indolent, their divinæ particulum auræ being obstructed from soaring by a too hearty appetite.

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It is pleasant to know that a new ministry just come into office are not the only fellow-men who enjoy a period of high appreciation and full-blown eulogy: in many respectable families throughout this realm, relatives becoming creditable meet with a similar cordiality of recognition, which, in its fine freedom. from the coercion of any antecedents, suggests the hopeful possibility that we may some day without any notice find ourselves in full millennium, with cockatrices who have ceased to bite, and wolves that no longer show their teeth with any but the blandest intentions.

It is always chilling in friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give. And if you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.

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It was the practice of our venerable ancestors to apply that ingenious instrument the thumb-screw, and to tighten and tighten it in order to elicit non-existent facts: they had a fixed opinion to begin with, that the facts were existent, and what had they to do but to tighten the thumb-screw?

Perhaps there is inevitably something morbid in a human being who is in any way unfavourably excepted

from ordinary conditions, until the good force has had time to triumph.

:

Ugly and deformed people have great need of unusual virtues, because they are likely to be extremely uncomfortable without them but the theory that unusual virtues spring by a direct consequence out of personal disadvantages, as animals get thicker wool in severe climates, is perhaps a little overstrained. The temptations of beauty are much dwelt upon, but I fancy they only bear the same relation to those of ugliness, as the temptation to excess at a feast, where the delights are varied for eye and ear as well as palate, bears to the temptations that assail the desperation of hunger. Does not the Hunger Tower stand as the type of the utmost trial to what is human in us?

Lors, it's a fine thing to hev a dumb brute fond on you; it'll stick to you, an' make no jaw.

Hev a dog, Miss !—they're better friends nor any Christian. I can't give you Mumps, 'cause he'd break his heart to go away from me-eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff? There's a pup—if you didn't mind about it not being thoroughbred: its mother acts in the Punch show-an uncommon sensable bitch-she means more sense wi' her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There's one chap carries pots,—a poor low trade as any on the road,-he says, 'Why, Toby's nought but a mongrel-there's nought to look at in

her.' But I says to him, 'Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn't much pickin' o' your feyther an' mother, to look at you.' Not but what I like a bit o' breed myself, but I can't abide to see one cur grinnin' at another.

He knows his company, Mumps does. He isn't a dog as 'ull be caught wi' gingerbread: he'd smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread-he would. Lors, I talk to him by th' hour together, when I'm walking i' lone places, and if I'n done a bit o' mischief, I allays tell him. I'n got no secrets, but what Mumps knows 'em.

If

I think my head's all alive inside like an old cheese, for I'm so full o' plans, one knocks another over. I hadn't Mumps to talk to, I should get top-heavy an' tumble in a fit. I suppose it's because I niver went to school much. That's what I jaw my old mother for. I says, 'You should ha' sent me to school a bit more,' I says-'an' then I could ha' read i' the books like fun, an' kep' my head cool an' empty.'

I think the more on 't when Mr. Tom says a thing, because his tongue doesn't overshoot him as mine does. Lors! I'm no better nor a tilted bottle, I arn't -I can't stop mysen when once I begin.

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Dr. Kenn was at me to know what I did of a Sunday, as I didn't come to church. But I told him I was

upo' the travel three parts o' the Sundays-an' then I'm so used to bein' on my legs, I can't sit so long on end—'an' lors, sir,' says I, 'a packman can do wi' a small 'lowance o' church: it tastes strong,' says I; there's no call to lay it on thick.'

When I begun to carry a pack, I was as ignirant as a pig-net or calico was all the same to me. I thought them things the most vally as was the thickest. I was took in dreadful-for I'm a straightforrard chap -up to no tricks, mum. I can only say my nose is my own, for if I went beyond, I should lose myself pretty quick.

Lors! it's a thousand pities such a lady as you shouldn't deal with a packman, i̇'stead o' goin' into these new-fangled shops, where there's half-a-dozen fine gents wi' their chins propped up wi' a stiff stock, a-looking like bottles wi' ornamental stoppers, an' all got to get their dinner out of a bit o' calico: it stan's to reason you must pay three times the price you pay a packman, as is the natʼral way o' gettin' goods-an' pays no rent, an' isn't forced to throttle himself till the lies are squeezed out on him, whether he will or no. But lors! mum, you know what it is better nor I do— you can see through them shopmen, I'll be bound.

See here, now, here's a thing to make a lass's mouth water, an' on'y two shillin'-an' why? Why, 'cause there's a bit of a moth-hole i' this plain end. Lors, I

think the moths an' the mildew was sent by Providence o' purpose to cheapen the goods a bit for the good-lookin' women as han't got much money. If it hadn't been for the moths, now, every hankicher on 'em 'ud ha' gone to the rich handsome ladies, like you, mum, at five shillin' apiece-not a farthin' less; but what does the moth do? Why, it nibbles off three shillin' o' the price i' no time, an' then a packman like me can carry't to the poor lasses as live under the dark thack, to make a bit of a blaze for 'em. Lors, it's as good as a fire, to look at such a hankicher.

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Mr. Tom's as close as a iron biler, he is; but I'm a 'cutish chap, an' when I've left off carrying my pack, an' am at a loose end, I've got more brains nor I know what to do wi', an' I'm forced to busy myself wi' other folks's insides.

If a chap gives me one black eye, that's enough for me: I shan't ax him for another afore I sarve him out.

I am a bit of a Do, you know; but it's on'y when a feller's a big rogue, or a big flat, I like to let him in a bit, that's all.

Mumps doesn't mind a bit o' cheating, when it's them skinflint women, as haggle an' haggle, an' 'ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an' 'ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on't. I niver cheat anybody as doesn't want to cheat me, Miss