call
a politician, with the physical requisites described by a philosopher of
the last century,--_Vox stentoria, sempiterna, cum cerebello vacuo_,--it
would profit him nothing.

The poet Gray makes Jemmy Twitcher marry Divinity, after being refused
by Law and Physic. These two smile only upon serious admirers. They who
follow the law--at a distance, as some one remarks, never pick up a
living. And in medicine, unless the indolent practitioner can invent a
pill or a syrup, and can borrow enough to publish lying certificates
from country clergymen, and to hire bill-stickers to dirty the face of
Nature with the names of his specifics and the wonders they work, he
will never earn his daily bread. But Divinity is more easily pleased. It
was usual in the generation now passing away to recommend the Church to
young gentlemen of moderate energy without capital. And indeed the path
seemed easy, and the prospect pleasant.

A year or two in a seminary, a white cravat, a "call" made audible by a
salary, Paley's advice in the matter of sermons,--to make one and to
steal three,--all the young women of the parish sitting at his feet,
working worsted slippers for them, and swinging their intoxicating
little censers of flattery under his nose,--such was the imaginary
programme of his career. Certainly a tolerable existence while it
lasted. But it seldom did last. The "young probationer and candidate for
heaven" married. He selected--destiny always seemed to impel him to
it--a "sweet woman," who overstocked his parsonage, and, like the
magician's apprentice in the ballad, could not rule the young spirits
she had evoked. The salary did not increase with the family, and sweet
women are never good housekeepers. The congregation began to criticise
the old sermons; a jury of stern matrons, who spoke what minds they had,
sat in perpetual session on his doctrines, his wife's dress, and his
children's behavior;--and the end of that man was dreary, if he was only
a drone in the hive of the Lord. In our day The Church is militant, and
needs her ministers in the field. Those who are not able to fight will
be sent to garrison some remote post, where there is no danger and
little pay.

Art offers many more inducements to our young friends. If they have a
knack for sketching and a "feeling for color," as the slang goes, they
need not waste much time in preparatory study. Let them devote
themselves to landscape. It is easy to draw a tree that will