he laughed at others, was not himself exempt from the general contagion. Good-natured and jocose, however, he soon forgot his wife's inadvertence and his own weakness, and seemed to relate the following anecdote as a kind of palliative to his own infirmity :

“A friend of his," he said, "who had invited a large party of his country neighbours to dine with him, being particularly attentive to his guests, very courteously inquired if any one present had the least objection to cheese, before he suffered it to be brought forward? Upon which a coxcomical young Squire at table declared, without hesitation, that the bare mention of it almost overpowered his olfactory nerves; much less, then, could he endure the smell of it in the room. "What a misfortune!' exclaimed the Master of the feast, 'both for the company and yourself, as it reduces us to the necessity of being deprived of your society for a while. John!' continued he, turning to the servant, shew this gentleman into the drawing room before you bring the cheese.' Then addressing himself to the young Squire again,'We'll not detain you long, sir,' said he, just while my friends and I take a bit of Stilton to relish our ale. I'm truly sorry for your unfortunate antipathy. You'll out-grow it in time;' added he, with a ludicrous glance at his friends, as the young man rose to retire."

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Thus we are apt to ridicule and censure in others, the very same foibles and absurdities

which we ourselves indulge in; and often, perhaps, in a greater degree. The narrator of this little anecdote seemed to think it was nothing but affectation in the young man alluded to, and that he was rightly served; although he was, at the same time, inclined to justify himself, for the greater folly of suffering a simple grain of barley to spoil his dinner, and to deter him from partaking of a joint which he liked exceedingly, merely because it was accompanied by something he did not like.

The sportsman, too, while he was laughing at the delicacy of some, and the prejudices of others, forgot that he himself actually turned pale at the sight of a hare when it was brought to table. But more of this anon.

NUMBER XIX.

ON ANTIPATHIES AND VULGAR PREJUDICES.

In other folks we faults can spy,

And blame the mote that dims their eye;
Each little speck and blemish find,
To our own stronger errors blind.

ANTIPATHY and Prejudice seem to be so nearly allied, that, personified, they may be looked upon as twin brothers. Antipathy brings into the world with him all his dreads and aversions-Prejudice imbibes them with his dawning faculties, from his nurse, his parents, his tutors, or his companions. And such is the effect of early impressions, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to eradicate them entirely from the mind. With respect to antipathies, were it not generally agreed that they proceed from physical causes, they would be looked upon as the effect of a disordered imagination. And notwithstanding the ludicrous remarks that one individual will pass upon another; still, it is well known that they are engendered before we can assume the affectation of them. So far, then, they are entitled to com

passion; though sometimes they seem rather calculated to provoke raillery. But prejudices are contemptible;-they are imbibed by pride and ignorance, and are nurtured by weak and unreflecting minds, in defiance of reason, of justice, and of common-sense. So far, then, prejudices are censurable. Yet, they may sometimes be palliated by circumstances, though they cannot be approved; and should rather, perhaps, be attributed to the weakness of the human mind, than to an error of the heart.

That persons without education, instead of drawing conclusions from observation, should give into common errors, is by no means extraordinary; but that well-informed minds should be over-ruled, and without expressing a single idea of their own, or even giving themselves the trouble to bestow a single thought on the object of their alledged aversion or admiration, is most astonishing. But such is the fact, that, however elevated the ideas, however liberal the sentiments in other respects, still the indulgence of unworthy prepossessions is a weakness which, though universally disclaimed and censured, is suffered to preponderate in almost every human breast; and extends not only to unimportant objects, but to persons, sects, and whole countries.

"I hate prejudices," exclaims Sir Jonathan Blunt, who never travelled fifty miles from his own birth-place, as I hate a Frenchman."— "And I," replies a certain great dady, and a

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lady of great notoriety too, who would fain persuade you that she is also above the vulgar prejudices of the age, "abhor an Englishman! His stupid sincerity, as it is called, I can't bear. It puts me out of all patience with him. He dare scarcely say a civil thing, lest, forsooth, he should be called a flatterer; for which I call him a right down flat. For one cannot make him understand that truth is not flattery. Surely if one is handsome, witty, and all that, there is no reason in the world that he should withhold a civil expression, just to let one know that he's not insensible to such bewitcheries, as the more polished foreigners term them, in our sex. But really, of all the awkward animals that ever fawned upon me, I must confess that honest John Bull is the most insupportable. Has he travelled-he's an ape. If he has never crossed the channel-he is a right down ba-Oh! worse than a bear, for he's a great boar." Then, delighted with her sarcasms on Sir Jonathan, though at the expense of her countrymen, she warbles over some lively French air, breaks out in rhapsodies on foreign manners, and concludes, by proclaiming PARIS le paradis de femmes; and with more asperity than justice, condemns a whole nation for the want of that polish, which is denied only to a few home-spun traders at the east end of our great metropolis.

Sir John and my Lady, unconscious of their weakness, or unwilling to own that they are influ