little sleep which his studies and his cares usually permitted him. After eleven nights of insomnolence thus produced, he was thrown into a violent fever. They removed him, and he slept-but waked no more.

Human Usefulness.-Wilkes has said, that of all the uses to which a man can be put, there is none so poor as hanging him. I hope that I may, without offence to any body's taste, add, that of all the purposes to which a soul can be put, I know of none less useful than damning it.

Implicit Faith.-I am delighted with the following excellent contrast of ignorant Orthodoxy with cultivated Doubt. It is from the learned and pious Le Clerc's Preface to his Bibliothèque Choisie, vol. vii, pp. 5, 6.

"Il n'y a, comme je crois, personne, qui ne préferât l'état d'une nation, où il y auroit beaucoup de lumières quoiqu'il y eût quelques libertins, à celui d'une nation ignorante et qui croiroit tout ce qu'on lui enseigneroit, ou qui au moins ne donneroit aucunes marques de douter des sentimens reçus. Les lumières produisent Sneezing. It is the Catholics (see father Feyjoo for infailliblement beaucoup de vertu dans l'esprit d'une the fact) who trace the practice of bidding God bless a bonne part de ceux qui les reçoivent ; quoiqu'il y ait man when he sneezes, to a plague in the time of St. des gens qui en abusent. Mais l' Ignorance ne produit Gregory. He, they say, instituted the observance, inque de la barbarie et des vices dans tous ceux qui viorder to ward off the death of which this spasm had, vent tranquillement dans leurs ténèbres. Il faudroit till then, been the regular precursor, in the disease. If étre fou, par exemple, pour préferer ou pour égaler the story be true, such a plague had already happened, l'état auquel sont les Moscovites et d'autres nations, à long before the day of St. Gregory. In the Odyssey, | l'égard de la Religion et de la vertu, à celui auquel sont Penelope takes the sneezing of Telemachus for a good omen; and the army of Xenophon drew a favorable presage, as to one of his propositions, from a like accident: Aristotle speaks of the salutation of one sneezing as the common usage of his time. In Catullus's Acme and Sempronius, Cupid ratifies, by an approving sneeze, the mutual vows of the lovers. Pliny alludes to the practice, and Petronius in his Gyton. In Apuleius's Golden Ass, a husband hears the concealed gallant of his wife sneeze, and blesses her, taking the sternutation to be her own.

les Anglois et les Hollandois, sous prétexte qu'il y a quelques libertins parmi ces deux peuples, et que les* Moscovites et ceux qui leur ressemblent ne doubtent de rien."

"There is, I think, no one who would prefer the state of a nation, in which there was much intelligence, but some free thinkers, to that of a nation ignorant and ready to believe whatever might be taught it, or which, at least, would show no sign of doubting any of the received opinions. For knowledge never fails to produce much of virtue, in the minds of a large part If there be a marvel or an absurdity, the Rabbins of those who receive it, even though there be some who rarely fail to adorn the fiction or the folly with some make an ill use of it. But Ignorance is never seen to trait of their own. Their account of the matter is, that give birth to any thing but barbarism and vice, in all in patriarchal days, men never died except by sneezing, such as dwell contentedly under her darkness. It would, which was then the only disease, and always mortal. for example, be nothing less than madness, to prefer or Apparently then, the antiquity of the Scotch nation to compare the condition in which the Muscovites and and of rappee cannot be carried back to the time of some other nations are, as respects Religion and Virtue, Jacob. Be this point of chronology as it may, how-to that of the English or Hollanders; under the preever, it is certain that the same sort of observance, as text that there are, among the two latter nations, some to sneezing, was found in America at the first discovery. free thinkers, and that the Muscovites and those who Aristotle is politely of opinion that the salutation resemble them doubt of nothing." was meant as an acknowledgment to the wind, for choosing an inoffensive mode of escape. But a stronger consideration is necessary to account for the joy with which the people of Monopotama celebrate the fact, when their monarch sneezes. The salutation is spread by loud acclamations, over the whole city. So, too, when he of Sennaar sneezes, his courtiers all turn their backs, and slap loudly their right thighs.

Honor. The source of the following passage in Garth's Dispensary, is so obvious, that it is singular that no one has made the remark.

The whole of this piece, indeed, is excellent, and full of candor, charity and sense, as to the temper and the principles of those who are forever striving to send into banishment, or shut up in prisons, or compel into eternal hypocrisy, all such opinions as have the misfortune to differ with their own.

