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persons to tempt fortune that way, all have a right to do as they please with their ready cash. The chance of success is not the only advantage they purchase with a ticket:-there are others, equally enjoyed by those who are fortunate and unfortunate. It is surely but fair to take into consideration the quantum of happiness engendered in all holders of tickets, by the prospective enjoyment of fortune's favours for five or six months before a drawing. Persons of wealth and of no fancy-or commercial men, whose trade is little better than play, being composed of what they call speculations men with ledger-like countenances, seen about the Exchange at noon-day, for example, calculate on the single chance of profit. Merely entering the number of their ticket in their pocket-books, they wait the moment of decision with a most provoking coolness, reasoning, that they may perhaps be fortunate in the lottery, as well as in the last purchase of stock for account, being, as they fancy, in luck's way. Unpoetical beings! But it is not so with your poor and warm-hearted, sanguine, high-spirited dispositions:-they often, in fancy, beg the question of getting a prize, and that being granted, revel, with "sober certainty of waking bliss," in illusions of the most luxurious delight. They build castles on earth and in the air. Like Alnaschar in the "Arabian Nights," with his basket of glass, so they with their paper ticket buy "diamonds, pearls, and all sorts of precious stones, houses, estates, slaves, eunuchs, and horses;" they "keep a good house, make a great figure in the world"-think themselves princes, and "demand the Grand Vizier's daughter in marriage;" and they "ride upon a fine horse, with a saddle of cloth of gold, finely embroidered with diamonds and pearls." Some direct their ideas yet higher, and become senators, or nobles. Among other castle-builders, the poor lover fancies himself in the arms of a mistress, who had before treated him with disdain on account of his poverty; and the artless country-girl anticipates the pleasure she shall give her swain, by flinging herself and twenty thousand pounds into his arms, while the simple fellow will not even dream of her having made the purchase of a ticket. The London coxcomb sets up an equipage upon the strength of his expectations, figuring in the park on a Sunday with the demireps of fashion, and thus raises something tangible upon a remote contingency. The sober student, whom the hope of fortune has tempted to buy a ticket, calculates upon the accession his library will receive, if for he remembers the subjunctive mood-fortune should smile upon him. Having studied mathematics, however, and learned to calculate chances, he is not sufficiently confident of success to involve himself beforehand; though upon his pillow, at night, he contemplates sundry fine editions of the learned authors coming into his possession, and dreams of purchasing divers rare manu

scripts from a collector of his acquaintance, or getting possession of Aldine editions of the classics. The lawyer has visions, in which he beholds himself enabled to obtain by the profits of his ticket, judiciously applied, the situation of a petty judge in some distant corner of the land, for which he has been well qualified by a long practice in confounding right and wrong, and inverting

common sense.

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Who, then, will contend that the lottery is not a source of actual enjoyment? — that the delight experienced in these visionary speculations is not well worth a little play, and risk of cash, even before the moment of decision? At whist, basset, quadrille, and other inferior games, there is no time for the rich treats of fancy afforded by the lottery- the events are too hurried, and the mind is kept in a feverish agitation until the decision is over; but the lottery keeps the mind active for months, and draws out the golden cord of prospective pleasure to its most attenuated extent. Some dull souls, it is true, may feel like Alnaschar beforementioned, when he kicked his basket of glass to pieces, by the sale of which he promised himself so much future greatness; but it cannot surely be denied, by the most disdainful moralist, that the hours of life got over in tasting ideal happiness, might not be admitted towards balancing pecuniary losses.

The miser may say, that such foretastes of riches will not actually fill a coffer; and the mathematician may condemn the schemes of such projectors as illusory and imaginative; but, while they lasted, neither Euclid nor hoarded gold ever conferred much more enjoyment on man; and if such pleasures are evanescent, those from gold and diagrams are so too, having a very little longer duration. A Frenchman is the true philosopher for the lottery; when he has lost half his estate, he shrugs his shoulders, exclaims, "Mon Dieu! c'est le diable-cette Loterie-là !" forgets his illfortune in a week, and plunges again into the delirium of hopeful expectation. In this view of the subject, then,

"Doubtless the pleasure is as great

Of being cheated as to cheat.'

