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another-I'm sure I made it out seventeen when I was reckoning up last Sunday morning at church; there must be another somewhere; let me see again; wife, wife's sisters, boys, girls-oh its myself! Faith, I have so many to think of and provide for, that I forget myself half the time. Yes, that makes it seventeen. Seventeen people to feed every day is no joke! and somehow or other they all have most furious appetites; but then, bless their hearts, it's pleasant to see them eat. What a havoc they do make with the buckwheat-cakes of a morning, to be sure! Now poor Tom knows nothing of all this. There he lives all alone by himself in a boarding-house, with nobody near him that cares a brass farthing whether he lives or dies. No affectionate wife to nurse him and coddle him up when he's sick; no little prattlers about him to keep him in a good humour-no dawning intellects, whose development he can amuse himself with watching day after day-nobody to study his wishes, and keep all his comforts ready. Confound it, hasn't that woman got back from the market yet? I feel remarkably hungry. I don't mind the boy's being coddled and messed if my wife likes it, but there's no joke in having the breakfast kept back for an hour. O, by the way, I must remember to buy all those things for the children to-day. Christmas is close at hand, and my wife has made out a list of the presents she means to put in their stockings. More expense and their school-bills coming in too; I remember before I was married I used to think what a delight it would be to educate the young rogues myself; but a man with a large family has no time for that sort of amusement. I wonder how old my young Tom is; let me see, when does his birthday come? next month, as I'm a Christian; and then he will be fourteen. Boys of fourteen consider themselves all but men, now-a-days, and Tom is quite of that mind, I see. Nothing will suit his exquisite feet but Wellington boots, at thirty shillings a pair; and his mother has been throwing out hints for some time, as to the propriety of getting a watch for him-gold, of course. Silver was quite good enough for me when I was half a score years older than he is, but times are awfully changed since my younger days. Then, I believe in my soul, the young villain has learned to play billiards; and three or four times lately when he has come in late at night, his clothes seemed to be strongly perfumed with cigar smoke.

Heigho! Fathers have many troubles, and I can't help thinking sometimes that old bachelors are not such wonderful fools after all. They go to their pillows at night with no cares on their minds to keep them awake; and, when they have once got asleep, nothing comes to disturb their repose-nothing short of the house being on fire, can reach their peaceful condition. No getting up in the cold to walk up and down the room for an hour or two, with a squalling young varlet, as my luck has been for the last five or six weeks. It's an astonishing thing to perceive what a passion our little Louisa exhibits for crying; so sure as the clock strikes three she begins, and there's no getting her quiet again until she has fairly exhausted the strength of her lungs with good, straight-forward screaming. I can't for the life of me understand why the young villains don't get through all their squalling and roaring in the daytime, when I am out of the way. Then again, what a delightful pleasure it is to be routed out of one's first nap, and sent off post haste for the doctor, as I was, on Monday night, when my wife thought Sarah had got the croup, aud frightened me half out of my wits with her lamentations and fidgets. By the way there's the doctor's bill to be paid soon; his collector always pays me a visit just before Christmas. Brother Tom has no doctors to fee, and that certainly is a great comfort. Bless my soul, how the time slips away! Past nine o'clock and no breakfast yet-wife messing with Dick, and getting the three girls and their two brothers ready for school. Nobody thinks of me, starving here all this time. What the plague has become of my newspaper, I wonder? that young rascal Tom has carried it off, I dare say, to read in the school, when he ought to be poring over his books. He's a great torment that boy. But no matter; there's a great deal of pleasure in married life, and if some vexations and troubles do come with its delights, grumbling won't take them away; nevertheless, brother Tom, I'm not very certain but that you have done quite as wisely as I, after all.

FRENCH BULL.

At the last assizes for the department of the Eure et Loire, a man named Ferrier, who was found guilty of incendiarism, was sentenced to hard labour for life, and at the expiration of his sentence to be placed under the surveillance of the police.

SCRAPS FROM MY NOTE-BOOK.

I suppose there is ink enough wasted by a constant newspaper scribbler to drown him completely at the end of a year-in which way would it be most profitably employed?

Title-pages would be a curious study. The modesty of some is singularly remarkable. For instance, "A popular Treatise," never read but by two persons in the world- the author and the compositor-by the last from sheer necessity.

Habit regulates our laughter as well as all things else. I have seen one read through a volume of the merriest jokes in the world, without relaxing the smallest muscle; but let the stalest of them be retailed by a jokemonger, and a horselaugh is the compliment. Such a commodity is laughter!

