others, even when we have little to offer beyond our sympathy, and this will often be more appreciated by the unfortunate than any pecuniary assistance. If we can shew kindness when it is most needed-if we visit some forlorn, distressed, and, perhaps, forsaken being, and offer our little mite of compassion and solace, we may be enabled to afford comfort when the heart is feeling its own bitterness.

If this principle was more acted on,-if we treated all around us as our brethren,-if the injunctions so solemnly and yet so sweetly imposed upon us by our benevolent Saviour "to love each other," were followed by us all, we might then see a happy world, because we should all be endeavouring to make others so. The study of Nature is well calculated to produce these kindly feelings. It reveals the goodness of God, not only to us, but to all the works of His hands. It elevates as well as purifies our thoughts, and thus renders us more inclined to acts of kindness and charity. We learn to view with gratitude the many delightful objects which surround us, some intended for our use, and others for our gratification, and while we contemplate the many blessings thus bestowed on us, we are best disposed to practice those precepts of benevolence, which have been laid down for our guidance.

How many eat the bitter bread

Of misery, sore pierc'd by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut
Of cheerless poverty.

THOMSON.

THERE are few places which furnish so many agreeable walks and rides as the neighbourhood of Windsor. Sometimes I stroll over the uncultivated heaths, on the borders of which may be seen some solitary low and roughly thatched cottages, inhabited by Broom Cutters; a rude and somewhat savage race of beings, discontented with the various enclosures which have taken place in their neighbourhood, over which they and their ancestors have roamed time immemorial, collecting heath and fuel, and their geese feeding on the patches of grass, which here and there were found amongst the furze and heather. They are indeed a curious race, and it is impossible to talk with them without discovering how distinct they are from the fine character of industrious English labourers, a class of men who perhaps have not their equal in the world. The broom-cutter seldom makes his appearance in the day-time. He roams about in the evening and night, cutting heath on the property of others, and generally attended by a rag

ged shoeless boy, and a half starved mongrel dog, which may now and then be useful in enabling him to snare a hare or rabbit. I was returning homewards one evening and fell in with this group. The face of the man was hollow and careworn, and somewhat grim,- his eyes appeared little better than blanks, and deep sunk in his head, but overthatched with a white bushy brow - his nose was long and thin, and his jaws like those of a skeleton, but grizzled over with a stubborn beard of a fortnight's growth. The boy was as ragged as he could well be, but shewed evident marks of cunning and roguery in his countenance. The dog was the very personification of a pickle, and after sniffing at my legs, much to my discomfiture, uttered a growl, and retreated behind his master, eying me, however, all the time with any thing but a complacent look.

I have always found that the best way of getting into conversation, with the sort of person I have attempted to describe, was by appearing to take an interest in his apparently forlorn condition. The man seemed an exile from common sympathy, and one of those beings whom drudgery, and privation had left nothing to fear, and nothing to hope for. He complained of his altered condition since the enclosures, and how difficult he found it to maintain his family. He did not attempt to conceal the sort of life he lead,-half thief and half

poacher, or his utter recklessness of the consequence. I am much afraid that these characters are but too common on the borders of extensive heaths and forests, where poaching affords a precarious existence, and leads eventually to almost every other vice. Burnings, robberies and various depredations are committed by these outcasts of society, who are in as great a state of ignorance, with respect to religion as it is possible to conceive human beings to be.

Some of the wives and mothers of this class of men frequently make dupes of simple minded country girls, by pretending to tell their fortunes, or the fate of their lovers. In these enlightened times, it might be thought that superstition had been exploded, and that the reign of witches was at an end, but this is far from being the case. An observant Clergyman and Naturalist in Suffolk states, that in numerous cottages in almost every village in that country, a folded sheet is to be found containing the fabulous description of our Saviour's person, together with the letter of Lentulus describing him, which, with a few prayers and superstitious verses attached, is supposed to be a preservative against danger or evil influence. This sheet of paper is sometimes pasted on the cottage walls, and sometimes carried in the pocket, and is brought to the villages by the travelling pedlars. My informant, stated that he had been offered

one by some of the female peasantry, when they heard he was setting out on a journey. They may now and then be seen pinned to the head of their beds. It is to be hoped, that this superstition will disappear before the spread of religious instruction, and the unwearied endeavours of our excellent clergy to enlighten the minds of their poorer neighbours.