ANECDOTE OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON IN THE PENINSULA. LORD WELLINGTON looks forward very coolly, to another winter here. He said he should have twenty-five couples of fox-hounds next season. The other day the Commissary General told him we had eaten nearly all the oxen in the country, that the cultivation of the lands in Portugal could not go on for want of them, and that he scarcely knew where to turn for a supply of beef, as there was this year no reserve store near Lisbon. Lord Wellington said, Well, then, we must now set about eating all the sheep, and when they are gone I suppose we must go.' THE MODERN CUPID. He rests on violet banks no languid limb, For men of law his instruments have made; His doves are stock doves, and no notes have place, In his regard, except the "Notes of Hase." Lord of the treasury, master of the mint, This is our Cupid;- -Ladies take the hint; WHEN a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he may say a great deal in a very narrow compass. A BROKER deeply absorbed in speculation, being asked, the other morning, "How do you do?" replied abruptly, " About two per cent. a month!" A YOUNG Stockbroker having married an old widow with £100,000, says it was'nt his wife's face that attracted him so much as the figure. AN Indiana wit says, that during a trial in Lawrenceport, a young lad, who was called as a witness, was asked if he knew what was the obligation of an oath, and where he would go if he told a lie. He said he supposed "he would go where all the lawyers went to." "AND what do you think of the three last reigns; you have lived in all three of them ?" said Louis XVI. to the Duke of Richelieu. "Sire, under Louis XIV. no one durst speak; in Louis XV.'s reign people spoke in an under tone; and under your Majesty every one speaks as loud as he pleases.' An infidel, who had been attempting to prove that men had no souls, asked a lady with an air of triumph, what she thought of his philosophy? "It appears to me," she replied, " that you have employed a good deal of talent to prove yourself a beast.' VOL. I. Y THE FORCE OF HABIT. MR. GLADSTONE was once asked by a little boy to tell him something about Cerberus, when the great orator, clearing his throat, eloquently began: "Why, my little dear, we must divide the subject into three heads.” The little boy instinctively ran out of the room. WELSH EPITAPH. Here lies my poor wife! a slattern, a shrew, A HUMAN BEING WITH NOTHING TO DO. MOST miserable, worthy of most profound pity, is such a being. The most insignificant object in nature becomes a source of envy; the birds warble on every spray, in ecstacy of joy; the tiny flower, hidden from all eyes, sends forth its fragrance of full happiness; the mountain stream dashes along with a sparkle and murmur of pure delight. The object of their creation is accomplished, and their life gushes forth in harmonic work. Oh, plant! Oh! stream -worthy of admiration, of worship, to the wretched idler! Here are powers ye never dreamed of-faculties divine, eternal! a head to think, but nothing to concentrate the thoughts; a heart to love, but no object to bathe with the living tide of affection; a hand to do, but no work to be done; talents unexercised, capacities undeveloped, a human life thrown away-wasted as water poured forth in the desert. Birds and flowers, ye are gods to such a mockery of life ! Who can describe the fearful void of such an existence, the yearning for an object, the self-reproach for wasted powers, the weariness of daily life, the loathing of pleasure, of frivolity, and the fearful consciousness of deadening life—of a spiritual paralysis, which hinders all response to human interests— when enthusiasm ceases to arouse, and noble deeds no longer call forth the tear of joy; when the world becomes a blank, humanity a far-off sound, and no life is left but the heavy, benumbing weight of personal hopelessness and desolation. Happier far is the toiling drudge who coins body and soul into the few poor shillings that can only keep his family in a long starvation; he has a hope unceasingly to light him, a duty to perform, a spark of love within that cannot die; and wretched, weary, unhuman, as his life may be, it is of royal worth it is separated by the immeasurable distance of life and death from the poor, perhaps pampered wretch, who is cursed for having no work to do. AT a New York hotel dinner one gentleman gave his fork to another, with "Just stick that fork into that potatoe for me, will you?" His surly, unneighbourly neighbour did as he requested, and left it sticking there! CONTROVERSY. MASONRY is a universal system, and teaches the relative and social duties of man on the broad and extensive basis of general philanthropy. A Jew, a Mahometan, or a Pagan, may attend our lodges without fear of hearing his peculiar doctrines or mode of faith called in question by a comparison with others which are repugnant to his creed, because a permanent and unalterable landmark of Masonry is, the total