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Such forms a pleasant division of the day's allotted task, and is by no means prejudicial.

Whilst matters of a substantial class are occupying some necessary time in preparing, comfort will be consulted by a grateful ablution of the face and hands from the dust, &c.; and the recital of a stave out of " Croker's Legends of Killarney" will not diminish the appetite of our travellers whilst the courses are removing, though that be fast evanishing in the glancing sheen of knives and forks.

Father Cuddy sang for entertainment to his assembled friends the following, with mirth in his eye and melody on his tongue :

"Quam pulchra sunt ova

Cum alba et nova

In stabulo scite legunter,

Et a Margery bella

Quæ festiva puella!

Pinguis lardi cum frustis coquuntur

"Ut belles in prato

Aprico et lato

Sub sole tam læte renident,

Ova tosta in mensa

Mappa bene extensa

Nitidissima lance consident."

Croker furnishes very kindly a fair and elegant trans

lation-thus:

"O'tis eggs are are a treat,

When, so white and so sweet,

From under the manger they're taken,

And by fair Margery,

Och! 'tis she's full of glee,

They are fried with fat rashers of bacon."

Just like daisies all spread

O'er a broad sunny mead,

In the sunbeams so beauteously shining,
Are fried eggs well displayed

On a dish, when we've laid

The cloth, and are thinking of dining."

"The Legends of Killarney" abound with humour and wit, and very likely our readers will feel tempted, from this specimen, to hunt up therein more racy latin verses, by the celebrated Abbot of "Sweet Innisfallen." A glass of beer, ale, or porter during dinner, along with a couple or three glasses of wine after, where the party prefers to take anything stronger than Adam's ale, will be amply sufficient in reason; or the wine may be rendered, according to the dictate of either custom or invalidedness, into its equivalent tumbler of spirit and water. For the safe conduct of the person, and purposes of health, as well as from the dictates of good morals, we shall not mind the jeer or laugh which many accustomed to excess in revellings and wine may choose to assail our next quotation, which we shall make in favour of temperance, from an old-fashioned writer of assured high

name:

"Drink not the third glass:-which thou canst not tame,
When once it is within thee; but, before,

May'st rule it as thou list:-and pour the shame,
Which it would pour on thee, upon the floor.

It is most just to throw that on the ground

Which would throw me there, if I keep the round.

*

*

*

Be not a beast in courtesy; but stay,

*

Stay at the third cup, or forego the place,

Wine above all things doth God's stamp deface."

Father Matthew's modern cold alternative is the direct result of Father Cuddy's old fashioned merriment carried to excess, because "extremes meet !"

If you have fixed to turn out again into the air, whether in cold or warm weather, (though, generally, our observations refer to summer time,) we advise you to use cold water, and not hot, to dilute your spirits or wine, as the hot spirituous potation renders you more obnoxious to catching cold, on the subsidence of the glow which the

heat produces. Our recommendation may be disregarded by many, but those who follow it will find themselves the best off. Along with cold water, and in great moderation, as to the dose of spirits, we believe that such as a single glass of brandy and water is innocent of many counts of the indictment foraged up by the teetotal advocates !

Our readers will perceive that our plan is to avoid sanctioning either extremes, of stimulating drinks, or abstinence unmitigated in its rigorous exaction: and the following will serve to rectify any mistaken views travellers may take of the temperance moderation, or of our own recommendations thereof.

"Nor are the denunciations," writes a first-rate medical man and physiologist of the present day,* " sometimes issued against all fermented liquors, upon the plea that they are as unnatural to man as to the inferior animals, less canting and injudicious. It is not natural to man to abuse any of the gifts of Providence; but it is quite natural to him to use with temperance all the luxuries which his superior faculties at once enable him to procure and qualify him to enjoy, and this among the rest. With respect also to fermented liquors, slow indeed must those poisons be, which, used in moderation, frequently take half a century or more to produce their effects. We commonly say that a man makes a beast of himself when he gets tipsy; but it appears that it is from not making a beast of himself that this accident is apt to overtake him. But the world is too old for this kind of trash at present. Even the good folks of the temperance societies do not restrict their proselytes to acorns and water. They know better than to cut off the arm because it may sometimes be employed in mis

* Dr. Fletcher's Physiology, page 121.

chief; and their injunctions are in general as judicious as their object is philanthropic and praiseworthy."

There is one caution about taking food we should have given, viz.,-that it is necessary, especially for the dyspeptic invalid, to wait ten or fifteen minutes before sitting down to a hearty meal, if fatigued with exercise. If you infringe this rule, the stomach will not be in a fit state to digest the food wherewith your eagerness and sense of exhausted strength may greedily cram it. Flatulence, feverishness, and oppression are the fruits of such hasty work.

Never walk immediately after a meal, for the same reasons - interrupting digestion in its earlier stage; towards the close, however, on the other hand, as before remarked, a gentle exertion of the body is indicated by fidgettiness coming on; prompting to such leisurely walking on as is grateful and healthful.

Before we leave the subject of potations we must enter our gravest protest against the habit of taking stimulants early in the day, especially the stronger kind, as spirits such is injurious, and a slavery of depraved habit.

62. Sleeping, or taking, as it is called, a nap, after dinner, is a habit good or bad according to age and circumstances. Elderly people seem generally to get into it, and to reap no great harm from it. After a hearty meal, it interferes, like exercise, with the usual powers of digestion, and it tends to replete the system too much, which Boileau has pithily alluded to, describing some Friar Tuck, thus:

"Muni d'un déjeûner

Dormant d'un leger somme, attendait le dîner-
La jeunesse en sa fleur brille sur son visâge,
Son menton sur son sein descend à triple étage,
Et son corps ramassé dans sa courte graisseur
Fait gémir les coussins sous sa molle epaisseur."

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