Still her choicest efforts were reserved for the exclusive benefit of her unfortunate husband. At the earliest peep of dawn, her tongue went off like an alarin-clock, and ere day-break, the chances were that she would strike. The day itself was a manifestation of the most exemplary obedience on his part, and a vigilance little short of miraculous on hers: nor did her industrious tongue ever once halt, until the small hours of the night, when she stopped talking only to regale her lord with snoring, long, loud, and horrible. Then he waited for the morning to bring a change in the mode of his persecutions, and thought there must be some old sun-stopping Joshua on the other side of the world, to make the night last so long. Human nature could never stand all this, so he broke down and gave up the ghost, which was about all he had to give up, and "slept with his fathers" much more peaceably than he had ever done with his wife.

Then there is a kind of fussy wife-a poor, delicate, helpless thing, who marries that she may have somebody to bring her peppermint drops and sweetened water. She is a perfect Pandora's box of troubles, afflicted by every separate and distinct ailment enumerated in Hooper's Medical Dictionary, besides being threatened with several additional ones. She looks through a glass window on a foggy morning, and forthwith goes to bed for fear she has taken "another horrid cold." She sneezes over a pepper box, and must drink a bottle of Wine Bitters lest she might have the Consumption. She is very nervous, and so kind hearted. She faints away when a fly is drowned in her tea, "the poor little thing must have suffered so dreadfully!" and when she hears a cat serenade, requests her husband to take the creatures into the house, for "it really is cruel to let the poor kitties sing in the open air at midnight—it is so very trying to the voice!" She feels badly when the dog bites a ragged little boy in the street, for it may spoil Carlo's appetite for supper.

In the queer history of married life, there is occasionally developed another character among those who belong to the "female persuasion." She employs fewer words, because she believes that "action is eloquence," and therefore not only guides her matrimonial companion in the way he should go, but inflicts meet punishment when he perversely blunders into some other route. I have seen a woman who once put her husband down cellar in the morning before breakfast, and bade him stay there till he could learn better behavior. Poor John began to wax fierce after a while, and poked his head through the door with the intention of coming up, whereat the good woman seized a pail of water and suggested that if he did not retreat he would suddenly discover a del

uge. The breakfast-table stood before him in all its glory, but the pective waterfall pretty effectually kept him at a distance.

"So to the Jews old Canaan stood,

While Jordan rolled between."

pros

But both the Jews and the amiable John found their wishes gratified after abiding a sufficient season.

Now, to his friends Coelebs saith, Bevare of vimmen ! I have seen the things whereof I speak, and the voice of all wise men and women is with me; for I take it that all people truly wise, are old bachelors and old maids. Have you a maiden aunt? Ask her opinion of "alliances," and she will give you good counsel. She knows the folly of the whole system, and has carefully avoided its entanglements. "Go to your aunt, you sluggard! consider her ways and be wise."

N. C. P.

NOTE-As a striking commentary upon the frailty of man, we would state that the author of the above scurrilous article, when last seen, was in the company of a young lady. He shortly after left town and has not been heard of since.-ED.

"Our Foreign Correspondence."

ROME, January 10, 1857.

DEAR MAGA:

LORD BACON, in his sketch of Julius Cæsar, notes as one reason of his success, that he always brought his separate enterprises to a full completion, and began a succeeding one unperplexed by care for its predecessor. Being in Rome, one may well follow so excellent a Roman practice, and I propose in the present letter to consider England as sufficiently described, and to narrate some part of my Scottish experi

An enthusiastic Scotchman, returning after a long residence in Canada, gave us notice when we were "over the border," and prepared us to enjoy the warm-hearted brusqueness of his countrymen.

Perhaps some of your readers have heard the story of three commercial travelers," who, like a certain personage in the "Gorgias," found great pleasure in scratching; at all events we had, and were thereby determined to see something of "commercial" life, and for this end went

to the Crown Hotel. The great peculiarity of a "commercial" hotel in Great Britain is a table d'hote; at other houses John Bull's exclusiveness secludes itself from mankind in general, and separately enjoys its roast inutton and ale. At the Crown, the guest longest in the hotel, presides at dinner, with the title of president, and the last comer takes charge of the other end of the table; the president orders what wine he thinks best, and this is only drunk at the invitation of some one else. For example, Mr. Brown says to Mr. Smith, "May I have the pleasure of a glass of wine with you?" Mr. S. is "most happy," and when Mr. B's glass is empty returns the compliment. After the table had been cleared the health of the Queen is drunk, and any one may leave by permission of the president, but most remain, and the conversation becomes quite general and animated. The guests at a first class house of this kind are very gentlemanly, and with the information picked up in their travels are well prepared for an after-dinner chat. They manifested much interest in American affairs, but as is unfortunately the case in Europe generally, have derived most of their ideas of the United States from their own authorities and the New York Herald, and consequently do not give us credit for the good which we really possess. Each day we had pleasant discussions with them on national peculiarities, and in the final engagement, lasting fully three hours, came off victorious; at least, we talked them into an admission of much which they had previously refused to allow. Prominent among our opponents on this occasion was an Englishman, whose satire might have been construed into insult, except that two others who appeared to be his companions made special efforts to keep the peace, and who proved so agreeable that it was arranged that we should join companies for an excursion to Abbotsford We started early, expecting to breakfast on the way, and soon began to understand our satirical friend, who proved to be a lawyer off on a frolic. He quizzed the ticket-man, "guard," and everybody along the way, by adroit politeness filled the vacant seats in our apartment with pretty females, confused a rosy-cheeked bar maid with a pitiful," Ellen, I have had no breakfast, can't you get me a buttered bun ?" persisted in understanding the broad "hart" of the guide, showing where Bruce's heart was buried in Melrose Abbey, as "hat," and revenged my laugh at a painter's answering his request for a portrait on the barn he was painting, with a "it would break the law against frightening horses," by ridiculing my Dutch name with the signature of "Nicholas Von Trump, Costermonger, New Orleans, U. S. A," in the visitors' book at Abbotsford. In all his madness there was still a method, and as we afterwards

