hardly exceeded by their ignorance, great as that frequently is; but their vanity and selfcomplacency far outstrip either of those qualities. A friend the other day, in describing one of these religious gladiators, who by the by has been striving for the last twenty years to make a noise in the world, but without success, observed, that he belonged to that class of beings who are always chin deep in difficulties themselves, and yet fancy they are specially set apart by GOD to help Him out of dilemmas! . . WE hear from London that the artists and writers engaged on PUNCH' are in a state of strike;' that, finding the publishers penurious and mean, they have united in establishing a larger journal, of the same character, called 'The Great Gun,' which is soon to usurp the place of the older favorite. The last numbers of PUNCH' however exhibit no falling off. Both pictorially and editorially, there is no lack of attraction. The fifteenth chapter of The Comic Blackstone' treats of 'Title by Forfeiture,' of various kinds; and affords us some pleasant examples of forfeiture by waste :'

'OPENING land to search for a mine is waste in general, and waste of time in particular; but if there was a mine commenced, the tenant may mine away with impunity. There is, however, an old case in the books,' of a plug-hole being on the estate of A, when B, the tenant for years, claimed the right of opening a mine by virtue of the plug-hole. The point was reserved for all the Judges; and HOLT, Chief Justice, said Pooh, pooh! the plug-hole is not large enough to let the tenant in.' Another of the Judges followed with the observation, that 'He thought at first there was something in the plug-hole, and he had probed it very patiently, but there was no soundness at the bottom. It seemed at first to savor of something, but if the Courts permitted tenants to wedge themselves into the fee through such apertures as these, there must be an end to every thing.' It went off on this point; and the case has never been opened since for argument. It is waste on the part of a tenant if he cuts his landlord's timber; but if the tenant cuts his own stick, it is sometimes waste on the part of the landlord to go after him. Another species of forfeiture is a breach of the customs of a copyhold; as, where the rent is a pepper-corn, the tenant must seek out the landlord and give him pepper' to the amount specified. The learned and facetious BRACTON remarks, that 'Where the rent is pepper it is easily muster'd,' a joke almost as venerable as the subject by which it is elicited.' Another method of forfeiture is by becoming a bankrupt, when every thing goes to the assignee, to enable him to declare dividends, sometimes to the tune of two-pence a pound, like black-heart cherries. A bankrupt seised in tail has it instantly cut off, or at least so much of the tail as belongs to him.'

There is a great deal of forcible satire in the report of a 'Meeting of Game,' to adopt resolutions in favor of 'more vigorous measures' on the part of their protectors. A 'sedate, middle-aged hare,' in seconding the resolution, remarked, 'that new vigor was necessary, otherwise 'their order' would soon be confounded with that of rabbits and vulgar barndoor poultry. Though suffering under severe domestic affliction, he could not refrain from appearing among them. A week ago, he was a happy husband; the meeting now beheld a disconsolate widower. The wife of his bosom had been snared from him by a laborer; yes, one of themselves, for it was their common cause, had been caught and killed by a low unlicensed person, and devoured by a boor and his wretched family! Had his wife been killed by a gentleman, by one duly licensed to shoot, he trusted that he should have been the last of husbands to complain; but to be butchered by the starving vulgar; to be consumed for a mere dinner, not used as a dainty; it was too much to endure with resignation. He could have been content to lose his wife to the nobility or gentry, but that she should have been eaten without currant-jelly sauce was too much for his conjugal affection.' Mr. SILVERCROW, a cock-pheasant in high feather, in moving another resolution, took rather a different view from the hare last up: 'Was it not a cause of gratification to all of them, that at that very moment the English laborer was made a slave to them; that even the English farmer was compelled to see them devour his grain, nor yet, but at his peril, to kill or wound them? Had they not the grand satisfaction of tempting the fingers of famine to break its fast and the law at the same time? Had they not the sweet consolation to know that at that moment there were scores and scores of men, husbands and fathers, locked up in gaol, and their bits of household furniture seized and sold, for indignities offered, ay, even to members of that meeting? Beside, if they had any wrong to complain of against men in general, were they not sweetly revenged for the injustice? For himself, he never thought of the men that he and his fellows caused to be locked up for felons, that in the exulting feeling of his high privilege he did not crow the louder for