Friendships.-There are people whose friendship is very like the Santee Canal in South Carolina: that is to say, its repairs cost more than the fee simple is worth.

Benefits. There are many which must ever be their

In the debate among the Doctors, when war is pro- own reward, great or small. Others are positively posed, one of the Council speaks as follows.

Thus he "Tis true, when privilege and right
Are once invaded, Honor bids us fight:
But ere we yet engage in Honor's cause,
First know what honor is, and whence its laws.
Scorned by the base, 'tis courted by the brave;
The hero's tyrant, yet the coward's slave:
Born in the noisy camp, it feeds on air,
And both exists by hope and by despair;
Angry whene'er a moment's ease we gain,
And reconciled at our returns of pain.

It lives when in death's arms the hero lies;
But when his safety he consults, it dies.
Bigotted to this idol, we disclaim

Rest, health and ease, for nothing but a name."

dangerous. That subtle courtier, Philip de Comines, declares, that it is exceedingly imprudent to do your prince services for which a fit recompense is not easily found:* and Tacitus avers that obligations too deep are sure to turn to hatred † Seneca pursues the matter yet further, and insists that he, whom your excessive services have thus driven to ingratitude, presently begins to desire to escape the shame of such favors, by

"Il se fault bien garder de faire tant de services à son maistre, qu'on l'empesche d'en trouver la juste recompense."-Me

moires.

"Beneficia ed usque læta sunt, dum videntur exsolvi posse : ubi multum antivenere, pro gratiâ odium redditur."

putting out of the world their author.* Cicero, too, is | fore, has at least one material advantage over the other; clearly of opinion, that enmity is the sure consequence and it is quite sufficient, I hope, very soon to carry all of kindness carried to the extreme.† votes in its favor.

Heroes.-Marshal de Saxe is accustomed to get the With whales and bats we shall no longer be classed! credit of a very clever saying, "that no man seems a-if your old friend can possibly help it; and he is not hero to his own valet de chambre." Now, not to speak a little confident of his powers to do so; for he believes of the scriptural apothegm, "that a prophet has no he can demonstrate that there is not a greater difference honor in his own country," the following passage from between the form, size and habits of the bats and whales Montaigne will be found to contain precisely the Mar- themselves, than he can point out between the manners, shal's idea. customs, pursuits, and bodily and mental endowments "Tel a esté miraculeux au monde, auquel sa femme of the different orders of mankind; and, therefore, ex et son valet n'ont rien veu seulement de remarquable. | necessitate rei, there should be a classification different Peu d'hommes ont esté admircz par leurs domestiques: from any yet made. The honor of this discovery, I nul n'a esté prophète, non seulement en sa maison, mais here beg you to witness, that I claim for myself. en son pais, dict l'expérience des histoires."-Essais, vol. v, p. 198.

"Such an one has seemed miraculous to the world, in whom his wife and his valet could not even perceive any thing remarkable. Few men have ever been admired by their own servants; none was ever a prophet in his own country, still less in his own household."

ODDS AND ENDS.

MR. EDITOR,—Many months having passed away since I last addressed you, I have flattered myself, as most old men are apt to do on such occasions, that you might very possibly begin to feel some little inclination to hear from me once more. Know then, my good sir, that I am still in the land of the living, and have col lected several "odds and ends" of matters and things in general, which you may use or not, for your "Messenger," as the fancy strikes you.

Among the rest, I will proceed to give you a new classification of the Animal Kingdom-at least so far as our own race is concerned; a classification formed upon principles materially different from those adopted by the great father of Natural History-Linnæus, who you know, classed us with whales and bats, under the general term, Mammalia! Now, I have always thought this too bad-too degrading for the lords and masters (as we think ourselves) of all other animals on the face of the earth; and who deserve a distinct class to them

Before I proceed farther, I will respectfully suggest a new definition of man himself; as all heretofore attempted have been found defective. The Greeks, for example, called him " Anthropos"-an animal that turns his eyes upwards; forgetting (as it would seem) that all domestic fowls, especially turkeys, ducks and geese, frequently do the same thing; although it must be admitted, that the act in them is always accompanied by a certain twist of the head, such as man himself generally practices when he means to look particularly astute. One of their greatest philosophers-the illusnition, attempted another, and defined man to be trious Plato-perceiving the incorrectness of this defi

