and draw from them some practical rules is all I can attempt. The guiding maxims for a servant, according to her, are to do as little and get as much as she can; to be ignorant of nothing; never to be in the wrong; to have good reasons for all she does; never to disturb or hurry herself, especially when sent on messages; and to study daily the noble art of self-vindication. "The faults commonly laid to your charge, my dears," pursued the sybil, are lying, want of cleanliness, carelessness, disorderliness, and what your mistresses call forgetfulness, but it deserves no such a name. I never yet knew one of you forget your dinner hour, or the week of the market." But I must pass over many desultory particulars and take up the discourse ät a precise point.

"Lie in bed as long as you can in a morning. If you do rise, the morning hours ought to be your own. You can the most conveniently, before the family are stirring, see your friends and settle your little matters with your followers-of whom more anon. If any members of the family have a fancy for early rising, be sure you cure them of it. Let such persons find the parlour all in a litter-the fire unkindled or smoking—and their shoes unbrushed. If the riser is a gentleman, withhold the supplies. The want of shaving-water will infallibly drive him to bed, and probably cure him of the impertinent practice. In the mornings, when you choose to hold no levee in the kitchen, be sure to make the room doors

bang up before you and slap be

hind you, till the house ring. Tramp across the floors till they shake, and the windows creak to your tread. If any person in the family is sick, this will help to amuse him, by letting him know what is going on; and will, also, inform the family below stairs of your movements. Ten to one but their servants may in like manner requite the obligation. Give nothing till it be at least three times asked for, and a due time waited for. This will make your principals feel the importance and value of your labours. That you may effectually observe this rule, be sure you never brush shoes till the person wanting them is ready to go abroad. Never clean a candlestick till the bell rings for lights, nor a knife till the cloth be laid; and if hot water be at any time wanted, as it must often be, why, hot water is surely worth waiting for-you did not know it was to be wanted, I am sure. To do nothing till it is wanted and waited for, gives fine scope for alertness and ingenuity. Along with this, I would recommend to you to apply every sort of article to every kind of purpose; for you know the maxim,

r

hang them that have no shifts." A wash-hand basin does, on this principle, make an excellent vessel to be used in cooking, and nothing will scour the kitchen floor better than the dish-cloths or pudding-cloths. Vary every day and every hour the places where you keep your things, as well as the purposes to which you apply them. This will exercise invention and ingenuity. I have known a clever cook, a cook of genius and resource,

whip the night-cap off her head to pound biscuit for a pudding in; while a dawdling creature would take a whole half-minute to take down the pestle and mortar from the shelf. The purposes to which things may be converted by a clever rattle-handed lass, are infinite; and this talent alone makes her differ from the slow methodical creature who abides by the mistress' rules of doing every thing in its proper time; keeping every thing in its proper place;' and and putting every thing to its proper use.' I would also recommend that you diversify your labours: too much of one thing is good for nothing.' For instance, clean your master's shoes, after he has ten times asked for them-brushing them over the clean dresser; then fling down the brushes and rush to make up your mistress' bed; from this fly to clean the broth pot-dirty of course, since it was last used; then knead out a cake; when you get it up to toast, sweep up the ashes; and next starch your own cap; to dress which, the irons are probably put to the fire four hours every morning for the week, though heavy work' keeps you from getting it done. In this manner you may diversify your labours in the most agreeable fashion. Work goes on briskly this way, and you cannot weary. (To be concluded in our next.)

Mr. Editor,

Between Bomberge and Erlang, not far from Baynsdorf, lies a village or country town called Kerspach, which belongs to the margrave of Bareith, in

Germany, and is remarkable for a strange custom, practised by the inhabitants, which is as follows.

If a man has been married a year, or fifteen months at most, and his wife is not pregnant, he is carried out of the village on a wooden horse, or pole, and plunged into a pond. As soon as the person who has undergone this discipline gets out of the water, he is at liberty to lay hold of any one of the by-standers if he can, who is plunged into the water in the same manner ; and this concludes the farce.