La Harpe stupidly enquires, "Si elle (la loterie) n'eteint pas dans le peuple tout émulation louable-tout amour de travail ?" Who ever doubted this? Monsieur La Harpe supposed that he had made a wonderful discovery! This is one great advantage the lottery possesses, particularly in times like the present, when work is scarce, and hands are plenty. That political economists have not encouraged it among the labouring classes, as a means of throwing the labour into fewer hands still, is their own fault :but their science is yet only in an incipient state.

An apothecary in the West of England having purchased a lottery-ticket, soon afterwards dreamed that it would come up a

prize of twenty thousand pounds. He was immediately charmed with the idea of giving up business, abandoning the spatula and syringe, the study of the pharmacopeia, and the composition of diuretics and cathartics. For hours at night his busy fancy conjured up honours that would accrue to him, elevating him from an honest burgess to the portly and rubicund dignity of an alderman in his native town; and ascending still higher, she at last presumptuously gave him a seat in parliament. This imaginary distinction produced an actual change of conduct; and while making up pills, he ever fancied himself addressing the Speaker of the House of Commons. Honest Sancho Panza, when asleep, was asked what he was doing, and he replied, "I govern," thinking of his promised island. The poor apothecary, sleeping or waking, always talked of the "Honourable House," and "Mr. Speaker." Whether he dreamed that, after a course of time and long parliamentary service, he should get a peerage, is uncertain. After the day of drawing he went to the post-office, expecting a letter with news of his fortune being consummated. Some wags of his acquaintance, however, had previously obtained and opened it; and finding he had got a prize of 201., they added three cyphers, and again sealed it up. The effect was as might have been expected; the son of Esculapius returned home, and with his cane proceeded to break the utensils of his trade. Gallipots and phials flew into fragments on every side: astringents mingled with laxatives; caustics encountered cooling lotions; electuaries became syrups; pills were metamorphosed into salves; and solutions and decoctions were fabricated, unknown in the art of compounding, but, no doubt, equally efficacious with any of his others in practice. Some days elapsed before the truth was discovered; when the imaginative disciple of Galen, in despite of his losses and the ridicule he had incurred, confessed that the pleasure he had derived from his prospective honours nearly compensated for all his losses. He had certainly the power of bringing imagination and reality into closer contact than any other human being out of Bedlam.

Here, then, is a striking instance in support of my argument, and in favour of the imaginative enjoyments afforded by the lottery. Philosophers well know how to appreciate the value of these; and if life be "a jest," as Gay asserts it to be, or rather, perhaps, a composition of jests, this national game must contribute not a little to heighten their piquancy.

SS.

?

A WINTER-NIGHT STORY.

FROM THE GERMAN.

TRAVELLING in the North of Germany about the middle of winter, I was once overtaken by a snow-storm, and forced to take shelter for the night at an obscure inn, between Preetz and Kiel. It was a low house of one story; and, as far as the storm allowed me to judge, of a mean and poor appearance. At any other time I might have scorned to alight there; but in my situation then, I was glad of any place, however paltry, that could shelter me from the pitiless storm. On entering, I went into the kitchen to dry myself at the fire, and, to give the Devil his due, found myself in much more comfortable quarters than I had any reason to expect from the outside appearance of the building. As soon as I entered, the hostess heaped more wood on the fire: its light crackling blaze, banishing gloom from every corner, gave a cheerful appearance to the apartment; and, as I toasted my feet at the fire, dressed in the landlord's ponderous big coat, I laughed at the wind howling in the north-east, and driving the large snow-flakes against the little windows. I soon found that my servants and I were not solus (if I may use the expression without being indicted for a bull): one or two more travellers had been forced in by the inclemency of the night. Laying restraint aside, we were soon on the very best terms, and passed a part of the evening pleasantly enough, in trying to settle which would be the best way of amusing ourselves for the remainder. Singing was proposed; but no one could sing. Cards were produced; but I played no game except whist. Dancing I proposed, and had singled out the landlady's pretty black-eyed daughter for my partner; but then who was to play? We were fairly at a stand. "Gentlemen," said an interesting-looking old man, who was sitting in a corner, and wore a tremendous pair of spectacles on his nose, "Gentlemen, if you will allow a poor wandering bard to make the attempt, I will try for an evening to entertain you. Ye may have heard prettier narratives, perhaps; but the will must be taken for the deed.'" This frank proposal met our cordial wishes. We seated him in the host's large chair beside the fire; we heaped on more wood, till the cheerful blaze reached the very top of the chimney -we gathered round the fire in silence, and the old man having taken a good dram of Hollands to raise the spirit within, thus began the recital of "The First Spring."

