justly considering that the Doctor, having been for many years the director of studies at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, must have had good opportunities of judging of the abilities of those who had passed through his hands. The learned professor was accordingly summoned to attend his Grace. The Doctor, though an eminent mathematician, was prone to make long speeches. Having therefore culied a few flowers of rhetoric, and placed them in array with geometrical precision, he proceeded to the interview with the utmost punctuality. The Duke was equally punctual ; and after his usual brief salutation, he proceeded at once to the point. I have given you the trouble of coming here, Doctor, to ask if is fit for ?' The learned professor, having made a profound bow, commenced his well-concocted speech: 'No man more so, my Lord Duke.' .... 'That is quite sufficient,' interrupted his Grace, taking up his hat; 'I know how valuable your time is; mine, just now, is equally so; I will not, therefore, detain you any longer.' The Doctor withdrew, disappointed at the cutting short of his harangue, but highly gratified with the compliment paid to his judgment.-Life of the Duke of Wellington, by Major Basil Jackson and Captain R. Scott.

71. SPEECH OF ROLLA.

My brave associates-partners of my toil, my feelings, and my fame! Can Rolla's words add vigour to the virtuous energies which inspire your hearts? No ;-you have judged as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea by which these bold invaders would delude you. Your generous spirit has compared, as mine has, the motives which, in a war like this, can animate their minds and ours. They, by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, for plunder, and extended rule; we, for our country, our altars, and our homes. They follow an adventurer whom they fear, and obey a power which they hate; we serve a monarch whom we love, a God whom we adore. Whene'er they move in anger, desolation tracks their progress! Whene'er they pause in amity, affliction mourns their friendship. They boast, they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error! Yes, they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion,

avarice, and pride. They offer us their protection. Yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs-covering and devouring them. They call on us to barter all of good we have inherited and proved, for the desperate chance of something better which they promise. Be our plain answer this: The throne we honour is the people's choice; the laws we reverence are our brave fathers' legacy; the faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of charity with all mankind, and die with hope of bliss beyond the grave. Tell your invaders this, and tell them too, we seek no change; and, least of all, such change as they would bring us.-Sheridan's Pizarro.

72. CURATES AND BISHOPS.

I am surprised it does not strike the mountaineers how very much the great emoluments of the Church are flung open to the lowest ranks of the community. Butchers, bakers, publicans, schoolmasters, are perpetually seeing their children elevated to the mitre. Let a respectable baker drive through the City from the west end of the town, and let him cast an eye on the battlements of Northumberland House, has his little muffinfaced son the smallest chance of getting in among the Percies, enjoying a share of their luxury and splendour, and of chasing the deer with hound and horn upon the Cheviot Hills? But let him drive his alum-steeped loaves a little farther, till he reaches St. Paul's Churchyard, and all his thoughts are changed when he sees that beautiful fabric; it is not impossible that his little penny-roll may be introduced into that splendid oven. Young Crumpet is sent to school-takes to his books-spends the best years of his life, as all eminent Englishmen do, in making Latin verses-knows that the crum in crumpet is long, and the pet short-goes to the university-gets a prize for an Essay on the Dispersion of the Jews—takes orders--becomes a bishop's chaplain-has a young nobleman for his pupil-publishes a useless classic, and a serious call to the unconverted-and then goes through the Elysian transitions of prebendary, dean, prelate, and the long train of purple, profit, and power.-Sydney Smith.

73. DINING-OUT IN THE COUNTRY.

Did you ever dine out in the country! What a misery human beings inflict upon each other under the name of plea

a neigh

sure! We went to dine last Thursday with Mr. bouring clergyman, a haunch of venison being the stimulus to the invitation. We set out at three o'clock; drove in a broiling sun, on dusty roads, three miles in our best gowns; found squire and parsons assembled in a small hot room, the whole house redolent with frying; talked, as is our wont, of roads, weather, and turnips; that done, began to grow hungry, then serious, then impatient. At last, a stripling, evidently caught up for the occasion, opened the door and beckoned our host out of the room. After some moments of awful suspense, he returned to us with a face of much distress, saying 'the woman assisting in the kitchen had mistaken the soup for dirty water, and had thrown it away; so we must do without it.' We all agreed it was perhaps as well we should, under the circumstances. At last, to our joy, dinner was announced; but oh, ye gods! as we entered the dining-room, what a gale met our nose! the venison was high, the venison was uneatable, and was obliged to follow the soup with all speed.

Dinner proceeded, but our spirits flagged under these accumulated misfortunes. There was an ominous pause between the first and second course; we looked at each other in the face-what new disaster awaited us? The pause became fearful. . . . We obtained the second course with difficulty, bored each other the usual time, ordered our carriages, expecting our postboys to be drunk, and were grateful to Providence for not permitting them to deposit us in a wet ditch. So much for dinners in the country.—Sydney Smith.