66

a

two legged animal without feathers:" but this very inadequate description was soon blown sky high" by the old cynic Diogenes, who, having picked a cock quite clean of his plumage, threw him into Plato's school, crying out at the same time, "Behold Plato's man!" This was such "a settler,"-to borrow a pugilistic term-as completely to discourage, for a long time, all farther attempts to succeed in this very difficult task; nor indeed, do I recollect, from that day to the present, any now worth mentioning. "The grand march of mind," however, has become of late years, so astoundingly rapid, and so many things heretofore pronounced to be unknowable, have been made as plain as the nose all these wonders, should no longer be suffered (if his on our faces, that Man himself--the great discoverer of own powers can prevent it) to be consorted, as he has so long been, with a class of living beings so vastly in

True, this is an old story; but none the worse for that.

ferior to himself. To rescue him therefore from this de

I will define him then, to be A self loving, self-destroy

selves, divided too into more orders than any other nay, into separate orders for the two sexes. With much study, therefore, and not less labor, I have digest-gradation, shall be my humble task, since it is one of those attempts wherein-even to fail-must acquire ed a system which assumes mental-instead of bodily some small share of glory. distinctions, as much more certain and suitable guides in our researches. This may be applied without either stripping or partially exposing the person, as fathering animal, and will maintain the correctness and perLinnæus' plan would compel us to do, whenever we were at a loss to ascertain (no unfrequent occurrence by the way, in these days) whether the object before us was really one of the Mammalia class or not: for such are the marvellous, ever-varying metamorphoses wrought by modern fashions in the exteriors of our race, that the nicest observers among us would be en-possesses-man alone displays them both; and is contirely "at fault” on many occasions, to tell whether it sequently distinguished from all the rest of animated was fish, flesh, or fowl that they saw. My plan, there- nature in a way that gives him an indisputable right to

"Nam qui putat esse turpe non reddere, non vult esse cui reddat."

fectly exclusive character of the definition, against all impugners or objectors, until some one of them can point out to me among all the living beings on the face of the earth, either any beast, bird, fish, reptile, insect, or animalcula, that is distinguished by these very opposite and directly contradictory qualities. Man alone

a class of his own.

I will next proceed to enumerate the different orders into which this most wonderful class is divided. The

+ Qui si non putat satisfacere, amicus esse nullo modo po. females, God bless them, being entitled, by immemo

test."

rial usage, to the first rank, shall receive the first notice; VOL. II-46

:

as good an idea of the voice of an Ineffable as you could possibly have, without actually hearing it. No comparison drawn from any familiar sounds can give the faintest idea of it, for it is unique and sui generis. This order serves the admirable moral purpose of continually teaching, in the best practicable manner, the virtue of patience to all-who have anything to do with it.

Order 4th. The Tongue-tied, or Monosyllabic. — This order can scarcely be described-unless by negations; for they say little or nothing themselves, and, therefore, but little or nothing can be said of them; unless it were in the Yankee mode of guessing; which, to say the least of it, would be rather unbecoming in so scientific a work as I design mine to be. The famous Logadian Art of extracting sun-beams from cucumbers would be quite easy in practice compared with the art of extracting anything from these good souls beyond a "yes" or a "no," as all have found to their cost, who ever tried to keep up the ball of conversation among them; the labor of Sysiphus was child's play to it. They serve however one highly useful purpose, and that is, to furnish a perpetual refutation of the base slander which one of the old English poets has uttered against the whole sex in these often quoted lines

