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THE EVIL OF A BAD TEMPER.-A bad temper is a curse to the possessor, and its influence is most deadly wherever it is found. To hear one eternal round of complaint and murmuring, to have every pleasant thought scared away, is a sore trial. The purest and sweetest atmosphere is contaminated into a poisonous miasma wherever this evil genius prevails. It has been said truly, that while we ought not to let the bad temper of others influence us, it would be as unreasonable to spread a blister upon the skin, and not expect it to draw, as to think of a family not suffering because of the bad temper of any one of its inmates. One string out of tune will destroy the music of an instrument otherwise perfect, so if all the members of a family do not cultivate a kind and affectionate temper, there will be discord and every evil work.

POETRY.-About one book only in a hundred is a success. When Campbell, at a literary festival, toasted Bonaparte as a friend of literature, because he once had a bookseller shot, he was a trifle too rough on the trade. It is impossible always for a publisher to decide rightly. All publishers are naturally shy of a new MS. of poetry, for instance, for they know by experience that the deadest of all dead books is a dead volume of verse. The sepulchre of deceased poetry in Mr. Burnham's churchyard of old books, in Cornhill, is the largest bin in his establishment.

THE Literary Gazette says: "Sir William à Beckett, late Chief-Justice of Victoria, has favored us with the following interesting extract from a letter just received from Melbourne:

"What think you of our library? the attendance has reached eight thousand persons a month, actually a larger number than that last year at the British Museum-ninety-three thousand to ninety-six thousand. This year, also, we are fortunate enough to have a grant of £20,000 to expend, and a wing

THE time and labor are worse than useless that have been occupied in laying up treasures of false knowledge which it will be necessary to unlearn, and in storing up mistaken ideas which we must hereafter remember to forget. An ancient teacher of rhetoric always demanded a double fee from those pupils who had been instructed by others, for in that case he had not only to plant in, but to root out.

DR. BARTH, the great African traveler, has been appointed by the Queen, a Commander of the Bath. It seems that the "belief" of the Lancet is not well founded, that Sir Benjamin Brodie would be raised to the peerage for his eminent services, by the title of Baron Betchworth.

A COPY of the First Edition of Burns' Poems, printed at Kilmarnock in 1786, was recently sold at a sale in Edinburgh for £3 108.: it is in the original binding, and was bought by Mr. Stevenson, of Edinburgh, the antiquarian bookseller.

IN announcing a fête to be held on the occasion of the Burns Centenary, at the Crystal Palace, on January 25th, 1859, the Directors of that institution offer a prize of Fifty Guineas for the best poem on the subject, the copy-right to remain in the hands of the Company.

CHRISTIAN DUTIES. - The Christian has, when alone, his thoughts to watch; in the family, his temper; in company, his tongue. It will be his endeavor to illustrate his devotions in the morning by his actions during the day.

ACTIONS AND WORDS.-Actions speak more forcibly than words; they are the test of character. Like fruit upon the tree, they show the nature of the man; while motives, like the sap, are hidden from our view.

DURING a recent trial there was a large number

is being added, which gives an additional reading of ladies present, who caused a gentle murmuring

room ninety feet long.''

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON is advertising in the Irish papers for a portion of the Correspondence of the late Duke, September, 1805, to April, 1807, said to be missing, and necessary to the completion of the Supplemental Dispatches. His Grace believed that the papers were deposited somewhere in Dublin during his secretaryship in 1807.

YANKEE ENERGY.-The fabulous edifice proposed by a Yankee from Vermont no longer seems an impossibility. "Build the establishment according to my plan," said he: "Drive a sheep in at one end, and he shall immediately come out at the other, four quarters of lamb, a felt hat, a leather apron, and a quarto Bible."

ANCIENT PRICES.-Four hundred years ago, a single book of gossiping fiction was sold before the palace-gate in the French capital for fifteen hundred dollars. The same amount of matter contained in

this expensive volume, Mr. Harper now supplies for twenty-five cents.

WHEN twenty-five thousand copies of Mr. Macaulay's two recent volumes went flying all abroad from Paternoster Row, no less than five thousand reams of paper, six tons of pasteboard, and seven thousand yards of calico were swallowed up.

all the while. The usher called out repeatedly, "Silence!" when the Judge mildly said: "Mr. Usher, don't you know better than to call silence when ladies are in court!"

DEATHLESSNESS OF WHAT IS GOOD AND BEAUTI

FUL.-There is nothing innocent or good that dies, and is forgotten. An infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those who loved it.

FROM the small hollow of the dice-box arise fear, rage, convulsion, tears, oaths, blasphemies-as many evils as ever flew from the box of Pandora; and not even hope remains behind.

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THE EMPRESS MARIA THERESA AND HER MINISTER OF STATE KAUNITS.

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