"The softest blush that Nature spreads,
Gave colour to her cheek: "

or, on the contrary, the bed might have been occupied by a rough-skinned, pimpled victim to turtle soup and Curaçoa. He had been nearly a month at Harrowgate without benefit, and was on his way to the Continent, with his medical adviser, to try, what the spas of Germany would do for him.

A person, on whose veracity I could depend, and who seemed to have scrutinised the general state of dormitories with a considerable degree of attention, once told me that he had not passed a single hour in bed for fourteen years. He said he was his own master in that respect, and could suit himself as he thought fit. He added that his aversion to enter a strange bed was extreme. He did not know who had been there before him, or what impurities might be lurking in the region of the feather bed, or whether it had been aired by Phoebus or by Bacchus; and that the possibility of getting into a damp bed acted upon his nerves more terribly than did the operation of Sir Robert Peel's income tax.

"And how do you manage," said I, “without

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a bed?" "Uncommonly well," said he. My apprenticeship," continued he, "to the hard floor only cost me a fortnight, and after that all went right."

He then informed me that the advantages which he had acquired by abandoning the bed for ever, were incalculable. He said that so long as there was a current of fresh air in the place where he laid him down to rest, he was excellently accommodated for a fair spell of sleep. Travelling had no longer any nocturnal terrors for him. Whilst others were anxious about the paraphernalia of their bed-rooms, and peevish when things were not to their liking, he stood smiling on, pitying their distresses, and happy with the thought that he could stow himself away for the night in a moment, free from bad bugs, bad breaths, and bad bedding. "And will you never more sleep in a bed?" said I.

"Never," said he, with a smile of contentment on his face. "Nature has accommodated herself to me, and I to Nature. What more can I wish?" He ceased on saying this. I entered fully into his feelings, and ere I retired to rest I thought if we had more of fortitude and less of self-love,

things would go better with us, both night and day, than they do at present.

From the remarks which I have hastily put together in this paper, I trust we may safely conclude, that when the soft and downy preparations for the repose of the night have been completed, we do wrong, very wrong indeed, to exclude the night air from our apartments. That we can absolutely do without it is certain; but that we should do better with it, is equally certain; and we draw this conclusion from an inspection of all animated nature, for we see the beasts of the earth, and the fowls of heaven, passing the whole of their life unprotected by artificial means, and thriving well, either in the noonday sun, or under the nocturnal dews, or exposed to the four rude winds of the sky, even when winter has set in.

Still civilised man will never change his usual habits, but will go snoring on from night to night, awake this hour, and dozing that, whilst his lungs, if they had the power of speech, would cry out and say: "Oh! we cannot stand this nasty atmosphere; we are obliged to work all night, and still you seem to have no pity What with the unwholesome vapours,

for us.

arising from your own overloaded stomach, and what with the stagnant air in the room, we shall be overpowered at last, do what we can to keep our action up; and then, for want of having your window an inch or two open (which would put every thing to rights in our department), when you least expect it, you will be called away to your long account by a fatal fit of apoplexy.

ON BEAUTY IN THE ANIMAL, CREATION.

EVERY species in the great family of animated nature is perfect in its own way, and most admirably adapted to the sphere of life in which an all-ruling Providence has ordered it to move. Could we divest ourselves of the fear which we have of the serpent, and forget for a while the dislike which we invariably show to the toad, both these animals would appear beautiful in our eyes; for, to say nothing of the brilliant colours which adorn the snake, there is wonderful grace and elegance in the gliding progress, wherein this reptile's symmetry appears to such great advantage.

The supposed horribly fascinating power, said to be possessed by the serpent, through the medium of the eye, has no foundation in truth. We give the snake credit for fixing his eye upon us, when in fact he can do no such thing; for his eye only moves with his body, and it has always the same appearance, and remains in the same position, whether the animal be roused by rage, or depressed by fear. It is shielded by an outward scale, which has no communication with it, and against which it cannot press; so that when we behold the eye of the serpent, represented by artists as starting out of the socket, we know that their delusive imagination has been at work, and that they are lamentably ignorant of the anatomy of this animal. If Mr. Swainson be an admirer of correctness in design, I would recommend him to revise and correct his overstrained eulogy on a certain overstrained performance which he terms, "mocking birds defending their nest from a rattle-snake."— (See Biography of Birds.)

The toad, that poor, despised, and harmless reptile, is admirable in its proportions, and has an eye of such transcendant beauty, that when