It happened once that the late margrave of Bareith passed through this town when one of these processions was exhibited, and was desirous of seeing this extraordinary

ceremony, little imagining that the person who had been thrown into the water might, possibly, take his revenge on the lord of the country, as in fact it happened. The margrave only laughed at first at the odd fancy of the man who made towards him; but the whole village gathering round his postchaise, and insisting on their rights, as founded on a very ancient custom, he was obliged not only to give them a sum of money to make them drink, but likewise to deliver up to them his running footman, whom, for the greater confirmation of their favourite privilege, they obliged to undergo the discipline of the pond.

If these people are severe against such as do not propagate their species in a lawful way, though probably it may not be owing to any fault of their's, what punishment might old

bachelors expect to suffer, if the Kerspach law should prevail in the world?

MELANCHOLY SUICIDE.

There are characters who, though unconnected by country, nor endeared by relationship, interest the world in the vicissitudes of their lives-elicit wishes for their prosperity-and command sympathy in all their afflictions. Those whom age has advanced to the climacteric of reputation, mankind behold in silent melancholy borne from the stage, assured the settled affection of their fellow-creatures must long have presaged the approbation of him, before whom their earthly conduct is now to be recounted. But the young, yet unmatured by time, and so often blasted by depravity in the bud of greatness, create great anxiety for the endowments which may exalt them the protectors of their country, and exemplify the loveliness of virtue and dignity of talents. Such sensations as these were, perhaps, never more justly excited, than by a late dismal catastrophe of Charles W. Monk, of Canada-a youth who long displayed those qualities which, while they command the admiration, secure the love of mankind. He had just closed his collegiate career, where pre-eminence had ever been his station, and the world opened to him a theatre suited to the exhibition of those powers which his aspiring soul felt hitherto limited in their sphere. Separated for several years from his family, he had returned but to realize the hope of a loving parent, and dispel the cares of

domestic solicitude. The blandishments with which pleasure fascinates youth-the applauses of admiration-the encomiums which wisdom and morality ever bestow on ingenious worth, it might have been presumed, would have allurements too enchanting to be renounced at the age of susceptibility, and by a mind to which they would have been but the meed of desert. Yet, however ecstatic be its delights, youth escapes not adversity; and if its misfortunes be not equal, sensibility renders them more poignant than those of age. After so long an absence, he had not re-visited the scenes of his tender years above three months, when some unknown calamity seems to have darkened his prospects, and presented death as the only comfort for his sufferings. One evening, without having betrayed any symptoms of melancholy, the family were alarmed, after he had retired to his chamber, by the report of a pistol. Upon entering, he was found in agony; the ball had passed through his breast-the wound was mortal. His uncle, Chief-Justice Monk, inquired the cause of this desperate act; to which he replied"That goes with me to the grave," and expired. Such has been the end of a young man, yet in his twentieth year, whom nature and his own efforts formed for an ornament in any society.

THE HEROINE.

The following is a copy of the memorial of Elizabeth Hopkins, wife of Jeremiah Hopkins, serjeant of the 104th foot, addressed to the secretary at war:—

"Most_humbly sheweth, that she was born of British parents at Philadelphia, in 1741; has her husband, six sons, and her son-in-law, as per margin,* serving his majesty in the 104th; and during the course of her life, from her zeal and attachment to her king and country, she has encountered more hardships than commonly fall to the lot of her sex. That in the year 1776, being with her first husband, (John Jasper), a serjeant of marines on board the brig Stanly, tender to the Roebuck, she was wounded in her left leg, in an engagement with the French vessels, when she was actually working at the guns. That the marines having been landed at Cape May, in America, her husband was taken prisoner by a Captain Plunket, of the rebel army, near Mud Ford Nied, and sentenced to suffer death; that by her means he was enabled to escape, with 22 American deserters, to whom she served arms and ammunition; and on their way to join the army their party was attacked by the enemy's light horse-she was fired at, and wounded in her left arm; but, undismayed, took a loaded firelock, shot the rebel, and brought his horse to Philadelphia, (the head-quarters of the army,) which she was permitted to sell to one of General Sir W. Howe's aidede-camps. That after many fatigues and campaigns, her first husband died, and she married Samuel Woodward, a soldier in

