had the misfortune to entertain liberal opinions, and who were too honest to sell them for the ermine of the judge, or the lawn of the prelate:-a long and hopeless career in your profession—the chuckling grin of noodles, the sarcastic leer of the genuine political rogue-prebendaries, deans, and bishops made over your head-reverend renegadoes advanced to the highest dignities of the Church, for helping to rivet the fetters of Catholic and Protestant Dissenters—and no more chance of a whig administration than of a thaw in Zembla-these were the penalties exacted for liberality of opinion at that period; and not only was there no pay, but there were many stripes.Sydney Smith.

ROYAL SAYING.

Alphonsus, surnamed the Wise, king of Aragon, used to say, "That among so many things as are by men possessed or pursued in the course of their lives, all the rest are baubles, besides old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to converse with, and old books to read."

ST. EVREMONT.

St. Evremont was a celebrated duellist. He had discovered a particular thrust, which was honoured with his name, and called la botte de St. Evremont. This brave was witty and capricious, and would accept or refuse a challenge according to the fancy of the moment. Some of his duels were remarkable.

One day at the Café Procope, at dinner-time, he saw a gentleman seated at a barvaroise, and he exclaimed, "That is a confounded bad dinner for a gentleman !" The stranger thus insulted insisted upon satisfaction, which was granted; when St. Foix was wounded. Notwithstanding his injury, he coolly said to his antagonist, "If you had killed me, sir, I still should have persisted in maintaining that a barvaroise is a confounded bad dinner." Another time he asked a gentleman, whose aroma was not of the most pleasant nature, "Why the devil he smelt so confoundedly ?" The offended party sent a challenge, which he refused in the following terms: "Were you to kill me you would not smell the less, and were I to kill you, you would smell the more." One day, meeting a lawyer whose countenance did not please him, he walked up to him and whispered in his ear, "Sir, I have some business with you." The attorney, not understanding the drift of his speech, quietly named an hour when he would find him in his office. The meeting was, of course, most amusing, the expression of St. Foix being, "that he wanted to have an affaire with him," a term which is equally applicable to a duel and a legal transaction.-Millingen's History of Duelling.

HUMAN ABILITIES.

The abilities of a man must fall short upon one side or the other, "like too scanty a blanket when you are abed, if you pull it upon your shoulders, you

leave your feet bare; if you thrust it down upon your feet, your shoulders are uncovered.”

IMPERTINENCE OF AN OPINION.

Sydney Smith says, that it is always considered as a piece of impertinence in England, if a man of less than two or three thousand a year has any opinions at all upon important subjects.

TOO LATE.

Some men are always too late, and, therefore, accomplish, through life, nothing worth naming. If they promise to meet you at such an hour, they are never present till thirty minutes after. No matter how important the business, either to yourself or to him, he is just as tardy. If he takes a passage in the steamboat, he arrives just as the boat has left the wharf, and the cars have started a few moments before he arrives. His dinner has been waiting for him so long that the cook is out of patience, and half the time is obliged to set the table again. This course, the character we have described, always pursues. He is never in season, at church, at a place of business, at his meals, or in his bed. Persons of such habits. we cannot but despise. Much rather would we have a man too early to see us, and always ready, even if he should carry out his principle to the extent of the good deacon, who, in following to the tomb the remains of a husband and father, hinted to the bereaved widow, that, at a proper time, he should be happy to

marry her. The deacon was in season; for scarcely had the relatives and friends retired to the house, before the parson made the same proposition to the widow. "You are too late," said she, "the deacon spoke to me at the grave."

PUN OF HOOK.

Hook and one of his friends happened to come to a bridge, "Do you know who built this bridge," said he to Hook. "No, but if you go over you'll be tolled."

HENDERSON, THE ACTOR.

Henderson, the actor, was seldom known to be in a passion. When at Oxford, he was one day debating with a fellow-student, who not keeping his temper, threw a glass of wine in the actor's face, when Henderson took out his handkerchief, wiped his face and coolly said, "That, sir, was a digression; now for the argument."

ANECDOTES OF THE LATE JAMES SMITH,

(One of the Authors of the Rejected Addresses.)

The Law Quarterly Magazine informs us, that James Smith's coup d'essai in literature "was a hoax, in the shape of a series of letters to the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, detailing some extraordinary antiquarian discoveries and facts in natural history, which the worthy Sylvanus Urban inserted without the least suspicion; and we understand that

the members of the Antiquarian and Zoological Societies are still occasionally in the habit of appealing to them in corroboration of their theories."

In the same article we find many characteristic and humorous anecdotes of Smith, some of which we shall quote.

He

"One of James Smith's favourite anecdotes related to Colonel Greville. The colonel requested his young ally to call at his lodgings, and in the course of their first interview related the particulars of the most curious circumstance in his life. was taken prisoner during the American war, along with three other officers of the same rank; one evening they were summoned into the presence of Washington, who announced to them that the conduct of their government, in condemning one of his officers to death, as a rebel, compelled him to make reprisals, and that, much to his regret, he was under the necessity of requiring them to cast lots, without delay, to decide which of them should be hanged. They were then bowed out, and returned to their quarters. Four slips of paper were put into a hat, and the shortest was drawn by Captain Asgill, who exclaimed, 'I knew how it would be; I never won so much as a hit at backgammon in my life.' As Greville told the story, he was selected to sit up with Captain Asgill, under the pretence of companionship, but in reality to prevent him from escaping, and leaving the honour amongst the remaining three. And what,' inquired Smith, 'did