the whole pleasure derived from this pun, consists in the sudden discovery, that two such different meanings are referable to one form of expression. I have very little to say about puns; they are in very bad repute, and so they ought to be. The wit of language is so miserably inferior to the wit of ideas, that it is very deservedly driven out of good company. Sometimes, indeed, a pun makes its appearance, which seems, for a moment, to redeem its species; but we must not be deceived by them; it is a radically bad race of wit. By unremitting persecution, it has under, and driven into cloisters— from whence it must never again be suffered to emerge into the light of the world.-Sydney Smith.

been at last got

TRUE COURTESY.

Nothing is a courtesy, unless it be meant for us, and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favouring, and fill our sails; or meats, that they be nourishing; for these are what they are, necessarily. Horses carry us; trees shade us; but they know it not.-Ben Jonson.

ROMAN BANQUETS.

The

The Roman banquets were much more remarkable for profusion and costliness than for taste. only merits of a dish composed of the brains of 500 peacocks, or the tongues of 500 nightingales, must have been its dearness; and if a mode of swallowing

most money in a given time be the desideratum, commend us to Cleopatra's decoction of diamonds, though even this was fairly exceeded in originality and neatness of conception by the English sailor, who placed a ten-pound note between two slices of bread and butter, and made his black-eyed Susan eat it as a sandwich. Captain Morris, in one of his songs, has set the proper value on such luxuries:

"Old Lucullus, they say,

Forty cooks had each day,

And Vitellius's meals cost a million;
But I like what is good,

When or where be my food,

In a chop-house or royal pavilion.

"At all feasts, if enough,

I most heartily stuff,

And a song at my heart alike rushes,

Though I've not fed my lungs,

Upon nightingales' tongues,

Nor the brains of gold-finches and thrushes.”

Quarterly Review.

LIVING IN THE WORLD.

Living always in the world makes one as unfit for living out of it, as always living out of it does for living in it.- Walpole.

SPINNING VIRTUE.

A young preacher, who chose to enlarge to a country congregation on the beauty of virtue, was surprised to be informed by an old woman, who ex

pressed herself highly pleased with his sermon, that her daughter was the most virtuous woman in the parish, "for that week she had spun sax spyndles of yarn."-Sir Walter Scott.

UNTHINKING GOOD MAN'S SOUL.

O what a beautiful concordia discordantium is an unthinking good man's soul!-Coleridge.

CLASSICAL GLORY.

Dr. George, the celebrated Grecian, upon hearing the praises of the great king of Prussia, entertained considerable doubts whether the king, with all his victories, knew how to conjugate a Greek verb in μ. -Sydney Smith.

PLEASING THE PUBLIC.

He who would please posterity must please himself, by choosing his own course. There are only two classes of writers who dare do this, the best and the worst; for this is one of the many cases in which extremes meet. The mediocres, in every grade, aim at pleasing the public, and conform themselves to the fashion of their age, whatever it may be.-The Doctor.

GIVING DINNERS.

Bulwer advises persons never to give dinners. "Do not go on that foolish plan which has been laid down by persons who pretend to know life, as a

means of popularity-of giving dinners better than other people. Unless you are a very rich man, or a very great man, no folly is equal to that of thinking that you soften the hearts of your friends by soups à la bisque, and Vermuth wine at a guinea a bottle! They will go away, saying: 'What right has that fellow to give a better dinner than we do? What a horrid taste! what ridiculous presumption!'"

MATHEWS' DECEPTIVE POWERS.

A true tale is told of the late Charles Mathews, that, personating an eccentric old gentleman, a family friend, he drank tea with his mother without her finding out the cheat.

CHARADES.

Sydney Smith says of them, that if they are made at all, they should be made without benefit of clergy, the offender should be instantly hurried off to execution, and be cut off in the middle of his dullness, without being allowed to explain to the executioner, why his first is like his second, or what is the resemblance between his fourth and his ninth.

APPLICABLE TO IDLERS.

A most curious instance of a change of instinct is mentioned by Darwin. The Bees carried over to Barbadoes and the Western Isles, ceased to lay up any honey after the first year; as they found it not useful to them. They found the weather so

fine, and materials for making honey so plentiful, that they quitted their grave, prudent, and mercantile character, became exceedingly profligate and debauched, eat up their capital, resolved to work no more, and amused themselves by flying about the sugar-houses, and stinging the blacks.-Sydney Smith.

POPE AND SWIFT.

Swift once said in a letter to one of his friends, that he hated human nature, but all his love was towards individuals: "for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor such-a-one, and Judge such-a-one. But principally I hate and detest that animal, man, although I love Peter, John, Thomas, and so forth.

Pope, on the contrary, said his love was for human nature, and his hatred against particular persons.

Perhaps this little thing illustrates the characters of the two authors.

PLEASURES OF A BOOKWORM.

Southey expatiates, with the relish of a bibliomaniac, upon the delights on opening a box of books:

"Talk of the happiness of getting a great prize in the lottery! What is that to the opening of a box of books? The joy upon lifting up the cover must be something like what we shall feel when Peter the Porter opens the door up stairs, and