exclaimed, "Mercy on us, Mr. Bamerick how came you here?" “Lord!" sir,” said Bamerick," don't you remember leaving me here in the evening!" "Ah, true, friend," said the dean, "but I forgot it as you did the boots:" and turning round to Robert, who was butler, he added, " give the man some warm wine and see him safe home."

CHARACTERISTIC ANECDOTE OF WOMEN.

Mr. Ledyard was a native of America: he accompanied capt. Cooke round the world, travelled on foot through more than half of the globe, and died in Egypt in the year 1788. The following characteristic anecdote, related by him, is not less beautiful than just. "I have always observed," says this careful observer of manners, "that women, in all countries, are civil, obliging, tender, and humane: that they are inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest; and that they do not, like man, hesitate to perform a generous action. Not haughty, arrogant, or supercilious, they are full of courtesy, and fond of society? more liable in general to err than man; but in general also more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. To a woman, whether civilized or savage, I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer; with man, it has been often otherwise. In wandering through the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide spread regions of the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet or sick, the women have ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue, (so worthy to be called benevolence,) their actions have been performed in so free and so kind a manner, that if I was dry I drank the sweetest draught, and if hungry I ate the coarsest morsel, with a double relish." What a beautiful eulogium, and how justly due!

A GUIDE TO OLD AGE.

The late archbishop of Seville, in Spain, lived to the extraordinary age of 100 years, eight months and fourteen days. He used to tell his friends, when asked what regimen he observed

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to be even at that age in the full enjoyment of every faculty "By being old when I was young, I find myself young, now I am old."

EXTRAORDINARY ANECDOTE OF THE ABBE DE RANEE,

The founder of the celebrated convent of Latrape in France. The abbe de Raneé; who though a priest, had even from his youth, been led and domineered by that spirit of dissipation and prófligacy which characterises the deluded votaries of worldly pleasures, owed his conversion to the following interesting and melancholy circumstance :-Raneé had long kept a secret intrigue with the beautiful countess of N, whom he tenderly loved. That lady, once when he had been absent for some time from the place where she lived, was taken with such a viōlent illness that she, almost instantly, died. Some days after, Raneé returned, and ignorant of what had happened in his absence, as usual repaired at night, by a private door, to the countess's chamber: he entered it with all the glowing eagerness of impatient love, and there, by the gloomy twinkling of a solitary lamp, he beheld a spectacle, even beyond all what death can pre- · sent of most awful and terrible. The coffin that had been made for the countess being too short, her head had been with the most savage brutality, severed from the body; and that head, ghastly, dishevelled, and still reeking with blood, was carelessly thrown on the toilet, whilst the coffin, into which the mutilated corpse had been forced, was open to the view. At this lamentable sight, the heart of the unfortunate man sunk within him, and it was but from the sudden terror that so convulsively shook his whole frame, that he could collect sufficient strength to retire from the scene of complicated horror. In the death of his beloved mistress, Raneé was so tremendously struck with the uncertainty and vanity of life, that, from that very moment, he abandoned a delusive world, whose highest enjoyments are but the transitory shade of a moment, and which seems to exalt our hope, but to make us the more severely feel all the bitterness of disappointment. Wretchedness and remorse will instinctively turn the wandering steps of the worldly and profligate to the consoling and forsaken path of religion, the heavenly spirit of which can alone sooth the per

turbed mind, and heal the wounded heart: thus Raneé retired into a deep solitude, and, some years after, founded the convent of Latrape, where he lived and died in penitence and sanctity. Most of the monks of that celebrated convent, had been like Raneé, brought to a sense of religion, by some unexpected and extraordinary reverse. Their discipline was more severe than in any other religious institution, not only in France but in all christendom and yet, notwithstanding the austerity of their lives, those who had before the French revolution visited Latrape, say that even in the highest and most envied circles of life, they never witnessed countenances expressive of such ineffable contentment and peace, as was to be seen on the hallowed visages of those venerable anchorites. Some of them had even for scores of years, bent their bodies under the lash of penitence, and bathed with the daily tears of their contrite hearts, those sacred avenues to awful eternity.

An Irishman purchased the sixteenth of a lottery ticket, for which, as they were high, he paid a guinea and a half. In a few days it came upa twenty pound, and on application at the lottery office, he received three and twenty shillings for his share."Well," says Pat, "I'm glad its no worse; as it was but a twenty pound, I have only lost eight and sixpence; but if it had been a twenty thousand I must have been ruined."