and I will rank in the first order all those who have un- | tom's most felicitous epithet of "a sucking dove." You questionable claims to pre-eminence. have only to imagine such a thing, (it is no greater Order 1st. The Loveables.-This order is very nu-stretch of fancy than writers often call upon us to make) merous, and forms by far the most important body in and then to imagine what kind of tones "a suckingevery community, being distinguished by all the quali-dove" would elicit; and you will certainly have quite ties and endowments-both physical and intellectual which can render our present state of existence most desirable-most happy. Their beauties charm-their virtues adorn every walk of life. All that is endearing in love and affection-either filial, conjugal, or parental: all that is soothing and consolatory in affliction; all that can best alleviate distress, cheer poverty, or mitigate anguish every thing most disinterested, most enduring, most self-sacrificing in friendship-most exemplary in the performance of duty: all which is most delightful in mental intercourse, most attractive and permanently engaging in domestic life: in short, every thing that can best contribute to human happiness in this world, must be ascribed, either directly or indirectly, much more to their influence than to all other temporal causes put together; and would the rest of their sex only follow their admirable example, this wretched world of ours would soon become a secondary heaven. Order 2d. The Conclamantes, which, for the benefit of your more English readers, I will remark, is a Latin word, meaning those who clamor together. They possess two qualities or traits in common with certain birds, such as rooks, crows and blackbirds, that is, they are gregarious and marvellously noisy; for whenever they collect together, there is such a simultaneous and apparently causeless chattering in the highest key of their voices, as none could believe but those who have had the good or ill fortune (I will not say which) to hear it. But there is this marked characteristic difference. The latter utter sounds significant of sense, and perfectly intelligible, often very sprightly and agreeable too, when you can meet them one at a time; nor is jux-dence, in action, in general deportment. They set at ta-position at all necessary to their being heard; for you will always be in ear-shot of them, although separated by the entire length or breadth of the largest entertaining-room any where to be found. Their proper element-the one wherein they shine, or rather sound most is the atmosphere of a "sware-ree" party, or a squeeze: but as to the particular purpose for which Nature designed them, I must e'en plead ignorance; not, my good sir, that I would have you for one moment to suppose, that I mean any invidious insinuation by this excuse.

Order 3d. The Ineffables.-I almost despair of finding language to describe-even the general appearance of this order, much less those mental peculiarities by which they are to be distinguished from the rest of their sex. But I must at least strive to redeem my pledge, and therefore proceed to state, that they rarely ever seem to be more than half alive: that their countenances always indicate (or are designed to do so) a languor of body scarcely bearable, and the most touching-the most exquisite sensibility of soul; that even the most balmy breezes of spring, should they accidentally find access to them, would visit them much too roughly: that to speak above a low murmur would almost be agony, and to eat such gross food as ordinary mortals feed upon would be certain death. As to their voices, I am utterly hopeless of giving the faintest idea, unless permitted both to resort to supposition and to borrow Nic Bot

"I think, quoth Thomas, women's tongues

Of aspen-leaves are made."

Order 5th. In vivid and startling contrast to the preceding order, I introduce-The hoidening Tom-Boys. These are a kind of "Joan D'Arkies," (if I may coin such a term), female in appearance, but male in impu

naught all customary forms, all public sentiment, all those long established canons, sanctioned by both sexes, for regulating female conduct; and they practise, with utter disregard of consequences, all such masculine feats and reckless pranks, as must unser them, so far as behavior can possibly do it. They affect to despise the company of their own sex ; to associate chiefly with ours, but with the most worthless part of them, provided only, they be young, wild, prodigal and in common parlance-fashionable, and alike regardless of what may be thought or said of them. The more delicate their figures, the more apparently frail their constitutions, the greater seems to be their rage for exhibiting the afflicting contrast between masculine actions performed with powers fully adequate to achieve them, and attempted—apparently at the risk of the limbs, if not the lives, of the rash and nearly frantic female adventurers. Egregiously mistaking eccentricity for genius-outrages upon public sentiment for independence of spirit, and actions which should disgrace a man, or render him perfectly ridiculous, for the best means of catching a husband, they make themselves the pity of the wise and good, the scorn and derision of all the other orders of the community, who see through the flimsy and ridicu lous veil of their conduct, the true motives from which it proceeds.

Order 6th. The Hydrophobists.-These are, at all times, such haters of water-especially if that unsavory

article called soap be mixed with it-that insanity is by innocent hours of domestic intercourse; and being enno means necessary, as in the case of animals affected tirely unsuspected plotters of mischief, they treasure up by canine madness, to elicit their characteristic feeling. as a miser would his gold, every single word or expresTheir persons and their houses too, when they have sion that can possibly be so tortured as to embroil their any, all present ocular proofs of it; proofs, alas! which confiding hosts with some one or all of their neighbors. nothing but the luckless objects of their hatred can "ex- If no word nor expression has been heard during a long punge," ," if I may borrow a term lately become very fa- intercourse which can either fairly or falsely be imputed shionable. Whether this antipathy be natural or su- to envy, jealousy or ill-will towards others; absolute perinduced by the dread of catching cold, I can not falsehoods will most artfully be fabricated to attain pretend to say; but its effects are too notorious, too their never-forgotten, never-neglected purpose: for they often matters of the most common observation, for its sicken at the very sight of family peace--of neighborexistence to be doubted. The striking contrast, how- hood-harmony; and "the gall of bitterness," that ever, which it exhibits to that admirable quality-clean-incessantly rankles in their bosoms can find no other liness, aids much in teaching others the duty of acquiring vent-no other alleviation-than in laboring to destroy and constantly practising the latter.

motives. But, unlike their namesakes, the machines so called, they rarely if ever move straightforward; having a decided preference for that kind of zig-zag, hither and thither course, which takes them, in a time inconceivably short, into every inhabited hole and corner within their visiting circle, which is always large enough to keep them continually on the pad.

