are to the figures in a picture--it gives it strength and decora

tion.

We enquire after the family and descent of the rich man. The man of merit has no occasion for illustrious ancestors.

Women are displeased with those beauties, in each other, which render them most enga ging to men. Those charms which excite desire and love in the one sex, produce aversion and malice in the other.

The coquet can never be persuaded that her beauty decays. Affectation attends her in old age and sickness. She dies in a high head-dress and coloured ribbons.

The sweetest music is the voice of his mistress to a man in love. Time, that strengthens friendship, is the grave of love.

Some men speak before they think others tediously study for

:

the utmost nicety of expression : few have judgment enough to hold their tongues.

The poor are troubled that they should want all things; the rich are uneasy that they should want any thing.

The prodigal robs his heir; and the miser himself. The middle way between them does justice to one's self and to others.

There is nothing that men are so fond to preserve as health, and nothing about which they are less careful than life.

We wish to grow old, and yet we are afraid of age.

We regret the time we have mispent; and yet are not taught thereby to spend better the leisure that remains to us.

There are but three events which happen to mankind, birth, life, and death. They know nothing of their birth, suffer when they die, and forget to live.

Michael Angelo, one of the finest sculptors of his time, could not endure to hear, how much the pretended lovers of Virtu magnified the works of ancient artists. In order to shew them how little real skill or taste they possessed, he set about the executing a marble statue with all the assiduity and application imaginable. He exhausted all his ideas of beauty, and, in a word, made a master-piece of art. Having finished his statue, he broke off one of the arms, which he hid in his house; and, with some tinctures he so coloured the rest, that it had perfectly the air of antiquity. After this, being apprized where a certain

nobleman was to lay the foundation of a palace, he conveyed his statue thither in the night-time, and buried it in a convenient depth. The time being come for laying the foundation, the workmen found the figure. A great concourse of people assembled to view it. The connoisseurs, who were present, admired extremely the remains of antiquity, and expressed their contempt of the works of modern sculptors. Angelo, offended with the unjust accusations of these superficial judges, produced, from under his cloak, the arm of the statue. The whole company perceived that it exactly fitted. The lovers of Virtu were confounded, and

learnt to have a proper esteem for the production of this artist.

One day at Rome, as the priests were carrying the relics of a saint in procession, two beggars, who had posted themselves in the way, and who used to make large collections by their infirmities, were told by some, who had nothing to give but their advice, that, if they continued where they were till the relics passed by, they would most certainly be cured. The beggars, one of whom was blind, and the other lame, were terribly frightened at this piece of intelligence; for no greater misfortune, in their opinion, could befal them, than that of being cured. Necessity being the mother of invention, after some debates upon ways and means, it was agreed, that the blind man should take the other upon his back. "Your limbs," said the cripple, "can carry me, and, with my eyes, I can direct you." So away they went, and disappointed the saint of a mira

cle.

There is a Jewish tradition in regard to Moses, which deserves to be related in the manner it stands recorded by some of their Rabbins. That great, Prophet, say they, one day heard a voice from Heaven, commanding him to ascend to the top of a mountain.

He obeyed, and had a private conference with the Supreme Being, who permitted him to propose some qustions to him on his ways of governing the world. In the midst of this divine colloquy, God commanded him to look down on the plain. At the foot of the mountain was a spring of fresh water, where he saw a man in armour dismount from his horse, in order to quench his

thirst. He had not rode far from the well, when a youth took his place, who, having drank in his turn, found a purse of gold, which the Cavalier had dropped near the well: he took it up, and instantly passed away. Immediately after came a feeble slow-paced old man, who quenched his thirst, and sat down to rest himself. The warrior, who had lost his purse, returned to seek it in that place, and asked the old man if he had seen it; he swore he had not, and called Heaven to witness what he averred; but the soldier, not finding it, accused him of having secreted it, and, regardless of his protestations, was full of wrath, and killed him on the spot. Moses, sorely affrighted at this spectacle, prostrated himself on the ground. He was going to speak, but a voice prevented him, in these words: "Dissipate thy fear and thy surprise; do not ask him, who governs the whole earth, why he has permitted 'what thou hast seen to happen. The lad is the cause of the old man's death; but know that this old man was the murderer of his father."

PATRIOTISM.---At the siege of Turin, in 1706, the French had obtained possession of one of the subterraneous galleries which communicated with the citadel. They had secretly posted in the gallery a party of two hundred grenadiers. A Piedmontese peasant, named Micha, who had been forced to serve as a pioneer, and who had been made a corporal, was at work on a mine, near the spot, with twenty men. Hearing the French over-head, and convinced that if they remained a moment longer masters

of the gallery, the fortress would be lost, he determined to sacrifice his own life to save the place. He immediately sent away his comrades, desiring them to let him know, by the discharge of a musket, when they were out of the reach of danger. As soon as he heard the signal, he put the match to the mine, and blew himself up along with the two hundred grenadiers. The King of Sardinia rewarded his wife and children, whom, at the moment of his death, Micha had recommended to his care, and he likewise settled a pension on the whole of his family. Can the boasted annals of antiquity produce a nobler instance of heroic self-devotion than that which was given by this peasant?

