Rubber Companies-must be attended to immediately, as I cross a bridge once a week."

I forbear farther extracts, as they cannot be very interesting, save to Mr Dumps, and will give, instead, a sketch of the man himself. In the Winter, he wonders that he has a continual cold—but nobody who knows him has any surprise on the subject, because, if the streets are in particularly bad order, abounding in what is significantly called splosh, in the vernacular, he is sure to wade through the worst of it, longitudinally, in the very middle of the street, to avoid the danger of being buried on the side-walks. He wears caoutouches to be sure, but they fill, and only express the snow-water through his boots. The same choice of path causes him as many narrow escapes as there are sploshy days -and as much as one knock-down by a carriage, per Winter, as, in sealing his ears against cold, he seals them against sound.

In dog-days, he wears beneath his pants a cow-hide case, strapped to his legs, impenetrable to canine teeth. In the building season, his hat has been stuffed full of waste paper, ever since he heard of an editor's wonderful escape from death by the blow of a brick-bat. All the sugar used in his house has beer, subjected to a chemical test, since some of the Down-Easters were poisoned by Muscovado. The water used for culinary purposes is all filtered, and when his cook boils a cabbage she cuts it into inch pieces, to be sure of the absence of adders, etc. A rope-ladder is coiled beneath his chamber window, duly fastened to two staples, and all his valuables are nightly packed in a fire-proof chest. His assortment of medicines and preventives has determined an apothecary's apprentice who spends half his

time in putting them up, to wait till he can buy at auction the medicine-chest of the late Mr Dumps, before he sets up in business for himself.

Of newspapers, he patronises those which publish the most horrible accidents, providential escapes, patent medicine advertisements, and obituary notices. His present standing dish of trouble is the French war, and he has purchased the last surgical work, to know how to treat a shot or sabre wound, and provided himself with styptics, tourniquets, splints, and other necessary appliances, in case he should be drafted, and compelled to serve in the militia. The necessary sum for the purchase of a substitute is appropriated, labelled, and kept inviolate in one department of his pocket-book-and he has already singled out the man, who, he is determined, if need be, shall serve as food for powder, instead of Timoris Dumps, Esquire.

A more supremely unhappy man cannot be found in the world. A delightful season of sunshine torments him with the fear that the exterior wood-work of his house may become dry and inflammable-rain affrights him with the danger of miasma from stagnant pools of water after it, and with fear of damps, colds, and rheumatism, during its continuance. Spring has its horrors of unripe fruit and vegetables-Summer has its falling bricks, malignant disorders, and mad dogs-Autumn its peculiar diseases-Winter hard times, avalanches, and consumption. To the appropriate fears of each season, is superadded his anticipation of the critical periods of the next.

All this in confidence, my dear reader-I would not that Mr Dumps should hear of it, for the world-but, entre nous, I can't say much for his wisdom. "Suffi

cient for the day, is the evil thereof," and one might as well meet all his notes for the next six months, today, as to borrow all the trouble he can possibly encounter-and more too. "Hang care!" says the old adage, "it killed the cat." The man in trouble is not such a delightful part to enact, that one need constantly be rehearsing it—I warrant we shall all be perfect enough, when the time comes. If you must dream of the future, dream of something worth your while. If you will build castles in the air, don't take Udolpho for a model, but some airy, pleasant, modern structure. Leave physic to the dogs and the doctors-war to General Jackson-the banks and hard times to our six hundred legislators at any rate, don't trouble trouble, till trouble troubles you.

PARMENIO,

WHEN he was once greeted with an approbative shout from a multitude, turned to a philosopher who stood near him, and said "Pardon me, I fear I have been guilty of some absurdity!" What a good opinion of himself must the Grecian have rejoiced in-and what a craving appetite for adulation that sentence betrays. Note it when you will, those who profess indifference to the opinions of the world, value fame highest.