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74. DINNER.

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Dinner! The bare mention of the word suggests an ocean of more or less embarrassing questions. 'What shall we have for dinner?' has been the subject of a whole book. Where shall we dine?' is a question answered abundantly in our ad vertising columns. Society has not even made up its mind as to the proper time for dining. Medical men tell us that 2 P.M is the best hour; the labourer's dinner hour is noon; quiet country folks like to dine at one, in order that they may enjoy a comfortable meat tea at five; many eminent solicitors dine at three; there are highly respectable people who dine at four;

others have a preference for five; the public dinner hour is six; Belgravia and Tyburnia dine at seven; and superlative gentility, together with the officers of her Majesty's land forces, dine at eight. We have heard of Sybarites who never think of rising till 6 P.M., and who dine at midnight, but these are to be considered exceptions. When we have fixed upon a time, we find ourselves quite as perplexed as to the manner in which our dinner is to be served. Should we dine à la Russe, and have nothing on the table beyond plate, glass, napery, flowers, and epergnes, while solemn servitors hand scraps of meat to us over our shoulders; or should we 'see our dinner,' and surfeit ourselves, even before we have begun to eat, with the contemplation of monstrous joints, cauldrons of soup, and turbot as big as boats? Let those who list eat melon with roast lamb; or follow their second entrée and their hermitage with 'three black Hambro' grapes;' or insist that a dinner should be bisected, just before the roast, by a ponche à la romaine and a cigarette of Laferme's choicest Bessarabian tobacco. We shrink from the examination of the vexed problem.

75. A CHINESE DINNER.

A traveller recently arrived from Pekin gives the following description of a Chinese dinner: 'The first course consisted of a kind of square tower formed of slices of breast of goose and of a fish, which the Chinese call "cow's head," with a large dish of hashed tripe and hard eggs of a dark colour preserved in lime. Next came grains of pickled wheat and barley, shell-fish unknown in Europe, enormous prawns, preserved ginger, and fruits. All these are eaten with ivory chopsticks, which the guests bring with them. On grand occasions, the first dish is always birds'-nest soup, which consists of a thick gelatinous substance. Small cups are placed round the tureen, each containing a different kind of sauce. The second course was a ragout of sea-snails. At Macao these are white, but at Ningpo they are green, viscous, and slippery, by no means easy to pick up with small sticks. Their taste resembles that of the green fat of turtle. The snails were followed by a dish of the flesh covering the skull of sturgeons, which is very costly, as several heads are required to make even a small dish. Next was a dish of sharks' fins mixed with slices of pork, and a crab salad; after these a stew of plums and

other fruit, the acidity of which is considered a corrective for the viscous fat of the fish; then mushrooms, pulse, and ducks' tongues, which last are considered the ne plus ultra of Chinese cookery; deer's tendons-a royal dish which the Emperor himself sends as a present to his favourites; and Venus's ears-a kind of unctuous shell-fish; lastly, boiled rice, served in small cups, with acanthus seeds preserved in spirits, and other condiments. Last of all tea was served.'-Galignani.

76. THE HUNGARIAN HUSSAR.

There is a story of an Hungarian hussar, who, to his misfortune, was much too fond of corn brandy. Various punitive measures had, quite unavailingly, been tried to cure him of this fatal affection for the bottle; but neither stocks, nor stripes, nor the blackhole would wean the hussar from the Circe who had enslaved him. At last his captain, who really wished the man well, hit upon a plan, by means of which he thought some idea of self-responsibility and some sense of shame might be awakened in him. He ordered the inebriate dragoon to present himself every morning at his, the captain's, quarters, and there faithfully report to him all that he had done during the preceding four-and-twenty hours. Day after day, however, it was the same lamentable history—the same mournful catalogue of alcoholic excesses. 'If you please, your honour,' the penitent but incorrigible trooper would begin, 'I went out with Fritz and Johann, and we had schnapps. Then I broke three of the widow Fürst's best glasses. Then I beat Fritz. Then Johann kicked me. Then I fell into the river. Then I had some more schnapps,' and so forth. One morning the captain happened to observe that the penitent's utterance, even while he confessed his sins, was suspiciously thick, and that he swayed to and fro in a most unmilitary manner. Why, you rascal,' he cried in a passion,' what's the good of your telling me of the things you did yesterday? You're drunk now, sirrah? The hussar brought his hand with tipsy gravity to the salute,' That fact, he said, 'I shall report to your honour to-morrow.'

77. MONEY AND LABOUR.

We must not forget that, while some few abuse wealth, there are vastly more who know its appropriate use and worth.