Ought not every age, according to the increase of knowledge, to become more garrulous? so that, probably, a youth of sixteen has now talked more than ever did his grandfather of sixty.

Carry out this idea; talking is breath, and in one minute, in this talkative age, there is breath enough expended to waft a Spanish armada, to compose two or three whirlwinds, and, perhaps, one moderately strong tornado-to lengthen out the lives of a thousand men to the age of Methuselah, and to supply twenty newspapers with puffs for a whole year!

Distinguished men are not remarkable for very great longitude, or very great brevity of person. The best in tellects are generally lodged about five feet above ground.

A man may do great things, and yet not be a great man. Which the man might have said when he leaped from

the monument.

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THE

LAST TRIAL OF FIDELITY. (Translated from the French).

THE reign of Napoleon, worried and ransacked as it has been by the writers of memoirs, recollections and histories, is a mine that still contains a multitude of rich, and, as yet, unexplored veins. The history of the secret associations that sprang up during the latter days of the empire, would form a most curious and interesting volume, and there would be no lack of materials wherewith to fill it. The Society of the United Brothers alone, would furnish pages of the most intense and absorbing interest, while nothing could appeal more forcibly to the imagination, than the strange and dramatic episodes connected with its existence, and the details of its mysterious initiations. Perhaps an hundred incidents might be related as striking and well conceived as the following.

An officer of the French army, having incurred the suspicion or resentment of the emperor, thought it expedient to abandon his country, and take refuge in one of the Austrian provinces; and here he became advised of and initiated into a society, the object of whose formation was to hurl to the ground the Colossus, whose arin smote and governed the whole continent of Europe with a sceptre of iron. One day, a letter was brought to him, containing the usual signs and passwords of the society, and requiring him to repair, on the following night, to a secluded spot in a forest, where he would meet some of his associates. He went, but found nobody. The orders were repeated four times, at intervals of a few days; and four times the officer sought the appointed place, with no better success than at first. On the fifth night of his appearance at the rendezvous, after waiting some time, he was on the point of returning, when loud cries suddenly arrested his attention. Drawing his sword, he hastened to the spot whence they seemed to proceed, and was fired upon by three men, who, seeing that he remained unwounded, instantly took to flight; but at his feet lay a bleeding corpse, in which, by the feeble light of the moon, he in vain sought for tokens of animation. He was yet bending over the dead man, when a detachment of chasseurs, summoned, apparently, by the noise of the pistols that had been discharged at himself, came suddenly up, and arrested him as the assassin. He

was loaded with chains, tried the next day, and condemned to die for his supposed crime. His execution was ordered to take place at midnight.

Surrounded by the ministers of justice, he was led, at a slow pace, by the light of torches, and amid the funereal tolling of bells, to a vast square, in the centre of which was a scaffold, environed by horsemen; beyond these were a numerous group of spectators, who muttered impatiently, and, at intervals, sent forth a cry of abhorrence. The victim mounted the scaffold, his sentence was read, and the last act of the tragedy was on the point of fulfilment, when an officer let fall a word of hope. An edict had just been promulgated by the government, offering pardon and life to any condemned criminal, who should disclose the members and secret tokens of a particular association, the existence of which was suspected; it was that of which the Frenchman, to whom these words were addressed, had lately become a member. He was questioned, but denied all knowledge; they urged him to confess, with promises of additional reward-his only reply was a demand of immediate death -and his initiation was completed. All that had passed was but a terrible trial of his fidelity; those who surrounded him were members of the society, and every incident that has been described, from the time of the first summons to the last fearful moment of expected death, was only a step in the progress of the fearful experiment, by which they sought to determine the trust-worthiness of the neophyte.

CASTIGATIONES.-No. III.
(For the Parterre).

"Anon, I snarle and speake, after the fashion of the Cynics."

The Reigne of Follie, 1632.

SOME French poet (we think it is Boileau) has somewhere said, that there is no fool so great as to be without his fellow. An unique fool would, indeed, be a rare biped. So it is with authors and reviewers: there is no stupid book that has not been reviewed by a more stupid critic. Of all our literary prigs, the reviewers are the most priggish; but if you desire to see conceit and self-sufficiency in “high perfection," take an opportunity of paying a visit to some society for the improvement of inspired mechanics, where models of wondrous machines for calculating the number of bulls' tails that would reach from our earth to the

moon, are exhibited to the wondering eyes of aged spinsters, and ignorant flippant youths, who have stolen from behind the counter to run and quaff at the fountain of knowledge. Sometimes by way of variety, a lecture is given compiled from the hundred-and-one cyclopædias with which the book-market is overstocked, and then the facts therein contained are lauded by the reviewers, and the "exquisite tact" and " consummate skill" and "felicitous expression" of the lecturer are cried up by the sage who undertakes to point out the literary tit-bits to the "discerning public!"

