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SILENUS.

[PUBLIUS VIRGILUS MARO-Such was the full name of Virgil the prince of Latin Poets-was born at Pietola, near Mantua, 70 B.C., and died at Rome at the age of

51.

It is not the province of this book to enumerate his glorious works, indeed it is merely the chance of Comerre's picture that reminded us of our ability to give Virgil a place in the LIBRARY OF WIT AND HUMOR. The Pastoral into which Virgil introduces this story is addressed to his friend Verus-a man evidently of high rank-and seems meant as an apology for not complying with his request to write a poem on his exploit.]

SILENUS.

"I thought to sing how heroes fought and

bled,

But that Apollo pinched my ear, and said— Shepherds, friend Tityrus, I would have you know,

Feed their sheep high, and pitch their verses low.'"

Then he goes on to tell his story:-
"Two Bacchants and a Faun, the story runs,
one day

Came on the cave where old Silenus lay;
Filled to the skin, as was his wont to be,
With last night's wine, and sound asleep was
he;

The garland from his head had fallen aside,
And his round bottle hanging near they spied.
Now was their time-both had been cheated
long

By the sly god with promise of a song;
They tied him fast-fit bonds his garland
made-

And lo! a fair accomplice comes to aid:
Loveliest of Naiad-nymphs, and merriest too,
Æglè did what they scarce had dared to do;
Just as the god unclosed his sleepy eyes,
She daubed his face with blood of mulberries.
He saw their joke, and laughed-Now loose
me, lad!

Enough-you've caught me-tying is too bad.
A song you want?-Here goes. For Æglè,
mind,

I warrant me I'll pay her out in kind.'

So he began. The listening Fauns drew near, The beasts beat time, the stout oaks danced to hear.

So joy Parnassus when Apollo singsSo through the dancing hills the lyre of pheus rings."

and narrates the old fables of the cosmogonists-the Deluge of Deucalion, the new race of men who sprang from the stones which he and Pyrrha cast behind them, the golden reign of Saturn, the theft of fire by Prometheus, and a long series of other legends, with which he charms his listeners until the falling shadows warn them to count their flocks, and the evening-star comes out, as the poet phrases it, "over the unwilling heights of Olympus "-loath yet to lose the fascinating strain.]

A RECTIFYING ESTABLISHMENT.

Judge Craig Biddle of Philadelphia is celebrated among his friends for his wit, as well as for his legal learning.

Riding one day in the cars from New York with a stranger, who touched the Judge on the shoulder, and pointing to the extensive brick buildings on the Pennepack, which constitute the House of Correction, said:

"Excuse me, sir, is that a distillery?" "Well," said the Judge, with a twinkle in his eye, 66 I believe it is somehow connected with the liquor business, it is a |rectifying establishment ! "

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ASK AND HAVE.

Oh, 'tis time I should talk to your mother,
Sweet Mary," says I;

"Oh, don't talk to my mother," says Mary,
Beginning to cry:

"For my mother says men are deceivers,
And never, I know, will consent;
She says girls in a hurry who marry,
At leisure repent."

"Then, suppose I would talk to your father,
Sweet Mary," says I;

"Oh, don't talk to my father," says Mary,
Beginning to cry:

"For my father, he loves me so dearly,
He'll never consent I should go-
If you talk to my father," says Mary,
"He'll surely say, 'No.'"

"Then how shall I get you, my jewel?
Sweet Mary," says I;

Or-"If your father and mother's so cruel,
Most surely I'll die!"

[Silenus's strain is a poetical lecture on natural philosophy. He is as didactic in his waking soberness as some of his disciples are in their cups. He describes how the world sprang from the four original elements, VOL. III-W. H.

"Oh, never say die, dear," says Mary;
Since my parents are both so contrary—
"A way now to save you I see;
You'd better ask me!"

SAMUEL LOVER. 19

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A STAGE-COACH STORY.

ANON.

IN all the changes which have taken place in this changeable world, since I had the pleasure of making acquaintance with it, the greatest is in travelling. When I was a youngster, I remember my father, who was Mayor of Cork in the year of grace '97, setting out for Dublin with the address from the Corporation of that loyal city to the Viceroy of the day. I remember it as it were but yesterday. It was thought at that time to be a great journey, and the leave-taking of friends and relatives was not without tears. They took two days to reach Limerick; on the third they proceeded to Tullamoore, where they slept; and on the fourth, taking ship in the canal boat, they arrived in the metropolis late at night. But nowa-days, what between railroad and steamcoaches, men go

The old gentleman gave a sweep of his hand from his breast till he stretched it at arm's length, and then let it drop by his side. How wonderful is the eloquence of action! Words were invented but to help it out. I have seen an Italian gather up the points of his fingers till his hand looked like a pineapple, and shake it with a grimace that would have done honor to an ape. I have seen a Frenchman elevate his shoulders till he endangered his ears; but old Moonshine's motion was altogether in a great scale. It was magnificent; it was natural-such as I should suppose Adam to have made to Eve when he showed her the world was all before them. The very form of expression was grand; it was incomplete; it savored somewhat of infinity. "Men go," said he, with a wave of his hand-had he said "to the ends of the earth" it would have been nothing.

