landlord, when the five per cents. are fours, and things in general at sixes and sevens, a hearty and innocent laugh is the most effectual way to take care of number one.

COZENING COUSINS AND CAUSTIC COMPLIMENTS.

“I am no herald to enquire of men's pedigrees; it sufficeth me if I know their virtues." SIDNEY.

"I do fawn on men and hug them hard,

And after scandal them."

SHAKSPEARE.

WERE I a monk, I would rather be a Cenobite than of the Eremitical class; I am by nature much more gregarious than an affecter of

From open haunts and popularity.”

Solitude once pronounced its own condemnation, when it enabled me to read Zimmerman's book all through, and the only character that excites in my mind the smallest misanthropy is a misanthrope: but still society, as it is now constituted in the genteel world, exacts so many sacrifices without rendering any equivalent, compels one to live so much for others and so little for one's self, that I question whether the companionship of rural shades be not more sociable, as it is indisputably more beneficial. "Nunquam minus solus quam cùm solus," said an ancient moralist; and I may reverse the dictum and exclaim, never more

alone than when in a mob. I care not in what "dingle or bushy dell" I bury myself in the country, for its silence and seclusion constitute its natural charms; but the loneliness of a crowd, the solitude of a city, the acquaintanceship of familiar strangers and strange familiars―ugh! the recollection is heart-sickening. However simple and philosophical in your personal habits, you must begin, of course, with a handsome establishment, for your genteel friends will not come to a shabby house; that is to say, you must live for visitants who call upon you to kill time and dine with you, to share your bottle, not your heart ;-for horses whom you hate to employ, if, like me, you prefer walking; and for numerous domestics, who invariably do less the less they have to do. A grand prior of France once abusing Palaprat for beating his servant, he replied in a rage, "Zounds! Sir, his conduct is unpardonable; for though I have but this one, I am every bit as badly served as you who have thirty!" Had I been even rich enough to purchase the right of becoming a slave to my own establishment, and of sacrificing the reality of enjoyment for its appearances, I do not think I should have fallen into a trap so poorly baited; but my means were hardly adequate to the purchase of the wreaths and gilding in which the victims of fashion must be tricked out, though I was quite rich enough to make myself happy in my snug little cottage betweeen Sutton and Epsom.

Though the world has very little gratitude for those who become its slaves, it hates those who appear to be independent of it. Nothing could be more inno

cent than my life, devoted as it was to one or two friends, books, music, and the Muses, who, it is well known, like most other bluestockings, are very chaste and virtuous old maids; but, because I did not choose to visit every body, I got the reputation of being a person whom nobody visited, which, in default of any actual peg on which to hang an accusation, was generally repeated with sundry dark innuendoes and mysterious looks; though the more charitable did me the justice to admit that I was nothing more than a humorist-an ascetick-a little touched here, as they said with a significant tap of the forehead. This I heeded not; but though I thought it odd that my relations, of whom I had an extensive circle in London, rarely honoured me with the smallest notice, I rather sought to excuse than aggravate their neglect. After all, said I to myself, what is the justice of this claim upon the affections founded upon relationship? There is the moral affection of children towards their parents standing upon the basis of gratitude, and there is the still stronger affection of parents towards their offspring, which is a natural instinct implanted for the preservation of the species; but how mere consanguinity, attended, perhaps, with the greatest possible dissimilarity of habits, is to establish any legitimate claim upon the heart, I am utterly at a loss to explain. Why uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, and cousins to the third and fourth degree, aliens to my tastes, though kinsmen by blood, should conceive themselves to have a better title than the congenial friends of my selection, I profess not to comprehend.

VOL. II.

Job complains that even his kinsfolk have failed him, and why should I expect mine to be unalterable in their attachments?

Thus did I argue in justification of my numerous relatives who were too busy to visit me, even by the post; and candour compels me to admit that the charge of their neglect is to be received with certain qualifications and exceptions. By some mysterious affinity the sunflower turns towards the luminary whence it derives its name; lunatics preserve an inexplicable sympathy with the moon; an occult attraction directs the needle to the north; the divining rod oscillates in obscure communion with the subterranean spring; and by some such recondite law did the affections of my kindred duly point south-west from London, and the fountains of their hearts reveal themselves to me at a certain month of the year, nay, at a certain week of that month, even on certain days of that week; nor could I ever discover the cause of my hebdo adal popularity, though I remarked that it invariably coincided with the celebration of the Epsom races. At this period the whole genealogical tree came to plant itself upon my lawn, and all the branches of cognation spread themselves over my cottage. I felt like a patriarch rejoicing in the numbers of his tribe; and though I subsequently regretted the havoc of my poultry-yard, and the attenuation of my favourite bin of port, I delighted in the recovery of my kindly feelings towards my relatives, and in this irrefragable proof that they wanted nothing but a favourable opportunity of testifying their affectionate and

disinterested regard. So far from any appearance of coldness and indifference on their parts, many of them were of opinion that they would be enabled to leave London about the same period next year, and, knowing that I hated ceremony, frankly invited themselves to renew their visit.

Circumstances shortly enabled them to give a fuller developement to their cordial and genuine attachment. An old fellow-collegian left me a considerable legacy, upon the strength of which I married a lady of great respectability and congenial age, with whom I had been acquainted nearly fifteen years; and in the first three months, I think, I paid eleven pounds for postage of letters from collaterals, whose affinity it would have puzzled the Heralds' College to discover; besides receiving Heaven knows how many visits from claimants of consanguinity equally near, and dear, and unknown. Oh, the worlds of good advice showered upon me when it was whispered that I was about to marry! I began to doubt my own identity. Surely, methought, I must be a minor, or a ward of Chancery, or a lunatic, to be thus schooled, and lectured, and catechised, by people who conceive the most remote relationship to be a warrant for impertinent advice, though they would not acknowledge it, were it urged as a plea for their affording me the smallest assistance. Not an individual article of my household establishment escaped censure-my own tables were turned against me--I had ante-nuptial curtain lectures-I could not sleep for my beds-my walls originated a paper war, and my coal-scuttle kindled