classes of society, as, for example, LAWYERS, run through the usual range, apparently, of human existence, with infinitely more work of the head than of the body. Yet there is a certain limit to this disproportion between mental and corporeal action, beyond which we cannot go without offering a violence to Nature, which is sooner or later resented.

sunt certi denique fines

Quos ultra citraque nequeat consistere rectum.

Compare, for instance, the coal-heaver on the banks of the Thames, straining daily, like an Atlas, under a load of "Northumbria's entrails," and passing through his stomach and veins some three or four gallons of porter, with the barrister, straining his brain during twelve hours in the day, from beginning to end of term, with scarcely any exercise of his muscles. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between these two classes of operatives, as far as complexion is concerned ;-but strip them of their habiliments-wash off the charcoal and hairpowder-and examine their constitutions :-You will find that the " WEAR AND TEAR" of body and mind has forwarded each of them a step or two, in advance, on the path of human existence. It will be said, indeed, that many instances of longevity are found in the most sedentary and literary professions, as well as in the most toilsome trades. No doubt of it. Chelsea and Greenwich present us with veteran soldiers and sailors of 80, 90, and 100 years. But is it to be inferred from these specimens, that a naval or military life includes no extra wear and tear of the constitution, except what is connected with battle? If the silent sea and tented plain could give up faithful records of the past, it would be found that both cruizing and campaigning wear down and wear out the powers of life, independently of gunpowder or steel; and that at a very rapid rate indeed! It is well known that the soldier and sailor, especially the latter, appears to be 50 at the age of 40, and so on in proportion. The wear and tear of a sea life did not escape the penetrating observation of Homer, who distinctly says that

PREMATURE OLD AGE.

"Man must decay when man contends with storms."

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To present the Chelsea and Greenwich pensioner as proofs of the longevity of a naval and military life, is to take the exception for the general rule :-it is like pointing to the Pyramids, for proof that TIME had broken his scythe, while we shut our eyes to the mouldering ruins of Egypt, Greece, and Italy. And so it is with the tens of thousands who labour inordinately with the brain, whether in literature, law, science, or art-the octogenarians and the nonogenarians whom we meet with, are only the human pyramids that have withstood, somewhat longer than usual, the extra wear and tear of avocation.

The actuary and the statistical enquirer may tell us that the duration of human life is greater now than it was a century ago. This may be the case; but it does not affect my argument. It only proves the diminution of some of those physical agencies which curtailed the range of existence among our ancestors— and holds out the probability, that our successors may be able to check the influence of many of those moral ills which shorten, or, at all events, embitter life among us. If three score years and ten be the number allotted to man, and we find that the average range of his existence is little more than half that number, there must surely be "something rotten in the constitution," (independent of the mere accidents to which civilization exposes us) to abridge so tremendously the short span of being to which man is doomed in this transitory scene! But granting, for the sake of argument, what I deny, in point of fact, that this wear and tear, this over-exertion, this super-excitement, made no appreciable difference in the ratio of mortality, so as to be tangible in the calculations of an actuary, will it be inferred from thence that health and happiness are not sufferers in the collision? Are not whole tribes of maladies, mental and corporeal, thus engendered, which may not materially shorten life, but must render it a burthen rather than a blessing? Yes! The devastation which is worked in this way far exceeds calculation or belief. We may safely come to the conclusion, then,

that the WEAR and TEAR of avocation induces the semblance, if not the reality, of PREMATURE old age.

CARE-WORN COUNTENANCE.

Whether the seat of our feelings and our passions be in the head or in the heart, one thing is certain, that their expression is in the countenance. To mask or conceal this expression is the boast of the villain-the policy of the courtier-the pride of the philosopher-and the endeavour of every one. It may appear remarkable that it is much easier to veil the more fierce and turbulent passions of our nature, as anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge, &c. than the more feeble and passive emotions of the soul, as grief, anxiety, and the various forms of CARE. The reason, however, is obvious. Vivid excitement and tempestuous feeling cannot last long, without destroying the corporeal fabric. They are only momentary gusts of passion, from the effects of which the mind and the body are soon relieved. But the less obtrusive emotions resulting from the thousand forms of solicitude, sorrow, and vexation growing out of civilized life, sink deep into the soul, sap its energies, and stamp their melancholy seal on the countenance, in characters which can neither be prevented nor effaced by any exertion or ingenuity of the mind! The tornado, and the cataract from the clouds, wear not such deep furrows in the mountain's rocky side, as the faintly murmuring rill, whose imperceptible but perpetual attrition effectuates more in the end, than the impetuous but transitory rush of the roaring torrent engendered by the storm, not fed by the spring.

Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed sæpe cadendo.

This care-worn countenance, in short, is a more obvious mark of the WEAR AND TEAR of mind, in modern civilized life, than premature age :-for age is relative, and its anticipated advance can only be appreciated by a knowledge of its real amount, which can seldom be attained..

ETIOLATION, OR BLANCHING.

ETIOLATION, OR BLANCHING.

The inhabitants of a city may easily be distinguished from those of the country, by the pallor of their complexions. The care-worn countenance, last alluded to, is generally "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," but the etiolation or blanching which I am now to notice, takes place independently of much thinking or mental anxiety. It cannot, in fact, boast of such an intellectual origin as the other. It is the result of physical, rather than of moral causes-more especially of bad air, inexposure to the light of Heaven, sedentary avocations, inactivity, late hours, &c. I have used the word etiolation, because I think it perfectly appropriate. When a gardener wishes to etiolate, that is, to blanch, soften, and render juicy a vegetable, as lettuce, celery, &c. he binds the leaves together, so that the light may have as little access as possible to their surfaces. In like manner, if we wish to etiolate men and women, we have only to congregate them in cities, where they are pretty securely kept out of the sun, and where they become as white, tender, and watery as the finest celery. For the more exquisite specimens of this human etiolation, we must survey the inhabitants of mines, dungeons, and other subterranean abodes-and for complete contrasts to these we have only to examine the complexions of stage-coachmen, shepherds, and the sailor" on the high and giddy mast." Modern Babylon furnishes us with all the intermediate shades of etiolation, from the green and yellow melancholy" of the BAZAR MAIDEN, who occupies somewhat less space in her daily avocations and exercise, than she will ultimately do in her quiet and everlasting abode, to the languishing, listless, lifeless ALBINOS of the boudoir, etiolated in HOTHOUSES, by the aid of " motley-routs and midnight madrigals," from which the light as well as the air of Heaven is carefully excluded! Thus penury and wealth, obscurity and splendour, industry and idleness, the indulgence of pleasure and the endurance of pain, all meet at the same

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point, and, by the mysterious workings of an over-ruling Providence, come to the same level, in this respect, at last! That voluntary dissipation should suffer all the evils attendant on necessary and unavoidable avocation, no one can regret :-but that useful toil and meritorious exertion should participate, and more than participate in the miseries which follow in the train of the "gay licentious proud," is a melancholy reflection. The longer we live in this world, however, and the more narrowly we watch the ways and the fate of man, the more we shall be convinced that vice does not triumph here below-that pleasure is invariably pursued by pain-that riches and penury incur nearly the same degree and kind of taxation-and that the human frame is as much enfeebled by idleness as it is exhausted by labour.

In

But to return to etiolation. What does this blanching indicate? In the upper classes of society, it indicates what the long nails on the fingers of a Chinese indicate-NO AVOCATION. the middling and lower orders of life, it indicates UNHEALTHY AVOCATION—and among the thinking part of the community, it is one of the symbols or symptoms of WEAR and TEAR of constitution. But different people entertain different ideas respecting etiolation. The fond and fashionable mother would as soon see green celery on her table as brown health on the cheek of her daughter. When, therefore, the ladies venture into the open carriage, they carefully provide themselves with parasols to aid the dense clouds of an English atmosphere in preventing the slightest intrusion of the cheerful, but embrowning rays of Phoebus. In short, no mad dog can have a greater dread of water, than has a modern fine lady of the solar beams. So much does this Phoebophobia haunt her imagination, that the parasol is up, even when the skies are completely overcast, in order apparently, and I believe designedly, to prevent the attrition of the passing zephyr over her delicate features and complexion!

I have alluded to the mark of gentility in the male sex of China-long nails on their fingers. I would strongly recom