tailor, anxious to transmit his features to posterity, inquired of a young artist what were his terms for a half length. "I charge twenty-five guineas for a head," was the reply. The protrait was painted and approved, when the knight of the thimble, taking out his purse, demanded how much he was to pay. "I told you before that my charge for a head was twenty-five guineas."-"I am aware of that," said Snip; "but how much more for the coat?—it is the best part of the picture."

ASCETIC-Dr. Johnson has observed that the shortness of life has afforded as many arguments to the voluptuary as to the moralist, and there can be no doubt that the ascetic, in his cell, is seeking his own happiness with as much selfishness as the professed epicurean: one betakes himself to immediate, the other to remote gratifications; one devotes himself to sensuality, the other to mortification; one to bodily, the other, perhaps, to intellectual pleasures; one to this world, the other to the next; but the principle of action is the same in both parties, and the ascetic is, perhaps, the most selfish calculator of the two, inasmuch as the reward he claims is infinitely greater and of longer endurance. He is usurious in his dealing with heaven, and does not put out the smallest mortification except upon the most enormous interest. His very selfdenial is selfish, for the odds are incalculably in favor of the man who bets body against soul.

They who imperiously imagine that the happiness of the Creator consists in the unhappiness of the creature, are thus offending Him in their very fear of giving offence, since they find sweetness even in their sourness, and a joy in the very want of it. Well for them, too, if they go not astray, in their over anxiety to walk straight. "As for those that will not take lawful pleasures," says old Fuller, "I am afraid they will take unlawful pleasure, and by lacing themselves too hard, grow awry on one side."

To the same purport we may quote the observation of the French writer, Balzac : “Si ceux qui sont ennemis des divertissemens honnétes avoient la direction du monde, ils voudroient

ôter le printemps et la jeunesse,—l'un de l'année, et l'autre de la vie." If these enemies of innocent amusement had the ruling of the world, they would abolish spring-time and youth-the one from the year, the other from life.

ATHEIST Supposing such an anomaly to exist, an atheist must be the most miserable of beings. The idea of a fatherless world, swinging by some blind law of chance, which may every moment expose it to destruction, through an infinite space, filled, perhaps, with nothing but suffering and wretchedness, unalleviated by the prospect of a future and a happier state, must be almost intolerable to a man who has a single spark of benevolence in his bosom. "All the splendor of the highest prosperity," says Adam Smith, can never enlighten the gloom with which so dreadful an idea must necessarily overshadow the imagination; nor in a wise and virtuous man can all the sorrow of the most afflicting adversity ever dry up the joy which necessarily springs from the habitual and thorough conviction of the truth of the contrary system."

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The word atheist has done yeoman's service as a nick-name wherewith to pelt all those who disapprove of the thirty-nine articles, or who venture to surmise that there are abuses in the Church which need reform; but this sort of dirt has been thrown until it will no longer stick, except to the fingers of those who handle it. The real atheist is the Mammonite, who, making "godliness a great gain," worships a golden calf, and calls it a God: or the miserable fanatic, who, endowing the phantom of his own folly and fear with the worst passions of the worst men, dethrones the deity to set up a demon, and curses all those who will not curse themselves by joining in his idolatry.

AUDIENCE-A crowd of people in a large theatre, so called because they cannot hear. The actors speak to them with their hands and feet, and the spectators listen to them with their eyes.

AUTHOR-original-One who, copying only from the works of the great Author of the world, never plagiarises, except from the book of nature; whereas the imitator derives his inspiration from the writings of his fellow-men, and has no thought except as to the best mode of purloining the thoughts of others. Authors are lamps, exhausting themselves to give light to others; or rather may they be compared to industrious bees, not because they are armed with a sting, but because they gather honey from every flower, only that their hive may be plundered when their toil is completed. By the iniquitous law of copyright, an author's property in the offspring of his own intellect, is wrested from him in the end of a few years; previously to which period, the bookseller is generally obliging enough to ease him of the greater portion of the profit.

Against the former injustice, however, most writers secure themselves by the evanescent nature of their works; and as to the latter, we must confess after all, that the bookseller is the best Mæcenas.

For the flattery lavished upon a first successful work, an author often pays dearly by the abuse poured upon its successors; for we all measure ourselves by our best production, and others by their worst. Writers are too often treated by the public, as crimps serve recruits,—made drunk first, only that they may be safely rattaned all the rest of their lives.

