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pleasant meeting; the warmest hand-shakings followed. "And about that watch," said Burritt, “what has become of it? for, to tell you the truth, I was much attached to it, and should like to have it back again." "That you shall," replied the young man, "you shall have it back. 1 sold it; but I know where it is, and it shall be yours." The watch soon became Burritt's again; and, as he told us with pride, now hangs in his printing-office, and regulates the hours of Ezekiel who remains behind as the working agent. We now return to Burritt working for his twelve dollars a month. A very short time sufficed to show him that the antiquarian library of Worcester could be of little use to him, and this discovery filled him with deep sorrow. The library was open to the public but a certain number of hours in the day, and these were the very hours when his duties as a journeyman smith confined him to the anvil. He continued, therefore, his Hebrew studies unassisted, as he best was able. Every moment he could steal out of the four-and-twenty hours was devoted to study; he rose early in the winter mornings, and while the mistress of the house was preparing breakfast by lamplight, he would stand by the mantel-piece, with his Hebrew bible on the shelf, and his lexicon in his hand, thus studying while he ate; the same method was pursued at the other meals; mental and bodily food being taken in together. This severe labour of mind, as might be expected, produced serious effects on his health; he suffered much from headaches, the characteristic remedy for which were two or three additional hours of hard forging, and a little less study. We will copy from his diary of this date one week's work, as a specimen of the whole, and our readers may then judge of the gigantic labours of this Titan of learning.

“Monday, June 18, headache; forty pages Cuvier's Theory of the Earth, sixty-four pages French, eleven hours forging. Tuesday, sixty five lines of Hebrew, thirty pages

of French, ten pages Cuvier's Theory, eight lines Syriac, ten ditto Danish, ten ditto Bohemian, nine ditto Polish, fifteen names of stars, ten hours forging. Wednesday, twenty-five lines Hebrew, fifty pages of astronomy, eleven hours forging. Thursday, fifty-five lines Hebrew, eight ditto Syriac, eleven hours forging. Friday, unwell; twelve hours forging. Saturday, unwell; fifty pages Natural Philosophy, ten hours forging. Sunday, lesson for Bible class."

So wore on the year 1837. Burritt had studied the Celtic, and finding an old grammar and dictionary, he mastered them in three months, and wrote a letter in that language to the President of the Royal Antiquarian Society at Paris, and received a favourable reply, and a large parcel of books and papers. This he reckoned as a very gratifying circumstance; for a gentleman brought him the present one day when he was at work at the anvil.

He now (1838) translated pieces from various languages for the press; and Governor Everett of Boston hearing of him, sent for him to his house. He went. But how different this time from the last; then poor, footsore, and oppressed by a sense of his own nothingness-now on a visit to the Governor!

Nothing could exceed the kindness with which he was received; every offer was made to help him on in his studies; and he was requested to enter Harvard College. But he declined the patronage and the honour, and chose rather to pursue his former course of working and studying.

One word to the working young people of England. Burritt states emphatically, and he is capable of judging, that according to his idea, the condition of journeyman or apprentice is the most advantageous for the acquisition of knowledge. Such have no care on their minds beyond the faithful performance of their day's work; this once done, leaves the mind free for the pursuit of knowledge. Such as these, spite of

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indentures and engagements, are so far their own masters. Had Burritt, also, in accordance with the generous offers of his new friends, devoted all his time to literary pursuits, and looked to this as a profession, a responsibility would have been laid upon him; he must have confined the whole of his powers to this one object. As it was now-his day's work done, he had no one to please but himself, and he could wander, unblamed, over the wide fields of literature, culling where and how he pleased.

He therefore returned to Worcester, and applied to work harder than ever. In 1839, he commenced a monthly periodical in English and French. In 1840, 1841, and 1842, he received invitations to lecture in various places, which he did very acceptably, and then returning home commenced the study of the Ethiopic, Persian, and Turkish languages.

Thus he employed himself for the next two years. In 1844, having saved a little money, he commenced the Christian Citizen, a paper devoted to religion, peace, education, and anti-slavery principles.

With regard to the subject of peace, we must state that, shortly before this time, his mind had taken a decided bent. Naturally there was a tendency in him, as every one must believe, to an admiration of the heroic. The vanquisher of difficulties, the victor in any sense, was to his feeling an object of respect and admiration. The heroes of the old times inflamed his imagination: he had rather a tendency than otherwise to regard them as glorious, in the common sense of the word. Now, however, he began to study geography, or, as he styles it, the anatomy of the globe; and from this study he became convinced of a few simple facts. In the first place, it seemed to him plain enough that God meant one nation to be dependent on another, by the arrangement of climates, soils, &c., and by the difference of production; so that while one country could barely subsist upon its own

productions, it was dependent for its luxuries-and just in proportion as it becomes elevated, it requires luxuries-upon other countries; and thus by this very simple law of mutual benefit, nation is bound to its brother nation, and the whole world should have no other bond than that of good will.

With these views, Burritt came forth in his paper, as the advocate of universal peace and brotherhood. Burritt now stood before the public as the promulgator of peace rather than as the marvellous linguist. The allotted columns of his paper, however, were too narrow for this broad subject; and like Noah cooped in the ark, he now sent forth his dove, bearing the olive leaf as a token of the better time that was approaching.* The dove, however, unlike the patriarch's, came not back with tidings that the better time was not come. The time was come. Forth flew every week, from the little printing-house in Worcester, larger and larger flocks of doves and olive-leaves. In the city, and in the forest-in the seaport town, and the log hut of the backwoodsman-with the poor slave who could just read, and the member of Congressthey found their welcome: they even crossed the Atlantic, and were found amongst us in England.

Devoted to this good object he did all he could do to promote it, by publishing the Peace Advocate, and also another little work called the Bond of Brotherhood. These were circulated on board steamers and at railway stations, Burritt employing four young men in the work of distribution. He also continued to deliver lectures, chiefly against all war, and promoted a peaceful correspondence between various towns in Britain and America.

On the 16th of June, 1845, Burritt left America for this country. He came out in the Hibernia, the same vessel which carried the news of the settlement of the

*Small papers called "Olive Leaves," with a picture of a dove and olive leaf at the head.

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Oregon question. At the very moment when he stepped on board, he heard the joyful tidings announced that there would be no war. The coincidence was beautiful and singular, to say nothing else.

For a year or two he had been agitating in his mind the scheme of a grand Peace League, which should be to all questions of peace and free trade what the Anti-Corn-Law League had already been to that question. He wished that every one, of any land, who was willing to co-operate, should be members of it; that it should embrace all nations; that the very world should be its platform. The scheme is a grand one; and it seemed to him on coming to England, that a conjuncture of favourable circumstances at that moment was propitious to its commencement. The idea was never absent from his mind, but even more suddenly than he expected did he bring it into operation. He was on his way to London, alone and on foot, when he came to the small town of Pershore, nine miles from Worcester, on the evening of July 29th. It was his intention to stay here for a day or two to write. Here he drew up the pledge which he intended should be signed by the members of the future League of Peace; he bought a little clasped note-book, into which he entered it. That same evening a Mr. Conn invited him to drink tea with him and his friends. There were about twenty in number; he spoke of the pledge, and read it to them, having first signed his own name to it; at once were added, as he himself has chronicled in this same little book, "the names of seventeen men of Pershoregood men and true." Thus commenced the League of Universal Brotherhood-may it gather the whole world in one fraternal embrace!

Mr. Burritt is now (1848) residing in London, occupied chiefly in writing and publishing papers on peace, and now and then giving lectures on the same important subject. Many thousands in Britain, and