mon law, and the sticklers for the despotic doctrines of prescription say to the concluding anathema?

"They who do her (Reason) most honour, who consult her oftenest, and obey her too, very often, are still guilty of limiting her authority, according to maxims, and rules, and schemes, that chance, or ignorance, or interest, first devised, and that custom sanctifies. CUSTOM, that result of the passions and prejudices of the many, and of the designs of a few: that ape of reason, who usurps her seat, exercises her power, and is obeyed by mankind in her stead. BOLINGBROKE-Letter to Bathurst.

Physical man is every where the same, it is only the various operation of moral causes that gives variety to the social or individual character and condition. How happens it, that modern slavery looks quietly at the despot, on the very spot where Leonidas expired? The answer is easy. Sparta has not changed her climate, but she has lost that government which her liberty could not survive. CURRAN.

KEEN SARCASM.

Machiavel once declared, that he would rather be sent to Hell after death, than to Paradise; because he should find nothing in Heaven but beggars, poor monks and apostles; but in Hell he should live with popes, cardinals, kings and princes!

(6 GROTESQUE."

Benvenuto Ceilini, in describing various designs for the embellishment of silver and steel work, says " These foliages (referring to ornaments of the flower kind, worked on metal) have received that name (grotesque) from the moderns, because they are found in certain caverns in Rome, which in ancient days were chambers, baths, studies, halls and other places of the like nature. The curious happened to discover them in these subterranean caverns, which being commonly called grottos, they have thence acquired the name of grotesque. Nugent's Life of Cellini, v. 1, p. 114.

Cellini asserts, that he was the person who shot the duke of Bourbon at the siege of Rome, so finely described by Robertson in his Charles V, p. 130.

In v. 1, p. 156, he states that he got an order from the duke of Mantua, to make a shrine for the relic of the blood of Christ! It is said to have been brought to Mantua by Longinus!!—credula turba sumus.

The following conceit is remarkable for its oddity.-Ovid, describing a storm, says:

In other words, the sea has got the vertigo.

"DO HIS BUSINESS,"

i. e. to kill him.-This metaphorical expression is older than many suppose.-Juvenal, among the dangers of the town, mentions footpads, who, he says,

Interdum, et ferro subitus grassatur, agit rem.

I called to see my friend T-a few days ago, and found him nearly asleep, with Coke Littleton before him. On rousing him he exclaimed, "Don't censure me-Horace says, " Opere in longo, fas est obrepere somnum"-which he humorously translated, "It is lawful to fall asleep over a big book!"

ECCENTRICITY.

William Emerson, the great mathematician, was one of the most eccentric characters of the last century. When in company, he always wore a flaxen wig, without a crooked hair. He had one hat, which served him all his life-one coat, which he always wore open-his waistcoat open to the lowest button,-and his shirt close before, and fastened behind at the collar. He disliked riding either on horseback or in a carriage-and once, when the duke of Manchester asked him to take a seat in his coach, he answered, “damn your whim wham, I would rather walk." He was fond of fishing, and would stand up to his middle in water when engaged in it. When tired with study, he resorted to a neighbouring alehouse, where he drank and talked with any one that would drink and talk with him. He lived to the age of eighty-one. He never advanced a proposition before he had first tried it in practice.

Doctor Johnson appears to have thought it not impossible to succeed in transmuting metals into gold." The art, he once observed, might one day be generally known.-Boswell's Life, 2d v.

This great man made a strange mistake, when he imagined. himself "a good-humoured fellow." Boswell told him, very properly" No, sir; you are good natured, but not good-humoured: you are irascible. You have not patience with folly and absurdity. I believe you would pardon them, if there were time to deprecate your vengeance; but punishment follows so quick after sentence, that they cannot escape." idem.

Bolingbroke averred that the faint and unsteady exercise of parts on one side, was a crime but one degree inferior to the iniquitous misapplication of them on the other.

The political and literary character of this great writer is well drawn in the following extracts:

Goldsmith says of him, " that with as much ambition--as great abilities-and more acquired hnowledge than Cæsar, he wanted only his courage to be successful: but the schemes his head dictated, his heart often refused to execute; and he lost the ability to perform, just when the great occasion called for all his efforts to engage."