A man had two sons, the one very active, the other very indolent; the first was a very early riser, the second would willingly have slept till noon. It happened one morning, that the active youth found a purse and gave it to his father, who, much pleased with what had been found, and with

the vigilance of the younger brother, went, and carried the purse into the bed-chamber of the elder, who was still sleeping, though it was ten o'clock. "Here, (said he) lazy wretch that thou art! see what thy brother has met with! see what is gained by being alert! thou mightest lie an hundred years in bed, before any such good luck would befall thee!" "Father, (replied the son, very calmly) had the man who lost that purse been as prudent as I am, my brother would not have found it."

When the Severn Packet was lost at the mouth of Bengal river, in which forty-one persons perished, one was saved by means of a hog; this may appear incredible to those who are unacquainted with the fact, how strong these animals are, and how swift they swim; but that person, holding by the tail of a hog in the water was safely conducted to the shore, which was, fortunately, at no great distance. Thus the value of a hog is known in the time of need.

The late Earl of Abercorn, who, with great goodness of heart, was famous for a certain stateliness of behaviour and quaintness of expression, made extensive plantations around his mansion, Duddiston-house, near Leith. On being complimented by Principal Robertson" on his trees having increased greatly in size since his last visit to Scotland," he replied, with great gravity, "they have nothing else to do.

REMARKABLE TENURE OF LANDS. ---At Broughton, near Brig, in

E

Lincolnshire, some lands are held by the following tenure: Every year, on Palm-Sunday, a person from Broughton comes into the church porch at Caister, having a green silk purse, containing two shillings and a silver penny, tied at the end of a cart-whip, which he cracks three times in the porch, and continues there till the second lesson begins, when he goes into the church and cracks it three times over the clergyman's head, and then kneeling before him during the reading of the se

cond lesson, he, at the conclusion of it, presents him the purse and its contents, and having done this, he retires into the body of the church, and continues there during the remainder of the

service.

The following is a scale of the average duration of animal life, taken from the most celebrated writers in Natural History ;---A hare will live 10 years, a cat 10 a goat, 8, an ass 30, a sheep 10, a ram 15, a dog from 14 to 20, and sometimes more; a bull 15, and an ox (a curious fact) 20; swine 25, a pigeon, 8, and a turtle dove 25; a partridge 25, a raven 100, an eagle 100, and a goose 100.

A NEW SECT.---At a recent meeting of the Commissioners of the Watch, Scavengers, and and Lamps, at Liverpool, one of the extra watchmen was brought before them on a charge of being asleep on duty. One of the Commissioners, on being told that this was his second offence, exclaimed, "So, Sir, I understand you are a Lethargic!" The man, after a pause, replied with some warmth, “No, Sir, I am not---I am a Protestant!"

A short time since, a gallant Marquis, who left one of his natural supporters on the field of Waterloo, and whose artificial substitute for it has been so much admired, met with a rather unpleasant accident at ALMACK's.-His Lordship was passing from the grand saloon into the antechamber, when the said artificial substitute, some how or other, gave way, so as to cause him to lose his perpendicular; and, we understand, he would inevitably have been under the necessity of taking a position purely horizon

tal, had not the Duchess of B--and several other Ladies who were close at hand, rushed to his assistance, and prevented such an uncomfortable catastrophe.--We are happy to hear that his Lordship received no injury by the affair.

Dr. P---r, who is celebrated equally for his agreeable speeches to the fair sex, as he is severe (at times) to the other, hearing a young man, one day, in company say, "Doctor, I was a pupil of yours; perhaps you do not recollect me? and I can say what few of your pupils ever could, I never was flogged by you in my life." "You are right, Jemmy," exclaimed the Doctor, "I never was yet known to throw a flogging away---I never flogged a fool in my life."

Mr. Squires, of Limehousehole, plumber, while sitting in his counting house a few weeks back, was roused by a mouse running across his writing desk, and getting in at one of the water holes of a breeding cage, in which were some canaries; being fearful that the little intruder had sought this new habitation for the purpose of devouring not only the food, but the eggs of the birds, he was induced to search after it, and was not a little surprised at finding it snugly concealed in one of the nests with its brood of six young mice, nearly furred.---Mr. Squires had been for some time astonished at the quantity of food consumed, he supposed by the birds alone. The mouse, it is presumed, having gone first to the cage for the purpose of pilfering the food, became so much attached to it, as to induce her to deprive one of the birds of its ready-built nest and there bring forth its