On Finding the Feathers of a Linnet scattered on the Ground Occasional Ode for the Anniversary of the Royal British System Inscription under the Picture of an aged Negro Woman For J. S. A Preamble to her Album To Cynthia: A Young Lady, unknown to the Author, who, by Letter, requested " a Stanza," or "a few Lines in his Hand- writing" The Gnat. Written with Pencil round an Insect of that kind, Garden Thoughts. On Occasion of a Christian Assembly in the Grounds of a Gentleman at York, for the Purpose of pro- THOUGHTS ON WHEELS. DURING the greater part of the last forty years it has been my privilege to be connected, rather as an auxiliary than a principal, in many a plan for lessening the sum of human misery at home and abroad, with three gentlemen of this neighbourhood, Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS, Mr. GEORGE BENNET, and Mr. ROWLAND HODGSON. Of the two latter I need not speak here, because proofs of my esteem for each, distinctly, will be found in another part of this collection. With Mr. Roberts, however, it happened, that I have been more particularly and actively concerned on occasions rather general than local, such as the questions of the Slave Trade and Slavery, the State Lottery, and the practice of employing climbing boys to sweep chimneys. In these, the zeal, the energy, and the indefatigability of my friend far surpassed any corresponding qualifications which I could exercise in aid of the frequent causes in which we have been engaged together. Though, like Jehonadab's with Jehu's, my heart was always with his heart, it was not in every enterprise that I had the courage to accept his invitation to "come up to (him) into the chariot;" for the adversary's watchmen, descrying his approach from their walls, might truly exclaim, "His driving is like the driving of the son of Nimshi, for he driveth furiously." When, however, I could not do this, I girded myself up to run alongside of him, till I could no more keep pace with his speed: I then followed him as far as my breath and strength would carry me. Among those who know him best, and esteem him proportionably, though I may perhaps call myself the foremost,-having, more than any other individual, had opportunities of understanding his motives, and judging his public conduct by these,-I must not attempt, in this place, "to give him honour due," further than by simply recording my own obligations to him, for having, by his intrepidity and example on some trying occasions, caused me to do a little less harm, and a little more good in my generation, than I should otherwise have had forbearance in the one case to avoid, or fortitude in the other to undertake. This influence was more especially ascendant over my natural indolence and timidity, in our joint efforts through a series of years to rouse the country, and to persuade the legislature against "the State Lottery" as a system of legalized gambling, and "the employment of climbing boys to sweep chimneys as a system of home-slavery." In reference to the former I may here state, that it had been the practice, as long as I can remember, for the publishers of newspapers to procure lottery tickets for persons who applied for them, from any of the offices with which they had current accounts for advertising. From 1794, when I entered upon the property of the Sheffield Iris, till 1801 or 1802, I was in the habit of executing such commissions to a very small amount annually. I know not what lottery speculations may have been made otherwise in this neighbourhood; but if my sales were the standard of probabilities in so obscure a case, little of the money that was got upon the anvil was thrown into the fire, for the purchase of blanks, where prizes were contemplated in reversion. Once, however, about the above-mentioned date, I had the misfortune to sell the sixteenth of a ticket which turned up a prize of twenty thousand pounds. The price to be paid for the share, I think, was 23s. 6d., and the person who bespoke it had left a guinea towards payment, as the market price could not be ascertained till the voucher came from London. Accordingly I received it with a few others which had been ordered in like manner, and pledges deposited. These, with the exception of that particular one, were duly fetched by the parties who had bespoken them. In those days the registering of tickets and shares was entirely done in the metropolitan offices, the names and addresses of the adventurers being transmitted from the country by their respective correspondents. Whatever then might be the fate or the fortune of the numbers delivered by me, I knew nothing of the event unless the buyers themselves informed me, which they usually did when the prizes were small ones, and almost as usually exchanged them for new ventures in the current or next lottery, paying the difference, which was necessarily on the losing side, (the schemes being ingeniously contrived to effect that,) till a blank made amends for all,-if it happened to cure the lottery-fit, though that kind of fever being intermittent, patients once affected were fearfully liable to returns. In the case above mentioned, the share remained week after week uncalled for in my desk, while the drawing continued, and till it was nearly at an end. In fact, I had given it up as a bad speculation of my own, so far as what was due upon it had been hazarded to a stranger, concluding that it must have been drawn a blank, and that my customer would take no more trouble about it. I well recollect throwing it aside among some indifferent papers, and muttering to myself,-"There lies half-a-crown." One evening, however, a man from a village in Derbyshire called upon me in considerable agitation, and presented an open letter addressed to a female in whose name the share had been registered at the office (Nicholson's) in London, announcing that the ticket had been drawn a prize of twenty thousand pounds, with a hint, that, when the lady received the money, it was hoped she would remember the clerks in the office. Till then the said lady did not so much as know the number of which a sixteenth had been thus registered to her. I was not a little bewildered myself at first, scarcely remembering when I had last seen the precious scrap of paper; and, doubting whether the intelligence were not a hoax, and whether the applicant, who professed himself a relation of the owner, were a true man. But, having found the share, and ascertained the other points, I delivered it into the messenger's hands, and received the small balance due to me upon it. I was afterwards told, that the guinea which had been paid to me in advance was put into the lottery "for luck's sake," having been found unexpectedly in a paper with some sugar-candy, in a neglected drawer. The fortunate recoverer of the unredeemed prize that had fallen to her, like one of the forgotten things which the moon has been said to contain, "Where heroes' wits are kept in ponderous vases, proved to be a very respectable matron in good circumstances, and of prudent habits. Instead of eagerly seizing the spoil at the expense of the small discount, she waited till the money was full due, and never afterwards, so far as I was concerned, risked more than the price of another sixteenth at once in a lottery or two following. But the strangeness of this great event in provincial lottery annals did not end here. The successful ticket had been distributed, if I rightly remember, entirely in sixteenths, and sold in different parts of the kingdom. This being blazoned in all the newspapers, occasioned an extraordinary demand for shares in the ensuing lottery, and mine being deemed "a Lucky Office," commissions came pouring upon me in a manner and multitude beyond precedent. These I was enabled to supply on a new plan, which, I confess, I thought very hazardous to the metropolitan office keepers, who, availing themselves of this "tide" in the sea of bubbles, took it "at the flood," not doubting that it would "lead on to fortune" in their "affairs." Accordingly they appointed agencies throughout the country, and one of these being offered to me by a first-rate house, I accepted it as a mere matter of business, and for several years I was in the habit of dis |