bread; of sitting down to a dish of skimmed milk and lime-water, like a criminal to his bowl of hemlock. To taste, is but an aggravation ;— to devour, is to suffer the pains of purgatory.

I have been looking over some old authors touching this matter of eating. Paracelsus speaks of a man who lived six months without taking food, simply by applying fresh sods of earth to his breast. But Paracelsus-nevertheless his medical reputation—was a hard hand at the bottle-getting daily into that predicament, which Samson Occum, the celebrated Indian priest, used to call, "sinking one's self below the devil, who is a gentleman, and never drinks."

I know not that we can rely upon his authority. Licetas and Cardan-men of veracity and note-say that they knew some holy men who lived twenty years without eating. This I am inclined to consider a miracle. But, Harmolaus, Barberus, Joubertus, and others, have left upon record the case of one who lived in Rome forty years only by inspiration of the air ;-and some old Latin writers speak of a people in the Indies, called Astomares, who have no mouths, and live only by the use of their olfactory organs. Olympidorus, the Platonist, assures us that he knew a person who lived many years without eating or sleeping, (he says nothing about drinking) but who stood in the sun to refresh himself. Aldrovandus tells of a bird, in the Eastern Islands, which, by reason of its vast wings, is borne up continually in the air, upon which it subsists. Elian tells a curious story of the goats of Gimanta, who never drink, but simply turn their heads to the sea, and refresh themselves with its vapors.

Langins thinks the cause of such extraordinary capabilities of abstinence to be an entire relaxation of the nerves of the orifice of the stomach. Sennertus agrees to this supposition, and very sagely concludes that such bodies are nearly immortal!

I rather prefer De Britaine's hypothesis; "the air is full of balsamic rocid atoms; and is ever sprinkled with a fine, foreign fatness, which may perhaps be sufficient food to nourish the fine part of our frames, wherein the temper of man and his life stands." Now, who knows but this may be true to the letter? Perhaps the very air is impregnated with a saline and nutritious spirit, in which the seminal virtues of all things are incorporated, the pure essence of all bodies, extracted by the sunbeams, and so sublimated as to be homogeneal to, and, in effect, the spirit of life. I cannot say, however, that I should be willing to test the truth of my theory. One's appetite is apt to prove refractory under the restraint of such philosophical experiments; and I fully agree with Lord Bacon in his remark, that " of all rebellions, that of the belly is the worst."

Yet, what a beastly vice is gluttony? More degrading, if possible, than drunkenness itself. A perfect adoption of the most revolting characteristic of the brute! A glutton cannot be a Christian-the dinner-table is his god, to which health, reason, decency, are sacrificed. I have ever admired the Scotchman's test of gluttony. "Watch twa eatin," said he. "As lang 's there's a power of, or a capacity o' smilin' on their cheeks, and in and about their een ;-as lang 's they keep lookin' at ye, an' roun' about the table, attendin' to or joinin' i' the talks or the speekin' cawm; as lang 's they every noo an' then lay doon their knife and fork to ca' for gill, or to ask a young lady to tak'

wine, an' tell an anecdote ;-as lang 's they glower on the framed picture or prents on the wall, an' keep askin' if tane's original and tither proofs;- as lang 's they offer to carve the tongue or turkey;— depend on 't they 're no in a state o' gluttony, but are devourin' their soup, fish, flesh, an' foul, like men an' Christians. But, as sune 's their chin gets greeshy-their nostrils wide-their cheeks sank, sallow an' clunky-their een fixed-their faces close to the trencher-an' themselves dumbies-then you may see a specimen o' the immoral an' unintellectual abandonment o' the sowl of man to his gustative nature; then is the fast, foul, fat-feeder a glutton-the maist disgusfu'est creature that sits-an' far aneath the level o' them that feed on a' fours, out o' trochs, on garbage."

Before Pope Sixtus reached the Papal chair he was temperate-nay abstemious to the last degree;

"Panis et aqua
Est Vita Beata,"

was his favorite saying. But when his ambition had been gratified with the supreme ecclesiastical authority-when he felt the keys of St. Peter firmly in his grasp, he entered upon a most luxurious course of living, saying,

"Aqua et Panis
Est Vita Canis."

THE DOCTOR AND HIS PATIENT.

"Ma foi-ces Medecins sont de vilaines gens!"

