His favourite country is France; it is a nation that has got a spirit. He would be an excellent person to send out, as representative of one civilised country at the court of another. Civilised countries are fond of acting with extraordinary spirit.

If he should gamble away his children's bread, or steal the very wife out of his friend's bosom, he must not be denounced as the incarnation of treachery and wickedness. He has no hatred for his offspring, no love for the lady; but he moved in a certain society that required him to act with spirit.

When he shoots an acquaintance through the head instead of listening to reason, he is impelled by the same necessity. He must always drive very near the edge of the precipice, lest people should think he is afraid of driving over. However ill-mounted, he is bound to take the impracticable, neck-breaking leap in a steeple-chase, because the man with the better horse has just taken it with prodigious spirit.

Deduct from the huge sum-total of mischief and misery in the world the amount fairly chargeable to the principle of acting with "spirit," whether between nations, between classes, between man and man, or man and wife, and at the end of a single twelvemonth you would accumulate a stock of original sin and suffering, large enough to set up a new world twice the size of this.

2. PERSONS WHO NEVER HAVE ENOUGH OF A GOOD THING.

NAPOLEON seemed to be of opinion, that, to deserve well of her country, a woman could not have too many children; and if all sovereigns were Napoleons, the opinion would be perfectly just. As it is, there happens to be considerable doubt upon the point, as well in

states as families; but it by no means follows, while admitting the possibility of a superabundance of blessings in the nursery, that we should concur with that scamp of a soldier in Farquhar's comedy, who thinks it possible that a man may have "too much wife.”

Of many other good things, however, "too much" is easily to be had. We need not allude to those gross material excesses, of which five-shilling records are magisterially made in the morning. Every one who has been once tempted to taste the other something; every one whose cheek has flushed over the one cool bottle more, will eagerly admit that it is needless. If they hesitated, we should produce to their confusion the evidence of the little bluecoat-boy, who dining at home one day with his brothers and sisters, astonished them with the splendour of his appetite, and yet was worried to take more. More! no, that was impossible. Nature that abhors a vacuum, abhors equally three pints to a quart vessel. Yet he was sorely pressed, and naturally anxious to gratify affection.

'Well," said the brave little fellow at last, looking fondly, wishingly, and yet half-despairingly at the dish -his heart was full, we may be sure-"Well, perhaps if I stand up, I can!"

It was an acute thought of the boy's: we should rather say, perhaps, it was a beautiful instinct. And a noble effort too it was that he then made; he stood up to it, almost as Thomson stood up to the peaches; but it was a graceful heroism thrown away; he couldn't.

Let it be a lesson to others how they aim at the prohibited enjoyment, too much of a good thing. When they have been round to a lady's friends, and duly circulated the story of her intended elopement; when they have What-a-pity'd it in one family, No-wondered it in another, and They-do-say'd the victim's reputation

everywhere, let them go home and get a little refreshing sleep after their charitable labours, without troubling themselves to write a kind note of sympathy, by way of communicating the tidings to the lady's mother; because this is really too much of a good thing.

And when they next get hold of a famous joke—an entirely new anecdote of George Canning, or the last original repartee of a more reverend wit-let them by all means, as usual, relate it at full length to the next dozen persons whom they meet, in regular succession; but let them forbear to repeat it to the said dozen when all assembled together; as though every one of them had not been separately and privately tortured, and with a genuine anecdote which each claims, perhaps, to have exclusively manufactured.

These retailers of good things fancy that civil listeners never can have enough of them. The civility is partly in fault; there is too much of it.

These are the advocates of "wasteful and ridiculous excess," who would like to gild refined gold, and paint the lily. They think "Paradise Lost" so fine, that they wish there was more of it: a few more books, and it would have been delightful: and then they go and read all that has been written about it, to eke out the poet's abbreviated spells. They are of opinion that a poem is nothing without a vast volume of notes. When they have read Burns all through, they sit down to read the glossary, which they enjoy prodigiously. If they had seen Kemble in "Macbeth," they would have made a rush homeward to read his essay upon the character, by way of heightening their enthusiasm. They maintain that "The Wanderer" eclipses all modern novels, because it extends to five volumes.

They are the people who, at the play, sit out two farces after seeing the tragedy, encoring a comic song

in the last piece, and calling for "God save the Queen" at the close. At the opera they are for having everything repeated, beginning with the overture; they call for the principal singers to appear between every act, and three times at the end, to abide the pelting of a floral storm. When the ballet begins, they begin to encore; when it terminates, they are lost in wonder why people don't encore, not the brilliant points merely, but the ballet; they are of opinion that two such pieces, with an opera in five acts, would form a charming evening's entertainment, not a bit too long.

A book is no book to them unless embellished" with numerous engravings," and no advance of price. A newspaper must be as large as a London-tavern tablecloth, or there is nothing in it. They must have too much of a good thing, or they fancy they have not enough. Whether they are in favour of two-hour sermons is more doubtful. We never heard them express a wish that the parliamentary debates were lengthened.

3-PERSONS WHO "KNOW ALL ABOUT IT."

WHEN people draw their chairs close to the fender, stir the fire vigorously, rub their hands upon their knees, assume a look of complacent sagacity, and proceed to open up a long story with the confidential remark that they are going to tell us "all about it,” they oftentimes remind us-dull companions though they be of that outrageous and incomprehensible piece of drollery of Foote's, which the wise reader who loves genuine nonsense never forgets:

"So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage to make an apple-pie, and who should be coming down the street but a great she-bear and popp'd her head into

the shop. What! no soap?-So he died; and she very imprudently married the barber. And there were present the Joblilies, and the Garruyillies, and the Piccalilies, and the great Panjandrum himself with the little round button at top; and they all fell to playing the game of catch-us-as-catch-can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots."

There is only one suitable termination for stories of this simple and lucid character, and it is that which custom always has ready-" and so now you know all about it."

Where there are a great many facts to relate, with great anxiety to pour them out all at once, a little crowding and confusion must be considered excusable. But it is frequently much the same where there is but a solitary fact to disclose; for then the innocent meaning falls a victim to the turbulent rushing of a mob of words. Thus the spirit of the "great Panjandrum with the little round button at top," breathes intensely in the following-the opening passage of a printed circular which a learned schoolmaster in the City lately addressed to the authorities of Aldgate.

"Gentlemen,―Thank you for the unbounded confidence which you have placed in my management during a period of six years and upwards, in every part of which I may fearlessly assert the faithful discharge of an arduous duty. Circumstances not less to my prosperity than, under the blessing of God, to my happiness, induce me to this otherwise unpleasant task: but, should that which I have glanced at not be the reality anticipated, then I am sure it will be highly gratifying to learn that it is ascertained, more by the frequent observation of others, than my own experience, that a considerable fortune awaits me in another profession."

The writer not only intended to resign, but he