DINNER. The meal which is expected to be in exact readiness whenever the master of the house happens to be at home to eat it, whether at twelve or half-past three o'clock.

"I

WASHING-DAY.-The time when a woman can throw a broom at a thievish dog, or say won't," without being thought cross by the amiable gentleman who sets himself up as a "lord of

creation."

Yu kant ask ennything ov a man that he luves to give more, and that kosts him less, than advize. It is hard work tu live on advize, and have ennything left over, unless you are speshially ordained. One ov mi friends, a fust-rate feller

cnuff, rote me a letter a short time sinse, advized

me to start on a lekturein tower. If thare is enny five or six things i dispize, it is a lekturing around the kuntry. If i was on the list of

dokters of divinitee, with half-cured bronkeetis in my thrut, and had a lektur two hours and a half long on the kuller of the red sea, i presume i mite travel with it. Mi friend advized me to lektur on temperanse. I replied as follers:

"Dear Sur,-I hav not konsidered lekturing

on temperanse my speshial ordaining. I never found miself lodgeing around in sumboddy's gutter a fu years ago. I never pulled out awl of my wife's hair, nor sold enny of mi innocent little children to buy spirits with. I never had enny panes uv glass in my windows that were exclusively old hat. I haint adopted green specktacles on akount of the natral tendency to weak eyes that all our familee enjoys, and when I refleck that awl flesh iz grass, and that awl grass is apt tew wilt in a hot da, and i hav felt it my duta to straighten up my grass gently once in a while with a little good old rye, i am more and morely convinced that I never was speshially ordained tew lekture on temperanse and dew a fair job."

THE clergyman of a country village, reprehending one of his parishioners for quarrelling with his wife so loudly and so frequently as to be a source of perpetual disturbance to the neighbourhood, in the course of his exhortations remarked that the Scriptures declared that man and wife were one. "Ay, that may be, sir," answered Hodge; "but if you were to go by when I and my wife are at it, you'd think there were twenty of us."

JONES and Brown were talking lately of a young clergyman whose preaching they had heard that day. The sermon was like a certain man mentioned in a certain biography, "very poor and very pious." "What do you think of him?" asked Brown. "I think," said Jones, "he did much better two years ago." "Why, he didn't preach

46

then," said Brown. what I mean." DR. WILLIAMS once had a quarrel with one of his parishioners named Hardy, who showed considerable resentment. On the succeeding Sunday, the doctor preached from the following text, which he pronounced with great emphasis, and with a significant look at Hardy, who was present: "There is no fool like the fool-Hardy."

True," said Jones, "that is

399

"We

you know what I am going to say to you?" know," replied the audience. "Ah, as you know," said he, quitting the pulpit, "why should I take the trouble of telling you ?" When next he came to preach, the congregation resolved to try his powers; and when he asked his usual question, replied. Some of us know, and some of us do not know." "Very well," said he, "let those who know tell those who do not know."

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The

AT Oxford, some twenty years ago, a tutor of one of the colleges limped in his walking. Stopping one day last summer at a railway station, he was accosted by a well-known politician who recognised him, and asked if he were not the chaplain of that college at such a time, naming the year. doctor replied that he was. "I was there," said his interrogator, "and I knew you by your limp." "Well," said the doctor, "it seems my limping made a deeper impression on you than my preaching." 'Ah, doctor," he replied with ready wit, "it is the highest compliment we can pay a minister, to say that he is known by his walk rather than by his conversation."

A CELEBRATED divine, who was remarkable in the first period of his ministry for a loud and boisterous manner of preaching, suddenly changed his whole manner in the pulpit, and adopted a mild and dispassionate mode of delivery. One of his brethren, observing it, inquired of him what had induced him to make the change? He answered, "When I was young I thought it was the thunder that killed the people; but when I grew wiser I discovered that it was the lightning-so I determined to thunder less and lighten more in future."

"MRS. JENKINS requests the pleasure of Captain Brown's company to a small party on Friday evening next.

