invisible green," and so high, that they excluded any prospect as effectually as if they had been Venetian blinds. The stranger, nevertheless, watched the monotonous fence with evident satisfaction. "No such hedges, sir, out of England."

"I believe not, sir!"

Nov.-VOL. LXIII. NO. CCLI.

U

"No, sir, quite a national feature. They are peculiar to the inclosures of our highly cultivated island. You may travel from Calais to Constantinople without the eye reposing on a similar spectacle."

"So I have understood, sir."

"Fact, sir: they are unique. And yonder is another rural picture unparalleled, I may say, in continental Europe-a meadow of rich pasture, enamelled with the indigenous daisy and a multiplicity of buttercups!"

The oddity of the phraseology made me look curiously at the speaker. A pastoral poet, thought I-but no-he was too plump and florid to belong to that famishing fraternity, and in his dress, as well as in his person, had every appearance of a man well to do in the world. He was more probably a gentleman farmer, an admirer of fine grazing-land, and perhaps delighted in a well-dressed paddock and genteel haystack of his own. But I did him injustice, or rather to his taste-which was far less exclusive-for the next scene to which he invited my attention was of a totally different character-a vast, bleak, scurfy-looking common, too barren to afford even a picking to any living creatures, except a few crows. The view, however, elicited a note of admiration from my companion :

"What an extensive prospect! Genuine, uncultivated nature-and studded with rooks!"

The stranger had now furnished me with a clue to his character; which he afterwards more amusingly unravelled. He was an Optimist; -one of those blessed beings (for they are blessed) who think that whatever is, is beautiful as well as right :-practical philosophers who make the best of everything; imaginative painters, who draw each object en beau, and deal plentifully in couleur de rose. And they are right. To be good-in spite of all the old story-books and all their old morals, is not to be happy. Still less does it result from Rank, Power, Learning, or Riches; from the single state or a double one, or even from good health or a clean conscience. The source of felicity, as the poet truly declares, is in the Mind-for like my fellow-traveller the man who has a mind to be happy will be so, on the plainest commons that nature can set before him-with or without the rooks.

In the meantime, the coach stopped-and opposite to what many a person if seated in one of its right-hand corners would have considered a very bad look out, -a muddy square space, bounded on three sides by plain brick stabling and wooden barns, with a dwarf wall, and a gate, for a foreground to the picture. In fact, a strawyard, but untenanted by any live stock, as if an Owenite plan amongst the brute creation, for living in a social parallelogram, had been abandoned. There seemed no peg here, on which to hang any eulogium; but the eye of the Optimist detected one in a moment:

"What a desirable Pond for Ducks!"

He then shifted his position to the opposite window, and with equal celerity discovered "a capital Pump! with oceans of excellent Spring Water, and a commodious handle within reach of the smallest Child!"

I wondered to myself how he would have described the foreign Fountains, where the sparkling fluid gushes from groupes of Sculpture into marble basins, and without the trouble of pumping at all, ministers

to the thirst and cleanliness of half a city. And yet I had seen some of our Travellers pass such a superb Water-work with scarcely a glance, and certainly without a syllable of notice! It is such Headless Tourists, by the way, who throng to the German Baths and consider themselves Bubbled, because, without any mind's eye at all, they do not see all the pleasant things, which were so graphically described by the Old Man or the Brunnens. For my own part I could not help thinking that I must have lost some pleasure in my own progress through life by being difficult to please.

For example, even during the present journey, whilst I had been inwardly grumbling at the weather, and yawning at the road, my fellowtraveller had been revelling in Italian skies, salubrious breezes, verdant enclosures, pastoral pictures, sympathising with wet habits and dry, and enjoying desirable duck-ponds, and parochial Pumps!

What a contrast, methought, between the cheerful contented spirit of my present companion, and the dissatisfied temper and tone of Sir W. W., with whom I once had the uncomfortable honour of travelling tête-à-tête from Leipzig to Berlin. The road, it is true, was none of the most interesting, but even the tame and flat scenery of the Lincolnshire Fens may be rendered still more wearisome by sulkily throwing yourself back in your carriage and talking of Switzerland! But Sir W. W. was far too nice to be wise-too fastidious to be happy-too critical to be contented. Whereas my present coach-fellow was not afraid to admire a commonplace inn-I forget its exact locality-but he described it as "superior to any Oriental Caravansery-and with a Sign, that in the Infancy of The Art, might have passed for a Chef d'Euvre."