An author is more annoyed by abuse than gratified by praise; because he looks upon the latter as a right and the former as a wrong. And this opens a wider question as to the constitution of our nature, both moral and physical, which is susceptible of pain in a much greater and more intense degree than of pleasure. We have no bodily enjoyment to counterbalance the agony of an acute tooth-ache; nor any mental one that can form a set-off against despair. Nowhere is this more glaringly illustrated than in the descriptions of our future rewards and punishments, the miseries and the anguish of hell being abundantly definite and intelligible, while the heavenly beatitudes are dimly shadowed forth, as being beyond the imagination of man to conceive.

An author's living purgatory is his liability to be consulted

as to the productions of literary amateurs, both male and female. The annoyance of reading them can only be equalled by that of pronouncing upon their merits. Oh, that every scribbler would recollect the dictum of Dr. Johnson upon this subject: You must consider beforehand, that such effusions may be bad as well as good; and nobody has a right to put another under such a difficulty, that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth, or hurt himself by telling what is not true."

Between authors and artists there should be no jealousy, for their pursuits are congenial; one paints with the pen, the other writes with a brush; and yet it is difficult for either to be quite impartial, in weighing the merits of their different avocations. The author of the "Pleasures of Hope," being at a dinner party with Mr. Turner, R. A., whose enthusiasm for his art led him to speak of it and of its professors as superior to all others, the bard arose, and after alluding with mock gravity to his friend's skill in varnishing painters as well as paintings, proposed the health of Mr. Turner, and the worshipful company of Painters and Glaziers. This (to use the newspaper phrase) called up Mr. Turner, who with a similar solemnity expressed his sense of the honor he had received, made some good-humored allusions to blotters of foolscap, whose works were appropriately bound in calf; and concluded by proposing in return, the health of Mr. Campbell, and the worshipful company of Paper-stainers-a rejoinder that excited a general laugh, in which none joined more heartily than the poet himself.

AUTHORS-origin of a most difficult question to decide. For if there were no readers there certainly would be no writers. Clearly, therefore, the existence of writers depends upon the existence of readers; and of course, as the cause must be antecedent to the effect, readers existed before writers. Yet, on the other hand, if there were no writers there could be no readers, so it should appear that writers must be antecedent to readers. This seems much on a par with the profound discovery of Lucretius, that eyes were

not made to see with, but being formed by a fortuitous concurrence of atoms, sight followed as an unforeseen accident; for, quoth he, if eyes were made to see withal, then seeing must have existed before eyes, and if seeing existed before eyes, what could be the use of eyes; and if seeing did not exist before eyes, how could eyes be made for that which is not-that is, for nothing? Clearly, therefore, eyes were not made to see with. In the same dilemma appears the matter of reading and writing. Perhaps it is safest to say that both are results of a fortuitous concurrence of atoms.

AUTO-BIOGRAPHY-Drawing a portrait of yourself with a pen and ink, carefully omitting all the bad features that you have, and putting in all the good ones that you have not, so as to ensure an accurate and faithful likeness! Publishing your own authentic life in telling flattering lies of yourself, in order, if possible, to prevent others from telling disparaging truths. No man's life is complete till he is dead, an auto-biography is therefore a mis-nomer. As such works, however, generally fall still-born from the press, an author may fairly be said to have lost his life as soon as he is delivered of it, so that this objection is, in fact, removed.

AUTO DE FÉ-OR ACT OF FAITH-Roasting our fellow creatures alive, for the honor and glory of a God of mercy. The horrors of this diabolical spectacle, which was invariably beheld by both sexes and all ages with transports of triumph and delight, should eternally be borne in mind, that we may see to what brutal extremities intolerance will push us, if it be not checked in the very outset. Thanks to the progress of opinion, the inquisition and its tortures are abolished; but fanatics, whether Romish or Reformed, still reserve the right of punishing heretics, (that is all those who differ from themselves on religious points,) with fire, pillory, imprisonment, and odium in this world; while they carefully retain the parting curse of the inquisition, "Jam animam tuam tradimus Diabolo," and consign them to eternal fire in the next. This moral inquisition remains yet to be suppressed. It is