THE SMILE.

The late ingenious and learned Dr. Darwin thus explains the origin of the smile:-"The smile," says he, in his Temple of Nature, has generally been ascribed to inexplicable instinct, but may be deduced from our early association of action and ideas. In the act of sucking, the lips of the infant are closed round the nipple of its mother, till it has filled its stomach, and the pleasure of digesting this grateful food succeeds; then the sphincter of the mouth, fatigued by the continued action of sucking, is relaxed, and the antagonist muscles of the face gently acting, produce the smile of pleasure, which is thus, during our lives, associated with gentle pleasure.

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A SINGULAR FACT IN THE BRUTE CREATION.

A citizen of Berlin had a very little lap-dog which ran about a back-yard belonging to the house, where some poultry was kept. It happened that when the creature was pregnant, there was in the yard among the fowls a turkey-cock: the turkey-cock, upon the little dog's coming into the yard as usual, ran after it, making a noise, and striking it with his beak. This was often repeated, the dog always running away, greatly terrified. The poor persecuted animal some time afterwards produced a puppy, which had a head greatly resembling that of its enemy the turkey-cock, not only in its external appearance, but in the very bones themselves; the rest of the body was that of a dog in its natural state. This monster died soon after its birth, and was dissected by an eminent surgeon, by whom the skeleton is still preserved.

Though every man cannot arrive at the perfection of taste, yet it may be necessary he should be sufficiently instructed not to be deceived in his judgment concerning the claim of it in others. To this end the following queries may be applied with singular advantage. Is the pretender to taste proud ?-Is he a coxcomb ?—Is he a spendthrift ?-Is he a gamester ?-Is he a slanderer ?-Is he a bad neighbour ?-A sham patriot- A false friend?-By this short catechism, every youth, even of the most slender capacity, may be capable of determining who is not a man of taste.

An honest Jack tar, would be coached up to London from Deptford, but thought it a very unbecoming thing in him, who had just been paid off, and had plenty of money, not to have a whole coach to himself; of course he took all the places, seating him self at the same time on the top. The coach was about to set off, when a gentleman appeared, who was holding an altercation. with the coachman, on the absurdity of his insisting that all the seats were taken, and not a person in the coach. Jack overhearing highwords, thought as he had paid full freight he had a right to interfere, and inquired what was the matter. On being told that the gentleman was much disappointed at not getting a seat, he

replied "You lubber, stow him away in the hold, but I'll be dd if he come upon deck."

The earl of Berkeley brother to the admiral of leopard memory, had lately the following very perilous adventure:-Walking in the deer park with his son, achild, his lordship was attacked by an American deer, whose horns he immediately seized with both hands, and kept fast hold thereof, when thrown down and trampled on by the furious animal. In this situation, he desired the child not to be afraid, but to take from his (the father's) pocket a large knife, and therewith to stab the deer and to cut his throat if possible. The son, worthy of such an intrepid sire, obeyed his father's orders, but had not strength to sever the wind pipe, and completely cut the deer's throat. He did however, by frequent stabs, occasion the creature to lose much blood and to run away. Lord Berkeley was quite exhausted; but has recovered from the injury he received.

OPIE THE PAINTER.

This celebrated artist was raised from the lowest state of mechanical life by Dr. Walcott (commonly called Peter Pindar) who discovered the boy's genius and instructed him in drawingIn his gratitude he voluntarily gave the following curious note to the doctor, which still remains in his possession;

"I promise to paint for Dr. Walcott, any picture or pictures he may demand as long as I live; otherwise I desire the world will consider me as a dd ungrateful son of a—. Opie never swerved from this voluntary obligation, but he always made his friend pay eighteen pence for the canvass.”

Through doctor Walcott his pictures were shown to Mr. Boscawen, by whom Opie was introduced to the late Mrs. Delany, who procured for him the notice of his majesty. An opportunity was contrived for the royal family to see his old beggar man; soon after which Opie was honoured with a command to repair to Buckingham house. The artist's account of this interview was given in the following characteristical manner to Dr. Walcott who has often been heard to relate it with great humour. "There was Mr. West (said Opie,) in the room, and another gentleman. First her majesty Came in; and I made a sad mistake in respect to her, till I saw her