head. As there is no magnanimity so cheap, there is none so gratifying as this, for we like to purchase our virtues on good terms. One of Sheridan's creditors, after having long and vainly dunned him, at length suggested, that if he could not discharge the principal of the debt, he might, at least, pay the interest. "No," said the wag; "it is not my interest to pay the principal, nor my principle to pay the interest." Though he had previously hated the man for his vulgar importunity, it is recorded that he took him into favour from that moment, and actually defrayed the amount of his bill, a rare instance of preference, considering that he seldom discharged any debt till he paid that of nature.

Pleasant enough was the magnanimity of the person who, being reproached with not having revenged himself of a caning he had received, exclaimed, "Sir, I never meddle with what passes behind my back!"

MAN-An image of the Deity, which occasionally acts as if it were anxious to fill up a niche in the temple of the Devil. The only creature which, knowing its mortality and immortality, lives as if it were never to die, and too often dies as if it were never to live-the sole being gifted with reason, the only one that acts irrationally :—the nothing of yesterday-the

dust of to-morrow. Man is a fleeting paradox, which the fulness of time alone can explain; a living enigma, of which the solution will be found in death.

MARRIAGE-A state of which it is unnecessary to describe the great happiness, for two reasons ;first, because it would be superfluous to those who are in the enjoyment of its blessings; and secondly, because it would be impossible to those who are not.

Habituated as we are to the association of doves with loves, it seems startling to learn, on the authority of Pliny, that the Romans considered the hawk a bird of particularly good omen in marriage, because it never eats the hearts of other birds; thus intimating that no differences or quarrels, in the marriage state, ought ever to reach the heart.

The difficulty of effecting marriages, in these times of expensive establishments, is one of the great evils of our social system, and the principal source of corrupt manners. Malthus's prudential restraint is actively operative among the middling, and utterly neglected by the lower classes; hence the predominance of celibacy in the one, and of a redundant population and consequent pauperism, in the other.

"Marriage," says Dr. Johnson; "is the best state for a man in general; and every man is a worse man, in proportion as he is unfit for the married state." It may be doubted, however, whether another of his

positions could be maintained-" that marriages in general would be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of character and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter."

In the pressure that now weighs upon all persons of limited fortune, sisters, nieces and daughters, are the only commodities that our friends are willing to bestow upon us for nothing, and which we cannot afford to accept, even gratuitously. It seems to have been the same, at a former period, in France. Maitre Jean Picard tells us that, when he was returning from the funeral of his wife, doing his best to look disconsolate, such of the neighbours as had grown up daughters and cousins came to him, and kindly implored him not to be inconsolable, as they could give him a second wife.-" Six weeks after," says Maitre Jean, "I lost my cow, and, though I really grieved upon this occasion, not one of them offered to give me another."

It has been recorded by some anti-connubial wag, that when two widowers were once condoling together, on the recent bereavement of their wives, one of them cxclaimed, with a sigh, "Well may I bewail my loss, for I had so few differences with the dear deceased, that the last day of my marriage was as happy as the first."-"There I surpass you," said his friend, "for the last day of mine was happier!"

MARTYR—That which all religions have furnished in about equal proportions, so much easier is it to die for religion than to live for it. Our high church conservatives cry out, with a lusty voice, "Touch not that which has been cemented by the blood of the holy martyrs!" Why, these very martyrs, whose devotedness proves nothing but their sincerity, died in the cause of reform; and yet their example is cited as a warning against it! If their blood appeal to us at all, it may rather be supposed to cry out against the monstrous abuses of that Christianity, for whose cause they became martyrs.

MASQUERADE.-A synonyme for life and civilised society. There are two sorts of masquerade, simulation, or pretending to be what you are not: and dissimulation, or concealing what you are, and we are all mummers under one or the other of these categories, excepting a few performers at the two extremes of life-those who are above, and those who are beneath all regard for appearances. As a secret consciousness of their defects is always prompting hypocrites to disguise themselves in some assumed virtue, the only way to discover their real character, is to read them backwards, like a Hebrew book.

Many masqueraders on the stage of real life,

betray themselves by overacting their part. With religious pretenders this is more especially the case, and for an obvious reason, they increase the outward and visible sign, in proportion as they feel themselves deficient in the inward and spiritual grace. Can we wonder at their sanctimonious looks, and puritanical severity? Even when they flounder and fail in their hypocrisy, they would persuade us that their very blunders proceed from a heavenly impulse. They remind one of the fat friar, who being about to mount his mule, called upon his patron saint to assist him, and gave such a vigorous spring at the same time, that he fell over on the other side, when he exclaimed with an air of complacency, "Hallo! the good saint has helped me too much!"

So difficult is it to avoid overacting our part, that we cannot always escape this error, when we are agents and accessaries, instead of principals, in imposing upon the world. The Regent of France, intending to go to a masquerade in the character of a lackey, and expressing an anxious wish to remain undetected, the Abbé Dubois, suggested that this object might easily be attained, if he would allow him to go as his master, and to give him two or three kicks before the whole company. This was arranged accordingly, but the pretended master applied his foot so rudely and so often, that the