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SIGNS OF WINTER.

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not, like cats, nine lives? That if, when out boating, they indulge in "larks," and capsize their skiff, they run an imminent risk, especially if they cannot swim, of being drowned ? That if they heedlessly clamber up difficult rocks, they may perchance come to grief? That if they bathe and swim at all times and in all places, they will probably bring on a serious illness? I suppose counsel of this kind has been administered by their seniors to generation after generation of English boys, and with small profit; but it is to be hoped that the rising generation is at once more prudent and more dutiful.

Autumn at length passes, as spring passed and summer passed. The swallows make ready for their southward flight, and in yellow showers the leaves fall at every gust from the sorrowing trees. The warm days and nights have gone; after dark there is frequently a white frost on the ground, and the plants shiver through their dry and hollow stalks as the keen wind rustles over them. All nature is preparing for the winter. Hedgehog and badger and lizard creep into their holes in the earth, where they will slumber till spring. Frogs sink into the muddy bottom of pond and ditch, and "go in " for a long hybernation. The moles have finished off their winter nests, and the bats, suspended by their heels in the old barn or cobweb-covered outhouse, wrap themselves in the membranes of their fore-feet and indulge in a dreamless doze. The rat, the mouse, and the squirrel seek their secret stores, which they have garnered up with so much prudence in the days of abundance. The fresh-ploughed fields lie bare and black in the occasional sunshine; and the farmer saunters round his stackyard to survey with more or less satisfaction the neatly built ricks, or he inspects his cattle-sheds and his poultry-yard, and calculates his probable Christmas gains. It might seem that the boy's occupation, like Othello's, would now be gone. But he has his box of tools, and there are fences to be repaired or rabbit-hutches constructed; he has his spade and hoe, and the garden must be cleared of its autumn refuse; and, above all, for those dark hours when out-of-door-work or play is impracticable, he has his books to read, his lessons to prepare. Soon will come again the scenes of winter, and the merry time of sleighing, skating, sliding, snowballing; but even then the long evenings will invite him to seek the companionship of

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A MUTUAL IMPROVEMENT CLUB.

the poets, sages, historians, who have enshrined their thoughts and fancies in deathless language.

For boys in the country, we venture to recommend as a pleasant and profitable mode of cheering the winter nights the formation of a little club of readers, a kind of private Literary Society, meeting alternately at the houses of the various members, for the purpose of mental improvement and intellectual recreation. More years ago than the present writer cares to remember, he was a member of such a club, and well does he recollect the entertainment it afforded. We met once a week, some of us making long journeys through miry lanes or drifts of snow to attend the rendezvous. We had our chairman and our secretary, the former to preside at all gatherings, and the latter to keep our "minutes." We paid a small fee, and there were also certain fines; and thus we had funds for a double subscription to the circulating library in the town of K-————, some five miles distant. Occasionally we issued gratis tickets to our relatives and intimate friends, which gave them admission to our 66 entertainments." We recited pieces of poetry; we read some of the plays of Shakespeare; we repeated from memory, or in our own words, narratives of adventure and enterprise; we wrote essays upon given subjects, the best being rewarded with a small prize; and at the close of our session we called to our assistance some accomplished and kindly damsels, and gave an "amateur dramatic performance" in the largest drawing-room at our command. Pleasanter Christmas holidays we never passed; and I believe our parents and guardians thought' so too, for the necessary preparation of our essays and recitations occupied our leisure, and left us no time for mischief.

I have said that we wrote "essays." But these were not strings of commonplaces suggested by some copybook maxim, such as, "Evil communications corrupt good manners;" nor were they chapters of dull platitudes upon abstract subjects, such as War, Friendship, Poetry, and the like. had had sufficient experience of these at school. We were determined to eschew dulness; whatever we were, we would not be bores. So we wrote short lives of great men, or we narrated some incidents in our own eventful careers, or we turned passages from Scott and Byron into the most animated prose we could command; or we made ourselves masters of

NEW VERSION OF AN OLD PLAY.

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the best plays of the best dramatists, and then related their plots and scenes in our own language. This last experiment, if not the most successful, was always the most interesting, as the writer was required to read aloud his production for the benefit of an admiring or a critical audience. The reader may be glad of a specimen of this kind of composition. If not entertaining in itself, it will serve as a model. The play selected is Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his Humour," and the reader will please to imagine that the members of the B-Literary Club are duly assembled, that the president has seated himself in his arm-chair, that a "select" circle of visitors have gathered round, that the writer has been called upon for the week's "essay," and that" mouthing his a'es and o'es" (as Tennyson puts it), he reads it aloud as follows:

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR :

A New Version of an Old Play.

