ic practices for the saving of the hard earned
"siller;" and are far from the commission of any such idle waste as
_M.L.B._'s story exhibits. S.S.

P.S. Tinder-boxes are unknown in Scotland, and I am sure _M.L.B._ if
he wants a business would as readily make his fortune by selling them,
as the Yorkshireman who went to the West Indies with a cargo of great
coats.

* * * * *

LINES

ON MY FORTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY.

(_For the Mirror_.)

On the slope of Life's decline,
The landmark reached of _forty-nine_,
Thoughtful on this heart of mine
Strikes the sound of forty-nine.
Greyish hairs with brown combine
To note Time's hand--and forty-nine.
Sunny hours that used to shine,
Shadow o'er at forty-nine.
Of youthful sports the joys decline,
Symptoms strong of forty-nine.
The dance I willingly resign,
To lighter heels than forty-nine.

* * * * *

Yet, why anxiously repine?
Pleasures wait on forty-nine.

Social pleasures--joys benign--
Still are found at forty-nine.
With a friend to go and dine,
What better age than forty-nine?
Ladies with me sip their wine,
Though they know I'm forty-nine.
Tea and chat, and wit combine,
To enliven musing forty-nine.
Let harmony its chords untwine,
Music charms at forty nine.
O'er wasting care let croakers whine,
Care we'll defy at forty-nine.
Fifty shall not make me pine--
Why lament o'er forty-nine.
Joys let's trace of "Auld Lang Syne,"
Memory's fresh at forty-nine.
Then fill a cup of rosy wine,
And drink a health to FORTY-NINE.

W. W.

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

* * * * *

PHILOSOPHY OF LONDON.

_The Quadrant_

The principle of _suum cuique_ is felicitously enforced in that
ostentatious but rather heavy piece of architecture, the Regent
Quadrant, the pillars of which exhibit from time to time different
colours, according to the fancy of the shop-owners to whose premises
respectively they happen to belong. Thus, Mr. Figgins chooses to see
his side of a pillar painted a pale chocolate, while his neighbour
Mrs. Hopkins insists on disguising the other half with a coat of light
cream colour, or haply a delicate shade of Dutch pink; so that the
identity of material which made it so hard for Transfer, in Zeluco,
to distinguish between his metal Venus and Vul