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MY NEIGHBOURS OVER THE WAY. 153 to the skies the thirst after knowledge. The “proper study of mankind is man,” and of course the term “man” includes every thing that belongs to him -his habits of all kinds— his means and way of living his associates, and whatsoever else may “give the world assurance of a man.” Now, if Pope's oft praised apothegm be correct, it is nothing but an inculcation of curiosity, as a duty and an accomplishment. Why, then, are inquiries into the manners and customs of birds and of beasts, of serpents and of fishes, of bones and of stones, to be termed “Entertaining Knowledge;” and why are biographical accounts of the actions and feelings of great men who are dead, to be put forth under the title of “Useful Knowledge; “whilst histories of people yet alive are universally stigmatised as a library of Impertinent Knowledge,” which every one feels himself under the necessity of reading, the more conscientiously to avow disapprobation afterwards. Curiosity is grossly abused. When the public are to gain by its exercise, what is so vaunted? In the learned professions, and in the sciences, and in the arts, sweet things are said of it, but let a man presume to elevate curiosity itself into a profession, a science, and an art, and lo, what a change of phrase!” We are abused by words, grossly abused,” said Cowley; but what would Cowley say now? We compliment the geologist on his enlightened labours to ascertain the nature of the earth, whilst, if the earth herself could speak, the old lady would doubtless rebuke him as a meddlesome fellow. We compliment the speculators in gold mines, for their spirit and their enterprise, whilst the mountain that holds the mine would growl forth animadversions on their impertinent interference with his internal arrangements. Birds, could they sing words, would be justified in bidding the ornithologist mind his own business; and the wild beasts might rise in a body and roar out their indignant surprise at the publication of their private history. All things concerning which books are written, would, in their own opinion, feel justified in exclaiming against curiosity idle curiositydisgusting curiosity. We see what it is for the lion to be the painter. Curiosity, the very thing that all the world exclaims against, that sets all the world by the ears, is the very thing that keeps the world together. If it does harm in one department, it creates good in another. If it has stimulated genius to invent what will shorten life, it has stimulated genius elsewhere to find out what will prolong it; and vaccination is a check upon gunpowder. Your geographical discoverers were only the most curious men of their generation: Columbus was a naval Paul Pry.Your scientific discoverers have only been more inquisitive than their neighbours, treated truth as if she were a hare, to be hunted out of her hiding places. Historians are only ferrets to disputed facts; painters and poets are but spies upon nature. Let it not, from this elaborate defence of a persecuted habit of mind, be supposed that I am personally interested. I am no curieuse, indiscriminately and in a general way, but just now, “this one once “as children say, I am tortured by a spirit of wondering and guessing my neighbours over the way ! A mother, three boys, and a little girl, lodgers, not residents in the house, and lodgers of a week's standing. I would give a great deal to know, in a gentlewomanly way, who they are, where they come from, and what they do there. In the first place, there is sympathy excited. A door bell is a melancholy thing if no one rings at it but people of call — the baker's man and the butcher the fish woman lads with parcels of grocery and a multum in parvo of sandboys, match girls, and beggars, ad libitum; when no friend goes to the door with familiar face and tread; when even the postman with his long drawling walk, and face conveying an indolent sense of power, passes by “and makes no sign.” Then the children are evidently not at home, and however well dressed, have a forlorn, don't knowwhere l am look: if they step into the street, they walk as if they knew themselves alien to the soil -I beg the country's pardon, to the pavement: all these things speak strangership, and all these exist in the present case. My neighbours over the way ! I will not admit that what I feel is curiosity; it is, I repeat, sympathy one of the first duties of man, one of the greatest inclinations of woman. Our street is not a thoroughfare, though well lighted and paved; not dashing, though a little self sufficient on the strength of a telescopic view of the country; altogether, as quiet, well bred, good sort of a street as needs be. I say this as a resident householder, to whom what passes out of doors is a matter of no attraction. It is different with my neighbours, who are reduced to take pleasure in standing at their drawing room windows. The things that give a person pleasure are great tests of his circumstances, and there again my sympathy (I will not have it called curiosity) has been much drawn upon.-Into this identical street, one, or other, or all of my opposite neighbours, are perpetually looking. The boys follow wistfully with their eyes, the groups of green bagged school boys, that with gibe and shout congregate at the corners about twelve o'clock and five, and there, like young democrats as most of them are, rehearse the corrections of the day, their own animadversions thereupon boast of their marbles as if they were race horses, and proceed, it may be, to serious barter respecting taws and whipcord. A barrel organ, with or without white mice at the top, is an event in the day's history, and the evening promenades of a retired publican, who, with civic front and military step, goes to his garden a mile distant, and thence returns with pea, or celery, or cabbage laden basket, is a source of excitement to my neighbours over the way. Even I, when I turn out for my quarter deck walk on the pavement, which I vainly strive to fancy a grassy terrace the brick houses an avenue of darkboughed pines or cedars, that seem to fold their arms like plumed and sable warriors even I and my dog are objects of contemplation to them, as they of curios— of smypathy, I mean— to me. Who are they? —-there is no poverty— they have