absence and exclusion of religious or political controversy. Each of these professors practices a system of morality suited to the sanctions of his religion, which, as it emanated from the primitive system of divine worship, bears some resemblance to it; and consequently he can hear moral precepts inculcated without imputing a designed reference to any peculiar mode of faith. THE OLD COTTAGE CLOCK. Its hands, though old, had a touch of gold, 'Twas a monitor, too, though its words were few, A friendly voice was that old, old clock, And blessed the time with a merry chime, But a cross old voice was that tiresome clock, As it called at daybreak boldly, When the dawn looked grey, o'er the misty way, And the early air blew coldly: Tick-tick! it said: quick out of bed, For five I've given warning; You'll never have health, you'll never have wealth, Still hourly the sound goes round and round, With a tone that ceases never; While tears are shed for the bright days fled, Its heart beats on-though hearts are gone Its hands still move-though hands we love A LADY OFFICER. JEAN PAUL says that a lady officer, if she wanted to give the word "halt," would do it in this strain-" You soldiers all of you, now mind, I order you, as soon as I have done speaking, to stand still, every one of you on the spot where you happen to be: don't you hear me? Halt I say, all of you." Upon this a lady in an American paper makes the following comment :-"Now, Monsieur Jean, it was an unlucky day you wrote that sentence. May you never hear anything but that little concise word 'No' from every rosy lip you meet between this and your tombstone! May you halt' wifeless through life; may your buttons be snappish, your strings knotty, and your stockings holy. May your boot jack be missing, your feet corned, your shaving-water be cold; your razor dull, your hair stand up, and your dickies lie down; may your beard be porcupiny, your whiskers thinly settled, and your moustaches curl the wrong way; may your coffee be muddy, your toast smoky, and your tea be water-bewitched; may you dream of Paradise, and wake in some other place! And, with a never-dying desire for affection, may you crawl through creation a meek, miserable, nasty, forlorn, figetty, fussy, ridiculous, ruined, dejected, ragged old bachelor. Amen!" EPIGRAM. The lovely hair that Galla wears Is hers, who could have thought it? She swears 'tis hers, and true she swears, ANTS. In the exotic regions they construct habitations of considerable size, and form large communities, consisting of a king and queen, soldiers, and labourers. Such especially are the white ants, whose nests, formed entirely of clay, are, in fact, occasionally larger than the dwellings of the natives." IN one of our weekly contemporaries, we observe the " Railway Intelligence" is inserted next to the "Obituary." "DOCTOR," said a querulous suffering invalid, who had paid a good deal of money for physic to apparent little purpose, "you don't seem to reach the seat of my disease. Why don't you strike at the seat of my disorder ?" "So I will," was the prompt reply, "if you insist on it ;" and, lifting his cane, he smashed the brandy bottle on the sideboard. A TRADESMAN at Luton, Bedfordshire, has the following notice stuck up in his window :-" Good ladies, 1s.; lasting ditto, 1s. 6d. per pair." RIDDLES FOR THE POST OFFICE. THE following ludicrous direction to a letter was copied verbatim from the original and interesting document : "too dad Tomas hat the ole oke 10 Barry pade "Sur plees to let ole feather have this sefe." The letter found the gentleman at "The Old Oak Orchard, Tenbury." I saw another letter, where the writer, after a severe struggle to express "Scotland," succeeded at length to his satisfaction, and wrote it thus, "stockling.' A third letter was sent by a woman to a son who had settled in Tennessee, which the old lady had thus expressed with all phonetic simplicity, “10, S. C.”— Notes and Queries. BEAUTIFUL STREAMS. Beautiful streams, that flow onward for ever, Life-giving founts as they wander along, Who can behold them devoid of emotion, Or love not the sound of their murmuring song? Cooling the earth in the warm sunny hours, Crowning the vales with the rich summer flowers; POWER OF SIGHT IN BIRDS. THE Swallow, while flying at the rate of three miles a minute, is yet employed in looking up and down, right and left, for the minute insects on which it feeds, and which it captures and swallows without any diminution of the prodigious speed at which it is travelling. "IF all the world were blind, what a melancholy sight it would be," said an Irish clergyman to his congregation. WHEN two goats met on a bridge which was too narrow to allow either to pass or return, the goat which lay down that the other might walk over it, was a finer gentleman than Lord Chesterfield. DONATELLO, the great Florentine sculptor, had been long working at his statue of Judith; and, on giving the last stroke of the chisel to it, he was heard to exclaim, "Speak now; I am sure you can." |