The second is from Lyttleton's letters.-Bolingbroke has asserted that no one who has a soul can read Tully's orations without feeling at this hour the passions they were designed to move, and the spirit they were designed to raise. Upon this lord Lyttleton remarks" I suspect the truth of this assertion, as I well know that he would at any time sacrifice a just criticism to a brilliant passage. His character and genius were both intemperate, and when his tongue or his pen were pleased with their subjects, he was borne rapidly on, by the stream of eloquence, not considering or caring whither he went. When his imagination was once kindled, it was an equal chance whether he obscured virtue, or dignified vice. The source of his delusive writings was an headstrong vivid fancy, which practised as great deccits upon himself, as he had ever done upon mankind.”

O.

The following good maxims, although much older, are not less sensible and concise that any in Rochefoucault or La Bruyere. They are extracted from a miscellaneous work of Elizabeth Grymeston, published in 1604:

The end of a dissolute life is a desperate death.-There was never president to the contrary but in the theefe in the Gospel. In one, lest any should despair-in one alone, lest any should presume. Let thy will be thy friend, thy minde thy companion, thy tongue thy servant.

Age may gaze at beauties blossoms, but youth climbs the tree and enjoys the fruit.

There be four good mothers have four bad daughters, Truth hath Hatred, Prosperity hath Pride, Security hath Peril, and Familiarity hath Contempt..

Wisdom is that olive that springeth from the heart, bloometh on the tongue, and beareth fruit in the actions.

The soul is the greatest thing in the least continent.

No greater comfort than to know much, no less labour than to say little.

Give a lazie clerke a lean fee.

The following merry advice to equestrians, though as old as the time of Geoffrey Gambado, may be read for the hundredth time, and always excite a smile:

THE height of a horse is perfectly immaterial, provided he is higher behind than before. Nothing is more pleasing to a traveller than the sensation of continually getting forward: whereas the riding a horse of a contrary make, is like swarming the bannisters of a staircase, when, though perhaps, you really advance, you feel as if you were going backwards.

Let him carry his head low, that he may have an eye to the ground, and see the better where he steps.

The less he lifts his fore legs, the easier he will move for his rider: and he will likewise brush all the stones out of his way, which might otherwise throw him down. If he turns out his toes as well as he should do, he will then disperse them to the right and the left, and not have the trouble of kicking the same stone a second time.

A bald face, wall eyes, and white legs (if your horse be not a gray one) is to be preferred; as in the night, although you may yourself ride against what you please, no one will ride against you.

His nose cannot project too much from his neck; for by keeping a constant tight rein on him, you will then sit as firm as if you were held on.

A horse's ears cannot well be too long. A judicious rider steers his course, by fixing his eyes between them. Were he cropt, and that as close as we sometimes see them now-a-days, in a dusky evening, the rider might wander the Lord knows where.

I have found many persons who have purchased horses of me, very inquisitive and troublesome about their eyes; indeed as much so, as if their eyes were any way concerned in the action of the animal. As I know they are not, I give myself very little trouble about them. If a rider be in full possession of his own, what his horse has is perfectly immaterial; having probably a bridle in his mouth to direct him where to go, and to lift him up with again, if he tumbles down. Any gentleman choosing, indeed, to ride without a bridle, should look pretty sharp at a horse's eyes before he buys him; be well satisfied with his method of going; be very certain that he is docile, and will stop short with a "Wohey;" and, after all, be rather scrupulous where he rides him. Let no man tell me that a blind horse is not a match for one with the best of eyes, when it is so dark that he cannot see: and when he can, it is to be supposed the gentleman upon his back can, as well as he: and then, if he rides with a bridle, what has he to fear? I flatter myself, I have proved as clear as day, that eyes are of little consequence: and as I am, no doubt, the first author that has made it known, my readers, if they lose no time, may mount themselves at Aldridge's, or the Rhedarium, as well, and for half the money they would have done, before I let them into the secret.

Be sure to buy a broken-knee'd horse, whenever he falls in your way. The best bit of flesh that ever was crossed will certainly come down one day or another; whereas one that has fallen (and scarified himself pretty much) never will again if he can help it.

Spavins, splints, corns, mallenders, sallenders, &c. &c. being all curable, are beneath your notice. A few of these little infirmi