'em then? Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear 'em. No, sir I'm not going out a dowdy to please you or anybody else Gracious knows! it isn't often that I step over the thresh old; indeed, I might as well be a slave at once: better I should say; but when I do go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to go as a lady. Oh! that rain-if it isn't enough to break in the windows.

Ugh! I look forward with dread for to-morrow! How I am to go to mother's I'm sure I can't tell, but if I die, I'll do it. No, sir; I won't borrow an umbrella: no; and you shan't buy one. (With great emphasis.) Mr. Caudle, if you bring home another umbrella, I'll throw it in the street.

Ha! It was only last week I had a new nozzle put to that umbrella. I'm sure if I'd have known as much as I do now, it might have gone without one. Paying for new nozzles for other people to laugh at you! Oh! it's all very well for you; you can go to sleep. You've no thought of your poor patient wife, and your own dear children; you think of nothing but lending umbrellas !

Men, indeed!-call themselves lords of the creation! pretty lords, when they can't even take care of an umbrella !

I know that walk to-morrow will be the death of me, but that's what you want: then you may go to your club, and do as you like; and then nicely my poor dear children will be used; but then, sir, then you'll be happy. Oh! don't tell me! I know you will: else you'd never have lent the umbrella!

You have to go on Thursday about that summons; and, of course, you can't go. No, indeed: you don't go without the umbrella. You may lose the debt for what I care-it won't be so much as spoiling your clothes-better lose it; people deserve to lose debts who lend umbrellas!

And I should like to know how I'm to go to mother's without the umbrella. Oh! don't tell me that I said I would go; that's nothing to do with it: nothing at all. She'll think I'm neglecting her; and the little money we 're shan't have at all:-because we 've no umbrella. The children, too!-(dear things!) they'll be sopping wet;

to have, we

for they shan't stay at home; they shan't lose their learning; it's all their father will leave them, I'm sure. But they shall go to school. Don't tell me they shouldn't; (you are so aggravating, Caudle, you'd spoil the temper of an angel;) they shall go to school: mark that; and if they get their deaths of cold, it's not my fault; I didn't lend the umbrella.

"Here," says Caudle, in his manuscript, "I fell asleep and dreamed that the sky was turned into green calico, with whalebone ribs that, in fact, the whole world revolved under a tremendous umbrella!"

:

"HELPS TO READ.”—BYROM.

A CERTAIN artist, I've forgot his name,-
Had got, for making spectacles, a fame,

Or, "helps to read," as, when they first were sold,
Was writ upon his glaring sign in gold;

And, for all uses to be had from glass,
His were allowed by readers to surpass.
There came a man into his shop one day-
"Are you the spectacle contriver, pray?"
"Yes sir," said he, "I can in that affair

Contrive to please you, if you want a pair." "Can you? pray do, then." So at first he chose To place a youngish pair upon his nose;

And,-book produced, to see how they would fit,— Asked how he liked them. "Like 'em!-not a bit." "Then, sir, I fancy, if you please to try,

These in my hand will better suit your eye ?". "No, but they don't." Well, come, sir, if you please, Here is another sort: we'll e'en try these;

Still somewhat more they magnify the letter. Now, sir ?"--" Why, now, I'm not the bit the better." "No! here-take these, which magnify still more,

How do they fit?"—"Like all the rest before!”

t

In short they tried a whole assortment through, 3. But all in vain, for none of them would do. The operator, much surprised to find

So odd a case, thought sure the man is blind! "What sort of eyes can you have got ?" said he. "Why, very good ones, friend, as you may see.” "Yes, I perceive the clearness of the ball.

"

Pray, let me ask you-Can you read at all?”

No! you great blockhead !—If I could, what need
Of paying you for any helps to read?'"

6

And so he left the maker in a heat,
Resolved to post him for an arrant cheat.

THE GRAHAM SYSTEM.-ANON.

