some as Jane, nor half so good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving her the preference."

"They have none of them much to recommend them," replied he. "They are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters." "Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves."

"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least."

66

Ah, you do not know what I suffer!"

"But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four thousand a year come into the neighbourhood."

"It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since you will not visit them."

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Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will visit them all."

Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of threeand-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news." Pride and Prejudice."

Mr. Woodhouse's Idea of Supper

MR. WOODHOUSE was fond of society in his own way. He liked very much to have his friends come to see him, but his horror of late hours and large dinner parties made him unfit for any acquaintance but such as would visit him at his own terms. At little suppers given at his house his feelings were in sad warfare. He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the fashion of his youth, but his conviction of suppers being very unwholesome, made him. rather sorry to see anything put on it; and while his hospitality would have welcomed his visitors to everything, his care for their health made him grieve that they would eat. Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could, with thorough self-approbation, recommend; though he might constrain himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things, to say:

"Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Leslie understands boiling an egg better than anybody. I would not recommend an egg boiled by anybody else, but you need not be afraid; they are very small, you see-one of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a little bit of tart―a very little bit. Ours are all apple tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to half a glass of wine? A small half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could disagree with you."

66 -" Emma."

Lord Byron

Don Juan's Sea-Sickness

DON JUAN bade his valet pack his things
According to direction, then received

A lecture and some money: for four springs
He was to travel; and though Inez grieved
(As every kind of parting has its stings),

She hoped he would improve-perhaps believed. A letter, too, she gave (he never read it) Of good advice-and two or three of credit.

In the meantime, to pass her hours away,
Brave Inez now set up a Sunday-school
For naughty children, who would rather play
(Like truant rogues) the devil, or the fool.
Infants of three years old were taught that day,
Dunces were whipt, or set upon a stool;
The great success of Juan's education,
Spurred her to teach another generation.

Juan embarked-the ship got under way,

The wind was fair, the water passing rough; A devil of a sea rolls in that bay,

As I, who've crossed it oft, know well enough; And, standing upon deck, the dashing spray

Flies in one's face, and makes it weather-tough; And there he stood to take, and take again, His first-perhaps his last-farewell of Spain.

I can't but say it is an awkward sight

To see one's native land receding through
The growing waters; it unmans one quite,
Especially when life is rather new.

I recollect Great Britain's coast looks white,
But almost every other country's blue,
When gazing on them, mystified by distance,
We enter on our nautical existence.

So Juan stood, bewildered on the deck:

The wind sung, cordage strained, and sailors swore, And the ship creaked, the town became a speck, From which away so fair and fast they bore. The best of remedies is a beef-steak

Against sea-sickness: try it, sir, before You sneer, and I assure you this is true, For I have found it answer-so may you.

Don Juan stood, and, gazing from the stern,
Beheld his native Spain receding far:
First partings form a lesson hard to learn,
Even nations feel this when they go to war;
There is a sort of unexprest concern,

A kind of shock that sets one's heart ajar;
At leaving even the most unpleasant people
And places, one keeps looking at the steeple.

But Juan had got many things to leave,

His mother, and a mistress, and no wife, So that he had much better cause to grieve Than many persons more advanced in life;

And if we now and then a sigh must heave
At quitting even those we quit in strife,
No doubt we weep for those the heart endears—
That is, till deeper griefs congeal our tears.

So Juan wept, as wept the captive Jews

By Babel's waters, still remembering Sion. I'd weep-but mine is not a weeping Muse,

And such light griefs are not a thing to die on; Young men should travel, if but to amuse

Themselves; and the next time their servants tie on Behind their carriages their new portmanteau, Perhaps it may be lined with this my canto.

And Juan wept, and much he sighed and thought,

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While his salt tears dropped into the salt sea,

Sweets to the sweet" (I like so much to quote;

You must excuse this extract-'tis where she, The Queen of Denmark, for Ophelia brought Flowers to the grave); and, sobbing often, he Reflected on his present situation,

And seriously resolved on reformation.

"Farewell, my Spain-a long farewell!" he cried.

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Perhaps I may revisit thee no more,

But die, as many an exiled heart hath died,
Of its own thirst to see again thy shore.
Farewell, where Guadalquivir's waters glide!
Farewell, my mother! And, since all is o'er,
Farewell, too, dearest Julia!" (Here he drew
Her letter out again, and read it through.)