found when visiting him, he manages men, and accomplishes important results, by reason and energy made attractive by a garb of pleasantry. Perhaps the laughing philosophers were wiser than the sad! Drybrugh Abbey, with its historical associations reaching from the Druids, and the tomb of Scott, attempered us for the home of the historic novelist, and the tame scenery of the situation, and the try-to-be-more-than-is-possible architecture of the house, was a great disappointment. If Scott had any weakness, it certainly was an excess of veneration for the antique and aristocratic, and he was too out-acting not to show this in his great hobby-his house. He wanted to found a family, and to build a castle. In the former, although not by special effort, but rather by an honest use of his peculiar talent, he has succeeded; but he lacked the means to accomplish the latter, and the feeble imitation of grandeur shown in Abbotsford affected me unpleasantly. Unless magnificence is possible, a modest plainness commands the greatest respect. So much for the impression of the whole. As the separate apartments with their memorials of the late owner's simple and manly habits-his guns, wood knives, plain clothes, and the instruments of his literary labor-told their story, the immediate impression was respect and admiration.

Melrose Abbey was a good specimen of Gothic architecture in its best days, and war-the ignorant zeal of the Reformers, Time, with his knawing tooth, have not been able to destroy its beauty. Part of the stone carving is yet sharp and distinct, and with the usual license granted to poets, it may do to say that the eastern window looks

"As if some fairy's hand

'Twixt poplars straight the ozier wand
In many a freakish knot had twined;

Then framed a spell when the work was done,
And changed the willow wreath to ɛtone."

Returning to Edinburgh, we had a fresh interest in studying out its antiquities, and day by day were the more impressed by its romantic. and historic appearance. The castle stands stern and high—a chapter of feudal records; beneath is a valley, once the hiding place of outlaws, now smiling with verdure and flowers; upon the causeway over it are buildings modeled after Grecian temples; on the one side lies the old town with houses twenty or less stories high, formerly the residences of the nobility, but at present occupied by the poorer classes, among them the houses of Moray and Knox, and the Old Tolbooth; on the other, the Gothic monument to Scott, and Princes Street bordered with noble structures, and leading to Calton Hill, crowned with the old and new observatories, Playfair's, Nelson's and other monuments, and affording a

good view of Holyrood, the bay said by natives to rival that of Naples, (?) Arthur's Seat, and the part of the city last built, which contains many grand private residences. The inequalities of the ground favor architectural effect, and the classic taste of the inhabitants, thus aided, has produced much to please the eye, and excite the imagination. One thing is particularly noticeable-the general use of granite, which produces an impression of durability, and relieves the eye from the dingy red of bricks.

In this "Modern Athens," we generally expect to find people of literary note, and I was fortunate enough to spend half an hour in pleasant chat with Alexander Smith, the poet. He has no personal beauty to attract, but according to the almost universal law of compensation has a richness within corresponding to the poverty without. A marked modesty conceals no small amount of energy for practical affairs, which appeared only when some item of business connected with his duties as librarian called it forth. He was about starting for a vacation tour in the Highlands, some fruits of which may soon be expected in a new volume.

Besides the excursion to Abbotsford, the memories of one to Roslin Chapel, by way of Hawthornden, are very pleasing. The den is beautifully wild, and the little chapel a perfect little jewel of a ruin. The combination of Norman solidity with Tudor richness is unique and striking. The carving in all parts is fine, and of one pillar the legend is, that the master builder, unable to execute the delicate foliage of the design went to Rome to learn from a similar column there, and on his return found the work completed by one of his apprentices. Stung with envy, he killed him by a blow of his mallet, and thence the name, "The Prentice's Pillar." On the architrave above is a good ending for this letter-" Forte est vinum, fortior est rex, fortiores sunt mulieres; super omnia vincit veritas."

E. L. H.

In a private letter to the Editor our correspondent says, "In Rome we have hired the second story of a house opposite the Barberini Palace, engaged an Italian servant, have receptions every Saturday evening, and "put things through" generally. Tell Miss K. that I make a first rate housekeeper-every morning I inspect the kitchen, and give my orders to our Italian Bridget by writing French notes to the landlady's daughter.

"If she will come to tea next Saturday she will be able to see dignity over tea-cups The W's and about a dozen others are coming. Whew! don't I dread it. We have only got nine china cups, and I shall have to use some of the blue ones, and one of the ladies takes particular pleasure in running me upon my grandmotherish ability. Good night, for I was up late last night, seeing the Coliseum by moonlight for the third time."