it.' Mr. SHORTBILL, an elderly and highly-respectable partridge, read a paragraph from a provincial journal, to the effect that a lad had been sent to prison for looking at seven 'wires,' which somebody had set to catch forbidden game. Such intelligence, the speaker observed, 'must be especially sweet to the feelings of the meeting, as it assured them of the more than paternal care exercised toward them by their enlightened landlord. Looking upon himself as of the aristocracy of birds, he could not but feel grateful for such protection. Seeing that the country had a superabundant population, nothing could be wiser than to continually sacrifice the peasant to the pheasant. Instead, however, of fining a laborer for looking at wires or at any game soever, he would stop the chance of such disrespect, by compelling every laborer, unless upon lawful work, to walk blindfolded. He hoped another session would not pass away ere this was done. It was an axiom that could not be too sternly preached, that the poor were made for game, and not game for the poor.' This may seem playful to you, reader; but be assured that in England it 'bit like a serpent and stung like an adder.'... THEY have a fine specimen of a TIGG, in Boston. Witness the following, from the hand of a pleasant correspondent: Few strangers of taste sojourn in the eastern emporium for any length of time, without finding their way to HANNIBAL RICE'S fashionable hair-dressing and shampooing saloon, somewhere near the new court-house. HANNIBAL stands at the tip-top of his profession, and is a prince of shampooers. His saloon is a place of general resort, and many rare fellows may be found among his customers. One Sunday morning not long since, a slovenly-genteel stranger, wrapped in a magnificent cloak, seated himself in one of HANNIBAL'S velvet cushions, and presenting a head of massy black hair, requested the favor of a shampoo from the hands of the presiding genius himself. I've got a snapping head-ache, HANNIBAL,' said the stranger, in a familiar tone; ⚫ but no matter. Do your best; for I've a notion that shampooing will relieve me.' 'The barber did his best; and, after arranging the hair in the most exquisite form, turned to another customer; while the stranger, rising from his seat, surveyed himself in the mirror with an air of entire satisfaction. 'I like your style of doing things, HANNIBAL,' said he, with a patronizing air; 'it's superb! And then my head-ache, too—that's clean gone. But bless me ! my cranium feels as if it had been enlarged considerably. Does shampooing make the head grow, Mr. RICE?' The barber hesitated, and then looked at an old customer who sat on the sofa, as if at a loss for an answer, the gentleman, thus silently appealed to, nodded in the affirmative. 'Yes,' said HANNIBAL, turning to the stranger; ‘I believe it doos have that effect-a leetle.' 'I wonder if I can get my hat on?' continued the stranger, half to himself: 'Ah, yes! It's a tight fit, though. But no matter, Mr. HANNIBAL; I feel perfectly well again, and think I can safely recommended your shampooing as a sovereign remedy for the most inveterate head-ache. To-morrow, if you please, when you are more at leisure, I will call again, and give you an affidavit to that effect.' Thank you!' replied HANNIBAL, bowing thrice to his kind customer: 'very much obliged to you!' The stranger returned a bow, and then throwing his cloak around him, departed with a pompous strut. HANNIBAL turned to his assistant: 'CÆSAR!' said he: 'that's a fine gemmen. S'pose he paid you double price for that operation of mine; a quarter for his hair, and a quarter for curing his head-ache.' He! he replied CESAR, with a broad grin: he didn't pay me nuffin!' It is needless perhaps to mention that the gentleman didn't call again... THERE is something so characteristic, so exceedingly 'well put,' in the following remarks upon a theme which we have more than once handled in these pages, that we cannot resist the inclination to quote them: They are from the 'Peter Ploddy Papers :'

