e scrupulous about them if, by subserviency, he
can improve his condition in the world.

The most trivial circumstances are able to put an end to our
gratifications; they are like beds of roses, where it is very unlikely all
the leaves should be smooth, and even one that is doubled suffices to make
us uncomfortable.

Garrulous men are commonly conceited, and they will be found (with very
few exceptions) to be superficial as well. They who are in a hurry to tell
what they do know, will be equally inclined, from the impulse of
prevailing habit, to tell what they do not know.

F.

* * * * *

LEGAL RHYMES.

(_For the Mirror._)

According to Goguet, "the first laws of any people were composed in verses,
which they sang;" and why should it not be so when Apollo was one of the
first of legislators? and under his auspices they were published to the
sound of the harp. Pittacus, one of the seven sages of Greece, formed a
code of laws in verse, that they might be the easier remembered. The
ancient laws of Spain also were chanted in verse, and the custom was
preserved a long time among many nations. Mio. Psellus, who lived in the
reign of Constantine Ducas, published a synopsis of the law, in verse, and
in 1701, Gumaro, a civilian of Naples, taught the dry and intricate system
of civil law, in a _novel._ Coke's Reports have been "done into verse" by
an anonymous author; and Cowper, the poet, tells us, that a relation of
his who had studied the law, "a gentleman of sprightly parts," began to
versify Coke's Institutes; he gives the following specimen of the
performance:

"Tenant in fee
Simple is he,
And need neither quake nor quiver,
Who hath his lands,
Free from demands,
To him and his heirs for ever."

Records, charters, and wills, and many other legal documents, have been
written in verse. The following grant was made by Edward the Confessor to
Randolf Peperking:

"Iche Edward konyng (_king_)
Have given of my forest the keping,
Of the Hundred of Cholmer and Daucing,
To Randolph Peperking and to his kindling, (_heirs_)
With heart and hynd, doe and bock, (_buck_)
Hare and fox, cat and brock, (_badger_)
Wild fowell and his flock,
Partridge, fesant hen, and fesant cock,
With green and wyld stob and stock,
To kepen and to yemen (_hold_) by all his might,
Both by day and eke by night:
And hounds for to holde,
Gode and swift and bolde,
F