figure in the grand choir. All the young people in the parish were assembled, and we began operations. How we got through our first essays, I need not say, except that we made awkward work enough of it. There were a great many voices that seemed made for nothing but to spoil all our melody; but what could we do? All were determined to learn to sing, and Hopper Paul was of opinion that the bad voices would grow mellow by practice, though how he could think so whenever he heard his own, passes my comprehension. However, we could all raise and fall the notes, and that was something. We met two evenings in each week during the winter, and by the beginning of spring we had got so well drilled in the gamut that we began to practise regular tunes. Now we breathed forth such melodies as I think have seldom been heard elsewhere; but as we had no standard of excellence to shew the true character of our performances, we could never be aware that our music was not equal to the harmony of the spheres. It was thought a peculiar excellence to sing through the nose, and take a good reasonable time to swell out every note. Many of us were apt to get into too high a key, but that was never regarded provided we made noise enough. In short, after a great deal more practice, we were pronounced to be thoroughly skillel in the science, for our lungs had been put to such a course of discipline that every one of us could roar with a most stentorian grace; and as to our commander in chief, no man on earth ever deserved better than he, the name of Boanerges, or son of thunder. It was decided, therefore, that on Fast-day next, we should take the field; so we were all warned to prepare ourselves to enter the singing seats at the meeting on that eventful day. Should I live a thousand years, I shall never forget it; this was to be the first public exhibition of our prowess, and we were exhorted to do our best. The exhortation was unnecessary, for we were as ambitious as the most zealous of our friends could desire, and we were especially careful in rehearsing the tunes before hand. The day arrived, and we marched in a body to take possession. No stalwart knights at a tournament ever spurred their chargers into the lists with more pompous and important feelings than we entered the singing seats. The audience were of course, all expectation, and when the hymn was given out, we heard it with beating hearts. It was amusing, however, in the midst of all our trepidation, to witness the countenance of Deacon Dogskin, who was obliged to sit facing us during the whole service. His looks were as sour and cynical as if he could have driven us out of the house, and he never vouchsafed to cast a glance at us from beginning to the end of the performance. There was another person who had been a great stickler for the ancient usage. This was Elder Darby, who had been head singer under the Deacon's administration, and looked upon himself as dividing the honours of that system with the Deacon himself. He accordingly fought hard against the innovation, and was frequently heard to declare that the whole platform of christian doctrine would be undermined if more than one line were suffered to be sung at a time. In fact, this personage, being what is emphatically called a "weak brother" but full of zeal and obstinacy, gave us a great deal more trouble than the Deacon, who was not deficient in common shrewdness, notwithstanding his oddities. This was a bitter day, therefore, to Elder Darby, who felt very awkward at finding his occupation gone, and his enemies triumphant all in the same moment. But we were now called upon to sing, and every eye except those of the Deacon and a few others, was turned upward: the hymn was given out, Hopper Paul brandished his pitch-pipe and set the tune, and we began with stout hearts and strong lungs. Such sounds had never been heard within those walls before. The windows rattled, and the ceiling shook with the echo, in such a manner that some people thought the great chandelier would have a down-come. Think of the united voices of all the sturdy and able-bodied lads and lasses of the parish pouring forth the most uproarious symphony of linked sweetness long drawn out, that their lungs could furnish, and you will have some faint idea of our melodious intonation. At length we came to a verse in the hymn where the words chimed in with the melody in such a striking and effective manner that the result was overpowering. The verse ran thus:— So pilgrims on the scorching sand, Long for a cooling stream at hand, When we stcuck one after another into the third line, and trolled forth the re-iterations, Long for a cooling Long for a cooling Long for a cooling-coo-oo-ooling we verily thought, one and all, that we were soaring up-up-upwards on the combined euphony of the tune and syllables, into the seventh heaven of harmony. The congregation were rapt into ecstacies, and thought they had never heard music till then. It was a most brilliant triumph for us; every voice, as we thought, though of course the mal-contents must be excepted, struck in with us, and swelled the loud peal till the walls rung again. But I must not omit to mention the strange conduct of Elder Darby, who in the midst of this burst of enthusiastic approbation, never relaxed the stern and sour severity of his looks, but took occasion of the first momentary pause in the melody, to utter a very audible and disdainful expression of "chaff! chaff! chaff! chaff! chaff! Deacon Grizzle was by no means slow in perceiving these manifestations of the Elder's mortified feelings, and did not fail to join him on his way home from meeting, for the express purpose of annoying him further by commendations of the performances. All he could get in reply was a further