that he had been tampering with them; to speak plain English, stuffing."

"I confess," he says another time, "to a decided aversion to the cabinet-minister you mention, an insuperable aversion; I never liked the look of his legs."

"I met Z. last night," you remark, "and without being uncharitable, I must say that man has no heart." "No heart!" he exclaims; "my dear sir, you are too charitable by half. No heart! Why, the man has no legs! Did you ever see such things as he scrambles about upon?"

He admits Mr. to be a very fine speaker, but still thinks it a sad pity that such a man should ever "get upon his legs" in public.

There is one point upon which he is rather anxious in his inquiries. He asks everybody he meets, if they happen to have been in America, whether it is true that people in the theatres there, sit in the dress-boxes with their legs hanging over the front. He thinks it must have an odd look to persons accustomed to sit boxed-up as in England, and to hide their legs in society by tucking them as far as they can under the chairs. "To be sure," he adds, some folks have a very good reason for it, not being so well able to afford the exhibition of their legs to the gaze of a pit-full of critics."

He has often had thoughts of paying a visit to the United States himself. He believes the whole story to be false, spirit and letter; or else, he observes, the Americans ought to be a fine-legged set of fellows.

He despises the Turkish costume, as denoting a total want of moral courage, as involving a cowardly concealment of limb: but he thinks Solon a great fool for not wearing trousers in the elderly stage, and Englishmen far wiser for getting rid of their "tights." He considers

that the Roman gave but a poor proof of courage and fortitude in thrusting his hand into a pan of burning coals; true courage would have consisted in putting his foot in it. He looks upon the man who has lost a wellturned leg defending his country, as having made the noblest sacrifice that patriotism is capable of; but he wonders extremely how any one possessed of a favourite leg, shattered as it might be, could ever consent to have it taken off. "Around the dear ruin" his affections would twine themselves like a bandage. He regards the mutilated warrior, stumping along on two bits of wood, as on a footing only with the great majority of his fellow-men, whose legs, tramping about town, are, as he can plainly discern, much of the same shape and substance; but of all the legs lost at Waterloo, not one, he is persuaded, could have replaced in its pride and symmetry the least perfect of his own.

The individual glory of loss may be great, but not equal to the national glory in the possession of one matchless pair. He intends to bequeath them, at his death, to an admiring country, provided always that the gift shall neither be derisively called a legacy, nor lamented in a hackneyed elegy.

THE THIEF OF TIME.

And then he swore

To leap the Pyramids, but put it off-THE WAGER.

POETRY might be stigmatised as the "Thief of Time," with as much justice as Procrastination. How many nights and days has it stolen of mine! Dr. Young alone has filched from me, at various seasons, a choice

little collection of valuable hours, to say nothing of sundry scraps of broken mornings, and little bits of intervals, not bigger than a minute, every now and then, lost in heedless quoting or inconsiderate reflection. Yet this same reverend poet (one of his two professions might have taught him better) must needs hold up to perpetual obloquy a quality quite as honest as his own poetical craft, merely because it can't keep its hand long out of Time's hour-glass, but picks it of a sand or two pretty often, as the old stroller pushes through the crowd.

Procrastination was always a pet quality of mine. I have kept it in sharp practice ever since that now distant hour, when the first of my school-lessons was pitilessly set me and as men may come at length to feed pleasantly on poisons, and to enjoy, like the last of the brothers in Chillon's dungeon, companionship with mice and spiders, so may a bad quality, industriously exercised during half a lifetime, become an object of the most tender affection.

Moreover, there is one maxim upon which wise men always act, and it is this; when it is absolutely impossible to get rid of a vice, they comfort their consciences by arguing for it as a virtue.

Procrastination, be it vice or virtue, is not so common to all the world as all the world supposes. Few persons know how thoroughly to enjoy it. They only procrastinate with their business; they never dream of procrastinating with their pleasures; thus leaving unexercised the better half of the principle of procrastination. Any idler or blockhead can with ease postpone a matter of business: but rightly to understand how to defer his pleasures, tasks the faculties of a philosopher.

Pleasures are always the sweeter for being put off, just as venison is the better for being kept. I like my

pleasures high, as the gentleman did who got drunk on the Monument.

You may observe an epicure, how he wantons with a choice morsel before he devours it, shaping it tenderly with his knife, coaxing it as it were with his fork, humouring it with a multitude of little touches, all indicative, and at the same time provocative, of extreme relish; how gradually it becomes impregnated with the properties that "give delight and hurt not; " how he vivifies it with infinitesimal ministrations of salt, two grains at a time; how, in short, he lingers in pleasing dalliance with a bit of green fat,

"With sweet, reluctant, amorous delay."

Behold, moreover, the true lover of wine: is he ruthlessly bent on

"Tearing his pleasures with rough strife?"

Does he spring upon his prey, like a tigress upon a planter? See him, how he pauses; how he tastes it with his eyes; how he inhales its fragrance, physically as well as spiritually; with what felicity he procrastinates, with what art he postpones his delight only to heighten it! No drop of that precious draught, subtle inspirer, touches his lips, until he is in a suitable frame of mind. The imagination, the gusto, the life of life must be awake, or you might as well pour the sparkling liquid over the palate of a sleeping man.

As in free countries a cat may look at a king, so may any king take lessons from a cat. Watch her with a mouse newly captured. How she prolongs her enjoyment by postponing its climax. How she lets her captive go, and then makes him prisoner again. How she resists the eager promptings of appetite, and devours not, though she may, playing, humouring, in short, procrastinating, and at last administering the fatal coup

de grâce, with a reluctance that adds a zest to the treat. The lesson this teaches is, that even if we had nine lives, instead of one, pleasures are never plentiful enough to be wasted; to be snapped up all at once, in an instant; consumed extravagantly, in haste, and upon the spot; instead of allowing them to remain within reach for a time, to ripen on the sunny side of the imagination; thus making the most of a rarity.

But there is an old saying, "You may play with your mouse till you lose it." True, procrastination overmuch is very apt to spoil pleasure. No man is advised to let his haunch hang for a whole year, or to take a quart of brandy for a whet.

Be it known, however, that in any case, save that in which pleasure may happen to be concerned, procrastination in excess is as likely to prove beneficial, as in that one instance it is calculated to be injurious.

There is a class of duties that stand between what are properly called the pleasures of life and its regular business. Such for example is the duty of inditing suitable replies to friendly and family epistles; sheetsfull of chit-chat from the seaside, or loving inquiries from kind old souls in odd nooks of the country. Now here let me own myself a good hater. If there be a detestable duty on earth, it is this one; and the penny postage presses it upon us all with peculiar severity. It is not only a duty hateful in itself, but it is more so by reason of the seeming absence of excuse for neglecting it. To think that the "letters Cadmus gave," should be employed to answer letters!

Luckily, of all tasks it is one of the easiest to postpone. You have only to sit down, with writing-desk at hand, taking care to do nothing, and the evil is at once avoided. Just sit down one of these fine days, and say quietly to yourself, "I ought to write to Mr.