under the name of "The Comet," and Mr. Mogridge sent a contribution. Soon after he was surprised to see placarded on the walls an announcement in which this contribution figured as the most attractive part of the advertisement. Flattered by his apparent success, he wrote another piece, well calculated, in the writer's opinion, to add lustre to so bright and eccentric a stranger as "The Comet." With some impatience he waited till the day when the second number of the work was to appear, when he found that the office of the magazine was shut up, and his sparkling contribution was never made visible to the public eye.

These misadventures gave a serious turn to his thoughts, and brought him into association with enterprises of a more decidedly religious character than he at first contemplated. He felt the necessity of applying in quarters where greater reliance could be placed, and he was devoutly grateful to find that he was being led to services which were in accordance with the best wishes of his heart.

The first engagement of Mr. Mogridge as a tract writer was with a respectable bookseller, Mr. Houlston, who undertook to issue a limited number of pieces, which were to be ready for publication at stated intervals. His feelings on

entering on this service are expressed in a memorandum made at the time in a small account book :-"Mistrusting my own perseverance, yet, with a humble and confiding dependence on that Almighty Being, who gave me the faculties I possess, and who can alone enable me rightly to use them, I enter on my literary undertaking, imploring the Giver of all good things that, while I thereby add to my own interest, and the comfort of those dear to me, I may contribute to the benefit of others, and extend the glory of my God. I purpose forwarding for publication one tract per week; and that I may do so, intend to enter in this book the date on which each piece is forwarded."

The qualifications of Mr. Mogridge as a writer of popular tracts in verse had been already tested in one of the first-fruits of his pen :-" "Thomas Brown; or, a Dialogue on Sunday Morning." The origin and history of this widely-spread and influential little production will be best related by its author.

"It must be now (1849) about thirty-three years ago since a respected relative of mine was engaged, during the leisure of an active life, in a series of literary undertakings, all intended to arrest the progress of vice, and promote the cause of virtue. One of these was to set aside,

as far as possible, the immoral songs that were vended in an adjoining manufacturing town; and in this project I joined. To buy up the faulty publications, and to write and print others of a less objectionable kind, was the adopted course; but it did not succeed. When the printer found that his customers would have the faulty songs, he failed not to supply them. It was his apparent interest to do so; but it is never a man's real interest to do evil. 'If Balak,' said the prophet Balaam, 'would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord,' Numb. xxiv. 13.

"Now and then, even at this remote period of time, I find among my papers some of the poetical products of my pen, in furtherance of the laudable end we had in view; but perhaps the less I say about their poetical merit the better. They certainly were not 'inscribed with immortality.'

"It was at the time of these literary undertakings that my worthy relative handed me a rough sketch, in a kind of poetical prose, of a dialogue which he thought might be made useful to the working people on the farm attached to the mansion where he resided. From this rough sketch I wrote the tract Thomas Brown,' with

the simple object in view already stated; and though since then,

My brow by time has graven been,

And grey hairs on my head are seen,

it seems but as yesterday when the report was made to me of the effect produced, by my poor doggerel verses, on the rustic throng for whose benefit they were composed. The sing-song stanzas, and the plain tale they told, were just suited to the taste and comprehension of the simple-minded country people, who were caught at once while listening to the artless history of the sabbath-breaker. No sooner were the words read,

'Where have you been wandering about, Thomas Brown,

In your jacket so out of repair?'

'A ramble I've been o'er the meadows so green, And I work in the jacket I wear,'—

than a general expression of interest and pleasure lighted up their faces. Never was a more

attentive auditory. With breathless attention they drank in, with greedy ears, the words of the reader, until Thomas Brown was represented as attending the village church. The description that followed won every heart.

66

'Again, and again, on different evenings, was

'Thomas Brown' read to the rustic throng, who listened with undiminished interest. One of them, I think it was Betty the housemaid, committed the whole piece to memory; and a farmservant declared, that the man must have a rare yeadpiece (headpiece) that writ Thomas

Brown,'

"Soon after this the dialogue appeared in print in different editions. A young friend, a printer, applied for, and obtained, permission to publish it. The late Dr. Booker, if I am not misinformed, had an edition printed for his own circulation.

"When Thomas Brown' was first printed, I felt heartily ashamed; having persuaded myself that I had some aptitude for poetry, the homely composition of the Dialogue humbled me. So long as it remained written only, and was regarded as an off-hand production addressed to a few country people, it did not offend me; but when it came forth publicly, I shrank from the humiliation of being considered its author. Many a time in company, with a blushing face, have I smarted under the galling lash of complimentary remarks addressed to me as the author of 'Thomas Brown.'

"Among the admirers of this tract was a friend, who took a lively interest in spreading it