So saith Mons. Renard, in his play of the Legatee; but so say not I. My physician has just left me. He is a clever fellow, and it may be a skilful, withal. But he has the folly to pretend to cheerfulness, and laughs by main force over his own jokes-the unhappy man! Does he think to deceive people by it? A merry physician, indeed!—as well talk of a laughing death's head-the cachinnation of a monk's memento mori. Heaven help the doctors! From the court physician down to the veriest quack who ever dosed with herbs or steamed a la Esquimaux, I commiserate every mother's son of them. This life of ours is sorrowful enough in its best estate-the brightest phasis of our being is" sicklied o'er with the pale cast" of the future and the past. But, it is the lot of the physician to look only upon the shadow;-to turn away from the house of feasting and go down to the house of mourning;-to breathe, day after day, the atmosphere of wretchedness ;-to grow familiar with suffering;-to look upon humanity disrobed of its pride and glory-robbed of all its fictitious ornaments-weak, helpless, naked and undergoing the last fearful metempsychosis from its end and godlike image-the living temple of an unshrined divinity, to the loathsome clod, and the all inanimate clay. There is wo behind him— there is wo before him. He is hand and glove with misery by prescription, the ex-officio gauger of the "ills which flesh is heir to." What to him are the much-eulogized charms of home-the holy comforts of one's fire-side? He has no home, unless it be by the bedside of the sick-the querulous-the dying. Hurrying perpetually from one scene of misery to another, he knows nothing of the quiet

happiness of those "sleek-headed men who sleep o' nights." He realizes, more than any other, the truth of that maxim, that

"Where ignorance is bliss
'T is folly to be wise."

His ideas of beauty-perhaps even the affections of his heart-are regulated by the irrepressible associations of his profession. Others may talk of their "ladye loves" as angels-sylphs-seraphs; he knows better he knows that woman, as well as man, is "of the earth, earthy.” Through the soft and beautiful veil of what we call delicacy, he sees only the consuming canker of incipient disease. Has his fair one a form of faultless symmetry? He thinks of the subjects of his anatomical studies. Does her beautiful smile unveil a set of pearls? He thinks of his dental operations. Does the blush of feeling or modesty mantle, of a sudden, neck, cheek, and brow,-a variable play of coloring, like sunset upon tremulous water? He calls to mind his last case of fever. Does the bright and eloquent blood glow steadily and richly through her fair cheek? He remembers his hectic patients. Tell him of a young lady's sentimental melancholy, and he will forthwith answer you by a dissertation upon dyspepsia. Tell him of broken hearts,— of dying for love-of the "worm i' the bud," feeding upon the damask cheek of beauty,-of the mental impalement upon Cupid's arrow, like that of a Giaour upon the spear of a Janizary; and he will talk to you of liver complaints-of tight-lacing-of fashionable exposure-of lack of exercise.

I have sometimes thought that Sheridan's Doctor, in "St. Patrick's Day," was no caricature; indeed, there seems to me something very natural in his description of his dear, deceased helpmate. "Poor Dolly!-I shall never see her like again; such an arm for a bandageveins that seemed to invite the lancet! Then her skin, smooth and white as a gallipot; her mouth as round and not larger than the mouth of a penny phial; and her teeth-none of your sturdy fixtures-ache as they would, it was but a small pull, and out they came,-I believe I have drawn half a score of her poor dear pearls-(weeps)—but what avails her beauty? She has gone and left no pledge of our loves behind-no little babe to hang like a label upon papa's neck. Death has no consideration-one must die as well as another-fair and ugly, crooked or straight, rich or poor,-flesh is grass-flowers fade!"

But, to return to my physician. Never man had a kinder-punctual in attendance-lavish of his drugs-perfectly deferential to the opinions of his patient. As I recount, for the thousandth time, the symptoms of my case, he never fails to congratulate me upon my peculiar good fortune in securing the services of one so able and willing to assist me as himself-significantly assuring me, in the language of Hippocrates's first proposition, that, "Vita brevis; Experimentum periculosum; Judicium difficile.” He has, if I mistake not, all the skill and kind wishes of Moliere's Toinet, who disdained to "" amuse himself with the small fry of common diseases"--the trifles of rheumatism, vapors, agues, &c. "I would have," said he, "diseases of importance -good continual fevers, good plagues, good confirmed dropsies, good pleurisies, this is what pleases me-this is what I triumph in ;-and I wish, sir, that you had all these diseases--that you was abandoned by

all the faculty-despaired of-at the point of death,-that I might demonstrate to you the excellency of my remedies."

COQUETS MALE AND FEMALE.

