DISCONTINUING A NEWSPAPER. Mr. A believes he shall discontinue his paper, because it contains no political news; while B is decidedly of opinion that the same paper dabbles too freely in the political movements of the day. I declares he does not want a paper filled with the hodge, podge, doings and undoings of the Legislature. J declares that paper the best that gives the greatest quantity of such proceedings. K patronises the papers for the light and lively reading they contain. L wonders that the paper does not publish Dewy’s Sermons, and such other solid matter. O likes police reports. P would not have a paper, in which these reports are printed, in his house. Q likes anecdotes. R wont take a paper, that publishes them, and says, that murders and dreadful accidents ought not to be put into papers. S complains that his miserable paper gives no account of that highway robbery last week. X will not take his paper unless it is left at his door before sunrise ; while Y declares that he will not pay for it if left so early ; that it is stolen from his house before he is up. COBBETT'S NOTION OF A CORONATION. The king (God bless him !) is, it seems, to be crowned next Thursday. Some people are saying, that he might do very well without it. No, hang it; I don't think so; for a king without a crown and robes, is like a peacock without a topknot and tail. RECOLLECTIONS OF WASHINGTON. The following is interesting for its subject, a reminiscence of Washington, at New York, in 1797. Day after day my departure was postponed; and an invitation to dine with a gentleman, living at the same boarding house with General Washington, then at New York, induced me to postpone it still further. My recollection of that great man is, that he was very tall, perhaps six feet two inches to six feet four inches, very reserved and polite, clear and quick sighted, had an aquiline nose, and high forehead falling back. On being introduced to him as a British officer, he inquired if it were usual for gentlemen to enter the army as young as I appeared to be; he particularly asked if I were a Gerınan, the name belonging he thought to that country. On my replying, he asked if I were related to the Professor of Fortification, at Woolwich; he claimed me as an acquaintance, when he heard that I was his son. “Not personally, sir," he added, “but I have read some of your father's valuable works, which I admire, and have introduced them into the course of education at our Military College.” No further conversation occurred worthy of being recorded. As soon as the cloth was removed, he rose, bowed, and left the room.Adventures of Colonel Laundman. VOLJ. 3 B DROPPING THE RENT. A HANDSOME plump widow went to the landlord, a widower, in Cambridge, to complain that she was paying too high rent. He gazed at her, was smitten, and exclaimed—“ You are to blame if you pay any rent again : marry me, and your difficulty is obviated pa “Well, I will,” said the sprightly fair one, and as soon as could be the nuptial knot was tied. THE GLOWWORM. A worm is known to stray : Which disappears by day. From what its rays proceed; And others to his head. Which kindles up the skies, Proportioned to his size. But such a lamp bestowed, Be careful where he trod. Might serve however small, And save him from a fall. Teach humbler thoughts to you, And boasts its splendour too. SPEAKING. There was a rule in an old debating society, which might be advantageously recommended to some of our public bodies, “ that any gentleman wishing to speak the whole evening should have a room to himself.” Milton's description of a gentleman's great notoriety, on beholding his own offspring, Whence and what art thou execrable shape, Advance thy miscreated front athwart my way. “Why,” asks the lantern, “is the rudder of a steam-boat, like a public hangman ?” and answers the question thus—"Because it is a stern duty to perform." FASHIONABLE. FASHIONABLE ignorance—“Oh! dear," exclaimed a fashionable girl, when she first beheld a cucumber, “ I always thought such things grew in slices.” THE VACATION TERM TIME, LAW. The Temple, Chancery Lane, Serjeants’ Inn, and Lincoln's Inn even unto the Fields, are like tidal harbors at low water; where stranded proceedings, offices at anchor, idle clerks lounging on lop-sided stools, that will not recover their perpendicular until the current of Term sets in, lie high and dry upou the ooze of the long vacation. Outer doors of chambers are shut up by the score, messages and parcels are to be left at the Porter's Lodge by the bushel. A crop of grass would grow in the chinks of the stone pavement outside Lincoln's Inn Hall, but that the ticketporters, who have nothing to do beyond sitting in the shade there, with their white aprons over their heads to keep the flies off, grub it up and eat it thoughtfully. There is only one Judge in town. Even he only comes twice a week to sit in chambers. If the country folks of those assize towns on his circuit could only see him now ! No full--bottom