Happy Man! how he must have enjoyed the Exhibitions of the Royal Academy, whereas to judge by our periodical critiques on such Works of Modern Art, there are scarcely a score out of a thousand annual Pictures that ought to give pleasure to a Connoisseur. Nay, even the Louvre has failed to satisfy some of its visitants, on the same principle that a matchless collection of Titians has been condemned for the want of a good Teniers.

But my fellow traveller was none of that breed: he had nothing in common with a certain Lady, who with half London, or at least its Londoners, had inspected Wanstead House, prior to its demolition, and on being asked for her opinion of that princely mansion, replied that it was "short of cupboards."

In fact, he soon had an opportunity of pronouncing on a Country Seat, far, very, very far inferior to the House just mentioned, and declared it to be one which "Adam himself would have chosen for a Family Residence, if Domestic Architecture had flourished in the primeval Ages."

Happy Man, again! for with what joy, and comfort, and cheerfulness, for his co-tenants, would he have inhabited the enviable dwelling; and yet, to my private knowledge, the Proprietor was one of the most miserable of his species, simply because he chose to go through life like a pug-dog-with his nose turned up at everything in the world, And, truly, flesh is grass, and beauty is dust, and gold is dross, nay, life itself but a vapour; but instead of dwelling on such disparagements, it is far wiser and happier like the florid gentleman in one

corner of the Comet, to remember that one is not a Sworn Appraiser, nor bound by oath like an Ale-Conner to think small beer of small beer.

From these reflections I was suddenly roused by the Optimist, who earnestly begged me to look out of the Window at a prospect which, though pleasing, was far from a fine cne, for either variety or ex

tent.

"There, sir, there's a Panorama! A perfect circle of enchantment! realizing the Arabia Felix of Fairy Land in the County of Kent !

"Very pretty, indeed."

"It's a gem, sir, even in our Land of Oaks-and may challenge a comparison with the most luxuriant Specimens of what the Great Gilpin calls Forest Scenery!"

"I think it may.'

"By the bye, did you ever see Scrublands, sir, in Sussex?" "Never, sir."

"Then, sir, you have yet to enjoy a romantic scene of the Sylvan Character, not to be paralleled within the limits of Geography! To describe it would require one to soar into the regions of Poetry, but I do not hesitate to say, that if the celebrated Robinson Crusoe were placed within sight of it, he would exclaim in a transport, Juan Fernandes ! "

"Then, sir, you have another splendid treat in futuro-Bragginsa delicious amalgamation of Art and Nature, a perfect Eden, sir,and the very spot, if there be one on the Terrestrial Globe, for the famous Milton to have realized his own Paradise Regained!'

In this glowing style, waxing warmer and warmer with his own descriptions, the florid gentleman painted for me a series of highlycoloured sketches of the places he had visited; each a retreat that would wonderfully have broken the fall of our first Parents, and so thickly scattered throughout the counties, that by a moderate computation our Fortunate Island contained at least a thousand "Perfect Paradises," copyhold or freehold. A pleasant contrast to the gloomy pictures which are drawn by certain desponding and agriculturallydepressed Spirits who cannot find a single Elysian Field, pasture or arable, in the same country!

In the meantime, such is the force of sympathy, the Optimist had gradually inspired me with something of his own spirit, and I began to look out for and detect unrivalled forest scenery, and perfect panoramas, and little Edens, and might in time have picked out a romantic pump, or a picturesque post,-but, alas! in the very middle of my course of Beau Idealism the coach stopped, the door opened, and with a hurried good morning the florid gentleman stepped out of the stage and into a gig which had been waiting for him at the end of a cross-road, and in another minute was driving down the lane between two of those hedges that are only seen in England.

"Well, go where thou wilt," thought I, as he disappeared behind the fence, thou art certainly the Happiest Man in England!"