Female coquetry is pardonable, inasmuch as it is natural. Confined to no one country or religion;-perceptible alike in the tawny Indian girl and the dark-faced African ;-flaunting in the atmosphere of fashionable extravagance, and looking out from a pair of roguish eyes beneath the drab bonnet of the Quakeress,-it seems to me a part of the female character, and by no means a very objectionable one. It is the part of woman to be wooed, not to woo; to stand passively apart and be chosen, not to choose; to wait silently for the moving of the waters of affection, not to trouble them herself, angel though she be. The privilege of coqueting enables her to make good her unequal ground against the superior advantages of the "lordly sex." It is to her as skilful diplomacy making amends for physical weakness. It promotes personal grace, and decorum of habit,-it bends every faculty of the mind to the desire of pleasing ;-it develops every latent charm of intellect. It is this which renders the conversation of a woman of ordinary talents, frequently, far more agreeable than that of a man, whose mind has been highly cultivated, and whose powers of fancy are brilliant and superior. Woman's wit is seldom exerted for the mere purpose of shining in conversation;—it is rather called forth by a predominant desire to please ;-and this is coquetry in its legitimate sense, in its proper sphere. The idea of La Rochefoucauld, "les femmes peuvent moins surmonter leur coqueterie, que leurs passions," is by no means a correct one. Coquetry and passion are almost always united in the female heart. They hold a mutual and most salutary check over each other. And it is well that they do so; for they prevent alike premature and disgusting fondness, and cold-hearted vanity and self love.

His

But the male coquet is, of all beings, the most despicable. He is an anomaly in the human character,-a monster in the moral worldplaying a part for which nature never designed him,-the Joan d' Arc of civil life." I have endeavored," says Lord Chesterfield," to gain the hearts of twenty women, for whom I would not have given a fig!" Such a being is unworthy of the least charity. With him the words of the Preacher are verified-" Vanity, vanity-all is vanity." coquetry is a cold and selfish purpose;-a hollow-hearted love of triumph,-a morbid desire of interesting in himself hearts, of whose pangs and struggles he recks not-whose affections he would call forth, that the multitude may envy him its possession, not to meet its full flow of confiding tenderness by the sympathy of his own cold and indurated bosom. It is an unprofitable attempt to monopolize that attention from the other sex, which he scorns to repay with honorable love.

Miserable, however, is the triumph of the trifler! What can it avail him that, in the thronged assemblies of his visiting, there are hearts which beat quicker at his coming; and eyes which glisten and cheeks which glow, as his softened voice whispers its repeated treachery, when he knows that those hearts are yet to wither with hopeless and unreturned affection-that those eyes are to grow dim with tears, and those cheeks pale with the unsleeping agony of outraged confi

dence and violated trust! The male coquet is a fool, as well as a criminal. Unlike other workers of iniquity, he derives not even a temporary good from his vileness. He but ministers to the depraved appetite of his vanity. He "sows the wind," and it is proper that he should "reap the whirlwind.”

In some men, who possess real powers of fascination, coquetry is dangerous; but in the far greater number it is simply and purely ridiculous.

WOMAN'S WISHES.

and William

interested me at the

THE story of Emily — time I heard it, and I have been led to think that in some of its features it is not peculiar. They were natives of the same beautiful village, and the same year ushered them into existence. Their early years were spent in the daily round of childish sports, and they suffered in common their little vexations. They cultivated their gardens together, and roamed over the fields in company, and their little bridges and miniature edifices were built without any aid beyond their own combined ingenuity-and when she drove him before her wagon, and would urge him to quicken his speed in rivalry of their other playmates, at his request she would stop to admire a beautiful flower, or group the clouds in quaint figures. And when they were weary with play, they would rest together under some shady tree, and he would rest his head on her lap, and plan some new excursion, while she would play with his chestnut hair, and try to give him the enviable air of her uncle, the Colonel. Thus the golden dreams of youth flitted before them, but left, through every change, increased affection and confirmed influence. They were children of nature, and knew no other laws than hers; their impulses were pure, and no art had taught them restraint.

Their more advanced education, of course, separated them, in some degree, and as each became more acquainted with the duties and privileges of their respective sexes, they began to examine each other more minutely, and study each other's tastes and dispositions with more direct reference to their own. In those sports in which they still both mingled, each was at the same time the censor and the advocate of the other, and each began to demand from the other concessions not made to all. If William chanced to ride with any other of the youthful village belles, Emily,-she knew not why,-always took the liberty of being displeased; or if she manifested a preference for another partner at their village balls, William always considered it incumbent upon him to leave the ball-room and saunter alone through the walks on her uncle's grounds.

Her mind was of a strongly-marked and powerful cast. Though restless to a degree that in other cases would have proved ruinous, she had been able to master not only the learning expected from her age and sex, but much that is considered the peculiar province of man ;though not very fond of music, she had cultivated that art with perse