66

In the Athenæum Journal for February 7th, is a review of the last volume of the Transactions of "The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c." This volume contains, among other papers, an article, on tanning and leather-dressing," by the secretary, Mr. Aikin, whose learning and that of the reviewer in the Athenæum, are about on a par. Hear the worthy secretary on "buff leather," and judge, gentlest of readers, of the ability of either, to instruct the young and the ignorant.

"Formerly, when metallic armour was going out of use, but while it was still considered advisable to cover the body in battle with a better protection than ordinary clothing, a species of very thick but pliant leather was made from the hide of the urus, or wild bull, at that time plentiful in the forests of Poland, Hungary, and the middle and southern provinces of Russia. The name by which this animal was commonly known was that of Buffe, whence is derived the term buff-leather, as designating the hide of this animal prepared in a particular way. The Russia Company, which was chartered by Henry VIII., was obliged to import a certain number of

buffe-hides,' which were manufactured into leather for military use. Real buffleather would turn the edge of a sword, · and was pistol proof. The time of its principal use in this country was during the great civil war in the reign of Charles I., after which it gradually declined, and at length became obsolete. Besides the hides of the urus, I believe those of the real buffalo of Italy were employed for the same purpose. The buff-leather of modern times is prepared from cow-hide, and is used for little else than soldiers' belts."

Now we beg to inform these gentlemen, that the very first armour used in

* Query-Bœuf? Printer's Devil.

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this country, was made of the skins of animals; and a little research (but this is not the age of research) would have told them, that in the reign of one of our Saxon kings, a military accoutrement maker was heavily fined for making an aketon of cow's-hide instead of the hide of a bull, which was always required for that purpose. Long after the knights were clad in mail, the common soldiers wore armour of tough bull's-hide. Buff leather was, we believe, used more in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, than in the time of 66 the great civil war.' As to turning the edge of a sword, it would do no such thing. We have seen and handled the buff-coat of that period, and know that it would not turn the edge of a sword, though it might perhaps resist the point of one. We caution all gentlemen inclined to the amiable vice of duelling, not to take Mr. Aikin's opinion on buff-leather, for, although a buff under-waistcoat may be very easily concealed, depend upon it, a bullet would very speedily, and perhaps very tragically demonstrate that "the hide of the urus' is not pistol proof. Verily, the Minerva of our age could only be depicted by Thomas Hood*_ our Magnus Apollo is HUMBUG!! K.

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THE RATIONAL LUNATIC OF

SALAMANCA.

[From the untranslated works of Cervantes]. (For the Parterre).

"Sounding in moral virtue was his speech." CHAUCER.

CHAP. II.

Ar that time, there happened to come to the city an accomplished courtesan. This decoy (says our author) attracted all the birds of the place, so that there was hardly a student that did not visit her. They told Tomas that this lady said she had been in Italy and in Flanders; and to see whether he knew her, he paid her a visit; whether or no he took the Horas de Nuestra Senora with

him, mine author saith not. However, the consequence of this visit was, that the lady fell in love with Tomas; but he, not at all aware of it, would not enter her house again, except when he

* Apropos, of Thomas Hood.-We are very sorry-sincerely sorry, to perceive symptoms of a falling off in the Comic Annual for the year 1835. Mr. Hood has more originality than half the writers of his time. We trust he does not

build his reputation on the praises of reviewers.

was forced to it by others. At length, she discovered to him her inclinations, and offered him all she was worth, But as he attended more to his books than to any other pastime, he did not at all return the lady's affection: and she, finding herself rejected, and, as she thought, disliked, and that she could not soften the rock of Tomas's will by any ordinary means, resolved to try other means, in her opinion more efficacious, and of power to procure the fulfilment of her wishes.

Accordingly by the advice of a Morisco woman (those descendants of the Arabians being then considered by the superstitious in Spain as the most deeply skilled in the mystery of charms), she gave Tomas, in a Toledan quince, some drug or mixture of drugs, believing that what she thus administered would force him to like her: "as if," observes our author, "there existed any herbs, drugs, or incantations, of power to influence free-will." Yet this irrational and injurious notion is not extinct, even in England, among the lower orders; although, as experience has repeatedly shewn, the deluded beings who give these amatory meats or drinks, do neither more nor less than administer poison to those who take them.

