Pump in the style of a toper fighting for his brandybottle? Or can the excellent qualities of cold water be no otherwise exemplified than by plunging, slap dash, into hot water, and woefully scalding yourself and other people? Trust me, they may. In the moral warfare which you are to wage—and indeed in the whole conduct of your lives-you cannot choose a better example than myself, who have never permitted the dust and sultry atmosphere, the turbulent and manifold disquietudes of the world around me, to reach that deep calm well of purity, which may be called my soul. And whenever I pour out that soul, it is to cool earth's fever, or cleanse its stains. ! One o'clock Nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, I may as well hold my peace. Here comes a pretty young girl of my acquaintance, with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. May she draw a husband, while drawing her water, as Rachel did of old! Hold out your vessel, my dear! There it is, full to the brim; so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the pitcher as you go; and forget not, in a glass of my own liquor, to drink "SUCCESS TO THE TOWN PUMP!" NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, promulgating, publishing, proclaiming to all and sundry. Lat. promulgatum, “to expose to public view;" from pro, "forth," and (possibly) vulgus, "the common people, the crowd." fèrule, cane or rod, for inflicting punishment in school. Lat. ferula, "a thin branch, a rod." Sagamores, kings, or chiefs; also, a tribe of American Indians. Hippocrates, the most famous physician of antiquity. Born in the island of Cos, probably about B.C. 460. FRANKLIN AND THE GOUT. MIDNIGHT, 22nd October, 1780. Franklin. Eh! Oh! Eh! What have I done to merit these cruel sufferings? Gout. Many things; you have ate and drank too freely, and too much indulged those legs of yours in their indolence. Franklin. Who is it that accuses me? Gout. It is I, even I, the Gout. Gout. No, not your enemy. person? Franklin. I repeat it; my enemy; for you would not only torment my body to death, but ruin my good name; you reproach me as a glutton and a tippler; now all the world that knows me will allow that I am neither the one nor the other. Gout. The world may think as it pleases; it is always very complaisant to itself, and sometimes to its friends; but I very well know that the quantity of meat and drink proper for a man who takes a reasonable degree of exercise would be too much for another who never takes any. Franklin. I take-Eh! Oh!-as much exercise -Eh!-as I can, Madam Gout. You know my sedentary state, and on that account, it would seem, Madam Gout, as if you might spare me a little, seeing it is not altogether my own fault. Gout. Not a jot; your rhetoric and your politeness are thrown away; your apology avails nothing. If your situation in life is a sedentary one, your amusements, your recreations, at least should be active. You ought to walk or ride; or, if the weather prevents that, play at billiards. But let us examine your course of life. While the mornings are long, and you have leisure to go abroad, what do you do? Why, instead of gaining an appetite for breakfast, by salutary exercise, you amuse yourself with books, pamphlets, or newspapers, which commonly are not worth the reading. Yet you eat an inordinate breakfast-four dishes of tea, with cream, and one or two buttered toasts, with slices of hung beef, which I fancy are not things the most easily digested. Immediately afterward you sit down to write at your desk, or converse with persons who apply to you on business. Thus the time passes till one, without any kind of bodily exercise. But all this I could pardon, in regard, as you say, to your sedentary condition. But what is your practice after dinner? Walking in the beautiful gardens of those friends with whom you have dined would be the choice of men of sense; yours is to be fixed down to chess, where you are found engaged for two or three hours! This is your perpetual recreation, which is the least eligible of any for a sedentary man, because, instead of accelerating the motion of the fluids, the rigid attention it requires helps to retard the circulation and obstruct internal secretions. Wrapt in the speculations of this wretched game, you destroy your constitution. What can be expected from such a course of living, but a body replete with stagnant humours, ready to fall a prey to all kinds of dangerous maladies, if I, the Gout, did not occasionally bring you relief by agitating those humours, and so purifying or dissipating them? If it was in some nook or alley in Paris, deprived of walks, that you played a while at chess after dinner, this might be excusable; but the same taste prevails with you in Passy, Auteuil, Montmartre, or Savoy, places where there are the finest gardens and walks, a pure air, beautiful women, and the most agreeable and instructive conversation; all which you might enjoy by frequenting the walks. But these are rejected for this abominable game of chess. Fie, then, Mr. Franklin! But amidst my instructions I had almost forgot to administer my wholesome corrections; so take that twinge, and that. Franklin. Oh! Eh! Oh! Oh-h-h! As much instruction as you please, Madame Gout, and as many reproaches; but pray, Madam, a truce with your corrections! Gout. No, Sir, no-I will not abate a particle of what is so much for your good, therefore Franklin. Oh! Eh-h-h!-It is not fair to say I take no exercise, when I do very often, going out to dine and returning in my carriage. Gout. That, of all imaginable exercises, is the most slight and insignificant, if you allude to the motion of a carriage suspended on springs. By observing the degree of heat obtained by different kinds of motion, we may form an estimate of the quantity of exercise given by each. Thus, for example, if you turn out to walk in |