every quarrel, and often get punished for their pains. "He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears," Prov. xxvi. 17.

One lover of peace and quietude will do more good than a score of your intermeddling busybodies, who, from morning to night, afflict those around them with their unasked advice, their prying prudence, and their unwelcome assistance. As a letter-opening, cupboard-peeping, winetasting servant is a pest in a house, so is an officious meddler a plague to a neighbourhood. Rather would I live in a lone cot on a common, than in the mansion-house of the lord mayor, if in the latter case I must have some people whom I know for my neighbours. "Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still,” is a text of holy writ that the meddler cannot understand.

We have all heard of the intermeddling boy, who cut up his goose to get at her golden eggs,

and of him who knocked a hole in his drum to look at the sound. Intermeddling did not answer their purpose, and it is not a whit more likely to succeed in manhood than in boyhood.

I have heard of cruel cases of intermeddling; some of them, doubtless, were true, while others may have been exaggerated. Young men have

had their prospects blighted and their bad passions called forth by public reproof, when a kinder course and a more private correction would most likely have done them good. Young women have suffered in their reputation by the affected kindness of intermeddlers, who, under pretence of protecting them from the slanderer, have given a tenfold currency to the slander. Errors dead, buried, and wept over for twenty years, by those who committed them, have been raked from the grave, and held up in the glare of the noon-day sun; and the brow of uprightness again and again has been branded on account of some far-removed relationship to a faulty character. The folly, the cruelty, and the sin of the intermeddler in these cases is great.

How is it with us? Are we quite clean from this leprosy, and more ready to hide than to reveal the failing of an offending brother? Are we quietly attending to our own business, and resembling rather in our communication with our neighbours the pleasant and welcome flower than the annoying stinging-nettle? Are we, on the one hand, ready to join in heartily with every good word and work, and on the other, anxious to avoid the folly, the cruelty, and the sin of the intermeddler?

OLD HUMPHREY'S REMONSTRANCE

WITH HIS FAIR FRIENDS.

THOUGH there would be, perhaps, a difficulty in deciding whether, in encouraging what is right, or in reproving what is wrong, we are the more profitably employed, there can be no question about the former being the more agreeable occupation. In taking up my pen gently to reprove an error on the part of my fair friends, my remarks should fall as lightly as thistle down, if thereby my object of bringing about an amendment would be likely to be obtained; but as I fear my observations, if they had no piquancy, would be disregarded, I am induced, somewhat unwillingly, to impart to them a little more pungency.

There is among the numberless excellent qualities of the sex, a want of thoughtfulness and consideration in many things that is quite at issue with the general kindness of their hearts. Did this want of thought manifest itself only at long intervals, it might be of little consequence; but when

it becomes a common practice, and mingles with the every-day affairs of life, it is time that some effort should be made to correct it. I am not about to pursue the subject of want of thought in all its bearings, but only to dwell on a few particulars; in doing which I trust my fair friends will bear with my friendly remonstrance.

The practice of writing illegibly proceeds from want of consideration, for no one would willingly be misunderstood. That this inconvenient practice prevails among the sex, will hardly be called in question. I have a correspondent, and a talented and much-valued one too, whose handwriting is so peculiar, that to read it is altogether out of the question. Ail that can be done on receiving a letter from her is, boldly to guess at the meaning of the unintelligible hieroglyphics, assisted by such words as may happen to be intelligible; so that the deciphering of one of her epistles is no more nor less than taking the sum of its probabilities. A facetious friend, the other day, made the remark that, contrasted with one of these epistles, the shadowy mysteries of the ancient Sphynx were luminous. This language of his may be somewhat hyperbolical; yet may I truly say, that the last letter of my respected correspondent still remains in part unread, being hermetically sealed, not with wax or wafer, but

by the much more secure guardianship of its own inaccessible intelligibility.

Not ten minutes ago came an epistle from one of superior understanding, who is struggling, and struggling bravely, to win her way by imparting instruction to the young. Greatly desiring to know of her welfare, and of the state of her mealbarrel and cruse of oil, I have been trying to read her letter; but, alas! the words meant to convey to me the information I wished to acquire are so very questionable, that I am still left in doubt and uncertainty. The working of this want of consideration in writing illegibly in the common affairs of life is sad. If the sentiments expressed in a letter are good, and the information given is important, it is to be regretted that there should be any impediment in comprehending them; and if, on the other hand, they are trifling and worthless, it is rather too bad to puzzle, uselessly, the brains of the reader. These are, however, among the least vexatious consequences of illegible writing.

If a lady writes for information respecting a servant she is about to engage, who has referred her to me for a character, it is a sad trouble to me if I cannot tell whether to address my reply to Mrs. Hopkins, of Rupert-street, or Mrs. Hoskins, of Robert-street; but a much greater trouble it is, after having written to both these addresses, to