you ever, now- - there's a portmanteau lying there, marked "The Honorable and Reverend Ambrose Myrtle!"-He's one of Lady Louisa Finniken's set,' said Mrs. Firmcounter, in manifest alarm; he must be on board.'There, that's him,' said Miss Firmcounter; it must be, he looks so distingue. And she indicated a tall, cadaverous-looking man dressed in a long, black, single-breasted frock coat, and ornamented with a broad-brimmed hat looped up behind. 'Hush, girls; here, sit down quietly and put away those absurd caps,' whispered the maternal parent. Mr. Firmcounter gave two or three ferocious hems, and drew up his shirt-collar with tragic dignity, and the whole party became in a moment as stiff as if they were sitting round the big épergne in the big dull diningroom in the Regent's Park. Confound the Hon. and Rev. Ambrose Myrtle, thought I. He was a desperately genteel Puseyite parson, with a desperately genteel congregation, in a desperately genteel chapel, the bells whereof he was always setting a-ringing at provoking and unreasonable hours, generally early in the morning. However, he took no notice of the Firmcounters, or indeed of any body else, and walked the plank (between the vessel and the quay I mean), when he got to Havre, with much dignity, followed by a small army of porters carrying his luggage, consisting of three imperials, eight portmanteaus, six carpet bags, a campstool, and a telescope. . . . In another respect we are making considerable progress. The monkey who has seen the world is not so much the novelty now as the monkey who has not seen the world. We have more travellers and fewer travellers' tales. There are not half the number

knowledge they may have of foreign countries to sneer at their own, who will always go on instituting odious comparisons between English fogs and Italian skies, who cannot stir a step by night without finding out that the moon is not quite the sort of thing we used to have at Naples,' and who, over a better dinner than nine tenths of the nobility of Italy ever have a chance of sitting down to, will pathetically lament the absence of Parmesan or becca ficos. But the most terrible case of this species of Humbug which ever came within my notice was exhibited the other day by a young lady, who after having been born and bred in the good suburb of Kensington for at least some twenty years, went to pass a summer and autumn at Paris. She returned in rather chilly November weather, and I called to congratulate her upon her arrival. We sat by the fireside and chatted. Suddenly Laura glanced at the window and shuddered. To be sure it was a nasty day, foggy and thick, with a suspicion of a half-frozen drizzle. me,' said the fair foreigner, 'have you often this sort of weather in November in London ?""

Tell

Justice compels us to remark that our author hardly escapes the sweet contagion of foreign "air" when he talks with so charming a grace of "gliding pleasantly down the Seine." And what does so erudite a professor of simple language make of the new plural to Becca fico? or of the very original title, printed for accuracy's sake in German text, of Her Majesty of Prussia?-But "let that pass," as Beau Tibbs hath it. And let us call Mr. Reach to a reckon

of the ancient stock of romantic adventures in Swiss chalet or Spanish posada, and a gentleman, largely talkative on the subject of his travels, runs a chance of being pretty smartly cross-examined by very competent counsel. Still there are Humbugs who use the little

History' of the French navy,-nor of German æsthetics, nor of the Austrian paternal government, so dear to Mrs. Trollope, -nor of the famous Duchess of Bavaria, foretold in the Munster Melody. Here we must stop:- albeit the subject grows with every Encyclopædia expressly devoted to it should be forthwith set on foot.-Let us beg to recommend the project to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge!— Athenæum.

fresh word. An

A WOMAN CAN KEEP A SECRET.

The following authentic story will invalidate the often repeated charge against women, that "they cannot keep a secret." Some years since, a lady called at a glover's shop in the outskirts of the city of London, and purchased a pair of gloves for her immediate wear, observing, at the same time, that she was on her road to Burnet that she had left her gloves at her friend's house where she had called, and that she was

apprehensive of being benighted if she went back for them. The glover fitted on the gloves; and the lady, after paying for them from a purse well stocked with bank notes, stepped into her carriage, and proceeded on her journey. She had scarcely reached Finchly Common, when a highwayman stopped the carriage, and demanded her money. He intreated her not to be alarmed, as he had no intention on her person — if she surrendered her property, it was all he wanted, declaring that distress, and not his will, urged

him to this desperate act, and he was determined to remove his pecuniary wants, or perish. The lady gave him her purse, and the desperado

rode off.

