ready for departure, his ordinary brown-black was cast aside, and we were dazzled by the shining sable of his suit.

We proceeded with our lessons as usual, when a point for explanation arose, and Jacob, whose thoughts till then had evidently not wandered far from his new array and the approaching hours of pleasure and liberty, began to expound to us some novel passage.

"A passage," said he, in his gayest tones, "which has little of the peculiar character of this author, and which indeed has been said by some critics to be in the manner of Theocritus; though it is no more like Theocritus-" (here his glances wandered over the ceiling and floor, and then round the walls of the school, till it rested complacently on his own knees as he sat) "no more like Theocritus, than it is like my black satin breeches!"

Whereat there was a rush of many eyes, all in one direction; and all, with one admiring, devouring gaze, settled on the glossy novelties, which were of black satin indeed! Jacob, the simplest, wisest of old men, was a vain old idiot that sunny morning. Breeches would have ruined him if he could have got them often. Black satin would have turned him into a peacock.

But this was doubtless quite an involuntary turn. What good Jacob Wright was famous for, was his sheer inventions and sham-similes, thrown out to set one wondering and inquiring. Many a dull boy brightened his wits, by reflection and investigation, while looking for an analogy where none existed. But this sport he practised only on the older heads, and so grave was his manner that heads aged as his own might be taken in.

Harmless almost always, the jest generally tended to set us reading or meditating; but it admitted of a rather mischievous imitation sometimes, and L., one of the

most mischief-loving as well as humourous of our set, was often on the watch to catch victims by catching Jacob's style.

He would be heard speaking seriously enough concerning some object, of which, when he had drawn towards him the listeners he wanted, he would declare that it possessed the most contradictory properties; adding carelessly, as if the fact were indisputable

"It is like an ebony ruler, which, though so hard a substance when applied to anything else, has, as is perfectly well known, no power to break glass."

Leaving this fact to fix itself in the wondering minds of youthful experimentalists, he would wait quietly until the morning, to count the boys who were to be flogged for breaking windows.

Among the conscientious, however, who are for formal exactness and literal truth in their similes, no plan can be so safe as that on which we observe people now and then acting, that of comparing a thing, not to something else, but to itself. Thus they will inform you, that a terrier in a rabid state, bit a soldier, and ran off like a mad dog; that the soldier flung after him a stone like a brick, swearing all the time like a trooper; that the surgeon applied his knife to the wound like a bit of cold steel; that the patient bore it like a Trojan; while a certain pretty lass leaned over him, the tears running out of her eyes like-water.

363

ANTIPACIFICATION.

WHEN the quarrelsome principle is properly understood, there will never be any reserve. For an old grudge, or a tooth that plagues you after a twelvemonth's plugging, there is but one remedy; have it out. Reserve may be useful in many of the affairs of life; it is villanous in quarrels. It says less than it thinks, and thus insures you all the worry and fatigue of a battle without the enjoyment; the headache of the debauch without its riotous jollity. It is destructive of the earnestness, the sincerity of what the Irish call the "shindy." It is as if a Tipperary boy were to wrap up the knob of his shillelagh in lambswool before he applied it to the sconce of a respected relative or associate.

Reserve constitutes the chief difference between touchy people and the quarrelsome. An intimate acquaintance, who had called upon us three times a week since George III. died, chose to absent himself without explanation, about fifteen months ago, and we have only just heard the reason, the true cause of offence: we had happened to observe that we did not think Julius Cæsar quite honest; and we had hinted that he was rather bald. Now any dear friend of Cæsar's that will quarrel with you on such a point outright, may be a pleasant fellow enough, and far be it from us to baulk his propensity; but we detest reserve in such matters. We hate the feeling that interprets a remark upon Zoroaster or Confucius as a personal affront, and yet shrinks from telling you so, except by cold looks or a twelvemonth's absence.

But the truly quarrelsome we like; those by whom

the art is more perfectly understood, and more openly practised; and they are sure to like you in return if you will go to war with them. The straight line to pursue is a direct contradiction. You must let them have their way by refusing to let them have it. Accommodate them with a check; yield to them a point-blank opposition; and they are your own for ever. The best friends in the world are those who are every now and then the inveterate enemies of each other.

The intercourse between persons of this happy temperament is all life and animation; the rapid succession of pebbles dropped into the stagnant pool, with now and then a stone of some size to make a splash with, sets all sparkling, and originates circles ever widening and ever new. The truest taste of friendship is just before and just after a desperate and apparently irreconcilable quarrel. Lovers in all ages have experienced the same thing. Man and wife, judging by their practice, admit the fact. Sects and parties proclaim it aloud in all they and do. Nations, from the beginning, have stamped it for a truth.

say

Byron wondered how the first couple "got through the twenty-four hours ;" and wonderful it would be if we supposed they never quarrelled. Having that privilege, they had the necessary and unfailing escape from ennui. People, when fiercely wrangling, and ferociously abusing one another, have no sense of the tedium vitæ. That is a disease bred only in peace and quietness.

"And spring would be but gloomy weather,

If we had nothing else but spring.”

The thunderstorm does "clear the air," that's certain. There are two classes of people with whom the quarrelsome are ever ready to contend; the people they do know, and the people they do not know. Those they

know deservedly have the preference. Where the esteem is very strong, the attachment old and closely knit, this preference, of course, is still more strongly marked. They are never at a loss to gratify their desires ; they can always find a ground of quarrel if they sincerely respect you.

Perhaps you don't write a line for two days, in return for a letter which requires no answer at all. This is quite enough. Their resentment is profound, their astonishment overwhelming. They cannot for their lives conceive what they have ever done to merit such treatment. They turn over the history of their friendship with you, page by page; no, not a word of the long record reproaches them. They have always, &c., but henceforth they never will, &c. They must write finis to the history at once; for such contemptuous neglect, such indifference turned up with scorn, is not to be borne.

Or perhaps you answer a note of no consequence the instant you receive it. The promptitude is peculiarly offensive. Something is the matter, that is quite evident. The alacrity to reply clearly expresses what the note itself does not say. You are standing upon the nicest ceremonies with them; what was once friendship has frozen into civility; they can distinctly perceive that. Had they been total strangers they should have expected exactly such courtesy; and from "Dear Harry" they instantly drop down to "My dear sir," writing by the same post to a mutual friend to say they were always a little afraid that you had no heart.

These are but two, out of two thousand equally certain modes of doing your duty by a quarrelsome friend, and obliging him with a grievance in the time of need. Perhaps you have forgotten to return the novel you borrowed of him (this is extremely probable); he can