THE MARVELLOUS SHILLING.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 583, 15 November 1851, Page 3

THE MARVELLOUS SHILLING.

We are all of u« intimate — through ballads, at least, and fu>ry-loie — with the poloncj of fairy groats. We have all beaid of the magic of bitch com; hut what is the fairy fourpeiiny-bit ol the old, old times, to the fairy shilling of liijl? 'J'hat ronl, prosaic twelvepenny piece is woi til any number of groats strucK at tlio under-ground Mint, w herovci it may be, of King Oberon. And never aid benevolent /airy, with an eccentric yearning towards the abpirationa of human folks, puf more power into silver than the spirit of the times has conjured into a shilling piece; for therein is a gonius that conducts its possessor to nil the triumphs of all the world : brings him face to face w ith the doings— ami among them tho very choicest doings — of iho droll, diversified beings, that make ihe total of mankind. And this is the woik of One Shilling ' Neveitheless, there waß gieat doubt— snrewd suspicions of the decency — the proper behaviour of merely —One Shilling. Sixty Shillings— sublimed into three golden sove-^ reigns, and then transmuted into Benson male tieket — considered One Shilling to be inevitably One Mob; insolent, noisy, swaggenngTwelvo-pence. Yoity Shillings— the female card— jhuddered at the bare idea of that low, vulg.ir, riotous, destructive unit ; that revolutionary levelling One Shilling. j And n Dollar— tho embodiment of five shillings — mado the best haste, and it may be said, the best punb in a crowd to see all that was to be seen, before the Crystal was bieathed upon, and for ever and for ever dm'iroed by One Shilling. Now, as every sovorngn has ita day, so it seems has every Shilling ; and, at length, tho Shilling shone; and wonderful w«i« it to the doubters to m.uk how well Shilling knew its proper value; to obseivo what wUrospect Shilling bad for its> ii»i.ue Twelve-pence. Not aixty shillings, transmuted nml enshunvd. m thiee golden pieces, with till the breeding, all the education, that is, a condition of such transmutation, could behave with better courtesy, with moie gentleness and good-humour towsuds one another, than One Shilling' towards One Shilling. And, somehow, One Shilling lias appeared more and more iti earnest than Three So veieigns — than even Five Shilling pieces. Soveieigns weie wont to cluster about (he Quoen of Spam's diamonds thickly, anxiously, as though they were all of them Spanish bondlioldeis, find expected — with due wailing — to havo those bullunts converted, into leady cash ibr part settlement ol their cluims. And what did the Mountain of Light draw about itself— ungs and rings of dazzling lustie— in the fairperams of two sovereigns, and subsequently of Five Shillings ! It must bo confessed that One Shilling does notlooi: with such ldolatiy — does not open its mould %vuh such wonderment at the Koh-i noor of the East as, perhaps, at the bteel works ol Sheffield. The sublimed charcoal, worth two millions — were a purchaser to be found — has, m tho shilling mind, a rival in the steel fire-places, those enduring caskeU made to hold the black diamonds of Newcastle. Most inteic&ting — most satisfactory, aye, and most ennobling, are the eamebt and simple doings of Ouo Shilling. Think of Us lepresenfitives. There is a sniock-fioclfetl rustic considering, among other lural matters, a Canadian plough, 'lhat quiet, solf-instructing peasant us— One Shilling. There is fustian j;i clcet with a quick, critical eye, examining machinery ot every sort; that jacket ia— Oilo Shilling. Sailors and soldiers move tranquilly along- the nave ; I or paube in silent iidmnation, willi others circling the basin of the (Jiystal Fountain, each— One Shilling. And there a whole school of parish children, silent — i sonous with wonder ; one and all— One Shilling. j Seeing what the Crystal Palace has revealed since the 26th, never, in all his experience, did Punch ft'oi such gratitude lor what One Shilling might compass— never such ttdraiiation of what Ouo Shilling, in. its (juiot seli-respect cun assert. — Pwich.