his view a young man leaning ponderously on
the arm of a young lady. With how fond and
rapturous an expression of appropriation as much
as to say, 66
This is my young woman-take her
from me who dare," does that youth clutch to his
heart the dear object of his affections! And
with how reciprocal a sentiment of anticipated
seisin does the lady look up into the eyes of the
gentleman whom she guides through the crowd,
and protects from all comers, as much as to say,
"Yes, this is indeed my sweetheart, and he shall
one day be my chattel, my property, my husband!"
I often wonder which of these young persons "pops
the question," and in what language it is couched.
Does the gentleman still propose for the lady, as
was customary in old-fashioned times? Or does
the lady propose for the gentleman, who, leaning
upon the arm of his charmer, and depending upon
her for support, usually looks by far the weaker
vessel of the two? To judge from appearances,
there seems reason to conclude that the business
of courtship is now left chiefly in the hands of the
fair sex, the unfair following the maxim laid down
by Ben Jonson,—

"Follow a shadow, and it flies you,-
Seem to fly, it will pursue ;

So court a mistress, she denies you,-
Let her alone, she will court you."

A charming arrangement, truly, and one well calculated to realise to the male imagination, in all the plenitude of their blissfulness, those prospective rights of possession wherein consist the delights of sweethearting.

But every cup of human happiness, it matters not how sweet and sparkling, is dashed with hyssop. Of no chalice can this be said more truly

than of that which lovers quaff. The aliquid amari is never wanting to qualify a rapture which, but for this admixture of acid, would possibly be too luscious for the lips of frail mortality.

How painful must be the predicament of the lover, who, wearing a wig, is asked by the young woman with whom he "keeps company" for a lock of his hair! Such a lover must assuredly curse his perruque, and envy the wigless condition of the pig renowned in nursery literature:

"Upon my word of honour,

As I was going to Stonor,
I met a pig
Without a wig, —

Upon my word of honour!"

It will not do for a wigged lover to take off his wig, and present it en masse to the beloved, as the tailor does in the old farce of The Irish Lion. And, by the way, talking of wigs reminds me of what the O'Finnigan O said the other day,-"I hate the sight of them," he exclaimed. "I declare to you that if I were bald to-morrow, I had rather wear my own hair than a wig." No doubt he would. But this is a digression, and I hate such things. Let us keep to our text, the delights of sweethearting. Of all these delights, the most unaccountable is the joy that sweethearts find in falling out. "Never mind our quarrels. It's as sweet as sugar-candy, dear, to make it up again!" So spake an impassioned young man, whom I overheard at Clovelly one day last summer; and so speaking, he imprinted a kiss upon the damask cheek of his enchantress. But suppose they don't make it up again! What a terrible business it is when they vow eternal separation (until next Tuesday), and meanwhile return one another's

presents! And here it is that the law of compensation tells powerfully in favour of a bald lover. He need not fear the humiliation of having love-locks given back to him. How sanglant is this sarcasm of a French lady who had quarrelled with her lover,-" Ce qu'il y a d'agréable avec vous, mon ami, c'est qu'on n'a pas à vous rendre de cheveux," "What is delightful about you, my friend, is that I have not the trouble of sending you back any locks of hair!" locks of hair!" With this witty sally let us close our enumeration of the delights of sweethearting.

AFFAIRS OF HONOUR.

VOLUME devoted to a history of duelling, and illustrated with characteristic anec

dotes, would probably be at once as comic and as tragic a record of human folly as any ever written. Though the cases of Eteocles and Polynices, of David and Goliath, and many others, might be cited to show that the practice in a rude form dates from remote antiquity, there can be no question that the "institution, "institution," in any shape similar to that in which it existed within living memory, came down to us from Scandinavia, with the irruptions of the barbarous Northern races who knew no other method of sustaining their pretensions. They never asked whether a man was virtuous and just, but only whether he had courage; they cared not to inquire into the quality and extent of his talents; all they wanted to know was whether he could fight. Everything was won and kept by the sword; and to its fell arbitrament all questions were referred. Thus the refusal of a girl's hand in marriage involved the rejected suitor in the necessity of challenging to deadly combat his more favoured rival. And so the vein of murderous madness branched off in all directions, till it permeated every section of the social system, and corrupted the whole body politic.

On the silliness of duelling Mr. Carlyle descants with a caustic humour all his own. "As for duels," he says, "indeed I have my own ideas. Few things in this so-surprising world strike me with more surprise. Two little visual spectra of men, hovering with insecure enough cohesion in the midst of the unfathomable, and to dissolve therein, at any rate, very soon, make pause at the distance of twelve paces asunder, whirl around, and simultaneously, by the cunningest mechanism, explode one another into dissolution; and, off-hand, become air and non-extant!-the little spitfires!" My friend, Richard Belward, who to my certain knowledge, has "called out" two men, neither of whom was blockhead enough to go, has painted the pictures of a couple of duellists and their associates in an affair of honour with a felicity of language and a poignancy of satire possible to no other writer:

"Two fools, with each an empty head,
Or, like their pistols, lined with lead;
Two minor fools to measure distance;
A surgeon to afford assistance;

A paragraph to catch the fair,

And tell the world how brave the pair."

So much for the comic aspect of the question. The pathetic is too painful to dwell upon.

What aggravates the absurdity of duelling is the preposterous insignificance of the causes that have often led to it. Colonel Montgomery was shot in a duel about a dog; Captain Ramsay in one about a servant; Mr. Featherstone in one about a recruit: Sterne's father in one about a goose; and another gentleman had to run the risk of death because of an 66 acre of anchovies." An officer was once challenged for merely asking his opponent to enjoy the second goblet; another