"Autumn was coming on, when Adam and Eve descended weeping from the heights of Paradise. They were quitting its gay blooming flowers, and verdant prairies ever smiling in the robes of spring, for a dreary and desolate clime-and its woodlands and brakes where innocence loved to sport, were to be exchanged for wild forests already struck with the curse of the Creator. Their look was lost in terror at the gloomy depth of the valleys they were henceforth to inhabit.

A drizzling haze spread itself before them, exhaling a freezing dampness which chilled their blood, and covering the whole country with a veil of a cold pale whiteness. Eve turned round: Adam turned back likewise; and both, for the last time, cast in mournful silence a long and lingering look on Paradise. Light airy clouds were hovering over it, gilded with the last rays of the setting sun. The cherub had lowered the point of his flamy sword. He raises it again, and seems to shut out hope for ever. At the sight a faintish sickness entered her heart, and the first cold shivering ran through the veins of our common mother.

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They descend from the mountain amid the darkness of night. They hear the crash of the hurricane among the trees, and the torrents sweeping over the pointed cliffs, and foaming and dashing from rock to rock, and hurrying down to the bottom of the valley; behind them, like the lightning, glistens the terrible sword of the cherub. Its distant blaze dimly and partially flashing on the savage scene around them, throws on it an appearance even still more awful and terrific. By its light they distinguish their own shadows stretching themselves far before them. At the sight they are troubled; Eve is seized with new fear.

"When they had reached the bottom of the valley, the angel of the Lord approached them. 'Adam,' said he, receive these grains from Paradise; thou hast been commanded to cultivate the earth by the sweat of thy brow :' and he presented him some grains of wheat in the shell of a cocoa-nut. Immediately he takes flight. His sword cleaves the air with a noise like the roaring thunder, and is reechoed with tenfold violence from rock to rock and from valley to valley.

"Adam and Eve prostrate themselves on the damp earth: darkness environs them, and their prayer is wafted to heaven on the dews of the evening. Then they saw before them, rising majestically above the pines of the mountain, the star of night sailing in all her glory, and following a steady course amid an ocean of pearls. For the first time was she a source of consolation to weary man. The eyes of Eve are suffused with soft tears, and, rising, she tenderly supports herself in the arms of Adam.

"The propitious light of the moon enabled them now to perceive close at hand a grotto, hollowed out in the face of the rock. The ivy and the wild vine clambered around it, and, falling back in long rich clusters, were washed by a clear brook that trickled past, and the light branches undulating in the opposing stream, raised a soft gentle murmur inviting sweet repose. Adam and Eve felt as if invited to enter this asylum: they had learned to profit by the impulses which the unseen hand of Providence still vouchsafed them-they entered. Their eyes were closed in slumber: light visions of bliss flitted around them, and dissipating the clouds of melancholy, brought balmy consolation to their souls.

"The night was tranquil; but at day-break Adam was awakened by the sobs of his wife. It is then true,' said they, looking around, ⚫ it is then true; we are banished from Eden-we have fallen, alas!

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