THERE is nothing in the world so stupid as the "wisdom of nations." Of every ten proverbs quoted as the essence of Truth, nine at least are arrant falsehoods. Treading in the footsteps of CHARLES LAMB—and, we fear, with terribly small boots-we shall do the best in our power to unmask a few of these pretenders, and shew how utterly unfit they are to live at the bottom of a well.

Take, as the first instance, that absurb copy-book dictum, which tells you that “ You should respect a person because he is old!" Greater nonsense was never uttered or penned. Is old age a merit? Not at all; it is merely an accident. All sorts of people come to be old; the trick only consists in living long enough. Grow up to be eighty or ninety -and there you are! And, after all, it cannot be a very difficult thing to keep good hours and fight shy of neat brandy, especially if you are fond of good hours and hate neat brandy with all your heart. Why should you be respected, though? There is no denying that, if a man determines to lead a good life, increase of years will give him increase of opportunities for being good; but it would never do to measure goodness by the multiplication-table, or to say that a good man of seventy is exactly twice as good as one of thirty-five. Moreover, if you suppose the man to embrace a vicious life, persevering in vice as he advances in age, your proverb comes to this: That you should despise a man because he is old! And cumulative evil is quite as probable a contingency to reckon on as cumulative good, seeing what weak animals we all are. So nothing in the way of repairing or patching up can make this proverb hold water. As much tenderness for old age as you please, on account of its feebleness; but remember that your tenderness comes from Pity-which is no more like Respect than looking down upon a thing is like looking up at it.

Again, some people are idiots enough to think, or even to say, that "You should never look a gift-horse in the mouth!" Why not, pray? Evidently the object of your examining the present would be to ascertain whether it were worthy of the giver, the receiver, and the occasion; because, if it were not, your obvious course would be to return it immediately with an expression of noble scorn upon your finely-chiselled brow. But you must examine the gift, on the strictest principles of logic. If you fail to do so through a misgiving that it may prove too trifling in value to suit your expectations, you insult the donor deliberately. If you fail through an unbounded confidence in his generosity-a confidence which can only be justified by this examination-you betray an amount of indifference to your own interest which represents weakness of intellect, to say the very least of it. So much for the motives, now for the results. Are you not as likely to find beauties as defects? If your inspection turns out satisfactory, what a gush of enthusiasm-what an additional glow of gratitude-it gives to the utterance of your thanks! And, supposing the reverse, are you any the worse for having looked? Surely the acquisition of Truth cannot be regarded as a misfortune.

Another of these pig-headed proverbs will inform you, that " You should be polite, because politeness costs nothing!" Now this is a pretty piece of reasoning to put before little boys and little girls at school. It institutes, in the first place, a kind of profit and loss account in morality and appeals to one of the most degraded feelings in our nature-the feeling of avarice-for the sake of inducing us to fulfil one of the most necessary social duties. If politeness cost us mints of money and years of toil to acquire would it be less a duty than when it can be had for nothing? Fewer people would be in possession of it, perhaps; but the duty would remain immutable. Besides the proverb is either quite false or else quite useless on other grounds. Politeness consists in a knowledge of the world based upon universal benevolence; therefore, to those who are ignorant of the world and not universally benevolent, politeness becomes a very hard thing indeed to practise, instead of costing nothing. It requires constant efforts, and are they nothing? To those who have the knowledge of the world and the requisite benevolence, politeness is nothing more or less than an instinet. They need no proverb to urge them to be polite. Applied, then, to the former class, the axiom is utterly false; applied to the latter, utterly useless.

We intended giving the honour of a rather minute investigation to the intensely ridiculous_theory, that " You should never speak ill of a man behind his back!" Just as if anybody with a spark of gentlemanly feeling could offer such a glaring insult to a man as to speak ill of him under his very nose. How could you attempt honest criticism of an erring fellow-creature if his glazed eye and quivering lip suggested that he disagreed with your opinions? We have not at present the room to devote a thorough examination to this fallacy. Perhaps the author of it entertained a vague idea that you should never speak ill of a man at all-that is, either in his presence or out of it. But it

must be remembered that good words are of no value coming from persons who cannot utter ill words when they are deserved. Would SMITH-Who is in the habit of supporting his grandpapa-care much for our favourable opinion if we also spoke well of JONES-whose grandpapa is in the workhouse? We think not; and, until our convictions alter, JONES will have nothing but hard words from the present philosophic writer.

THE ART OF PARODY.

TO THE EDITOR OF "FUN."

SIR,-Allow me to direct your attention to the following remarkably clever parody on the melancholy Jacques' speech in As You Like It. The subject is "Sea-sickness," a topic which, as every one is crossing the Channel just now, is of general interest. But I do not lay much stress on the mere seasonableness of the contribution, it is rather to the extraordinary talent for close parody that I have displayed that I would direct your attention.

You will observe that every line of the original speech has its counterpart in my contribution. When I read it over to my friends and acquaintances (few of whom are in ignorance of its beauties), I am absolutely astounded at the marvellous quickness of the wit which puns, not upon mere words, but upon whole poems.

What is to become of me? Am I destined to revolutionize the art of comic writing? Am I the man who is to write the burlesques and extravaganzas of the future? Are managers of theatres and editors of light literature doomed to fall prostrate at my feet in humble obeisance? Is it to me that society at large must look for its amusement for the next (say) forty years? To these questions I unhesitatingly reply, "I am! They are! It is!"

Modesty forbids my saying any more on this topic, though it is one upon which I could write libraries.

You will observe that in my parody I paint a traveller suffering the various throes that precede sea-sickness demonstrative, and his subsequent state of childish insensibility. (I omit the preamble "All the world's a stage," and begin at " At first, the infant.") PARODY, WITH NOTES.

When first he's in for 't, Mouthing and choking, hear him curse his qualms. Then as he lies recumbent, him you catch ill (satchell, you know) With whining mourning (morning, you will remember in the original) face, weeping like hail (creeping like snail), And drinking antidotes. And then (all over) (there being no doubt as to his fate) Sighing like furnace, with a woeful pallid Maid with her mistress nigh him, then much colder (" Then a soldier") Full of strained groans, and near dead, dying hard, ("Bearded like the pard," you know) Callous, 'pon honour, sudden and quick in illness, Constantly troublin' the basin, even at the Shannon's mouth. (This is remarkably close. The allusion to the Shannon not only helps out the parody, but gives locality to the scene.) And then disgust is (the justice)

Caused by the fellows that the cabin line
("Bellies with fat capon lined")

On every seat appears a form, ill cut-
(That is to say, huddled up, without definite outline)
eyesores and sea-sick instances

Full of

Mongst

("Full of wise saws and modern instances,”) whom he plays his part. The next stage shifts Into a green and hiccupped pant, alone ("Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,”) A spectacle one knows; from pouch inside The useful dose ("useful" satirically) ill-saved, is whirled a-wide Which he drunk-drank. Observe how close is my parody, and at the same time how natural. We all of us trip from time to time in our participles, and in none more frequently than in those of the verb "to drink." Similarly we all pull up, and correct the error as soon as it is out of our mouths.)

the

("For his shrunk shank."

So much for the parody. The continuation of JACQUES' speech fits continuation of my description of sea-sickness so closely that with a single exception in the case of the last line, parody is unnecessary. And his big manly voice Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all That ends this strange, eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivionSans everything but taste-sans everything! There! What do you say to that?

Yours,

A TREMBLING BEGINNER.