colonel Chambers' corps; was with the troops under the command of general Campbell, taken at Pensacola, having, however, during the siege served at the guns, and tore her very clothes for wadding. That having been exchanged at the peace of 1783, from an attachment to the royal cause, she embarked on board a transport with part of Delancey's and Chambers' corps, was shipwrecked on Seal Island, in the Bay of Fundy, when near three hundred men, and numbers of women and children perished-that she suffered unparalleled distress, being pregnant, with a child in her arms; remained three days on the wreck-was taken up, with her husband and child, by fishermen of Marble-Head; and, shortly afterwards, being landed, delivered of three sons, two of whom are in the 104th, the other dead; and, lastly, that she had the honour of being mother of twenty-two children, viz. eighteen sons and four daughters, seven of the former being alive, and three of the latter. That memorialist humbly prays, that you may consider her as a fit object for some allowance from the compassionate fund, towards her maintenance in her old age, having lost all her property, and as a reward for her long and faithful service to her king: and as in duty bound, shall ever pray.

"E. HOPKINS." Fredericton, New Brunswick, 12th April, 1815.

In consequence of her memorial she obtained a pension of £100 a-year. The following is another instance of her strength of mind. At Fort Erie, the pride

of her heart, her twins fell, also M'Donough, her son-in-law. On hearing the news she called her husband and her children round her, made them a most animated speech, charging them to be revenged on the Yankies for their loss; and next time they went into action they were cheered and encouraged by Mammy Hopkins, the name she went by in the regiment.

AN AWKWARD MISTAKE.

A reverend popular preacher, well known to the literary circles of the metropolis, was constantly received with warm hospitality at the table of the late Mr. and lady Elizabeth Whitbread. His conversational talents had recommended him, likewise, to the favour and protection of lady Augusta Murray, better known, perhaps, to gens de condition, by the title of "Duchess of Sussex,' at the bottom of whose table he was usually requested to take his chair. This priest of nice discrimination, had engaged himself to dinner with his early patroness, lady Elizabeth Whitbread, and in the forenoon of the appointed day was honoured with a summons for immediate attendance, in his customary place, at the 66 chequered" board of the royal duchess. It did not take him much time to decide between the fantenil of aristocracy and less flattering station with an unpretending bourgeois. "Obliviscent," to use one of his own oratorical terms, of his duties in Dover-street, he sat down at his escrutoire de table, and indited (au grand galop) the two following notes, and by a sleight of hand was sufficiently fortunate

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to transmit the billets (crosspurposed), exactly to the parties for whom they were not intended. First-"Dear Duchess-A thousand thanks for your most delightful invitation. I must, I will accept it, though to do so I am compelled to put off the brewer and his wife." Addressed, par accident, to lady E. Whitbread, Dover-street. Second"The Rev. H presents his respectful compliments to lady Elizabeth Whitbread, and regrets that the sudden indisposition of his aunt, from whom he has great expectations, will prevent him from indulging himself in the high honour of waiting upon the family to dinner, this evening, in Dorset-street.' Addressed, par meprise, to the Duchess of Sussex. Horrored, staggered, chagrined, and confounded upon discovering, too late, the slip of hand which had thus laid bare the aristocrat, lurking amid the folds of his priestly garment, he wrote off to his neglected patroness a cypresswise letter, doling out miserable deprecations of wrath, and urging more miserable entreaties still for forgiveness; concluding with the unfeigned assurance, "that his soul would be exposed to suffer all the torments of purgatory, while for this one error banished, as he felt that he merited, from the paradise of her patronage." Mass for the repose of his disturbed soul was executed, en mechante repouse, in the following terms :-" Lady Elizabeth Whitbread presents her compliments to the Rev. Mr. H. and doubts not but that, when fatigued with the society of dukes and duchesses, he would kindly condescend to put up