On! wond'rous age, surpassing ages past!
When mind is marching at a quick-step pace;

When steam and politics are flying fast,

When roads to rails, and wine to tea give place—

When great reformers race, and none can stay 'em—

Oh! Jackson, Tappan, Symmes, Sam Patch and Graham!
The last shall be the first-'twere shame to think

That thou, Starvation's monarch, couldst be beaten;
Who proved that drink was never made to drink,
Nor food itself intended to be eaten—

That Heaven provided for our use, instead,
The sand and saw-dust which compose thy bread.
A startling truth!-we question while we stare-
A ling'ring doubt still haunts the imagination,
That God ne'er meant to stint us in our fare;

No doubt a prejudice of education;

For fact is fact-this ought to make us humble-
Our brains confess it, though our stomachs grumble.

But why on us pursue thy cruel plan?

Oh, why condemn us thus to bread and water?

Perchance thou countest all the race of man,

As rogues and culprits who deserve no quarter;
And 'tis thy part to punish, not to spare,
By putting us upon State Prison fare.

All flesh is poison, in thy sapient eyes,—

No doubt thou 'rt right, and all mankind are wrong; But still, in spite of us, the thought will rise,

How, eating poison, men have lived so long? Mayhap thou meanest a slow-poison, then, Which takes effect at three-score-years-and-ten.

Our table treasures vanish one by one,

Beneath thy wand, like Sancho's, they retire;
Now steaks are rare, and mutton-chops are done,
Veal's in a stew, the fat is in the fire;
Fish, flesh and fowl, are ravish'd in a trice-
"Insatiate Graham! could not one suffice?"

"The

When wine was banished by the cruel fates,
Oh, gentle tea! for thee I trembled then;
cup which cheers but not inebriates,"
Not even thou must grace our boards again!
Imperial is dethroned, as I foreboded-
Bolea is dish'd, Gunpowder is exploded!

Venison is vile, a cup of coffee curst,

And food that's fried, or fricasseed, forgot;
Duck is destruction, wine of woes is worst,

Clams are condemned, and poultry's gone to pot;
Pudding and pork are under prohibition,
Mustard is murder, pepper is perdition!

But dread'st thou not some famished foe may rise,
With vengeful arm, and break thy daring jaw --
Thou robber of our vitals' best supplies,

Beware! "there is no joking with the maw,' Nor hope the world will in thy footsteps follow, Thy bread and doctrine are too hard to swallow.

DIOGENES NO FOOL.-C. L. PORTER.

THE sage who lit a candle in the day,
And wisely peering, said, "I seek a man,"
Was not so crazy after all, for they

Are seen as rarely now as they were then.
There's any quantity of gentlemen.

You know them by their oath, and their cigar,
And cranium's emptiness; not one in ten
Is sensible as Plato's bipeds were;
Divest them of their feathers, you undo 'em,
For in their case the tailor makes the man;
Just strip the rooster, and there's nothing to 'em,
They'll soon evaporate; mind must lead the van.
Then hope for the "Eureka", brother, when
The Standard of the man is soul again!

PEDANTS SEEKING PATRONAGE-W. B. FOWLE.

TIGIT, a mathematician; TRILL, a musician; SESQUIPEDALIA, a linguist and philosopher; DRONE, a servant of Mr. Morrell, in whose house the scene is laid.

DIGIT alone.

Digit. If theologians are in want of a proof that mankind are daily degenerating, let them apply to me, Archimedes Digit. I can furnish them with one as clear as any demonstration in Euclid's third or fifth book; and it is this, the sublime and exalted science of mathematics is falling into general disuse. Oh, that the patriotic inhabitants of this extensive country should suffer so degrading a circumstance to exist! Why, yesterday, I asked a lad of fifteen which he preferred, algebra or geometry; and he told me-oh horrible! he told me he had never studied them! I was thunderstruck, I was astonished, I was petrified! Never studied geometry!