Master Knowell was a London citizen of credit and renown in those famous days when Elizabeth the Great sat with firm seat upon the English throne. Not a man more honoured upon 'Change, let me tell you, or whose signature to a bond was more satisfactory to the recipient. He belonged to the genus which we designate "respectable :" his figure, something of the portliest, was respectable; his grave and serious countenance was legibly inscribed with respectability; his sadcoloured doublet, his well-spun hose-all very respectable! I cannot affirm that there was anything of the heroic in his nature, or that his imagination ever soared beyond his desk and ledger; but mind you, it is the steady draught-horse that grows sleek and fat, not the ardent steed," the courser of the sun,"which breaks its heart in constant straining at the collar.

Enough for you and me that Master Knowell was a respectable man,- 66 warm, very warm, sir,"-whose button we would have proudly and gladly held whenever occasion offered.

Now, Master Knowell had married-as all respectable men should do; and had a son-as most respectable men have; and a nephew-another endowment which I have observed to be common among respectable men. The son, Master Edward Knowell, was a scholar "of good account in b the Universities," and much perplexed his worthy sire

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A STORY FROM BEN JONSON.

the startling audacities of his genius and the abnormal character of his ideas. A straight-limbed, well-featured, comely youth was Edward Knowell, who could figure handsomely in a galliard, and whisper airy nothings in a pretty ear with any gallant in London. Very different to him both physically and mentally was his cousin Stephen, who was what the Scotch would call a gowk," and the Elizabethans called “a gull :"

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"A gull is he who feares a velvet gowne,

And when a wench is brave dares not speak to her ;

A gull is he which traverseth the towne,

And is for marriage known a common wooer.

A gull is he which, while he proudly weares
A silver-hilted rapier by his side,

Indures the lies, and knocks about the eares,

While in his sheath his sleeping sword doth bide.
But to define a gull in termes precise,-

A gull is he which seemes and is not wise." 1

To complete this rapid sketch of the Knowell household, I have only to name the ready-witted servant Brainworm, a fellow of infinite fancy, with a rare talent for mimicry, and a fertility in artful expedients equal to that of Asmodeus himself.

It happened one morning that Master Stephen, bent upon the loving errand of a visit to his cousin, chanced to fall in with his worthy uncle, who as yet had not quitted his house, and so demeaned himself as truly to justify the not very flattering picture of him we have essayed to draw.

"What is your business, coz?" said Knowell.

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Nothing," replied Stephen, with a simper, "but just to see how you do, good uncle."

"It is kindly done, and you are welcome," replied the respectable citizen.

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Ay, I know that, sir-I would not have come else. But how does my cousin Edward? I would fain borrow of him some treatise upon hawking and hunting."

"Why, I hope you do not mean to go a-hawking ?" rejoined his uncle.

"No, but I intend to practise against next year. I have bought hawk, and hood, and bells, and all; I only need a book to keep it by. Now, be not angered, uncle! Why, I

1 Sir John Davies, Epigram ii. So Shakespeare :- "a most notorious geck and gull."

"EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR."

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would not give a rush for a man, however studied in Latin and Greek, if he be not learned in hawking and hunting language. Because I dwell at Hogsden, shall I keep company with none but steady cits or Finsbury archers? A fine jest, i' faith! 'slid, a gentleman must show himself a gentleman."

"Do not

Knowell was sorely displeased, I can assure you, at this silly speech of Master Stephen's, and gave him sterling advice in good, solid phrases-advice which fared as advice generally does when spent upon the young and thriftless. spend your coin," said he, "on every bauble you fancy. Let not your sail" he loved a brave old proverb!" be bigger than your boat. Stand not so much on your gentility—

'Which is an airy and mere borrowed thing

From dead men's dust and bones; and none of yours,
Except you make and hold it.'"

His lecture was here abruptly terminated by the entrance of a stranger, who proved to be the servant of one Master Wellbred, a young gentleman of good repute, whose sister had. recently married Kitely, the wealthy merchant in the Old Jewry. He bore a letter addressed to "Master Knowell," but not distinguishing between the son and father, he unthinkingly placed it in the wrong hands. Despatching Stephen to find his cousin, and sending the letter-bearer under charge of Brainworm to the buttery, the elder Knowell proceeded to acquaint himself with the contents of the missive, comforting his conscience with the equivocation that the address might with as much propriety stand for him as for his son.

There is a common adage that "listeners hear no good of themselves," and they who pry into the secrets of others seldom obtain any special comfort from the knowledge. The letter was written in a lively strain, and simply invited Master Ned to some excellent entertainment at "the Windmill;" but to the respectable precisian it seemed a most pernicious composition. "Is this," he cried, "the man whom my son has declared to possess the happiest wit and choicest brain the times have produced? Surely, for his manners, I judge him to be a profane and dissolute wretch." But he wisely resolved not to interfere too openly with his son's amusements, and so, summoning Brainworm, and bidding him carry the letter to his young master, he went his way in sober sadness.

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