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was in 1859. No rheumatic person shall | tution of our country does not say so. snore in my house.

I candidly acknowledge that I ran away at the battle of Gettysburg. My friends have tried to smooth over this fact by asserting that I merely got behind a tree; that I did so for the purpose of imitating Washington, who went into the woods at Valley Forge to say his prayers. It is a miserable subterfuge. I cut in a straight line for the Tropic of Cancer, simply because I was scared. I wanted my country saved, but I preferred having somebody else save her. I entertain that preference yet. If the bubble reputation can be obtained only at the cannon's mouth I am willing to go there for it, providing the cannon is empty. If it is loaded, my immortal and inflexible purpose is to get suddenly over the fence and go home. My invariable practice in war has been to bring out of any given fight two-thirds more men than I took in. This seems to me to be Napoleonic in its grandeur.

The last time I ran for the Presidency there was some unpleasant talk about my implication in a transaction with the widow Pollock's ducks. The matter was hushed up; but I have no objection to admitting the truth respecting it. I have always had a favorite theory that roast ducks were conducive to hysterical symptoms, and as every instinct of my nature prompts me to protect the widow from the ravages of hysteria, I entered the coop in the garden and regretfully but firmly removed these ducks. The fact that she began a prosecution against me is not a matter of consequence. It is the fate of the philanthropist to be misunderstood. But duty is my guiding star, and if it leads me to ducks or destruction I shall follow it.

My financial views are of the most decided character, but they are not likely, perhaps, to increase my popularity with the advocates of inflation and contraction. I do not insist upon the special supremacy of rag money or hard money. great fundamental principle of my life is to take any kind that I can get.

The

The rumor that I buried a dead aunt under one of my grape vines is founded upon fact. The vine needed fertilizing, my aunt had to be buried, and I dedicated her to this high purpose. Does that unfit me for the Presidency? The Consti

No other citizen was ever considered unworthy of the office because he enriched his grape vines with his relations. Why should I be selected as the first victim of an absurd prejudice?

I admit, also, that I am not a friend of the poor man. I regard the poor man, in his present condition, as so much wasted raw material. Cut up and properly canned he might be made useful to fatten the natives of the Cannibal Islands, and to improve our export trade with that region; I shall recommend legislation upon the subject in my first message. My campaign cry will be: Dessicate the poor working man! Stuff him into sausages !"

These are about the worst parts of my record. On them I come before the country. If my country don't want me I will go back again. But I recommend myself as a safe man-a man who starts from the basis of total depravity and proposes to be fiendish to the last.

MAX ADELER.

ST. ANTHONY'S SERMON TO THE
FISHES.

SAINT Anthony at church
Was left in the lurch,
So he went to the ditches
And preached to the fishes.

They wriggled their tails,

In the sun glanced their scales.
The carps with their spawn,
Are all thither drawn ;
Have opened their jaws,
Eager for each clause.

No sermon beside

Had the carps so edified.
Sharp-snouted pikes,
Who keep fighting like tikes,
Now swam up harmonious
To hear Saint Antonius.

No sermon beside

Had the pikes so edified.
And that very odd fish,
Who loves fast-days, the cod-fish,-
The stock-fish, I mean,—
At the sermon was seen.
No sermon beside

Had the cods so edified.

Good eels and sturgeon,
Which aldermen gorge on,
Went out of their way
To hear preaching that day.
No sermon beside

Had the eels so edified.

Crabs and turtles also,
Who always move low,
Make haste from the bottom
As if the devil had got 'em.
No sermon beside
The crabs so edified.

Fish great and fish small,
Lords, lackeys, and all,
Each looked at the preacher
Like a reasonable creature.
At God's word,
They Anthony heard.

The sermon now ended,
Each turned and descended;
The pikes went on stealing,
The eels went on eeling.

Much delighted were they,
But preferred the old way.

The crabs are back-sliders,
The stock-fish thick-siders,
The carps are sharp-set,
All the sermon forget.

