optical Yankee cannot, by the finest figure in the choice museum of his magniloquence, go beyond the mark in describing them. There is nothing in the current language of the New or the Old World that can possibly bring to the mind's-eye a correct idea of their volume and immensity! We have sailed and steamed on them all, and have anchored in their natural bays and harbours, and landed on many of the innumerable little aits, or islands, which stud them, like bright emeralds on the heaving bosom of a giantess. But we have sought in vain, from map or man, to discover that delectable river, so congenial in its course to our own indolence,-that river which a native American has described as "too lazy to run down a hill !" What a gem is that river! a gem of the first water! How wise it is to keep its bed! How unlike those turbulent and unruly streams, those graceless runaways-that are only fitted by Nature for the sea to which they rush. YAWN THE SECOND. MAN is a machine; ergo, the more friction he suffers from activity, the more rapidly will he wear out. That great philosopher, Diogenes, whose happiness and contentment even Alexander envied, was so perfectly convinced of this axiom, that he wisely contracted his worldly estate and possessions to the narrowest possible limits, and tenanted a tub. Happy mortal! that, like a snail, could carry his house upon his back. A counterpart of this sage of antiquity was that simple shepherd who wished for wealth that he might eat fat bacon, and swing all day upon a gate! Thomson, the poet of the Seasons, possessed a spice of this enviable spirit; for he loved to saunter about his cool garden at a tortoise-pace, his hands resting in the hollow of his broad back, and ever and anon to stop and nibble the ripe peaches as they hung upon the wall. What perfection of idleness! It is only given. to transcendent genius to arrive at thy pinguifying pinnacle. YAWN THE THIRD. A PORTRAIT. LISTLESS SLOw was, theoretically, an industrious man; practically, a pattern of indolence. He was sleek, fair-haired, and, by habit, had superinduced a plumpness that bordered upon the chubby. The house was a very hive of industry, and he a drone. By the influence of his father-in-law he had obtained a situation under government; the fatigues of office were his constant theme, and the ever-ready excuse for his repose. Poor fellow he generally took his chocolate in bed at eight, read till nine, and then, by an effort, leaped into his dressing-gown and slippers, and submitted his chin to the operations of a barber. At ten the omnibus called at his door, and transported him to the office-the hours of business being from eleven to two o'clock-where, in winter, he sat with his feet on the fender, punching the inoffensive round coals in the glowing grate, while a junior clerk read the newspaper aloud. In summer he ate strawberries or cherries, and killed time by shooting at the blue-bottles which busily buzzed about his prison, for such he deemed it. Harassed with the toils of the day,—having probably been compelled to sign his name half-a-dozen times in the course of his incarceration !-he hailed the advent of the omnibus with the glee of a school |