That the great majority of nobility and gentry in England are endowed with high notions of honour and independence, I thoroughly believe.  They have evidenced it lately on very important questions, and have given an example of adherence to principle, in preference to party and power, that must have astonished many of the venal and obsequious courts of Europe.  Such are the glorious effects of freedom, when infused into a constitution.  But it seems to me, that they are apt to forget the positive nature of their duties, and to fancy that their eminent privileges are only so many means of self-indulgence.  They should recollect, that in a constitution like that of England, the titled orders are intended to be as useful as they are ornamental, and it is their virtues alone that can render them both.  Their duties are divided between the sovereign and the subjects; surrounding and giving lustre and dignity to the throne, and at the same time tempering and mitigating its rays, until they are transmitted in mild and genial radiance to the people.  Born to leisure and opulence, they owe the exercise of their talents, and the expenditure of their wealth, to their native country.  They may be compared to the clouds; which, being drawn up by the sun, and elevated in the heavens, reflect and magnify his splendour; while they repay the earth, from which they derive their sustenance, by returning their treasures to its bosom in fertilizing showers.

A BACHELOR’S CONFESSIONS.

  “I’ll live a private, pensive single life.”

  —­The Collier of Croydon.

I was sitting in my room, a morning or two since, reading, when some one tapped at the door, and Master Simon entered.  He had an unusually fresh appearance; he had put on a bright green riding-coat, with a bunch of violets in the button-hole, and had the air of an old bachelor trying to rejuvenate himself.  He had not, however, his usual briskness and vivacity; but loitered about the room with somewhat of absence of manner, humming the old song—­“Go, lovely rose, tell her that wastes her time and me;” and then, leaning against the window, and looking upon the landscape, he uttered a very audible sigh.  As I had not been accustomed to see Master Simon in a pensive mood, I thought there might be some vexation preying on his mind, and I endeavoured to introduce a cheerful strain of conversation; but he was not in the vein to follow it up, and proposed that we should take a walk.

It was a beautiful morning, of that soft vernal temperature, that seems to thaw all the frost out of one’s blood, and to set all nature in a ferment.  The very fishes felt its influence; the cautious trout ventured out of his dark hole to seek his mate; the roach and the dace rose up to the surface of the brook to bask in the sunshine, and the amorous frog piped from among the rushes.  If ever an oyster can really fall in love, as has been said or sung, it must be on such a morning.