of
human life in all its varieties of display!

_Social Philosophy_.

* * * * *

THE GATHERER

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.
SHAKSPEARE.

* * * * *

SHERRY.

Commentators have puzzled themselves to find out Falstaff's sherries
sack: there can be no doubt but that it was _dry sherry_, and the
French word _sec_ dry, corrupted into sack. In a poem printed in 1619,
sack and sherry are noted throughout as synonymous, every stanza of
twelve ending--

Give me sack, old sack, boys,
To make the muses merry,
The life of mirth, and the joy of the earth,
Is a cup of old sherry.

* * * * *

CURIOUS WILL.

_By a Student of the University of Dublin.
Cum ita semper me amares_,
How to reward you all my care is,
_Consilium tibi do imprimis_
For I believe that short my time is;
_Amice Admodum amande_,
Pray thee leave off thy drinking brandy,
_Video qua sorte jaceo hic_,
'Tis all for that, O sick! O sick!
_Mors mea, vexat matrem piam_,
No dog was e'er so sick as I am.
_Secundo mi amice bone_,
My breeches take, but there's no money,
_Et vestes etiam tibi dentur_,
If such old things to wear you'll venture;
_Pediculos si potes pellas_,
But they are sometimes prince's fellows;
_Accipe libros etiam musam_,
If I had lived I ne'er had used them,
_Spero quod his contentus eris_,
For I've a friend almost as dear is,
_Vale ne plus tibi detur_.
But send her up, Jack, if you meet her.

C.K.W.

* * * * *

OLD ST. PAUL'S.

In the old cathedral of St. Paul, walks were laid out for merchants,
as in the Royal Exchange. Thus, "the south alley for usurye, and
poperye; the north for simony and the horse fair; in the middest for
all kinds of bargains, meetings, brawlings, murthers, conspiracies;
and the font for ordinary paiements of money, are so well knowne to
all menne as the beggar knows his dishe."

* * * * *

THE LINCOLNSHIRE EEL,

_A bit of Munchausen._

In the year 1702, there was a universal complaint among the feeders
of cattle in the fens, that they frequently lost a horse, an ox, or
a cow, and could not discover by what means; when watching more
narrowly, they observed a horse, and presently after a cow, go to the
river to drink, and suddenly disappear. On going to th