Much delighted were they,
But preferred the old way.

ABRAHAM A SANCTA CLARA, 1642-1709.

A BRIDE'S DREAM.

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lowing from her: Last night I dreamed I was single, and as I walked through a well-lighted street I came to a store where a sign in front advertised husbands for sale. Thinking it curious I entered, and ranged along the wall, on either side, were men with prices affixed to them. Such beautiful men; some for $1,000, some for $500, and so on to $150. And as I had not that amount I could not purchase." Thinking to console her, B. placed his arm lovingly around her, and asked: "And did you see any men like me there?" "Oh, yes," she replied, drawing away from him, "lots like you; they were tied up in bunches, like asparagus, and sold for ten cents per bunch." Brundy got up, and went to ask his lawyer if he had sufficient ground for divorce.

A LIVELY TIME.

At

IN Charles Lever's "O'Donoghue " there occurs a rich passage, illustrating the relations subsisting between an improving landlord and an untutored tenant. The agent presents the tenants to the worthy innovator, who inquires into the condition of the grumbling and dissatisfied recipients of his favors. length on a tenant presenting himself whom the agent fails to recognize, the baronet turns to the figure before him, which, with face and head swollen out of all proportion, and showing distorted features and fiery eyes through the folds of a cotton handkerchief, awaits his adBRUNDY has been married two weeks, dress in sullen silence. "Who are you, and has left his wife. Brundy is a little my good man? What has happened to man, and his wife weighs two hundred you?" "Faix, an' its well ye may ax; and forty pounds, and was the relict of me own mother would n't know me this the late Peter Potts. About ten days blessed morning; 't is all your doin' enafter marriage Brundy was surprised, on tirely." "My doing?" replied the asawakening in the morning, to find his tonished baronet. "What can I have to better half sitting up in bed, crying as if her heart would break. Astonished, he asked the cause of her sorrow, but receiving no reply he began to surmise that there must be some secret on her mind that she withheld from him, that was the cause of her anguish; so he remarked to Mrs. B. that as they were married she should tell him the cause of her grief, so, if possible, he could avert it, and after considerable coaxing he elicited the fol

do with the state you are in, my good man?" "Yes, it is your doin'," answered the proprietor of the swollen head; "'tis all your doin', and well ye may be proud of it. "T was thim blessed bees ye gev me. We brought the devils into the house last night, an' where did we put them but in the pig's corner. Well, after Katty and the childer and myself was a while in bid, the pig goes rootin' about the house, an' he was n't aisy till he

hooked his nose into the hive, and spilt the bees out about the flure; and thin whin I got out of bid to let out the pig, that was a-roarin' through the house, the bees settled down on me, and began stingin' me, an' I jumped into bid agin wid the whole of thim after me, into Katty an' the childer; an' thin, what with the bees a-buzzin' an' a-stinging us under the clothes, out we all jumped agin, an' the devil sich a night was ever spint in Ireland as we spint last night, what wid Katty an' the childer a-roarin' an' a-bawlin', an' the pig tarin' up an' down like mad, an' Katty wid the besom an' myself wid the fryin'-pan, flattenin' the bees agin the wall till mornin', an' thin the soight we wor in the mornin' -begor it's ashamed of yerself ye ought

to be!"

CATCHING THE MORNING TRAIN.

I FIND that one of the most serious objections to living out of town lies in the difficulty experienced in catching the early morning train by which I must reach the city and my business. It is by no means a pleasant matter, under any circumstances, to have one's movements regulated by a time-table, and to be obliged to rise to breakfast and to leave home at a certain hour, no matter how strong the temptation to delay may be. But sometimes the horrible punctuality of the train is productive of absolute suffering. For instance: I look at my watch when I get out of bed and find that I have apparently plenty of time, so I dress leisurely, and sit down to the morning meal in a frame of mind which is calm and serene. Just as I crack my first egg I hear the down train from Wilmington. I start in alarm; and taking out my watch I compare it with the clock and find that it is eleven minutes slow, and that I have only five minutes left in which to get to the depot.

