class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[21]"/> odd, or singular, or eccentric, united in his composition some high qualities that now rise in kindly answer to the record memory gives of the bitter things spoken of him by party. He had been the "town-clerk" of the guild, and even then wielded the principal power in it, being really its master, though nominally its servant; and only laid aside the black gown and quill to don an alderman's ermined cloak, because he had become too wealthy either to desire longer to reap the salary, or undergo the fatigue and labour of his first office.

His attention to every man in whom he discerned superior ability, without regard to conventional grade, and often in defiance of its rules; his real liberality in giving aid to honest industry, wherever he found it; his munificence in assisting either the "charities" which are the just pride of old Lincoln, or any plan for presenting its citizens with amusement that combined usefulness: these were among his life-long acts. And, in spite of the keen raillery with which his shrewd penetration of character often led him to visit the vulgar conceit or affectation of some with whom his office brought him into frequent contact, all bore testimony to his intelligence and honour. Nay, although he was one who never professed any fervid sympathy with popular progress, and therefore was not likely to become a favourite with a people so strongly political as the Lincoln cits were a few years ago, yet so deeply did they regard him as a man who, by the excellence of his understanding, had done honour to their city in bearing one of its chief offices, that a general and reverential sorrow was expressed when his end approached, for it was seen, in his wasted frame and fading eye, many months before the fatal moment came.

Perhaps their knowledge of the one bitter draught that was mingled with his life's chalice, during the concluding years of his course, served greatly to soften their thoughts towards the intellectual chief of the old municipal institution, even while many of them rejoiced at the overthrow of the institution itself. His tenderly beloved and highly accomplished daughter,—his only child,—faded and died; and, therewith, the charm of life seemed broken for him. How often was this a subject of kindly-spirited converse among citizens as he passed; and how reflectingly did they note what they learnt to be his own poignant observations on that heart-rending bereavement!—his pithy and thrilling confessions that he had toiled for nothing!—that life was only a scene of disappointment!—that he had used unceasing exertion to attain wealth; but he had, now, neither "chick nor child" to leave it to! So fertile is life in affording moral nurture and correction to all hearts!—creating sympathy with the sorrowful brother, with him to whom the bitter cup is appointed; but infusing a salutary admonition, meanwhile, not to set our hearts too passionately on things of clay, lest we doom ourselves also to drink of that bitterness!——

He who was esteemed the most "odd," the most "singular," the most "eccentric" member of that Old Corporation, lingered long after its demise; and by the popularity of his character, as the only radical alderman of the Old, became a town councillor, and eventually a mayor, under the New municipal institution. How rife were the stories of his furious attacks upon the "self-elect" of the olden time!—and what a rich hue of the burlesque was thrown around the pictures that were given of him in daily conversation! Yet, who did not, in spite of his slenderness of intellect, love him for his incorruptible honesty, and, above all, for his unfailing benevolence? Oh! there was not a human being,—beggar, pauper, distressed stranger, or townsman,—who ever went from his door unrelieved; nor could he pass, in the street, a fellow-creature whose appearance led him to suppose he had found a real sufferer, but he must inquire into it, even unsolicited. The abhorrent enactments of the New Poor Law,—how he hated them!—and how staggered he felt in his reforming faith, when the "liberal" administration urged the passing of the strange Malthusian measure! "I cannot understand it!" he would exclaim, in the hearing of the numerous participants in his English hospitality; "I never thought that Reform was to make the poor more miserable, and the poorest of the poor the most miserable: it is a mystery to me! Surely it is a mistake in Lord Grey and Lord Brougham!" So the good old man thought and said; but he did not live to see the "liberal" lawmakers either correct their mistake, or acknowledge that they had made one,—though agonised thousands pealed that sad truth in their ears!

NED WILCOM;

A STORY OF A FATHER'S SACRIFICE OF HIS CHILD AT THE SHRINE OF MAMMON.

"Sirrah! you have nothing to do but to get on in the world. You may do that, if you will. The way is open for you, as it was for me; so get up to London, and try. There's twenty pounds for you: I'll give you twenty thousand, as soon as you show me one thousand of your own; but I won't give you another farthing till you prove to me that you know the value of money, and can get it yourself. And mark me, sir! if you haven't the nouse to make something out in the world, you shall live and die a beggar, for me; for I'll leave all I have to your sisters, and cut you off with a shilling. There, sir! there's your road! Good morning!"

And so saying, Mr. Ned Wilcom, senior, pushed Mr. Ned Wilcom, junior, his only son, out of his counting-house, and shut the door upon him. That was an awkward way for a rich Leeds merchant to receive a son on the completion of his apprenticeship as a draper, and at the early age of twenty. Yet it was no worse than young Ned expected. Nor did it break his heart, as it would have broken the heart of a lad who had been more tenderly nurtured. Ned Wilcom never saw his father occupied with any other thought, act, employ, or pleasure, but what pertained to money-getting; nor ever heard his father pass an encomium on any human character in his life, save on such as succeeded in piling together large fortunes from small beginnings, or enriched themselves by outwitting their neighbours. From the age of nine to sixteen, he had only seen his father twice a year—Midsummer and Christmas; and having lost his mother when a mere infant, he never knew or felt the softening influences of maternal affection. The artificial life of a boarding-school, during those seven years, infused a good deal of craft, and nearly as large a measure of heartlessness, into Ned's nature—for it was not originally of such tendencies. The master and ushers were hypocrites and tyrants, only differing in grade; and if there were a lad with a little more gentleness, humanity, and openness about him than the rest, Ned observed that he soon "went to the wall" among his school-fellows. And so, with one influence or other, Ned Wilcom left school with the firm persuasion that the world was a general battle-field, where the weak and the virtuous were destined to become the prey of the strong and the crafty; and, all things considered, Ned resolved to take sides with the winning party.

Such were Ned's resolves at sixteen; and they were by no means changed in their direction, or weakened in their vigour, by an apprenticeship in a dashing and aspiring draper's shop in Liverpool during the succeeding four years. To that sea-port he was accompanied, per coach, by his father; whose parting words then were, that he was to remember that "he was going to be taught how to make money, the only thing worth learning;" and, until he received the summary benediction already