exclamation of "chaff! chaff! chaff! chaff!" In fact the Elder's obstinacy was incurable; he was seized during the following week with a strange deafness in one of his ears, and as it happened very strangely too, to be that ear which was turned towards the singing seats when he sat in his pew, he declared it would be impossible to hear sufficiently well on that side of his head to accompany the singers: as to altering his position that was not to be thought of; he had occupied the same spot for forty years, and could no more be expected to change his seat than to change his creed. The consequence was, that on the day we began singing, he Elder left off. From that time forth, he never heard the subject of church salmody alluded to without a chop-fallen look, a rueful shake of the head, a sad lamentation over the decline of sound christian doctrine, and a peevish and indignant exclamation of "chaff! chaff! chaff! chaff!" THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USELESS KNOWLEDGE. THE Annual Meeting of the Society for the Diffusion of Useless Knowledge and the General Confusion of the Human Understanding, was held on Monday last; the President, the Rev. Dr. Bubble, took the chair precisely at seven o'clock, assisted by the Hon. Mr. Fudgefield, and Timothy Tinshins, Esq., Vice-Presidents. The President delivered an introductory discourse on the usefulness of useless knowledge, and the advantages of confusion in the understanding, which elicited the greatest applause from a thronged and delighted audience. The following is an abridged copy. Gentlemen of the Useless Knowledge Association: I have the honour of congratulating you on this anniversary meeting. We are engaged, gentlemen, in a stupendous effort. The object of our endeavours is to place the foundations of the intellectual universe on the highest state of moral elevation. There is a great truth, gentlemen, in the exaggeration, that the intense application of the human intellect in infinitesimal quantities to the analytical pursuit of psychological investigation, leads to the surest mathematical discrimination of moral idiosyncracies. The human mind, gentlemen, I consider as composed of two qualities-rationation and immaterial recipiency. Facts are imbibed by the inductive process of mental recipiency, and, being rationally rationated, lead to reason. This we denominate the March of Intellect and intellect hath three branches, namely, logic, metaphysics, and dogmatics, which being synthetically combined, constitute man a reasoning animal. As the Stagyrite remarks, concerning the method of philosophical induction, “Omnis ratio de ratione rationans, rationare facit rationaliter rationando omnes homines rationantes," an axiom which, I apprehend, no one will deny. In the unenlightened mind, all attempts at reasoning are in the highest degree unreasonable, just as in the dark all cats are grey. Gentlemen, we live in an enlightened age; Peter Parley and the printing press have effected a moral and hypercritical revolution; all men can read the Pandects, the Novum Organum, and Poor Polly Jenkins. Instead of the spelling-book and the primer, our children have Cudworth's Intellectual System and Adelung's Mithridates. Modern intellect may be compared to a magnificent toadstool, which shoots out its head on all sides, the moment it gets an inch above ground. Sometimes it has been compared to an overgrown pumpkin-vine, sprouting right and left and grasping at more than it can hold; but this is a misrepresentation; the mind will hold any quantity of knowledge since the invention of lyceums and enclycopædias; and there is no difficulty at the present day, in getting a quart into a pint pot. Gentlemen, I say to you, go on. Let useless knowledge flourish. The world is growing wise. Man is tall in intellectual stature, his heels are on the earth, but his head is in the clouds. The following report of the standing committee was then read. REPORT. The Standing Committee of the Society for the Diffusion of Useless Knowledge and the General Confusion of the Human Understanding, beg leave to report, that the affairs of the Society were never in a more prosperous and desirable condition. They have great pleasure in congratulating the Society upon the encouraging prospects which the present state of the country holds out to them. Useless knowledge was never more highly prized or more eagerly sought after; and mortal understandings were never in a more admirable confusion than at present. Your Committee beg leave to call the attention of the Society to sundry circumstances which, in their opinion, have had the most powerful effect in bringing about these desirable results. Your Committee feel bound to distinguish with the most pointed and laudatory regard, the efforts of the newspaper editors of this country, who, in the course of the past year, have laboured with the most disinterested zeal in forwarding the objects of the Society: they have constantly shown themselves friends of useless knowledge and confounders of the brains and understanding of mankind. Your Committee would particularly call to your approving notice, the unwearied industry of these gentlemen in discovering mares' nests, fighting windmills, basting dead cats, bottling moonshine, catching Tartars, peeping through millstones, swallowing earthquakes, gobbling down piracies, and bridling their asses at the tail. Your Committee recommend that each newspaper editor be presented with an elegant leather medal, bearing the inscription, "Ex fumo dare lucem," in allusion to their wonderful sagacity in sometimes distinguishing smoke from fire. Your Committee would further point out to the notice of the Society the various quack doctors of this country, and in particular the Vegetable Diet Sawdust