dinner as well as a dessert?

I would taste him in the

beasts of the field, and through all creation.-Lamb.

INFANTS.

Some admiring what motives to mirth infants meet with in their silent and solitary smiles, have resolved, how truly I know not, that they converse with angels; as, indeed, such cannot among mortals find any fitter companions.-Fuller.

DISCRETION.

There is no talent so useful towards rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of men, and in common speech called discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which, people of the meanest intellects, without any other qualification, pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence.-Swift.

INTELLIGIBILITY.

It would be well, both for the public and the writers themselves, if some authors would but adopt Lord Falkland's method, before publishing his works, who, when he doubted whether a word was perfectly intelligible or not, used to consult one of his lady's chambermaids, (not the waiting-woman, because it was possible she might be conversant in romances,) and by her judgment was guided whether to receive

or reject it. Swift pursued, it is said, a like method of reading his works to the unlearned.

ANTIQUITY OF AGRICULTURE.

The first three men in the world were a gardener, a ploughman, and a grazier; and if any man object that the second of these was a murderer, I desire he would consider, that as soon as he was so, he quitted our profession and turned builder.-Cowley.

MR. PERKINS, THE DIVINE.

He had a capacious head, with angles winding and roomy enough for all controversial intricacies. He would pronounce the word damn, with such an emphasis as left a doleful echo in his auditor's ears a good while afterward.-Fuller.

SUSPICION.

Always to think the worst, I have ever found to be the mark of a mean spirit and a base soul.— Bolingbroke.

CANNIBALS.

Lamb writes to his friend Manning, to dissuade him from going to China, and endeavours to instill the fear of cannibals into his mind. "Some say the Tartars are cannibals, and then conceive a fellow eating my friend, and adding the cool malignity of mustard and vinegar." This reminds one of the advice Sydney Smith is said to have given to the

bishop of New Zealand, previous to his departur« recommending him to have regard to the minor a well as to the more grave duties of his station—to be given to hospitality—and, in order to meet the tastes of his native guests, never to be without a smoked little boy in the bacon-rack, and a cold clergyman on the sideboard. "And as for myself, my lord," he concluded, "all I can say is, that when your new parishioners do eat you, I hope you will disagree with them."

FLOGGING AT SCHOOL.

If the dead have any cognizance of posthumous fame, one would think it must abate somewhat of the pleasures with which Virgil and Ovid regard their earthly immortality, when they see to what base purposes their productions are employed. That their voices should be administered to boys in regular doses, as lessons or impositions, and some dim conception whipped into the tail when it has failed to penetrate the head, cannot be just the sort of homage to their genius which they anticipated or desired.The Doctor.

A DINNER-PARTY.

An excellent and well-arranged dinner, is a most pleasing occurrence, and a great triumph of civilized life. It is not only the descending morsel and the enveloping sauce, but the rank, wealth, wit, and beauty which surround the meats; the learned man

agement of light and heat; the silent and rapid services of the attendants; the smiling and sedulous host, proffering gusts and relishes; the exotic bottles; the embossed plate; the pleasant remarks; the handsome dresses; the cunning artifices in fruit and farina! The hour of dinner, in short, includes every thing of sensual and intellectual gratification, which a great nation glories in producing.-Sydney Smith.

LITERARY ENTERTAINMENTS.

Menage makes mention of a person, who occasionally gave entertainments to authors. His fancy was to place them at table, each according to the size and thickness of the volumes they had published, commencing with the folio authors, and proceeding through the quarto and octavo, down to the duodecimo, each according to his rank.

DULLNESS.

"A man," said Tom Brown, "is never ruined by dullness."

SCOLDING AND QUARRELLING

Have something of familiarity and a community of interest; they imply acquaintance; they are of one sentiment, which is of the family of dearness. -Lamb.

HUMAN LIFE.

When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child that must be

played with and humoured a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.-Sir William Temple.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

They may talk as they will of the dead languages. Our auxiliary verbs give us a power which the ancients, with all their varieties of mood, and inflections of tense, never could obtain.-The Doctor.

EXCUSE FOR A LONG LETTER.

In a postscript to one of the "Provincial Letters," Pascal excuses himself for the letter being so long, on the plea that he had not had time to make it shorter.

REAL MANNERS.

Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred in the company.-Swift.

ECCENTRIC TASTE.

George Selwyn was noted for a passion for the details of criminal justice, from "the warrant to the rope;" and his friends always made it a point of gratifying this peculiarity, by sending him news of criminals, executions, &c. When Horace Walpole's house in Arlington-street was broken open, he dispatched a messenger to Selwyn, to inform him of the fact, and of his having secured the thief. It