took the trouble to find all them holes and put straws around them!" BURGLARY—If the burglar who craftily examines & house or a shop, to see how he may best break into it and steal its contents, be a knave, what name should we bestow upon the Old Bailey barrister, who, in the defence of a confessed thief, sifts and examines the laws to ascertain where he may best evade or break through them, for the purpose of defrauding justice and of letting loose a felon to renew his depredations upon society? Bentham compares the confidence between a criminal and his advocate to a compact of guilt between two confederated malefactors. CAGE-An article to the manufacture of which our spinsters would do well to direct their attention, since, according to Voltaire, the reason of so many unhappy marriages is, that young ladies employ their time in making nets instead of cages. Putting the same thought in another form, we might say that our damsels, in fishing for husbands, rely too much upon their personal and too little on their mental attractions, forgetting that an enticing bait is of little use unless you have a hook, line, and landing-net, that may secure the prey.. CANDIDATES-for Holy Orders, are sometimes persons claiming authority to show their fellow-creatures the way to heaven, because they have been unable to make their own way upon earth. Some of the clamorers against the abuses of the Church object that the greatest dunce in families of distinction is often selected for the ministry. How unreasonable! is it not better that the ground should be ploughed by asses, than remain untilled? I cannot, by any means, approve the fastidiousness, any more than the bad pun of the Canadian bishop, who, finding, after examining one of the candidates for holy orders, that he was grossly ignorant, refused to ordain him. "My lord!" said the disappointed aspirant, "there is no imputation upon my moral character-I have a due sense of religion, and I am a member of the Propaganda Society."— "That I can easily believe," replied the bishop, "for you are a proper goose." CANDIDATES-for Congress, self-trumpeters. In ad dressing the electors it is amusing to observe how invariably, and how very impartially, each candidate, when describing the sort of representative whom the worthy and enlightened constituents ought to choose, draws a portrait of himself, blazoning the little nothings that he has achieved, and, sometimes, like the Pharisee, introducing a fling at his opponent, by thanking heaven that he is not like yonder Publican. For the benefit of such portrait painters, I will record an apposite anecdote of Mirabeau, premising that his face was deeply indented with the small-pox. Anxious to be put in nomination for the National Assembly, he made a long speech to the voters, minutely pointing out the precise requisites that a proper and efficient member ought to possess, and, of course, drawing as accurate a likeness as possible of himself. He was answered by Talleyrand, who contented himself with the following short speech: "It appears to me, gentlemen, that M. de Mirabeau has omitted to state the most important of all the legislative qualifications, and I will supply his deficiency by impressing upon your attention, that a perfectly unobjectionable member of the Assembly ought, above all things, to be very much marked with the small-pox." Talleyrand got the laugh, which in France always carries the election. CANDOR-a very pretty thing to talk about. In some people may be compared to barley-sugar drops, in which the acid preponderates over the sweetness. CANT-Originally the name of a Cameronian preacher in Scotland, who had attained the faculty of preaching in such a tone and dialect, as to be understood by none but his own congregation. This worthy, however, has been outcanted by his countryman, Irving, whose Babel tongues possess the superior merit of being unintelligible not only to his flock, but even to himself. In the present acceptation of the word, as a synonyme of hypocrisy—as a pharisaical pretension to superior religion and virtue, substituted by those great professors of both, who are generally the least performers of either, cant may be designated the characteristic of modern England. Simulation and dissimulation are its constituent elements-the substitution of the form for the spirit, of appearances for realities, of words for things. CARE-The tax paid by the higher classes for their privileges and possessions. Often amounting to the full value of the property upon which it is levied, care may be termed the poor-rate of the rich. Like death, care is a sturdy summoner, who will take no denial, and who is no respecter of persons. Nor is the importunate dun a whit improved in his manners since the time of Horace, for he beards the great and the powerful in their very palaces, and scares them even in their throne-like beds, while the peasant sleeps undisturbed upon his straw pallet. Under the perpetual influence of these drawbacks and compensations, the inequalities of fortune, if measured by the criterion of enjoyment, are rather apparent than real; for it is difficult to be rich without care, and easy to be happy without wealth. CASTLE-In England every man's cottage is held to be his castle, which he is authorized to defend, even against the assaults of the king; but it may be doubted whether the same privilege extends to Ireland.-"My client," said an Irish advocate, pleading before Lord Norbury, in an action of trespass, "is a poor man-he lives in a hovel, and this miserable dwelling is in a forlorn and dilapidated state; but still, thank God! the laborer's cottage, however ruinous its plight, is his sanctuary and his castle. Yes the winds may enter it, and the rains may enter it, but the king cannot enter it." "What! not the reigning king?" asked the joke-loving judge. CATACHRESIS-The abuse of a trope, or an apparent contradiction in terms, as when the law pronounces the acci dental killing of a woman to be manslaughter. The name of the Serpentine River, which is a straight canal, involves a catachresis, and we often, unconsciously, perpetrate others, in our daily discourse; as when we talk of wooden tomb-stones, iron mile-stones, glass ink-horns, brass shoeing-horns, &c. Every one recollects the fervent hope expressed by the late Lord Castlereagh, that the people of this happy country would never turn their backs upon themselves. This was only a misplaced trope; but there sometimes is, among his fellowcountrymen, a confusion of ideas that involves an impossibility. An Irishman's horse fell with him, throwing his rider to some distance, when the animal, in struggling to get up, entangled its hind leg in the stirrup. "Oh, very well, sir,” said the dismounted cavalier; "if you're after getting on your own back, I see there will be no room for me." The following string of Catachreses is versified, with some additions and embellishments, from a sermon of an ignorant field-preacher Staying his hand, which, like a hammer, Had thump'd and bump'd his anvil-book, And waving it to still the clamor, The tub-man took a loftier look, And thus, condensing all his powers, From sanctity and grace, Until your blind idolatry Shall stare ye in the face? Will ye throw off the mask, and show Thereby the cloven foot below? Do-but remember, ye must pay Can never stomach such transgressions; Wink at your impious expressions. Shall have a rap upon the knuckles." CELIBACY-A vow by which the priesthood, in some countries, swear to content themselves with the wives of other people. CEREMONY-All that is considered necessary by many in religion and friendship. CENSORIOUSNESS-Judging of others by ourselves. It will invariably be found that the most censurable are the most censorious; while those who have the least need of indulgence are the most indulgent. We should pardon the mistakes of others as freely as if we ourselves were constantly committing the same faults, and yet avoid their errors as carefully as if we never forgave them. There is no precept, however, that cannot be evaded. "We are ordered to forgive our enemies, but not our friends," cries a quibbler. "We may forgive our own enemies, but not the heretics, who are the enemies of God,” said Father Segnerand to Louis XIII. Many people imagine that they are not only concealing their own misconduct in this world, but making atonement for it in the next, by visiting the misdeeds of others with a puritanical severity. They may well be implacable! "I should never have preserved my reputation," said Lady B—, “if I had noʻ carefully abstained from visiting demireps. I must be strait laced in the persons of others, because I have been so loose in my own."-" My dear lady B-!" exclaimed her sympathizing friend, "upon this principle you ought to retire into a con vent!" CHALLENGE-Calling upon a man who has hurt your feelings to give you satisfaction-by shooting you through the body. CHANGE-The only thing that is constant; mutability being an immutable law of the universe. "Men change with fortune, manners change with climes, CHARACTER-INDIVIDUAL-A compound from the characters of others. If it be true that one fool makes many, it is not less clear that many fools, or many wise men, make one. The noscitur à socio is universally applicable. Like the cha |