Tomas ate so largely of the quince, that immediately his hands and feet began to shake as if he had the palsy; and it was many hours before he came to himself again; at the end of which he was like one stupified; and said in a faltering voice, that a quince which he had eaten had poisoned him, and told who had given it him. The officers of police, being informed of the occurrence, went in search of the offender; but she, finding the evil issue of her expedient, had absconded, and never more appeared.

Tomas kept his bed for six months; in which he was reduced almost to a skeleton, and it was evident that all his senses were disturbed. Though all possible remedies were applied, they removed only his corporal infirmity, and not that of his understanding; for though he recovered his bodily health, yet he was possessed by the strangest kind of madness that had ever been

known.

The poor man imagined that he was made entirely of glass: so that when any one came up to him, he made a terrible scream; and entreated, in the most rational terms, that they would not come near him, lest they should break him, for that really and truly he was not like

other men, but was entirely of glass, from head to foot.

To divest him of this strange idea, many, without attending to his cries and entreaties, approached and embraced him, to convince him that he would not break. But the consequence was, that the poor fellow would throw himself on the ground, crying out piteously, and then fell into a swoon, from which he scarcely recovered in four hours; and when he did recover, he renewed his prayers and supplications that they would not approach him again.

He requested that they would speak to him at a distance, and put what questions to him they chose; for that he should answer all with better understanding as a man of glass than as a man of flesh; since glass being of subtler and more delicate substance, the mind would operate through it more quickly and efficaciously than through the gross and earthy body.

Some, wishing to try whether what he said was true, asked him a number of difficult questions, to which he answered unpremeditatedly, and with great acuteness. This excited the wonder of the most learned men of the university, and the professors of medicine and philosophy; to find that a person possessed by so extraordinary a madness as to think that he was made of glass, had at the same time so good an understanding as to answer every question with propriety and sagacity.

Tomas begged that they would give him some case in which to put that brittle vessel, his body, lest in putting on any tight garment he should break himself: and so, they gave him a loose grey coat, and a very wide shirt, in which he dressed himself with great caution, and tied a cotton cord about his waist. He would not wear shoes of any sort: and the mode which he adopted of receiving food without any one's approaching him, was, to fix at the end of a stick a little basket, in which they put him such fruit as was in season. He would eat neither fish nor flesh; nor would he drink, except at a spring or a river, and then only out of the palm of his hands. When he went through the streets he walked in the middle of them, looking up at the roofs, apprehensive lest some tile should fall upon him and shatter him. In summer he slept in the fields, in the open air; and in winter, he contrived to get into an inn-yard; and there in some loft he would bury himself in straw up to the throat, saying,

that was the fittest and safest bedding for men of glass. When it thundered, he trembled as if his bones were full of quicksilver, and went out into the fields; nor would he enter a town again until the storm was over.

His friends kept him confined for a considerable time; but seeing that his infirmity did but increase, they determined to accede to his request that they would let him go at large: he then went through the city, exciting the wonder and pity of all who knew him. The boys soon gathered about him; but he kept them off with his stick, and desired that they would speak without coming close to him, lest he should break; for that, as being a man of glass, he was very liable to be broken.

The boys in the streets, who are the most perverse creatures in existence, in spite of his requests and exclamations, began to pelt him with rags, and even with stones, to try whether he really was of glass as he said. But he made so many and such lamentable cries, that men who heard them were induced to chide and chastise the boys to make them desist from pelting him.

But one day, when they were teazing him very much, he turned round to them, and said:-"What do you want with me, you troublesome vermin, buzzing about me like so many flies? Do you take me for the Mons Testatus at Rome, that you throw so many pots and tiles at me?"

He was always followed by many people, that they might hear him scold, and answer everybody; and the boys at last thought it better to listen to him than to pelt him.

Once as he was passing through the old clothes market of Salamanca, an oldclothes-woman said to him, "Upon my soul, Mr. Licentiate, I am sorry for your misfortune; but I cannot cry."

He turned to her, and, with great solemnity, said, “Filiæ Hierusalem, plorate super vos et super filios vestros." (Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but for yourselves and for your children)—insinuating by this quotation from the gospel, as the reader conversant with Spanish history will perceive, that those dealers in cast-off garments were (as is likely) either disguised Jews, or descended from such of that persecuted people as had preferred making an outward profession of christianity, to sharing in the expatriation and the attendant miseries of their unfortunate brethren expelled from Spain in the days of

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