Live-forever Starvation tribe; useless knowledge is under infinite obligations to these individuals, though their reward and encouragement would seem rather to belong to that enlightened association, the Society for the Extinction of the Human Species. Nevertheless, considering the immense amount of useless knowledge they have propagated, and its effects in producing confusion not only in the understandings, but in the bodies of men, your Committee do not feel at liberty to pass them by without some adequate notice. They therefore recommend that each of these persons be presented with a medal of the purest and hardest bronze, bearing the inscription “Stultorum infinitus est numerus," in allusion to the very wide field which exists for their praiseworthy and philanthropic labours. Your Committee would further recommend to your favourable notice, those worthy and enlightened individuals the March of Intellect Cold Water Teetotallers, who have manfully lent their strong assistance towards promoting the objects of this society. Your committee cannot praise too highly the labours of these gentlemen in propagating useless knowledge. The world is indebted to them for the discovery of the method of drinking out of empty glasses, getting high on cold water, decanting a bottle of hay, sucking April fog through goose-quills, and the demonstration by chemical analysis, that sixteen thousand cubic miles of moonshine contain alcohol enough to fuddle three moschetoes. But the most amazing discovery due to the ingenuity of these gentlemen, relates to whiskey punch, which they have ascertained to be not whiskey punch, but a compound of prussic acil, opodeldoc, nux vcmica, prelinpinpin, coloquintida, pepperaria, suderumhatcheta, and a conglomeration of heterogeneous concoctions too numerous to mention. The most brilliant discoveries may still be expected of the Tee-totallers, as they are now engaged in an inquiry into the metaphysical character of pint pots. Your Committee recommend that each individual of the March of Intellect Tee-total Association be presented with a tin dipper of the shallowest possible form, with the strictest injunctions never to put his nose into it; the said tin dipper to bear an inscription to the effect that if he cannot drink out of it, he can suck round the edges. Your Committee further recommend to the favourable regard of the Society that distinguished individual Dr. Humm, the ingenious reviver of animal magnetism, whose labours in the cause of the Society deserve the highest commendation. Dr. Humm has not only been instrumental in extending knowledge useless, and more than useless, but he has also thrown the understandings of many human beings into confusion worse confounded. His success in this particular has been most brilliant, and many individuals under his influence are so far gone in their intellectuals, that they do not show the least glimmer of common sense. Your Committee beg leave to lay before the Society a brief relation of the brilliant and astonishing experiment in animal magnetism performed by Dr. Humm, upon the person of a full-grown, intelligent, and respectable cat of this city, in the presence of a large number of citizens of the first talent and respectability. "All things being prepared, the cat was brought into the room and placed in an arm-chair. The cat was a grey tabby, with a black and yellow tail, and sea-green eyes, of a mild and ingenuous expression of countenance, and appeared to be about four years old. Doctor Humm assured us there was no sort of private understanding between him and the cat, as had been suspected by some sceptical persons. Indeed, the cat appeared perfectly innocent, and everybody was quite convinced of her honesty. She stared round at the company with wondering eyes, as if not comprehending the cause of the assemblage, but could not escape from the chair, because she was held down by her paws and tail by five of the gentlemen present. Dr. Humm then began the magnetic operation by placing the fore and middle fingers of his left hand over her eyes, so as to keep them shut close, and drawing the fore finger of his right hand in a direct line from the cat's nose across her bosom down to the extremity of her left paw. The magnetic effect was immediately apparent. Her tail began to wag, so much so that the Rev. Mr. Fogbrain, who was holding on by that limb, immediately let it go in order to witness the result of this strange phenomenon. In thirteen seconds there was a sensible vibration of the cat's tail, which waved from side to side, describing twenty-seven degrees of the segment of a circle. A general murmur ran throughout the assembly. It wags, it wags!" exclaimed every one- -there was no longer any room for doubt; the most sceptical among the spectators was thoroughly convinced that the tail was wagging, and even that arch unbeliever, Simon Sly, was heard to declare he did not doubt of the waggery. "Dr. Humm now changed his operation, and commencing as before at the cat's nose, he passed his two fingers up the skull bone between the ears, down the occiput, round under the neck to the tip of the shoulder blade, and thence in a straight line down to the left paw. After thirty-one magnetical touches in this manner, the wagging of the tail increased to such a degree as to describe almost a semicircle, and Dr. Humm declared the animal was sound asleep. As the cat gave no evidence to the contrary except by the wagging, there was no doubt of the fact, for the doctor assured us that magnetised cats always wagged their tails when sleeping. The cat was therefore declared to be in a fit state for experiments, and Doctor Humm began by willing the cat's tail to tie itself up in a bow knot: the tail immediately twisted itself round, and |