ls, lawn sleeves,
roast beef, pulpit cushions, bright eyes, and small black sarsnet shoes.
Suddenly the chapel bell dissolves the fleeting fabric of the vision;
and, behold! the white veil is a poet's imagination, the church spire is
still at a miserable distance, the vicarage is a Utopian nonentity, and
the fat incumbent, in a state of the ruddiest health, is the only
reality of the dream.

_--Blackwood's Magazine._

* * * * *

WOMAN

Nothing sets so wide a mark "between the vulgar and the noble seed" as
the respect and reverential love of womanhood. A man who is always
sneering at woman is generally a coarse profligate, or a coarse bigot,
no matter which.

* * * * *

ANGLING.

We have often thought that angling alone offers to man the degree of
half-business, half-idleness, which the fair sex find in their
needle-work or knitting, which, employing the hands, leaves the mind at
liberty, and occupying the attention so far as is necessary to remove
the painful sense of a vacuity, yet yields room for contemplation,
whether upon things heavenly or earthly, cheerful or melancholy.
--_Quarterly Rev._

* * * * *

THE GATHERER.

"A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles."
SHAKSPEARE.

* * * * *

LAUGHTER.

"Laugh and grow fat," is an old adage; and Sterne tells us, that every
time a man laughs, he adds something to his life. An eccentric
philosopher, of the last century, used to say, that he liked not only to
laugh himself, but to see laughter, and hear laughter. "Laughter, Sir,
laughter is good for health; it is a provocative to the appetite, and a
friend to digestion. Dr. Sydenham, Sir, said the arrival of a
merry-andrew in a town was more beneficial to the health of the
inhabitants than twenty asses loaded with medicine." Mr. Pott used to
say that he never saw the "Tailor riding to Brentford," without feeling
better for a week afterwards.

* * * * *

LEGAL PEARL-DIVERS.

Every barrister can "shake his head," and too often, like Sheridan's
Lord Burleigh, it is the only proof he vouchsafes of his wisdom. Curran
used to call these fellows "legal pearl-divers."--"You may observe
them," he would say, "their heads barely under water--their eyes shut,
and an index floating beh