"We do well to mingle with the solemnities of death the brighter prospect of eternal life, and to regard our afflictions as the means by which God conveys to us our mercies:

'Sorrow, and tears, and woe are meant
To win the soul from sin and pain;
And death is oft the herald, sent

To bid us seek immortal gain."

You perceive that I have found enough to muse upon, even in the unpromising scene already described, and that the old hat, the broken flowerpot, the tobacco-pipe bowl, the oyster shell, the dead cat, the piece of a letter, the Dutch tile, the tin kettle, the neck of the wine bottle, and the large bone have been turned to some advantage. My observations may call forth yours; at all events, there is a moral in my musings; it is this, That you should never be cast down by the most hopeless case; but, on the contrary, make the best of the most unpromising

scene.

ON LAUGHTER.

It is an old observation, that mankind have three marks set upon them, whereby one person is known from another. We know our friends when we see them, by their appearances; when we do not see them, by their voices; and when they are at a distance from us, by their handwriting. I am half tempted to add a fourth mark; for most of our friends, might, I think, be identified by their laughter.

Some express the lightness of their hearts by their Ha, ha, ha's! or their He, he, he's! others are equally emphatic in their Hi, hi, hi's! and their Ho, ho, ho's! while others indulge in boisterous laughter, which is mirth in convulsions. Some men, by their continual giggling, seem to take the laughing philosopher for their model, who held that there was nothing in the world worth crying for; while others, adopting the opposite opinion, appear to consider a laugh as next neighbour to a sin. For my own part, I cannot but

regard the faculty of laughter as one of the goodly gifts of our almighty and indulgent Creator, enabling us, at the same moment, to make our hilarity audible, to relieve our joy-oppressed hearts, and to communicate the same pleasurable emotion to others. An ill-natured laugh is a reproach to any one; but a kind-hearted, good-natured laugh is so good a thing, in my estimation, that I regret it should ever be indulged in unreasonably or unseasonably.

There is as great a variety in laughter as in other things. Some laugh till the tears roll down their cheeks. Some hold their sides, as if under no small apprehension of their ribs giving way; while others indulge, amid their paroxysms, in the expression, "Oh, my back! my back! back!" as though pleasure and pain, ecstasy and agony, were mingled together in such an unbearable degree of intensity, that enjoyment and endurance were equally afflictive. I remember a painful instance of a fit of laughter continuing for several hours, with very slight intermission. Wearied and exhausted beyond measure, the unhappy laugher could not restrain her emotion: if for an instant her excitement subsided, a recurrence to the cause of her extravagant mirth instantly reproduced it.

I once had a German neighbour, a man of

small stature, of friendly habits and hasty temper, who was a most extraordinary laugher. Then again, his laugh was of so strange a kind; for though I have heard all sorts of laughter, from the wide-mouthed burst, or rather bellow, distin. guishable at the distance of good part of a mile, to the writhing, inaudible giggle, which consists of spasmodic motion, and not of sound; yet never has a laugh regaled my ears like the spirit-stirring Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! of my German neighbour.

This laugh was made up of five sonorous Ha's! uttered rapidly in the same tone. It had no preparatory announcement; no unnecessary appendages; no lingering accessories: but came forward by itself, and stood alone, based on its own merits. It was a full-bodied, proud, and princely pouring-out of a mirthful heart. Most laughers give notice of the coming clap, which dies away by degrees, and after it has passed, they require some time to compose themselves; but not so with my neighbour. He withdrew from his mouth his cigar or his ornamented hookah, just long enough to peal out his Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! in parenthesis, and then resumed his whiffing occupation, as though insensible that any interruption had taken place. If a friend entered the house, he was received with the royal salute,

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! When he left it, the same noble discharge did honour to his departure. At all times, and on all occasions-morning, noon, and night; spring, summer, autumn, and winter-the Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! of my neighbour was ever ready.

A change came over his worldly affairs, and my German neighbour left his habitation. Days, weeks, months, nay, years flew round, and I knew not whether he were on this, or on the other side the seas. This is, indeed, a world of change, and when for a protracted season we lose sight of our friends or neighbours, we, with some reason, speculate on their departure, and number them among the dead. They "that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth,' are not expected to have here an abiding dwelling place, "Ah!" thought I, "my poor neighbour is, most likely, in his narrow house."

I was sitting one day with my book before me, now pondering its pages, and now musing on the past, the present, and the future, when suddenly a well-known sound burst upon my ears. You have already guessed what it was, and you have guessed aright. It was the well-remembered laugh of my some-time neighbour, unimpaired in power, undiminished in duration, and