NECESSITIES.

Mr. Wellesley Pole used to say, that it was impossible to live like a gentleman in England, under forty thousand a year; and Mr. Brummel told a lady who asked him, how much she ought to allow her son for dress, that it might be done for £800 a year with strict economy. Mr. Senior, in an excellent Essay on Political Economy recently published in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, states that a carriage for a woman of fashion must be regarded as one of the necessaries of life, and we presume he would be equally imperative in demanding a cabriolet for a man.-Quarterly Review.

GIL BLAS.

At a house of great distinction, ten gentleman of taste were desired to frame, each of them, a list of the ten most entertaining works, which they had read. One work only found its way into every list-Gül Blas.

Campbell the poet, once said that he would rather have written Gil Blas than any of the Waverly Novels.

A CHANGER OF DYNASTIES.

In the third year of his present majesty, and in the 30th of his own age, Mr. Isaac Hawkins Brown, then upon his travels, danced one evening at the court of Naples. His dress was a volcanic silk with

lava buttons. Whether (as the Neapolitan wits said) he had studied dancing under St. Vitus, or whether David, dancing in a linen vest, was his model, is not known; but Mr. Brown danced with such inconceivable alacrity and vigour, that he threw the queen of Naples into convulsions of laughter, which terminated in a miscarriage, and changed the dynasty of the Neapolitan throne.-Sydney Smith.

ABSENT-MINDEDNESS.

La Fontaine having attended the funeral of a friend, was so absent-minded as to call upon him a short time afterward. Being reminded of the fact, he was at first greatly surprised, but recollecting himself, said: "It is true enough, for I was there."

A NEW LIGHT.

Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people, because they have a power of looking at such persons as objects of amusement, of another race altogether.—Coleridge.

SCOTCH AND IRISH.

When George IV. went to Ireland, one of the "pisintry," delighted with his affability to the crowd on landing, said to the toll-keeper as the king passed through, "Och now! and his Majesty, God bless him, never does." "We lets 'em go free," was the answer. "Then there's the dirty money for ye," says Pat. "It shall never be said that the king came here, and

found nobody to pay the turnpike for him." Moore, on his visit to Abbotsford, told this story to Sir Walter, when they were comparing notes as to the two royal visits. "Now, Mr. Moore," replied Scott, "there ye have just the advantage of us; there was no want of enthusiasm here; the Scotch folk would have done any thing in the world for his Majesty, but-pay the turnpike."

CHANGING HATS

Barry, the painter, was with Nollekens, at Rome, in 1760, and they were extremely intimate. Barry took the liberty one night, when they were about to leave the English coffee-house, to exchange hats with him; Barry's being edged with lace, and Nollekens' a very shabby plain one. Upon his returning the hat the next morning, he was requested by his friend, to let him know why he left him his gold-laced hat. Why, to tell you the truth, my dear Joey," answered Barry, "I fully expected assassination last night, and I was to have been known by my laced hat." Nollekens often used to relate the story, adding, "It's what the Old Bailey people would call a true bill against Jem."

ENNUI AND TRAVEL.

If a man and an Englishman be not born of his mother with a natural Chiffney-bit in his mouth, there comes to him a time for loathing the wearisome ways of society--a time for not dancing quadrilles

not sitting in pews-a time for pretending that Milton, and Shelley, and all sorts of mere dead people, were greater in death than the first living Lord of the Treasury--a time for scoffing and railing-for speaking lightly of the very opera, and all our most cherished institutions. It is from nineteen to two or three and twenty perhaps, that this war of man against men is like to be waged most sullenly. . . . The downs and moors of England can hold you no longer; with larger stride you burst away from these slips and patches of free land-you tread your path through the crowds of Europe, and at last on the banks of the Jordan, you joyfully know that you are upon the very frontier of all accustomed respectabilities. A little while you are free, and unlabelled, like the ground you compass; but civilization is coming and coming; you and your much-loved waste lands will be inclosed, and, sooner or later, you will be brought down to a state of utter usefulness.--Eothen.

JOHN WILKES.

Wilkes himself, in his soberer years, used to laugh pleasantly enough at the folly of his former dupes. One day, in his latter life, he went to court, and was asked by George III., in a good-humoured tone of banter, "how his friend, Serjeant Glynn was." This man had been one of his most furious partisans. "Pray, sir," replied Wilkes with affected gravity, "don't call Serjeant Glynn a friend of mine, the fellow was a Wilkite, which your majesty knows I never was."

Brougham relates an anecdote of Wilkes, characteristic of this celebrated demagogue. Colonel Luttrell and he were standing on the Brentford hustings, when he asked his adversary privately, whether he thought there were more fools or rogues among the multitude of Wilkites spread out before them. "I'll tell them what you say, and put an end to you," said the Colonel; but perceiving the threat gave Wilkes no alarm, he added, "surely you don't mean to say you could stand here one hour after I did so?" "Why," answered the other, "you would not be alive one instant after." "How so?" "I should merely say it was a fabrication, and they would destroy you in the twinkling of an eye!"

TESTS.

We remember a remark of the late Earl of Dudley, to the effect that good melted butter is an unerring test of the moral qualities of your host. A distinguished connoisseur, still spared to the world, contends that the moral qualities of your hostess may in a like manner be tested by the potatoes, and he assures us that he was never known to re-enter a house where a badly dressed potato had been seen. The importance attached by another equally unimpeachable authority to the point, is sufficiently shown by what took place a short time since at the meeting of a club-committee specially called for the selection of a cook. The candidates were an Englishman from the Albion Club, and a Frenchman recom