I endeavor to scoop the egg from the shell, but it burns my fingers, the skin is tough, and after struggling with it for a moment, it mashes into a hopeless mass. I drop it in disgust and seize a roll; while I scald my tongue with a quick mouthful of coffee. Then I place the roll in my mouth while my wife hands me my

satchel and tells me she thinks she hears the whistle. I plunge madly around looking for my umbrella, then I kiss the family good-by as well as I can with a mouth full of roll, and dash toward the door.

Just as I get to the gate I find that I have forgotten my duster and the bundle my wife wanted me to take up to the city to her aunt. Charging back, I snatch them up and tear down the gravel-walk in a frenzy. I do not like to run through the village: it is undignified and it attracts attention; but I walk furiously. I go faster and faster as I get away from the main street. When half the distance is accomplished, I actually do hear the whistle; there can be no doubt about it this time. I long to run, but I know that if I do I will excite that abominable speckled dog sitting by the sidewalk a little distance ahead of me. Then I really see the train coming around the curve close by the depot, and I feel that I must make better time; and I do. The dog immediately manifests an interest in my movements. He tears down the street after me, and is speedily joined by five or six other dogs, which frolic about my legs and bark furiously. Sundry small boys as I go plunging past, contribute to the excitement by whistling with their fingers, and the men who are at work upon the new meeting-house stop to look at me and exchange jocular remarks with each other. I do feel ridiculous; but I must catch that train at all hazards.

I become desperate when I have to slacken my pace until two or three women who are standing upon the sidewalk, discussing the infamous price of butter, scatter to let me pass. I arrive within a few yards of the station with my duster flying in the wind, with my coat tails in a horizontal position, and with the speckled dog nipping my heels, just as the train begins to move. I put on extra pressure, resolving to get the train or perish, and I reach it just as the last car is going by. I seize the hand-rail; I am jerked violently around, but finally, after a desperate effort, I get upon the step with my knees, and am hauled in by the brakeman, hot, dusty and mad, with my trousers torn across the knees, my legs bruised and three ribs of my umbrella broken.

Just as I reach a comfortable seat in

To draw his peg-top's tooth!

And cried, 'Oh naughty Nancy Lake,
Aunt Hannah heard the window break,

the car, the train stops, and then backs | This made him cry with rage and spite: up on the siding, where it remains for Well, let him cry, it serves him right. half an hour while the engineer repairs a A pretty thing, forsooth! dislocated valve. The anger which burns If he's to melt, all scalding hot, in my bosom as I reflect upon what now Half my doll's nose, and I am not is proved to have been the folly of that race is increased as I look out of the window and observe the speckled dog engaged with his companions in an altercation over a bone. A man who permits his dog to roam about the streets nipping the legs of every one who happens to go at a more rapid gait than a walk, is unfit for association with civilized beings. He ought to be placed on a desert island in mid-ocean, and be compelled to stay there.

MAX ADELER.

THE BABY'S DEBUT. [From the Rejected Addresses of Horace and James Smith. It is an imitation, and an extremely successful

one, of Wordsworth's most simple style, and Lord Jeffrey's criticism upon it is very accurate: The author does not, Jeffrey wrote in the Edinburgh Review, 'in this instance, attempt to copy any of the higher attri

butes of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry; but has succeeded perfectly in the imitation of his mawkish affectations of childish simplicity and nursery stammering.']

'Thy lisping prattle and thy mincing gait,
All thy false mimic fooleries I hate;
For thou art Folly's counterfeit, and she
Who is right foolish hath the better plea;
Nature's true Idiot I prefer to thee.'

CUMBERLAND.

[Spoken in the character of Nancy Lake, a girl eight years

of age, who is drawn upon the stage in a child's chaise by
Samuel Hughes, her uncle's porter.]