THE X division of Metropolitan Police gave a private concert recently. We love music and respect the force, therefore we feel doubly interested in the spread of harmony amongst the members of it. From information received, we proceeded to the appointed place in plain clothes, not having any good-looking ones by us.

of

The room was crowded, the highest number present being 387 (which we observed on a collar). We entered in time to hear "Mother, be proud your boy in blue" exquisitely sung by No. 257. Every bar showed that he had been brought up to it. He acquitted himself admirably, and the audience was transported. His other song, "We met, 'twas in a crowd, and I thought he would shun me," was equally artistic.

But the great feature of the concert was the pianoforte-playing of No. 302. He came down

will talk to through the airey-steps, as there ain't no gate to, but only three down to the kitchendoor. When I got down I found as all were dark, and though not afraid of them blackbeetles, don't hold with treadin' on 'em in the dark, as I slipped on one and very nigh put my elbow out Christmas night two years. So knowin' where Brown keeps a box of lucifers close to the back door, I goes up slow to get 'em, and down I goes agin, and was pretty nigh stified with the gas in that back kitchen.

I draws a lucifer along the top of the box, I see the blaze, I heard a bang, and then remembers nothin' more till I come to and saw some strange faces round me as was gettin' me out through bein' wedged that tight into the coal-hole under the stairs as wiolence was necessary. The kitchen-winder blowed out smack and everythin' in the place a smash.

I says, "Whatever is it ?" Says one party, as proved to be from next door, and had come in with the police, "You've had a narrow escape."

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"Well," I says, "a fire-escape is what I wanted; but what has 'appened?" Why," says they, "your gas has been and exploded, and nearly tore the house up by the roots."

I hadn't got my senses right when I hears piercin' shrieks up-stairs. I says, "Is the 'ouse in conflagrations? They says, as they pulled me out with a jerk, little thinkin' how awful bruised I turned out to be afterwards, " No, it's all right."

Then says I, "Jane Treadfoot is took bad." So I hurries up, though scarified dreadful myself, and there she was in sterrics on the rug a-sayin', "He's gone!" "Blowed into hair!" and all that.

66

So I says, "Jane," a-speakin' stern, as will often bring 'em to, "Jane," I says, "what is up with you?" Oh!" she says, "my own, my precious babby, to be blowed to atoms like this!" I says, "Rubbish! Why, he's in my large clothes basket in the back bed-room." She screams, "He's gone, I tell you, clean gone!" Well, it give me such a turn; so I gets a light and up I goes, and there, sure enough, was the clothes-basket as empty as ever it was born. I says, "Policeman, this is singler." "I believe you," says he. "What do you think?" says I. Chimbly," says he; "the draught have sucked that infant into the flue."

"Go along with you!" says I. "Well," he says, "you'll see."

387

So I looked up the chimbly, but I didn't see, for there wasn't a vestment of no infant to be seen. "Where can that Susan be?" says I, "as is the cause of it all," through a-leavin' of the gas turned on, a-sayin' as she was obliged for to step out for some firewood, as she burns up as if it was forests, though only seven bundles for sixpence. It's lucky as Brown came in just then, for I don't know what I should have done. He pretty soon see as there wasn't no harm done beyond the kitchen, as it's lucky as I would have the dresser put in the front or I should not have a plate to eat off, not if it was to save my life.

All this time poor Jane Treadfoot was half faintin', and I really was quite concerned to think what had become of that infant, when if that Susan didn't come in with it in her arms, as had been up-stairs when she heard the bang, and caught the child up and run over to Mrs. Crellins with it, asayin' as we was preys to a devourin' elephant, and give Mrs. Crellins that turn as she come over herself, though far from well.

Of course it was very good of the gal to think about savin' the child, but she might as well have stopped a minute just to see if we was blowed away or not.

The babby he was all right, and so was his mother when she see him, and by the time as Treadfoot come she was able to tell him about it with a smile, though she wouldn't part with the child no more, but had her supper with him across her knees, as isn't my ideas of comfort.

And though that gal wouldn't own to it, of course she'd been and done it through a-t -turnin' the gas off before goin' out, and no doubt her shawl ketched the tap and turned it on agin unawares, as is my constant fears. Then she goes up to the babby, as she found restless, and so was kep' anussin' him till the blow-up come.

