if the land is a non-boiling land, no boiling pea that is sown, will produce a boiling crop.

There are certain vicissitudes of heat, when animals require very little nourishment; there are also certain vicissitudes of cold, which seem, from their effects, to lock up the appetite, as it were, and to subjugate the nature of the animal to the casualties of the

seasons.

An ox will thrive almost on sunshine and water, in hot weather: a poor Mendip wether sheep will support himself alive for a fortnight, completely covered and buried under snow in the winter, provided the snow is drifted against a stone wall, the common defence of the Mendip hills; and that he stands upright while the snow is falling; if he lies down at first, he never rises; but if he stands, so as to have a sufficient space to lie down when he is tired, he lives in little want of food for ten days, or a fortnight. This is a fact well known to the Mendip farmers.

FEMALE GRATITUDE. A YOUNG Englishman had rendered an essential service to a Mogul widow of distinction. In consequence of some deeds being mistranslated and misinterpreted by the Mahomedan lawyers, she was in danger of being defrauded of her fortune, when he interfered and detected the knavery. The lady requested an interview, that she might express her thanks to her benefactor, whom she had never yet seen. The young Englishman was conducted to her pavilion; the attendants withdrew; the lady entered, and, after some conversation, offered him a valuable jewel. His refusal of it seemed to hurt her. He made a transition from the brilliant gem to her antelope eyes, sparkling through the veil, and requested he might behold the face in which they shone.She, unwilling to deny the only favour he would accept, withdrew her veil. The face was indeed as beautiful as he could have imagined; and he, who had not escaped the contamination of the Eastern immorality, began to press her farther. She assumed a

dignified air; and, in an impressive manner, assured him, that the deep sense of her obligation had alone induced her to deviate from established custom, in requesting this interview; but, a sense of her own honour, veneration for her husband's memory, and maternal example to her children, would ever regulate her conduct. However, that he might not think her ungrateful, she appointed another meeting the next evening, at the same place. Full of expectation he went to the appointment; and when the lady who received him threw back ber veil, he discovered, not the mistress of the house, but another young Mogul; beautiful, witty, graceful, and-nothing coy, whom the widow, in her gratitude, had deputed to entertain him.

THE RAILER.

KIT,

THE characteristic of a Railer is always envy and ignorance-the enlightened mind will ever feel it a painful task to censure where envy does not exist.

Let a woman really beautiful, and perfectly amiable, appear in a circle, and the moment she draws forward a well-deserved admiration, the insidious railer supposes her proud-a coquette

or perhaps, no better than she should be; and then she concludes with a sentiment, that beauty is but a painted supulchre, not worth regarding unless united to an improved mind and honourable deportment; by which the auditors are to understand that the object of their attention is destitute of both, and consequently unworthy notice.

If a young lady dances well, it is immediately hinted that a good housewise would be a better partner for life; if she sings well, her husband may sometimes find her in a different tune; if she has vivacity, she is too giddy to be sensible; and if she is serious, she is certainly plotting mischief.

Wheu, in company, I have heard a physician mentioned as a man of skill, I have known a person with a grave air and significant nod, accompanied sometimes with a shrug of the shoul

ders, say, "Ay, ay, he might have made a good apothecary if he had stuck to his counter, but as a physician, pshaw! he wants talents, he wants education; the man's a good man, but then the cobler should not go beyond his last." If a lawyer; it has been remarked that he talks well, but is cursed idle, he has not read the books. Nay, a divine, who has been acknowledged to have made a good discourse, has had all the labour of his pulpit destroyed by an observation that he practised one thing and preached another.

Yet, odious and dangerous as this character must appear to all judicious persons, it generally meets with more credit and reputation than it deserves. It cannot be surprising then that the man who has had the hardihood to appear in print, should even at his first onset, meet with attack. Every writer has, if possessed of any merit, met the censure of some brother or sister-scribe, who has endeavoured with great avidity to cry him down. Homer himself has met a Zoilus.

The Wit's Nunchion.

MR. WATSON, uncle to the late Marquis of Rockingham, a man of immense fortune, finding himself at the point of death, desired a friend who was present to reach him a drawer, in which was an old shirt, that he might put it on Being asked why he would wish to change his linen when he was so ill, he replied, "Because I am told that the shirt I die in must be the nurse's perquisite, and that is good enough for her!" This was as bad as the old woman, who, with her last breath, blew out an inch of candle, Because," said she, "I can SEE to die in the DARK!"

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IRISH BULL.-An Irish blockhead was once asked what age he was: "I am only twenty-six," he answered; " but I ought to be twenty-seven, for my mother miscarried the year before I was born!""

Johnson was in company with Mrs. T. neither the elegance of his conversation, nor the depth of his knowledge, could prevent that lady's being shocked at his manners. Amongst other pieces of indecorum, his tea not being sweet enough, he put his fingers into the sugar-dish, and supplied himself with as little ceremony and concern as if there had not been a lady at the table. Every well-bred cheek was tinged with confusion; but Mrs. T. was so exasperated, that she ordered the sugar-dish immediately from the table, as if its contents had been contaminated by the fingers of Pomposo. The Doctor prudently took no notice, but peaceably swallowed, as usual, his several cups of tea. When he had done, instead of placing his cup and saucer upon the table, he threw them both very calmly under the grate. The whole tea-table was thrown into confusion. Mrs. T. screamed out, "Heavens Doctor, what have you done? You have spoiled the handsomest set of china I have in the world!" "I am sorry for it, madam," answered Dr. Johnson; "but I I did it out of pure good assure you breeding; for, from your treatment of the sugar-dish, I supposed you would never touch any thing again that I once soiled with my fingers."

THIEVES.

THERE was an understrapper at Drury. Lane Theatre of the name of Clough, who would insist, and I believe his information was pretty just, that thieves in this country are so far from being checked in their approach to the gallows, that they go on methodically, professionally, step by step, till they are what the informers call worth forty pounds. Nay, I have understood, I believe from credible information, that, in order to render them perfectly unconcerned as to their fate, they have meetings, where they are tried, cast, condemned, executed, put into their coffins, and afterwards brought to life; and, as all this indifference is inculcated from their infancy, they

unconcern, of their death-bed at the Old Bailey as a sailor leaps into that hammock in which he may be sewed up, or a sensualist enters between sarcenet sheets to press that mountain of down on which he is born to become a prey to the gout or the stone. Mr. Clough used to say that thieves were encouraged by the runners of rotation offices till, in their own language, "their time was come ;" and that, to inure them to their certain fate, they never failed to attend executions. He told a story of one of those, who used to be so much favour ed as now and then to be permitted, for love, to tie the knot. When his own hanging day arrived, he looked up at the clock with the utmost unconcern, and said to one of his companions, “I say, George, I think we are rather late to-day." There was something philosophical in Master Clough, and he was no fool: It only happened that this was the amusement most to his mind.

GRACE EXTRAORDINARY !---A certain country squire had a warren, and the village curate was Sunday after Sunday, regaled with the delicacy of rabbits, till he became so sick of them, that he took the liberty of hinting his, dislike of the standing dish to the host, in the following Grace, on rising from the table :

"Of rabbits hot, of rabbits cold,

Of rabbits tender, rabbits tough, Of rabbits young, of rabbits old, I thank the Ld, we've had enough!"