heroines, forever whimpering tears and prattling commonplaces. You would have the heroine of your novel so beautiful that she should charm the captain (or hero, whoever he may be) with her appearance; surprise and confound the bishop with her learning; outride the squire and get the brush, and, when he fell from his horse, whip out a lancet and bleed him; rescue from fever and death the poor cottager's family whom the doctor had given up; make 21 at the butts with the rifle, when the poor captain only scored 18; give him twenty in fifty at billiards, and beat him; and draw tears from the professional Italian people by her exquisite performance (of voice and violoncello) in the evening-I say, if a novelist would be popular with ladies-the great novel readers of the world— this is the sort of heroine who would carry him. through half a dozen editions. Suppose I had asked that Bearded Lady to sing? Confess, now, miss, you would not have been displeased if I had told you that she had a voice like Lablache, only ever so much lower.

My dear, you would like to be a heroine? You would like to travel in triumphal caravans; to see your effigy placarded on city walls; to have your levées attended by admiring crowds, all crying out, แ Was there ever such a wonder of a woman?" You would like admiration? Consider the tax you pay for it. You would be alone were you eminent. Were you so distinguished that your neighbors-I will not say by a beard and whiskers, that were odious-but by a great and remarkable intellectual superiority – would you, do you think, be any the happier? Con

sider envy. Consider solitude. Consider the jealousy and torture of mind which this Kentucky lady must feel, suppose she is to hear that there is, let us say, a Missouri prodigy, with a beard larger than hers? Consider how she is separated from her kind by the possession of that wonder of a beard? When that beard grows gray, how lonely she will be, the poor old thing! If it falls off, the public admiration falls off too; and how she will miss it- the compliments of the trumpeters, the admiration of the crowd, the gilded progress of the car. I see an old woman alone in a decrepit old caravan, with cobwebs on the knocker, with a blistered ensign flapping idly over the door. Would you like to be that deserted person? Ah! Chloe. To be good, to be simple, to be modest, to be loved, be thy lot. Be thankful thou art not taller, nor stronger, nor richer, nor wiser than the rest of the world.

ON LETTS'S DIARY.

INE is one of your No. 12 diaries, three shillings cloth boards; silk limp, gilt edges, three and six; French morocco, tuck ditto, four and six. It has two pages, ruled with faint lines for memoranda, for every week, and a ruled account at the end, for

the twelve months from January to December, where you may set down your incomings and your expenses. I hope yours, my respected reader, are large; that there are many fine round sums of figures on each side of the page: liberal on the expenditure side, greater still on the receipt. I hope, sir, you will be "a better man," as they say, in '62 than in this moribund '61, whose career of life is just coming to its terminus. A better man in purse? in body? in soul's health? Amen, good sir, in all. Who is there so good in mind, body, or estate, but bettering won't still be good for him? Oh unknown Fate, presiding over next year, if you will give me better health, a better

appetite, a better digestion, a better income, a better temper in '62 than you have bestowed in '61, I think your servant will be the better for the change. For instance, I should be the better for a new coat. This one, I acknowledge, is very old. The family says so. My good friend, who among us would not be the better if he would give up some old habits? Yes, yes. You agree with me. You take the allegory? Alas! at our time of life we don't like to give up those old habits, do we? It is ill to change. There is the good old loose, easy, slovenly bedgown, laziness, for example. What man of sense likes to fling it off and put on a tight, guindé, prim dress coat that pinches him? There is the cozy wrap-rascal self-indulgence—how easy it is! How warm! How it always seems to fit! You can walk out in it; you can go down to dinner in it. You can say of such what Tully says of his books: Pernoctat nobiscum, peregrinatur, rusticatur. It is a little slatternly—it is a good deal stained—it isn't becoming-it smells of cigar smoke; but, allons donc! let the world call me idle and sloven. I love my ease better than my neighbor's opinion. I live to please myself; not you, Mr. Danby, with your supercilious airs. I am a philosopher. Perhaps I live in my tub, and don't make any other use of it- We won't pursue farther this unsavory metaphor; but, with regard to some of your old habits, let us say,

1. The habit of being, censorious, and speaking ill of your neighbors.

2. The habit of getting into a passion with your man-servant, your maid-servant, your daughter, wife,

etc.

3. The habit of indulging too much at table.

4. The habit of smoking in the dining-room after dinner.

5. The habit of spending insane sums of money in bric à brac, tall copies, binding, Elzevirs, etc.; '20 Port, outrageously fine horses, ostentatious entertainments, and what not; or,

6. The habit of screwing meanly, when rich, and chuckling over the saving of half a crown, while you are poisoning your friends and family with bad wine. 7. The habit of going to sleep immediately after dinner, instead of cheerfully entertaining Mrs. Jones and the family; or,

8. LADIES! The habit of running up bills with the milliners, and swindling paterfamilias on the house bills.

9. The habit of keeping him waiting for breakfast. 10. The habit of sneering at Mrs. Brown and the Miss Browns because they are not quite du monde, or quite so genteel as Lady Smith.

11. The habit of keeping your wretched father up at balls till five o'clock in the morning, when he has to be at his office at eleven.

12. The habit of fighting with each other, dear Louisa, Jane, Arabella, Amelia.

13. The habit of always ordering John Coachman three quarters of an hour before you want him.

Such habits, I say, sir or madam, if you have had to note in your diary of '61, I have not the slightest doubt you will enter in your pocket-book of '62. There are habits Nos. 4 and 7, for example. I am morally sure that some of us will not give up those