THE MODERN HAT.

We know of nothing that can be said in favour of the article which we are forced to wear on our heads. It is hot in summer; it is not warm in winter; it does not shade us from the sun; it does not shelter us from the rain; it is ugly and expensive; you cannot wear it in a railway carriage; it is always in your way in a drawing-room; if you sit upon it you crush it, yet it will not save your skull in a fall from your horse; it will not go into a portmanteau; you are sure to forget it when suspended from the straps of a carriage roof; it is too hard to roll up, too soft to stand upon; it rusts with the sea-air, and spots with the rain; if it is good, you are sure to have it taken by mistake at a soirée; if it is bad, you are set down for a swindler. Mark Lemon.

TRUISMS.

Good way and a good horse shorten miles.
Beard was never the true standard of brains.
Epicures bear their brains in their bowels.
Oil of whip is the proper plaster for the cramp
of laziness.
Thomas Fulier.

THE INSTITUTION OF ENGLAND.

If an earthquake were to ingulf England tomorrow, the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubbish, just to celebrate the event. Douglas Jerrold.

ALL ALIVE, O!

A clergyman at Oxford, who was very nervous and absent, going to read prayers at St Mary's, heard a showman in the street, who had an exhibition of wild beasts, repeat often, "Walk in! walk in! ladies and gentlemen! all alive, alive, O!” The sounds struck the absent man, and ran in his head so much, that when he began to read the service, and came to the words, "he shall save his soul alive," he cried out with a loud voice, "shall save his soul alive; all alive! alive O!" Horace Walpole.

GOOD HUMOUR.

Honest good-humour is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and the laughter abundant.

Washington Irving.

BEER AND BRITANNIA.

What two ideas are more inseparable than Beer and Britannia? What event more awfully important to an English colony than the erection of its first brewhouse? Sydney Smith.

OLD BACHELORS.

Old bachelors have been styled unproductive consumers; scissors with but one blade; bows without fiddles; irregular substantives, always in the singular number and objective case; unruly scholars, who, when told to conjugate, always decline. Saunders.

HOW TO TURN THE BRAIN.

Nothing is so likely to turn the brain as extensive application directed to one of six things: the quadrature of the circle, the multiplication of the cube, the perpetual motion, the philosopher's stone, judicial astrology, and magic.

INCONTROVERTIBLE.

Perron.

A mother-in-law's sermon seldom takes well with an audience of daughters-in-law.

English Proverb.

A FEW OLD JOKES.

One, seeing another wear a threadbare cloak, asked him whether his cloak was sleepy or no? Why do you ask? saith the other. Because, said he, I think it hath not had a nap, these seven years.

One wondered much what great man this Finis was, because his name was almost to every book.

One asked whether such a man was wise or no. It was answered that he was otherwise.

One persuaded his friend to marry a little woman, because of two evils the least was to be chosen.

One asked what that young man deserved, that did love always to be in a playhouse. It was answered, a box.

One said physicians had the best of it; for, if they did well, the world did proclaim it; if ill, the earth did cover it.

One whose name was You married a woman whose name was You also; he, for this cause, was, and ever will be called Master W.

Conceits, Clinches, Flashes, and
Whimsies, 1639.

THE LOFTY NATURE OF Belief.

Belief is the healthy action of a man's mind. A man lives by believing something-not by debating and arguing about many things. It is a sad thing for a man, when all he can manage to believe is something that has guineas in its pockets, beef-eaters riding behind it, and cannons trundling before it, something that he can button in his breeches' pocket, and with one organ or the other eat and digest ;-lower than that a man cannot very well get. Carlyle.

A DESCRIPTIVE TITLE-PAGE.

A Reaping Hook Well Tempered for the Stubborn Ears of the Coming Crop; or, Biscuits Baked in the Oven of Charity, Carefully Conserved for the Chickens cf the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the Sweet Swallows of Salvation.

CONSCIENCE THE ONLY TRIBUNAL.

A man's own conscience is his sole tribunal; and he should care no more for that phantom "opinion" than he should fear meeting a ghost if he cross the churchyard at dark. Bulwer.