we have lost,—the searching curiosity of the public, -the petty annoyance added to the great woe,--all rushing upon a man's mind in the sudden convulsion and turbulence of its elements, what wonder that he welcomes the only escape from the abyss into which he has been hurled.

If the Spaniards rarely commit suicides, it is because they, neither a commercial nor gambling people, are not subject to such reverses. With the French it is mostly the hazard of dice, with the English, the chances of trade that are the causes of this melancholy crime-melancholy, for it really deserves that epithet with us. We do not set about it with the mirthful gusto which characterizes the felo de se in the Frenchman's native land. We have not yet among our numerous clubs, instituted a club of suicides, all sworn to be the happiest dogs possible, and not outlive the year! These gentlemen ask you to see them "go off," as if death were a place in the malle poste. "Will you dine with me to-morrow, my

dear Dubois ?"

"With the greatest pleasure; yet now I think of it, I am particularly engaged to shoot myself; I am really au désespoir! but one can't get off such an engagement you know."

"I would not ask such a thing, my dear fellow. Adieu! By the way if you ever come back to Paris again, I have changed my lodgings, au plaisir !"

Exeunt the two friends; the one twirling his moustaches, the other humming an opera tune.

This gayety of suicidalism, is not the death à la mode with us; neither are we so sentimental in these delicate matters, as our neighbours over the water. We do not shoot each other by way of being romantic. Ladies and gentlemen forced to "part company," do not betake themselves "to a retired spot," and tempt the dread unknown, by a brace of pistols, tied up with cherry-coloured ribbons.-England and the English.

ODDS AND ENDS.

A dinner of fragments is often said to be the best dinner. So are there few minds but might furnish some instruction and entertainment out of their scraps, their odds and ends of thoughts. They who cannot weave a uniform web, may at least produce a piece of patchwork.-Guesses at Truth.

TRUE RICHES.

Providence has decreed, that those common acquisitions—money, gems, plate, noble mansions, and dominion, should be sometimes bestowed on the indolent and unworthy; but those things which constitute our true riches, and which are properly our own, must be procured by our own labour.-Erasmus.

ENJOYING AND POSSESSING.

When I walk the streets, I use the following natural maxim, viz.: that he is the true possessor of a thing who enjoys it, and not he that owns it without

the enjoyment of it, to convince myself that I have a property in the gay part of all the gilt chariots that I meet, which I regard as amusements designed to delight my eyes, and the imagination of those kind people who sit in them gayly attired only to please me. I have a real, and they only have an imaginary pleasure from their exterior embellishments. Upon the same principle, I have discovered that I am the natural proprietor of all the diamond necklaces, the crosses, stars, brocades, and embroidered clothes, which I see at a play or birthnight, as giving more natural delight to the spectator than to those that wear them. And I look on the beaux and ladies as so many paroquets in an aviary, or tulips in a garden, designed purely for my diversion. A gallery of pictures, a cabinet, or library, that I have free access to, I think my own. In a word, all that I desire is the use of things, let who will have the keeping of them. By which maxim, I am grown one of the richest men in Great Britain; with this difference, that I am not a prey to my own cares, or the envy of others.Berkeley.

BUTTS.

A man is not qualified for a butt, who has not a good deal of wit and vivacity, even in the ridiculous side of his character. A stupid butt is only fit for the conversation of ordinary people-men of wit require one that will give them play, and bestir himself in the absurd part of his behaviour. A butt with

these accomplishments frequently gets the laugh on his side, and turns the ridicule upon him that attacks him. Sir John Falstaff was a hero of this species, and gives a good description of himself, after the capacity of a butt, after the following manner: “Men of all sorts,” says that merry knight, "take a pride to gird at me. The brain of man is not able to invent any thing that tends to laughter more than I invent, or is invented on me. I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men."-Steele.

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SOURCE OF CONCEIT.

All affectation and display proceed from the supposition of possessing something better than the rest of the world possesses. Nobody is vain of possessing two legs and two arms; because that is the precise quantity of either sort of limb which every body possesses.—Sydney Smith.

GENTLEMAN.

A very expressive word in our language, a word denoting an assemblage of many real virtues, and a union of manners at once pleasing and commanding respect. Charles Butler.

There exists in England, a gentlemanly character, a gentlemanly feeling, very different even from that which is the most like it-the character of a wellborn Spaniard-and unexampled in the rest of Europe. Coleridge.

The French, generally speaking, have the gentlemanly manners without the gentlemanly spirit; with the English, it is often the reverse, they have the gentlemanly spirit, without the manners.

HORRORS OF SEASICKNESS.

"Mind cannot conceive," says Matthews, in his very entertaining "Diary of an Invalid," after informing us of his state on board ship, "nor imagination paint the afflicted agonies of this state of suffering. I am surprised the poets have made no use of it in their descriptions of the place of torment; for it might have furnished an excellent hint for improving the punishment of their hells. What are the waters of Tantalus, or the stone of Sisyphus, when compared with the throes of seasickness?

"The depression and despondency of spirit which accompany this sickness, deprive the mind of all its energy, and fill up the last trait in the resemblance, by taking away even the consolations of hope that last resource of the miserable-which comes to all, but the damned and the seasick."

EMPHATIC OATH.

Some time after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the deputies sent by those of the reformed religion were treating with the king, the queen-mother, and some of the council for a peace. The articles were mutually agreed upon; and they were debating on what should be the security for the performance of