THE true conversationist requires as nice a balance of qualities as the adroit swordsman. He should have an eye, an ear and a tongue, equally on the alert, perfectly under control, and skilled to act together. It is his duty to be able to mark the moment when a slumbering idea is awakened in the mind of another, and to afford opportunity for its development. When the thought quivers in an almost inaudible murmur upon the lips of the timid, it is not to be suppressed in premature death by the rattling noise of practised confidence; not to be driven over, if we may so describe it, by each hackney cab that thunders up the street. It claims to be deferentially educed, not so much by a display of patronising encouragement, which is almost as fatal as harsh disregard, but by that respectful attention which creates no painful sense of inferiority. He cannot pretend to civilization, who, in his

wild dance of intellectual excitement, tramples under his massive foot all the little chickens of our imagination, and scares each half-fledged fancy back to its native shell. Be it rather your pleasure to chirp the tremblers forth to the corn of praise and the sunshine of approbation. Who has not found himself to be totally absorbed by the volubility of others; so that he could neither find subject nor words, even when an interval was left for their exercise?' 'Did it never occur to you, my game friend, as you strapped on your gaffs, and crowed defiance at a rooster of another feather, that the rest of the social circle do not derive your pleasure from the set-to,' and would gladly be excused from being annoyed by the argumentative combat? And, as for hobbies, they prance prettily enough on their proper ground; but do not let them caracole in the parlor. People would rather be kicked by any thing than by other people's hobbies; and, again, these hobbies, being merely composed of wood and leather, are never wearied, and cannot stop. They outstrip every body, and carry none with them. Hark, in your ear. Leave hobby at home; he will not be restive or break things, when you are not by. It is disagreeable to be ridden down by these unaccommodating quadrupeds. Folks do not like it.'

Speaking of the author of the above: we find the following in a late number of the 'New World' newspaper, under the head of 'Bad, both Ways.' It confirms what we have heretofore suspected, as our readers will remember: Major NOAH's Sunday Messenger quotes a paragraph from the Philadelphia Saturday Museum,' edited by JOSEPH C. NEAL, the accomplished author of the 'Charcoal Sketches,' introducing it with 'John NEAL, has the following happy hit,' etc. We have seen this mistake made often; and it is one which, in justice to the editor of the Museum,' ought to be corrected. Very likely many people think JOHN NEAL the author of the Charcoal Sketches' themselves; while on the other hand and that is the worst part of the matter-JOHN NEAL's wordy and unnatural trash may be attributed to the lively and piquant 'Sketcher.' If you see a spirited, readable thing going the rounds of the press, with the name of 'Neal' tacked to it, or quoted as John NEAL'S, rely upon it, if you credit it, that you will be 'mistaken in the person.' .. THE lines to the ancient and fish-like' town of Newport in our last Gossip' have reminded a correspondent of an advertisement which he cut from a Newport journal some months since, offering for sale a dwelling-house opposite Trinity-church and its beautiful buryingground.' The commendations of the locale are in rather an unusual vein: From the windows of the premises, the occupiers may gaze upon the grave-yard, and meditate upon the general resurrection of the human family, on that fearful day, when the trump will sound its last wild blast, and the mighty dead come forth to judgment. We are all naturally depraved, and from present appearances, some awful doom is awaiting us; in all human probability, the last knell will soon be sounded; and it becomes those who are wise, to prepare for the winding up of earth's drama, for we must finally go to that lone tomb, where there is neither counsel or devise. This is a good opportunity for a family to locate themselves near the burying-ground, where the soul may be improved by melancholy reflections on its condition and final destiny.' Perhaps our advertiser's faith was that of 'MILLER, and his men.' Apropos of Newport, fish, etc., our friend says: "I remember an anecdote told me some years ago, which I do not recollect to have seen in print. My informant was himself a native of Newport, and not, I believe given to flights of fancy; and therefore I have not the least reason for suspecting he was making game of me. He told me, what every body knows, that Newport was once the richest and most flourishing town in NewEngland, but that within the last forty years it had sadly decayed, and was now but a mere shadow of its former self. In the days of its prosperity the inhabitants lived luxuriously, and the markets were consequently loaded with the richest viands; but with its fallen fortunes the rich food gradually disappeared, until finally nothing but fish was to be found in the stalls. Of piscatorials, however, there was an endless variety; and with bass on one day, halibut the next, tautog on the third, etc., varied now and then with clams, quahogs and other shell-fish, the inhabitants generally appeared contented with their fare. Some of the older natives, howbeit, did not like to be seen carrying home fish every day; and so, to keep up ancient appearances, they used sometimes to place their scaly dinners, carefully concealed, in the bottom of a covered basket, from the top of which protruded, at one time perhaps the stump-end of a leg of mutton, at another a brace of turkey-legs! My friend told me, he had known one pair of the latter to serve the above purpose for upward of five years.' . A LATE American traveller, writing of Miss JANE PORTER, says that