If you could see our back kitchen you'd say it was a blow-up, reg'larly scarified, as the sayin' is, and what it must be when a whole gasometer goes off I can't think. No wonder it causes lots of widders and orphins, as it's a mercy my house wasn't full of, and for my part I'd go back to sixpenny dips, only Brown says, "he ain't a-goin' to retrograde for nobody."

I don't know what he means; but if he had been blowed back'ards into the coal-hole as I was, he wouldn't use none of his fine words, I know; and I'm sure it was opidildoc as brought me through it rubbed in constant, as I didn't feel till the next mornin' when turn in bed I couldn't, and might have been a cripple to my dyin' day.

COLERIDGE relates ::-"I have had a good deal to do with Jews in the course of my life, although I never borrowed any money of them. The other day I was what you may call floored by a Jew. He passed me several times, crying for old clothes in the most nasal and extraordinary tone I ever heard. At last I was so provoked that I said to him, 'Pray, why can't you say "old clothes" in a

plain way, as 1 do now?' The Jew stopped, and looking very gravely at me, said, in a clear and even fine accent, Sir, I can say "old clothes" as well as you can; but if you had to say so ten times a minute for an hour together, you would say "ogh clo" as I do now;' and so he marched off. I was so confounded with the justice of his retort that I followed and gave him a shilling, the only one I had."

IN Coleridge's time the discipline at Christ's Hospital was ultra-Spartan; all domestic ties were to be put aside. "Boy!" Coleridge remembered Bona saying to him once, when he was crying, the first day after his return from the holidays, "Boy! the school is your father. Boy! the school is your mother. Boy! the school is your brother; the school is your sister; the school is your first cousin, and your second cousin, and all the rest of your relations. Let's have no more crying."

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THELWALL and Coleridge were sitting once in a beautiful recess in the Quantock hills, when the latter said, Citizen John, this is a fine place to talk treason in." "Nay, citizen Samuel," replied he; "it is rather a place to make a man forget that there is any necessity for treason."

COTTLE, in his Life of Coleridge, relates the following amusing incident:-"I led my horse to the stable, where a sad perplexity arose. I removed the harness without difficulty; but, after many strenuous attempts, I could not remove the collar. In despair I called for assistance, when Mr. Words worth brought his ingenuity into exercise; but, after several unsuccessful efforts, he relinquished the achievement as a thing altogether impracticable. Mr. Coleridge now tried his hand, but showed no more skill than his predecessor; for after twisting the poor horse's neck almost to strangulation, and the great danger of his eyes, he gave up the useless task, pronouncing that the horse's head must have grown since the collar was put on; for,' he said, 'it was a downright impossibility for such a huge os frontis to pass through

so narrow an aperture.' Just at this instant a servant-girl came near, and understanding the cause of our consternation, 'Ah! masters,' said she, you don't go about the work in the right way. You should do like this,' when, turning the collar upside down, she slipped it off in a moment, to our great humiliation and wonderment, each satisfied afresh that there were heights of knowledge in the world to which we had not yet attained."

KEAN once played Young Norval to Mrs. Siddons' Lady Randolph: after the play, as Kean used to relate, Mrs. Siddons came to him, and patting him on the head, said, "You have played very well, sir, very well. It's a pity-but there's too little of you to do anything." Coleridge said of this "little" actor:-"Kean is original; but ho copies from himself. His rapid descents from the hyper-tragic to the infra-colloquial, though sometimes productive of great effect, are often unreasonable. To see him act is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning. I do not think him thorough-bred gentleman enough to play Othello."

"Ir is not easy to put me out of countenance, or interrupt the feeling of the time, by mere external noise or circumstance; yet once I was thoroughly done up, as you would say. I was reciting, at a particular house, the 'Remorse;' and was in the midst of Alhadra's description of the death of her husband, when a scrubby boy, with a shining faco set in dirt, burst open the door and cried out'Please, ma'am, master says, will you ha', or will you not ha', the pin-round?""