hay-makers had collected from all parts to hear him harangue.

What was he haranguing upon? Could it be, that like his friend, "John Philip," whoever that personage might be, his vocation was that of a field preacher? It seemed like it, especially judging from the sanctified demeanour of the elder and inferior person who accompanied him; and who sat in the front of the cart, and folded his hands and groaned, after the most approved fashion of a methodistical "revival."

We listened, expecting every minute to be disgusted and shocked: but no! I must say this for Mr. Charles, that in no way did he trespass the bounds of reverence and decorum. His harangue, though given as a sermon, was strictly and simply a moral essay, such as might have emanated from any professor's chair. In fact, as I afterwards learnt, he had given for his text one which the simple rustics received in all respect, as coming from a higher and holier volume than Shakspeare—

       "Mercy is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest."
And on that text did he dilate; gradually warming with his subject, till his gestures—which at first had seemed burthened with a queer constraint, that now and then resulted in an irrepressible twitch of the corners of his flexible mouth—became those of a man beguiled into real earnestness. We of Norton Bury had never heard such eloquence.

"Who CAN he be, John? Isn't it wonderful?"

But John never heard me. His whole attention was riveted on the speaker. Such oratory—a compound of graceful action, polished language, and brilliant imagination, came to him as a positive revelation, a revelation from the world of intellect, the world which he longed after with all the ardour of youth.

What that harangue would have seemed like, could we have heard it with maturer ears, I know not; but at eighteen and twenty it literally dazzled us. No wonder it affected the rest of the audience. Feeble men, leaning on forks and rakes, shook their old heads sagely, as if they understood it all. And when the speaker alluded to the horrors of war—a subject which then came so bitterly home to every heart in Britain—many women melted into sobs and tears. At last, when the orator himself, moved by the pictures he had conjured up, paused suddenly, quite exhausted, and asked for a slight contribution "to help a deed of charity," there was a general rush towards him.

"No—no, my