'she is now more than sixty years old, and is still in mourning for her first and only lover, who died when she was about twenty.' 'It is only in a strong imagination,' says SOUTHEY, that the deceased object of affection can retain so firm a hold, as never to be dispossessed from it by a living one; and when the imagination is thus possessed, unless the heart be strong, the heart itself, or the intellect, is likely to give way.' A most affecting instance of this kind is related by Dr. UWINS in his Treatise on Disorders of the Brain. A lady on the point of marriage, whose intended husband usually travelled by the stage-coach to visit her, went one day to meet him, and found instead of him an old friend who came to announce to her the tidings of his sudden death. She uttered a scream, and piteously exclaimed, He is dead!' But then all consciousness of the affliction that had befallen her ceased. From that fatal moment,' says the author, has this unfortunate female daily for fifty years, in all seasons, traversed the distance of a few miles to the spot where she expected her future husband to alight from the coach; and every day she utters in a plaintive tone, 'He is not come yet! I will return to-morrow!' . WE heard a voice at the Ita

lian Opera the other evening, that in some of its tones was not unlike the tearing of a strong rag. It reminded a most fair lady of an anecdote derived from the lips of one of our prominent religious journalists, which we think is worth preserving and perpetuating Being at a social party, when a young man, he was vehemently called upon by the members to sing a song. He replied that he would first tell them a story, and that then, if they still persisted in their demand, he would endeavor to execute a song. When a boy, well in his 'teens, he took lessons in singing; and one Sabbath morning he went up into his father's garret, as had been his custom, to practice all alone by himself. While in full cry' he was suddenly sent for by the old gentleman.' 'This is pretty conduct!' exclaimed his father; pretty employment, for the son of pious parents, to be sawing boards in the garret on a Sunday morning, loud enough to be heard by all the neighbors! Sit down, Sir, and take your book.' Our contemporary was unanimously excused from singing the proposed song. There was a species of strong presumptive evidence' against him. . . . HERE is one of your sort of men now (we have known him long and well) who knows how to observe' quite as well as Miss MARTINEAU; and who, as Sir WALTER SCOTT says of himself, never met the humblest individual in the corner of a stage-coach, from whom he did not gather something to assist him in the delineation of character, or that was otherwise worthy of remembrance: In the course of my travels, experience has taught me many things not to be found in the guide-books, and I doubt if the knowledge ever could have been acquired, but that I have made it a rule to hear all things, see all things, patiently talk with every body about every thing; mingle unreservedly with the masses, and melt into the common sympathies of the people; becoming one of them; participating in their hopes and fears; discoursing of crops, prices, floods, droughts, rail-roads, steam-engines, politics, religion-no, not religion; no good comes of talking to travellers on that theme. In short, I have discovered that your true philosophical traveller when he goes abroad unbuttons his pride, doffs his dignity, and quietly puts 'ego' to bed. In this spirit your true student studies character. Pride, arrogance, vanity, are uncomfortable compagnons du voyage,' and should be left behind. Let your heart be filled wi' boundless love;' and let yourself down, or elevate yourself up, as the case may be, to the level of those whom you encounter. It was in this temper, and in this mood, that I stumbled on a character the other evening on board a steam-boat, which presented some traits that I thought rather original and unique. I daguerreotyped him on the spot. I had just finished supper, and was quietly enjoying my cigar on the deck, when I heard an individual declaiming in a loud tone of voice to some two or three attentive listeners, (but evidently intended for the benefit of whomsoever it might concern,) on pathology. Being as it were thus invited, I also became a listener to something like the following: There it is now! Well, some people talk about seated fevers. I don't know any thing about seated fevers; there aint no such thing as seated fever. A musquitoe-bite is a fever; cure the bite, and the fever leaves you. So with a bile just the same thing; their aint no such thing, I tell you, as seated VOL. XXV. 12

