Rodaja; "for if learning reach high to you, you are never able to plunge into its depths."

He was one day leaning against the stall of a tailor, who was seated with his hands before him, and to whom he said, "Without doubt, you are in the way to salvation."

"From what symptom do you judge me to be so, Sir Doctor?" inquired the tailor.

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From the fact that, as you have nothing to do, so you have nothing to lie about, and may cease lying, which is a great step."

Of the shoemakers he said that not one of that trade ever performed his office badly; seeing that if the shoe be too narrow, and pinches the foot, the shoemaker says, "In two hours it will be as wide as a cord sandal"; or he declares it right that it should be narrow, since the shoe of a gentleman must needs fit closely; and if it be too wide, he maintains that it still ought to be so, for the ease of the foot, and lest a man should have the gout.

Seeing the waiting-maid of an actress attending her mistress, he said she was much to be pitied who had to serve so many women, to say nothing of the men whom she also had to wait on. The bystanders requiring to know how the damsel, who had but to serve one, could be said to wait on so many, he replied, "Is she not the waiting-maid of a queen, a nymph, a goddess, a scullery-maid, and a shepherdess? Besides that, she is also the servant of a page and a lackey. For all these, and many more, are in the person of an actress."

Some one asked Rodaja who had been the happiest man in the world. To which he answered, "Nobody; because nobody knows who his father is, nobody lives blameless, nobody is satisfied with his lot, and nobody goes to heaven."

Of the fencing-masters he said that they were professors of an art which was never to be known when it was most wanted, since they pretended to reduce to mathematical demonstrations, which are infallible, the angry thoughts and movements of a man's adversaries.

To such men as dyed their beards Rodaja always exhibited a particular enmity. One day, observing a Portuguese, whose beard he knew to be dyed, in dispute with a Spaniard, to whom he said, "I swear by the beard that I wear on my face," Rodaja called out to him, "Halt there, friend! You should not say that you wear on your face, but that you dye on your face."

To another, whose beard had been streaked by an imperfect dye, Dr. Glass-case said, "Your beard is true dustcolored piebald."

He related, on another occasion, that a certain damsel, discreetly conforming to the will of her parents, had agreed to marry an old man with a white beard, who, on the evening before his marriage was to take place, thought fit to have his beard dyed, and whereas he had taken it from the sight of his betrothed as white as snow, he presented it at the altar with a color blacker than that of pitch. Seeing this, the damsel turned to her parents and requested them to give her the spouse they had promised, saying that she would have him, and no other. They assured her that he whom she there saw was the person they had before shown her, and given her for her spouse; but she refused to believe it, maintaining that he whom her parents had given her was a grave person, with a white beard. Nor was she by any means to be persuaded that the dyed man before her was her betrothed, and the marriage was broken off. Toward elderly ladies' companions he entertained as great

a dislike as toward those who dyed their beards; uttering wonderful things respecting their falsehood and affectation, their tricks and pretenses, their simulated scruples and their real wickedness; reproaching them with their fancied maladies of stomach, and the frequent giddiness with which they were afflicted in the head. Nay, even their mode of speaking was made the subject of his censure; and he declared that there were more turns in their speech than folds in their great togas and wide gowns. Finally, he declared them altogether useless, if not much worse.

Being one day much tormented by a hornet which settled on his neck, he nevertheless refused to take it off, lest in seeking to catch the insect he should break himself; but he still complained wofully of the sting. Some one then remarked to him that it was scarcely to be supposed he would feel it much, since his whole person was of glass. But Rodaja replied that the hornet in question must needs be a slanderer, seeing that slanderers were of a race whose tongues were capable of penetrating bodies of bronze, to say nothing of glass.

A monk who was enormously fat one day passed near where Rodaja was sitting, when one who stood by ironically remarked that the father was so reduced and consumptive as scarcely to be capable of walking. Offended by this, Rodaja exclaimed, "Let none forget the words of holy Scripture, 'Nolite tangere Christos meos""; and, becoming still more heated, he bade those around him reflect a little, when they would see that, of the many saints canonized and placed among the number of the blessed by the Church within a few years in those parts, none had been called Captain Don Such a One, or Lawyer Don So-and-So, or Marquis of Such a Place; but all were Brother Diego, Brother Jacinto, or

Brother Raimundo, all monks and friars, proceeding, that is to say, from the monastic orders. "These," he added, “are the orange-trees of heaven, whose fruits are placed on the table of God."

Of evil-speakers Rodaja said that they were like the feathers of the eagle, which gnaw, wear away, and reduce to nothing, whatever feathers of other birds are mingled with them in beds or cushions, how good soever those feathers may be.

Concerning the keepers of gaming-houses he uttered wonders, and many more than can here be repeated—commending highly the patience of a certain gamester, who would remain all night playing and losing. Yea, though of choleric disposition by nature, he would never open his mouth to complain, although he was suffering the martyrdom of Barabbas, provided only his adversary did not cut the cards. In a word, Rodaja uttered so many sage remarks that, had it not been for the cries he sent forth when any one approached near enough to touch him, and for his peculiar dress, slight food, strange manner of eating, sleeping in the air, or lying buried in straw, no one would have supposed but that he was one of the most acute persons in the world.

-"Exemplary Tales."

Tome Burguillos

To-Morrow

I DREAM of a to-morrow, which to-morrow
Will be as distant then as 'tis to-day;

For Phoebus, who oft teases man with sorrow,
Will never turn his car to light my way.
So that I'm certain now that morning's ray
Will never dawn; and, Phyllis, thou mayst borrow
Some other phrase from language for to-morrow,

And to-morrow, and to-morrow-but betray.
I called upon Dan Cupid (when I find

Sweet company I never walk alone), And said, "Come with me, an you are inclined; Let's seek this maiden morrow, for I groan Impatient." Then I curse my eyes-they're blind. Oh, no, I will not curse them—they're my own.