the other, pointing to the hunters. "They seem to have some mettle; but then they are mere colts, and will take the devil and all of breaking. Methinks this hinder one is shoulder-slipped." "Damn them!" cried the commodore, "I wish both their necks were broken, though the two cost me forty good yellow-boys!" "Forty guineas!" exclaimed the stranger, who was a squire and a jockey, as well as owner of the pack. "Lord! how a man may be imposed upon! Why, these cattle are clumsy enough to go to plough. Mind what a flat counter; do but observe how sharp this here one is in the withers; then, he's fired in the further fetlock." In short, this connoisseur in horseflesh, having discovered in them all the defects which can possibly be found in that species of animals, offered to give him ten guineas for the two, saying he would convert them into beasts of burden. The owner, who, after what had happened, was very well disposed to listen to anything that was said to their prejudice, implicitly believed the truth of the stranger's asseverations, discharged a furious volley of oaths against the rascal who had taken him in, and forthwith struck a bargain with the squire, who paid him instantly for his purchase in consequence of which he won the plate at the next Canterbury races.

This affair being transacted to the mutual satisfaction of both parties, as well as to the general entertainment of the company, who laughed in their sleeves at the dexterity of their friend, Trunnion was set upon the squire's own horse, and led by his servant in the midst of this cavalcade, which proceeded to a neighbouring village, where they had bespoke dinner, and where our bridegroom found means to provide himself with another hat and wig. With regard to his marriage, he bore his disappointment with the temper of a philosopher. And the exercise he had undergone having quickened

his appetite, he sat down at table in the midst of his new acquaintance, making a very hearty meal, and moistening every morsel with a draught of the ale, which he found very much to his satisfaction.—“ Peregrine Pickle.”

The Origin of Breeches

I INTENDED to insert a dissertation on trousers, or trunk breeches, called by the Latins bracce laxa; by the Spaniards, bragas anchas; by the Italians, calzoni larghi; by the French, haut-de-chausses; by the Saxons, broecce; by the Swedes, brackoe; by the Irish, bricchan; by the Celts, brag; and by the Japanese, braak. I could make curious investigations, and point out the precise time when the women of Hellas began to wear the breeches. I would have demonstrated that the cingulum muliebre was originally nothing but the wife's wearing, at certain seasons, the husband's trousers, as a mark of dominion transferred, pro tempore, to the female. I would have drawn a curious parallel between the girdle of the Greeks and the waist-cloth worn by the black ladies of Guinea. I would have proved that breeches were not first used for protection of the body against the weather, inasmuch as they were first worn by the Orientals in a warm climate, as you may read in "Persius." I would have shown that breeches were first brought from Asia to the northern parts of Europe by the Celts; that trousers were worn in Scotland long before the time of Pythagoras. Indeed, we are told by Jamblychus that Abaris, the famous Highland philosopher, contemporary, and personal acquaintance of the sage of Crotona, wore long trousers. I myself can attest the truth of that description, as I well remember the person and dress

of that learned mountaineer. I would have explained the reasons that compelled the posterity of those mountaineers to abandon the breeches of their forefathers, and expose their knees to the wind. I would have convinced the English antiquaries that the inhabitants of Yorkshire came originally from the Highlands of Scotland, before the Scots had laid aside their breeches, and wore this part of dress, long after their ancestors, as well as the southern Britons, were unbreeched by the Romans. From this distinction they acquired the name of Brigantes, quasi Bragantes; and hence came the verb to brag, or boast contemptuously; for the neighbours of the Brigantes, being at variance with that people, used, by way of contumelious defiance, to clap their hands to the seat of their trousers and cry Brag-Brag. I would have drawn a learned comparison between the shield of Ajax and the sevenfold breeches of a Dutch skipper. Finally, I would have promulgated the original use of trunkbreeches, which would have led me into a discussion of the rites of a divinity differently worshipped by the southern and northern inhabitants of this kingdom. These disquisitions would have unveiled the mysteries that now conceal the origin, migration, superstitions, languages, laws, and connections of different nations. But I shall only observe that Linschot and others are mistaken in deriving the Japanese from their neighbours the Chinese; and that Dr. Kempfer is right in his conjecture, supposing them to have come from Media immediately after the confusion of Babel. It is no wonder, therefore, that, being Braccatorum filii, they should retain the wide breeches of their progenitors.

-"The History of an Atom."

Unregretted School Days

I WAS sent to school at a village hard by, of which my grandfather had been dictator time out of mind; but as he neither paid for my board, nor supplied me with clothes, books, and other necessaries I required, my condition was very ragged and contemptible; and the schoolmaster, who through fear of my grandfather taught me gratis, gave himself no concern about the progress I made under his instruction.

In spite of all these difficulties and disgraces, I became a good proficient in the Latin tongue; and as soon as I could write tolerably, pestered my grandfather with letters to such a degree, that he sent for my master and chid him severely for bestowing such pains on my education, telling him that if ever I should be brought to the gallows for forgery, which he had taught me to commit, my blood would lie on his head. The pedant, who dreaded nothing more than the displeasure of his patron, assured his Honour that the boy's ability was more owing to his own genius and application than to any instruction or encouragement he received; that, although he could not divest him of the knowledge he had already imbibed unless he would empower him to disable his fingers, he should endeavour, with God's help, to prevent his future improvement. And, indeed, he punctually performed what he had undertaken; for, on pretence that I had written impertinent letters to my grandfather, he caused a board to be made with five holes in it, through which he thrust the fingers and thumb of my right hand, and fastened it with a whip-cord to my wrist in such a manner as effectually de

barred me from the use of my pen. But this restraint I was freed from in a few days, by an accident which happened in a quarrel between me and another boy, who, taking upon him to insult my poverty, I was so incensed at his ungenerous reproach, that with one stroke of my machine I cut him to the skull, to the great terror of myself and school fellows, who left him bleeding on the ground, and ran to inform the master of what had happened. I was so severely punished for this trespass, that were I to live to the age of Methusalem, the impression it made on me would not be effaced, no more than the antipathy and horror I conceived for the merciless tyrant who inflicted it.

The contempt which my appearance naturally produced in all who saw me, the continual wants to which I was exposed, and my own haughty disposition, impatient of affronts, involved me in a thousand troublesome adventures, by which I was at length inured to adversity, and emboldened to undertakings far above my years. I was often inhumanly scourged for crimes I did not commit, because, having the character of a vagabond in the village, every piece of mischief, whose author lay unknown, was charged upon me. I have been found guilty of robbing orchards I never entered, of killing cats I never hurted, of stealing gingerbread I never touched, and of abusing old women I never saw. Nay, a stammering carpenter had eloquence enough to persuade my master that I fired a pistol, loaded with small shot, into his window; though my landlady and the whole family bore witness that I was abed, fast asleep, at the time when this outrage was committed. I was once flogged for having narrowly escaped drowning, by the sinking of a ferry-boat in which I was passenger; another time for having recovered of a bruise occasioned by a horse and cart running over me; a third time for