After he was gone, and her fright had somewhat subsided, the lady imagined, that in the address of the highwayman, she recognized the voice of the glover she had just before dealt with. This conceit struck her so forcibly, that she ordered her servant to drive back to town not choosing, she said, to venture further over the heath.

On her arrival at the glover's, she knocked and gained admission, the glover himself opening the door. The lady desired to speak with him in private. The glover showed her to a back parlor; when she exclaimed, "I am come for my purse, of which you robbed me this evening on Finchly Common!" The glover was confounded; and the lady proceeded — " It is of no use for you to deny it. I am convinced, and your life is at my mercy. Return me my property, and trust to my humanity." The glover, overcome with guilt, shame, and confusion, confessed the crime, returned the purse, and pleaded his distress. The lady, after suitable admonition, gave him a ten pound note, bade him mend his way of life, and keep his own counsel; adding, that she would not divulge his name or place of abode. She kept her word; and though the robbery was stated in the public papers, the discovery was omitted; and it was not until recently, that a minute account of this singular transaction was found among the papers of the lady alluded to. Even in the private memorandum, the name and residence of the glover was omitted; and the secret, in that particular, rests with the lady in the grave!

COMMUNING WITH ONE'S-SELF.

A person of a truly superior and philosophic mind would seldom wish to forego the estimable privilege of communing with himself.

Sir Walter Scott says in his diary: "from the earliest time I can remember, I preferred the pleasures of being alone to wishing for visitors, and have often taken a bannock and a bit of cheese to the wood or hill, to avoid dining in company. As I grew from boyhood to manhood, I saw this would not do, and that to gain a place in men's esteem, I must mix and bustle with them. Pride and exaltation of spirits often supplied the real pleasure which others seem to feel in society; yet mine certainly upon many occasions was real. Still, if the question was eternal

company, without the power of retiring within yourself, or solitary confinement for life, I should say, 'Turnkey, lock the cell.""

THE KILT, THE CLAYMORE, AND THE COTTON UMBRELLA!

"Her Majesty," says the correspondent of the Morning Chronicle, "landed under cover of a goodly umbrella, carried by her own royal hands. The judiler, the sheriff, and Mr. A. Fraser, one of his substicial authorities of the county of Inverness- Mr. Tyt

tutes were in due attendance; and there was a tolerable turn-out of the men of Lochaber, with plaids, kilts, claymores, and cotton umbrellas, who waved glittering blades and dripping ginghams, and shouted Gaelic salutations to the wife of the king'-for such, I understand, is the literal signification of Bhan Righ -the Erse words meaning Queen."

of noting down the orator's ideas; not in words nor in symbols representing words, but by signs which shall directly express thoughts, to be afterwards reproduced in the reporter's own phraseology. All the faults of the good bishop's scheme are evident in this-with the great additional complication that the reported eloquence has first to be transformed, with the rapidity of utterance, into idea language, and afterwards to be re-translated into the vernacular. How it would be modified in the process will be apparent to all who use short-hand, or who have been accustomed to take notes. Yet, while we cannot recommend this system to the use of the reader, on account of its uncertainty and irresponsibility, we recognize one advantage which would result from it. As its symbols are only adapted to represent ideas, the boundless eloquence of the "collective wisdom" might cease to overflow the morning papers, to the exclusion of more profitable reading, if reported by men using the system of idea-writing.

This is a cheap reprint, in Knight's Monthly Volume,' of one of the most elegant expositions of human physiology in our language. The merits of Dr. Southwood Smith are too well known to need any eulogy from us; and the subject on which he here writes he has made peculiarly his own. The only point on which we would offer an expression of regret is, that these volumes do not appear to have been revised by their author. Great has been the advance of physiology and chemistry since this work was first written; and some errors unavoidable at the time when it was written, might now have been left out whilst matter of great importance might have been added.

READINGS FROM SCOTT. 3 Vols.

A selection of passages, in prose and verse, from the writings of Sir Walter Scott,-illustrated with landscapes and portraits. The choice of subjects seems to have been made with express reference to the tastes and wants of the young; the book, therefore, belongs to the educational class of publications, — and drawing from so rich a storehouse, could not fail to make an attractive miscellany.

HOUSEHOLD SURGERY; OR, HINTS ON EMERGENCIES. By JOHN F. SOUTH.

A useful little book for emigrants, missionaries, and others likely to be placed at a distance from competent medical advice. To those who

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