wig, no red petticoats, no fur, no javelin-men, no white wands, merely a close-shaved gentleman in white trousers and a white hat, with sea-bronze on the judicial countenance, and a strip of bark peeled by the solar rays from the judicial nose, who calls in at the shell-fish shop as he comes along, and drinks iced ginger beer! The bar of England is scattered over the face of the earth. How England can get on through four long summer inonths without its bar—which is its acknowledged refuge in adversity, and its only legitimate triumph in prosperity -- is beside the question; assuredly that shield and buckler of Britannia are not in present wear. NATURE AND ART. A LECTURER, addressing a Hampshire audience, contended, with tiresome prolixity, that Art could not improve Nature ; until one of his hearers, losing all patience, set the room in a roar, by exclaiming, “how would you look without your wig ?” FEMALE'S PHRASEOLOGY. IGNORANCE of female modes of speech often leads to misunderstanding. A lady, who says “ I would not make a fright of myself," means generally, that she neglects nothing, however minute, to make herself attractive. While another, " to be decent,” means to have a mass of most beautiful lace, and a little fortune in diamonds. MR. AND MRS. CHADBAND. MR. CHADBAND is a large yellow man, with a fat smile, and a general appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system. Mrs. Chadband is a stern, severe-looking, silent woman. Mr. Chadband moves softly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught to walk upright. He is very much embarrassed about the arms, as if they were inconvenient to him, and he wanted to grovel; is very much in a perspiration about the head; and never speaks without first putting up his great hand, as delivering a token to his hearers that he is going to edify them. “My friends," says he, “what is this which we now behold as being spread before us ? Refreshment. Do we need refreshment then, my frieuds ? We do. And why do we need refreshment, my friends ? Because we are but mortal, because we are but sinful, because we are but of the earth, because we are not of the air. Can we fly, my friends ? We cannot. Why can we not fly, my friends ? Is it because we are calculated to walk ? It is. Could we walk, my friends, without strength ? We could not. What should we do without strength, my friends ? Our legs would refuse to bear us, our knees would double up, our ankles would turp over, and we should come to the ground. Then from whence, my friends, in a human point of view, do we derive the strength that is necessary to our limbs ? Is it,” says Chadband, glancing over the table, “ from bread in various forins, from butter which is churned froin the milk which is yielded unto us by the cow, from the eggs which are laid by the fowl, from ham, from tongue, from sausage, and from such like ? It is. Then let us partake of the good things which are set before us !" BOROUGH INTEREST CURIOUSLY MAINTAINED. The late Lord Sandwich, having the privilege of appointing a chorister to Trinity College, Cambridge, sent them one not only ignorant of music, but who croked like an old raven, because the fellow had a vote for the borough of Huntingdon. This gave rise to the following epigram : A singing man and cannot sing; « Excuse me, sir, A DISMAL IDEA. “ If all the world were blind, what a melancholy sight it would be,” said an Irish clergyman to his congregation. GOOD ADVICE. When your wife begins to scold, let her have it out. feet up cozily over the fire place-loll back in your chair-light one of your best cigars—and let the storm rage on. Say nothing. Put your A PROUD HEART. MATTHEWS, whose powers of conversation, and whose flow of anecdote, in private life, transcended even his public efforts, told a variety of tales of the Kingswood colliers (Kingswood, near Bristol), in one of which he represented an old collier looking for some of the implements of his trade, exclaiming, “San, what's thee mother done with the new coal sacks ?” “Made pillows on 'em,” replied “Confound her proud heart," rejoined the collier," why could not she take th' ould ones ?” the son. ASTRONOMY. And rocks deceitful lurk below, And safely through the ocean go: Manage the helm with steady hand, And shun the peril of the sand. My knowledge is of equal worth, Into the bosom of the earth : Or reap the produce of his field, Which pasturage and tillage yield. Point out a long connected plan, The active scenes of busy man. And Newton regulated time; Are punctual seen in every clime. Secure without the light I bring; The fasts from my direction spring: When to assemble round the lamb; A torch to kindle hostile flame. WHAT IS MAN ? A THING to waltz with, to flirt with, to take you to the theatres, to laugh at, to be inarried to, to pay one's bills, and to keep one comfortably. “We are sorry,” says an American paper, “to be obliged to say, that many young ladies of the present day, consider , this a true definition." |