My brother Jack was nine in May,
And I was eight on New-Year's day;
So in Kate Wilson's shop
Papa (he's my papa and Jack's)
Bought me, last week, a doll of wax,
And brother Jack a top.

Jack's in the pouts, and this it is,-
He thinks mine came to more than his;
So to my drawer he goes,

Takes out the doll, and, oh, my stars!
He pokes her head between the bars,
And melts off half her nose!

Quite cross, a bit of string I beg,
And tie it to his peg-top's peg,

And bang, with might and main,
Its head against the parlour-door:
Off flies the head, and hits the floor,
And breaks a window-pane.

No Drury-Lane for you to-day!'
Thus to distress your aunt:
And while papa said, Pooh, she may!'
Mamma said, 'No, she sha'n't!'
Well, after many a sad reproach,
They get into a hackney coach,

And trotted down the street.
I saw them go: one horse was blind,
The tails of both hung down behind,
Their shoes were on their feet.

The chaise in which poor brother Bill
Used to be drawn to Pentonville,

Stood in the lumber-room:
I wiped the dust from off the top,
While Molly mopp'd it with a mop,

And brush'd it with a broom.

My uncle's porter, Samuel Hughes,
Came in at six to black the shoes

(I always talk to Sam):
So what does he, but takes, and drags
Me in the chaise along the flags,
And leaves me where I am.
My father's walls are made of brick,
But not so tall, and not so thick

As these; and, goodness me!
But never, never half so good
My father's beams are made of wood,

As those that now I see.

What a large floor! 'tis like a town!
The carpet, when they lay it down,

Won't hide it, I'll be bound;
And there's a row of lamps!-my eye!
How they do blaze! I wonder why

They keep them on the ground.
At first I caught hold of the wing,
And kept away; but Mr. Thing-
um bob, the prompter man,
Gave with his hand my chaise a shove,
And said, 'Go on, my pretty love;
Speak to 'em, little Nan.

'You've only got to curtsey, whisp-
er, hold your chin up, laugh, and lisp,
And then you're sure to take:
I've known the day when brats, not quite
Thirteen, got fifty pounds a night;

Then why not Nancy Lake?'

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EPIGRAMS.

A MODERN writer, speaking of the old monarchy of France, just before the Revolution, defined it as a despotism limited by epigrams." If there were found force and virtue enough in epigrams to limit such a despotism as that, we may well spend a half hour in investigating the nature and the varieties of the Epigram.

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Like so many others of our good things, we owe the word Epigram" and the idea for which it stands to the Greeks,the most ingenious, the most subtle, and the most cultivated of all the nations of antiquity. Our dictionary-makers, with absurd narrowness, define the epigram to be "a short poem, treating only of one thing, and ending with some lively, ingenious and natural thought." But by this definition, half the epigrams which have acquired popular currency must be excluded from the category of epigrams, because they are not in verse. This definition manifestly is as unfair as it is narrow. Let our lexicographers stick to their province and report the true usage and significance of terms, defining and not confining the ir meaning.

An epigram, then, is a pithy or pointed saying, either in prose or verse, so expressed as to amuse or to impress the mind. Less didactic than the proverb, less sententious than the aphorism, the epigram enlivens while it instructs us. To make the perfect epigram, wit and sense should be evenly and harmoniously blended. But as Alexander Smith sought, and sought in vain for "a poem

I mark the restless motions of the more fero-round and perfect as a star," so the per

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fect epigram is far to seek and hard to find.

The French, who have the credit of being the liveliest and the most volatile nation in the world, have more epigrams than any other. But the great majority of those we find in the French Ana and Memoirs are local and personal, while nearly all of them lose their flavor in being transplanted to our English tongue. Some few sayings, like Fouché's "It was worse than a crime, it was a blunder;" or "After me the deluge" of Louis XV.; or Voltaire's "God is on the side of the heaviest battalions," (a saying, by the

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