After a moment's pause, the narrator proceeded: "I shall never forget my first journey from Limerick to Dublin. A day-coach had been established, which was considered a marvel of celerity. It left Swinburne's hotel early in the morning, and contrived to accomplish half of the journey that day, arriving late in the evening at Mountrath, where the travellers slept, whence, starting next morning, after an early breakfast, it entered the

metropolis by the light of the old oil lamps, upon the second day. You may yet see the old roadside inn a little way outside the town of Mountrath-a large, high house, retired a short way from the road, having a spacious sweep of gravelled space before it, and a multitude of windows; but, alas! it is now falling fast into decay; and one never sees the bustling face of the white-aproned waiter standing at the door, or hears the crack of the postilion's whip as he leads out his posters to horse a gentleman's travellingcarriage.

"Well, all that is past and gone. On the second day of our journey, we had all assembled drowsily in the parlor, which smelled villanously of the preceding night's supper, and had sat down to our hurried breakfast. By the time we had half finished our meal, a car drove up to the door, and in a few moments after, a gentleman entered in a large drab travelling coat, with half-a-dozen capes, and a huge red shawl wound around his neck. He deposited a travelling-case leisurely on the sideboard, and then looked keenly around him. The survey did not seem to give him much gratification. The eggs had all disappeared, and the cold beef was in a very dilapidated condition. However, he sat down, took off his coat and shawl, and addressed himself to the cold meat like a hungry man. The waiter made his appearance. "Just five minutes more, gentlemen; the horses are putting to."

The traveller looked up quietly. He was not a man to be put out of his way. He ordered some eggs, and desired the waiter to make fresh tea.

"Are you going by the coach, sir?" inquired the attendant.

"Yes, certainly," was the reply, in an English accent (he was a traveller from a London house,) "but I must have my breakfast first; so, be quick, will you?"

The waiter left the room, and immediately after we heard the fellow telling the guard to be expeditious; an exhortation to which that worthy responded by a clamorous blast of his horn that made us all start from our seats, and hurry out of the room, leaving the English gentleman alone to finish his breakfast, which, to do him justice, he seemed by no means disposed to neglect. The waiter, meantime, brought in the tea, and retired: but was

speedily summoned back by a vigorous | hysteries when the inn-keeper opened the ringing of the bell.

A spoon, please," said the gentleman. The waiter advanced to the table to procure the article, but, to his astonishment, there was not a spoon to be seen; nay, even those which had been in the cups had all disappeared.

"Blessed Virgin!" ejaculated the dismay ed attendant, "what's become of all the spoons?"

"That's just what I want to know, you blockhead," said the other.

"Two dozen and a half-real silver," cried Tom.

"I want only one," said the gentleman. "Haven't you a spoon in your establishment, my man?"

Tom made no reply, but rushed distractedly out of the room, and running up to the coachman, cried out, "stop, Dempsey, for the love of Heaven!"

"All right!" said Dempsey, with a twirl of his whip, gathering up the reins and preparing to start-for we had all taken our places.

""Tisn't all right," cried Tom, "where are the spoons ?"

What spoons? Arrah! don't be bothering us, man; and we five minutes behind time. Joey, hold that off-leader's head, till she goes on a bit."

By this time, the master of the inn had come out to learn what all the hubbub was about. Tom, half blubbering, poor fellow, made him acquainted with the fact, that all his silver spoons had vanished. The landlord cried out "robbery!" the housemaids screamed out "murder!" and a variety of other exclamations, too dreadful to contemplate. When silence was restored, the inn-keeper insisted on stopping the coach till he ascertained if the report of Tom was true. Ere many moments he returned, as pale as ghost,

and said

"Gentlemen, I'm sorry to trouble you ; but I must beg you'll come down, till a search is made for my property. Tom, here, will swear that there was a spoon in every tea-cup this morning as usualwon't you, Tom ?"

"Be-dad, I'll take my Bible-oath of that same, sure enough," replied Tom; "and sure I didn't swallow them."