fever. The fact is, your regular doctor practizes according to books. I practize according to common sense. Now there was Dr. RUGG, of our village, the Sampson of the MaterierMedicker. Well, he treats fevers according to the books; consequence is I get all the patients: and he says to me one day, says he,' why,' says he, how is it, you get all the fever-cases?' And I told him exactly how it was; and it is so.' 'Well, Doctor, interrupted one of the listeners, 'How do you treat fevers?' 'Well, there it is, you see; you ask me how I treat fevers! If you had asked me when I first commenced practizing I could ha' told you; cant tell you now. I treat cases just as I find 'em, according to common sense. And there it is now there was Mrs. SCUTTLE; she was taken sick; all the folks said she had the consumption; had two doctors to her; did n't do her a single mossel o' good. They sent for me. Well, as I went into the house, I see a lot o' tanzy and a flock of chickens by the door felt her pulse: says I, 'Mrs. SCUTTLE, you aint no more got the consumption than I've got it. Two weeks, an' I cured her!' 'Well, doctor, how did you cure her? How did I cure her? There it is, ag'in! I told you I see a lot of tanzy and a flock of chickens growing at the door. I gi'n her some of the tanzy and a fresh-laid egg-brought her right up. It's kill or cure with me! In fact, I call myself an officer. My saddle-bags is my soldiers, and my disease my inimy. I rush at him; and 'ither he or me has got to conquer. I never give in! My cigar was out; and while lighting another, the doctor vanished; possibly hastened by the influence of one of his own prescriptions.'... WE don ot quite like the Reflections on the New-Year.' The tone of monition, of warning, would have reached the heart with more effect, were it separated from a certain spirit of despondency, of foreboding, which would 'sadden but not soothe.' It is true, that various fortunes are the lot of men; true, that chance and change come to all; true, that our possessions may 'fleet like morning clouds away.' All earthly comforts, says the quaint and pensive GEORGE WITHER,

'ALL earthly comforts vanish thus;
So little hold of them have we,
That we from them, or they from us,
May in a moment ravished be:
Yet we are neither just nor wise,
If present mercies we despise;
Or mind not how there may be made
A thankful use of what we had.'

THE annual festival of the patron-Saint of the KNICKERBOCKERS was held at the CityHotel on the sixth ultimo. It was a glorious feast, and did honor to SAINT NICHOLAS and his noble devotees. We have looked, until a late hour, for the published proceedings, with the view of transferring to our pages some of the brief and felicitous speeches which we heard with so much delight. Of these hereafter. The dinner and all its accessories were such as reflected the highest credit upon the stewards and their stewards.... THE remarks which we have ventured on two or three occasions to make, touching Law and Lawyers, have brought us many pleasant communications, one of which will be found in preceding pages. We do not know that we have laughed more heartily, however, at any one of them, than at the one in which we find an anecdote to this effect: A young lawyer who had been making an elaborate plea in an important civil case, before a jury whom he had over and over again complimented for their excellent 'understanding' and remarkable 'intelligence,' was about leaving the case in their hands, when it occurred to him to ask whether there was any point of law, or any legal term, upon which they desired information. One of the jurors, who had apparently been the most attentive man of the entire twelve, replied, that 'he b'lieved he understood it all, except one thing: he'd like to know, since he'd been asked, what was the meanin' of them words, 'defendant' and 'plaintiff ?' That was all that bothered him. Here was a hopeful chance for a verdict, was n't there? SOME young person has sent us a long string of verses on an old cow, ' about to leave for the first time the paternal roof.' It strikes us that they may be intended as a burlesque upon the Hon. Mrs. NORTON'S lines, The Arab's Adieu to his Horse:'

'My brindled one! my brindled one! thou standest silent by,
Looking intent upon the ground, while tears are in thine eye;