white cambric, or of breaking his heart at a minute's notice once a twelvemonth. Frequent demises, therefore, are seriously to be deprecated; even a bare plurality of deaths must, in many cases, be inconvenient to survivors But the plurality being, as it seems, inevitable in these days, does it not, as we have intimated, become necessary to determine upon the principle which is to regulate the tone and matter of every man's epitaph, elegy, funeral oration, or biographical sketch, the first time he dies. For ourselves, we have a strong bias towards the silent system; we were always conscious of a secret veneration for those Spartan ladies, "Who saw their husbands die and nobly chose Nothing, we apprehend, would be more likely to cure men of sham-suicide, or their friends of mock-assassinations, than a rule religiously laid down, that the deceased was never to be mentioned so long as he happened to be dead! "Of the dead nothing, whether good or bad." That would be a safe translation of the old maxim into modern English. To die is to sleep; let us say nothing of the dead, then, lest we wake them prematurely. As we now act upon the extreme principle of depreciating the merits of the living, and exaggerating the good qualities of the departed, suppose we were to try the opposite extreme-the principle of saying nothing of the dead, who are presumed to be deaf, and of talking more about the virtues of the living, who would be apt to speak better of their neighbours if they could hear more agreeable accounts of themselves. In fact, if we cannot be positive even upon the simple point, whether a deceased gentleman be dead or not, how should we able to tell upon a sudden precisely what to think of his character. His family, friends and servants, also the directors of hospitals, and other benevolent institutions, may easily form their opinions the instant his will has been read; but the public have no such aids, and when we don't know what to think, depend upon it, it's best not to think at all. It is impossible to ascertain whether any man is worth remembering until it is high time he was forgotten, for the benefit of aspiring genius, and a surviving generation. Some desperate remedy for the evil of double-deaths, must at all events be devised; or the newspapers will be under the necessity of making their "Fashionable Arrivals" a kind of repetition of the "Obituary." "From the New Cemetery, Harrow-road, the late Mr. Etcetera, &c. &c. The distinguished deceased, on alighting from his hearse, was received by his afflicted family with every token of joy and congratulation. The members of numerous families of rank left their cards the next day, anxious to testify, by welcoming his return, their extreme repugnance to the principle of the legacy-duty, which most of them would have had to pay to a very serious amount had his lamented decease been prolonged. As the feelings of the revived gentleman, on the occasion of his restoration, may be more easily described than conceived, we should certainly enter into a particular account of them, if the details of his funeral did not already occupy so large a portion of our space. It is gratifying to learn that his domestic habits, on his return from the Cemetery, have undergone not the slightest change; his usual conduct as a husband, father, and friend, being totally uninfluenced by those virtues of tenderness, affection, and fidelity which, of course, were ascribed to him, but which are naturally understood to be of a posthumous character." To what endless anomalies and inconveniences may not the practice of double-deaths lead. If it be not stopped, we may expect to find artists who had undoubtedly died months before, making caricature sketches of their own chief mourners; and late lamented authors lampooning or challenging their biographers, in revenge for some opinions in the "Memoirs," or some omission in the "Literary Remains." By the way, married speculators on the chances of the obituary, should be cautious in determining, during their last moments, the length of time they intend to remain dead; for widows have a knack of going off rather rapidly, and the possibility of a return might by no means have the effect of rendering them slower in their new matrimonial movements. As nothing, however, is quite certain, there is of course no saying positively that things will ever come to such a pass as this. SUITING THE ACTION TO THE WORD. "But oh! what rapture do we find, When demonstration leads the mind," &c.-Dilworth. Or all conceivable classes of practical people, there is one certain set whose system deserves to be held in especial abhorrence. The principle of suiting the action to the word, may be perfectly sound in some cases; but the exceptions are too numerous to justify a general adoption of the rule. In the case of a promise to pay, the suit-theaction-to-the-word system is eminently desirable; but nobody above the level of a pettifogger, sniffing damages, would desire it to apply in a case of threatening to kick. It is excellent, no doubt, in the instance of a charity sermon; but highly disagreeable in association with a sentence to be hanged. The practical people, to whom a strongly disrespectful allusion has just been made, constitute that class of expositors, who, let them be upon what subject, or in what society they may, are never satisfied without an ocular demonstration of any fact they may happen to report. They are to be met with in every street, in every drawing-room, at the club and at the theatre. Go not very near them, if you can possibly help it. Even at church it may be prudent to shift your seat into the next pew; you are never safe but when you are out of reach. These demonstrators are dangerous then? What is it they do? He who is simple enough to ask the question has never, it is clear, received a friendly poke in the ribs, in exposition of some circumstance or event obligingly related to him by one of these practical people. An individual of this species is matter-of-fact to the very tips of his eyelashes. If he were to dream, it would be upon the principle of a clock, or a spinningjenny, or a steam-engine. His visions would be accurately measured off into yards and furlongs, their rainbow-hues would be arranged in exact order and to a set pattern, and he would tell you in the morning, to an ounce, the precise weight of a night mare. If such be the principle that must regulate his dreams, it is easy to guess how he would describe occurrences that happen when he is awake. He cannot be content to talk, he must act. He has always a misgiving about mere words, and resorts to his arms or legs, or to his umbrella, or an article of furniture, to eke out the meaning, and give force to his description. Thus, if his talk be of dancing, he cuts an illustrative caper; or should he attempt to describe Catalani's singing, he will squeeze out an asthmatic note of explanation, a thick guttural sound, to make the account clear, and assist your comprehension. "Ah! if you had heard her when her voice went up so," is a favourite expression of his, a screech following, of course. The expositor never thinks he has done anything, until he has tried to show you practically what was done. He is the man who, with his remorseless walking-stick, crops your tulips to exemplify the system of decapitation in the East; and he would joyfully set your chimney on fire, if he could convey to your mind an idea of the eruption he witnessed when he was last at Naples. He esteems his description nothing, if not illustrated; he is an illustrator, or he is nobody. There are people, we all meet them daily, who seem to think that their bare words are not to be taken. They have always a superabundance of emphasis, and when relating the most trivial and probable circumstances, they support the credible narrative with solemn asseverations of its truth, as though any one could doubt it. You may catch them swearing to such a fact as this: "I was going up Waterloo-place this morning, when what should I see tearing down from Regentstreet, but an omnibus,—upon my life it's true." They are only to be matched by those practical persons of whom we are speaking, who assume that what they say goes for nothing, and that nobody can understand them, unless they demonstrate and attitudinise as they proceed. They reverse the position, which the moral poet shows to be the false one,— "Their pride in acting, not in reasoning lies;" but they are, nevertheless, not a whit nearer to its |