The passengers all indignantly refused to submit to the search proposed by the landlord. An old lady inside went off in

door, and proposed to turn her pockets inside out. There was an officer with a wooden leg on the box-seat, who swore, in the most awful manner, that he would run the first man through the body that attempted to lay a hand on him-by the way, he hadn't a sword, but he forgot that in his fury. There was a justice of the peace for the county, who protested that he would commit the host for contempt; and a Dublin attorney in the back-seat intimated his determination to indict Tom, who had laid hold of his leg, for an assault; and, moreover, to commence an action against his master for defamation. As I was but a youngster then, and the weakest of the party, the landlord chucked me down in a twinkling, and hauled me into the parlor, half dead with fright; and thereupon the rest of the passengers, including the wooden-legged captain, scrambled down, and followed, determined to make common cause and protect me from insult with their lives, if necessary. And now we were all again in the breakfast-room, clamoring and remonstrating, while to add to the din, the guard kept up a continual brattle with his horn. All this time the English gentleman was steadily prosecuting his work upon the eggs and toast, with a cup of tea before him, which he was leisurely sipping, quite ' at his ease like.

"What the deuce is the matter?" said he, looking up, “can't you let a man take his breakfast with comfort ?"

"The plate!" said the master. "The silver spoons!" cried the butler. "Robbery!" shouted the mistress. "Murder!" etc., screamed the housemaids.

"Search every one," demanded the host; come, let us begin with this young chap," diving his hand into my breeches pocket.

"I think," said the English gentleman, cooly, "twould be as well first to search the premises. Is the waiter long in your service?"

"Fifteen years last Shrovetide, and I defy any man to lay as much as the big of his nail to my charge."

By this time, the English gentleman had finished his breakfast, and, wiping his mouth most deliberately, he commenced to search the room. He opened every drawer of the sideboard, then he looked

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under the table, then behind the window- | opportunity of reforming. Keep a sharp shutters, but all in vain. After that, he eye on him, however, sir, I advise you. stopped a moment to reflect, when a bright And now, gentlemen, I think we'd better thought seemed to cross his mind, and he be moving." raised the lid of one of the teapots, but with as little success as before; neverthless, he continued his examination of the teapots, and when he come to the last, what do you think, but he thrust in his hand, and drew out first one spoon, and then another, till he laid a number of them on the table. Tom rushed up, and began to count-"Two, four, six,” till at length he exclaimed

"May I never see glory but they're all right, everyone. The Lord be between us and harm, but this bangs all that ever I seen!"

We all hurried out and took our places, the English gentleman getting up to the seat behind the coachman. Dempsey "threw the silk" into the horses; the guard blew an impatient blast on his horn, and off we went at a slapping pace, the host bowing humbly to us until we were out of sight.

"I'm driving on this road these ten years," said Dempsey, when he slackened his pace up a hill; "and I never knew such a thing as that happen before."

"Very likely," said the Englishman, quietly, "and never will again."

"I always thought Tom Reilly was as honest a fellow, man and boy, as any in the parish."

"I make no doubt he is," replied the other; "he has a very honest counte

"I tell you what, my man," said the gentleman, looking sternly at the astonished waiter, "I strongly suspect you have been playing tricks upon your master. A nice haul you'd have had of it when the company was gone away! Inance.' don't like the look of the fellow, I tell you," he continued, addressing himself to the host; "and if it wasn't for the fortunate circumstances of my coming in a little late and wanting a spoon, you would have lost your property, sir. You may count it a lucky day that I came to your house."

The landlord was struck dumb with amazement; even the mistress hadn't a word to say, though she looked wickedly at poor Tom, and the housemaids began to cry and bless themselves.

"Gentlemen," proceeded the Englishnan, "I hope you will overlook the insult you have received; as, after all, the landlord is not to be blamed; and if he will insist on this blackguard waiter making an ample apology, I will take upon me to say for you all, that you will not take any proceedings."

All cheerfully expressed their assent to the proposition, except the attorney, who still muttered something about assault and defamation, which so terrified Tom that he most humbly entreated pardon of the whole company, though he still protested that he was innocent of the crime laid to his charge.

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"I thought, sir," said the captain, "your said you didn't like his look ?"

"Maybe I did say so," was the reply. "And pray, sir, do you still think twas he hid the spoons?"

"Not a bit of it."

"Then who the d-1 did ?"

"I did. Do you think I'm green enough to travel so cold a morning as this without having a comfortable breakfast?”

"Well," said Dempsey, " that's the knowingest trick I ever heard of in my life."

"Not bad," replied the gentleman with great sang froid, "but it won't do to be repeated."

When we arrived at Portalington, the gentleman-who, by the way, turned out to be a very pleasant fellow, and up to all sorts of life got off the coach, and ordered his travelling-case to be taken into the inn.

"Do you stop here, sir?" asked the coachman.

"Yes, for the present. I have a little business to do here, as well as at Mountrath.'

"Gammon!" said the gentleman; "but The gentleman, having given the usual as you have made proper submission, and gratuity to the guard and coachman, and nothing has been lost, I shall make it a also a slip of paper to Dempsey, which further condition with your master that he directed him to give to the host at we won't turn you adrift on the world Mountrath, passed into the inn; the coach. with a thief's character, but give you an | drove on, and I never saw him again.

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