N.B. There is an order of the other sex so nearly resembling the one just described, that I am in a great quandary whether I should not have united them, since the principal difference which I can discover, after much study is, that the former wears petticoats and the latter pantaloons. You and your readers must settle it, for Oliver Oldschool can not.

though in counting this order I will not venture quite as far as the Latin poet who asserted, that "they were scarce as numerous as the gates of Thebes, or the mouths of the Nile," it must be admitted that the number is most deplorably small, compared with that of the other orders. The multum in parvo, however, applies with peculiar force to the Great and Good Operatives. All the orders certainly have intellects of some kind, which they exercise after fashions of their own-sometimes beneficially to themselves and others; then again injuriously, if not destructively to both. But only the individuals of this order always make the use of their mental powers for which they were bestowed; and hence it is that I have distinguished them as I have done. How far this distinction is appropriate, others Order 3d. Noli me tangere, or Touch me not.-These must decide, after an impartial examination of the are so super-eminently sensitive and irritable, that grounds upon which I mean to assert the justice of its should you but crook your finger at them apparently by claim to be adopted. Here they are. It is to this order way of slight, nothing but your blood can expiate the we must ascribe all which is truly glorious in war, or deadly offence: and whether that blood is to be extractmorally and politically beneficial in peace: to the ex-ed by a bout at fisty cuffs or cudgelling, or by the more ercise of their talents, their knowledge and their vir- genteel instrumentality of dirk, sword or pistol, must tues, we are indebted for every thing beneficent in gov-depend upon the relative rank and station of the parties ernment or legislation; and by their agency, either direct or indirect, are all things accomplished which can most conduce to the good and happiness of mankind; unless it be that large portion of the god-like work which can better be achieved by the first order of the other sex.

concerned. If you belong not to that tribe embraced by the very comprehensive but rather equivocal termgentlemen, you may hope to escape with only a few bruises or scarifications; but should your luckless destiny have placed you among them, death or decrepitude must be your portion, unless you should have the for

Order 4th. The Gastronomes.-The description of this order requires but few words. Their only object in life seems to be-to tickle their palates, and to provide the ways and means of provoking and gratifying their gormandizing appetites. They would travel fifty

to do a benevolent action; and would sacrifice fame, fortune and friends, rather than forego what they call the pleasures of the table. They show industry in nothing but catering for their meals; animation in nothing but discussions on the qualities and cookery of different dishes; and the only strong passion they ever evince is, that which reduces them merely to the level of beasts of prey. During the brief period of their degraded existence, they live despised and scoffed at by all but their associates, and die victims to dropsy, gout, palsy and apoplexy.

Order 2d. Ipomea Quamoclit, or the Busy Bodies.-tune to inflict it on your adversary. These, like the little plants after which I have ventured to name them, have a surprising facility at creeping or running, either under, through, around, or over any obstacles in their way. Their ruling passion consists in a most inordinate and unexplainable desire to pry into and become thorougly acquainted with every per-miles to eat a good dinner, sooner than move fifty inches son's private concerns, but their own; to the slightest care or examination of which, they have apparently an invincible antipathy. Has any person a quarrel or misunderstanding with one or more of his neighbors, they will worm out, by hook or by crook, all the particulars; not with any view, even the most distant, of reconciling the parties, (for peace-making is no business of theirs), but for the indescribable pleasure of gaining a secret, which all their friends, as the whole of their acquaintance are called, will be invited, as fast as they are found, to aid them in keeping. Is any man or woman much in debt, the neighboring busy-bodies will Order 5th. The Brain Stealers.-The chief differvery soon be able to give a better account of the amount ence between this and the preceding order is, that the than the debtors themselves; but it will always be former steal their own brains by eating, the latter by communicated with such earnest injunctions of secrecy drinking. For the idea conveyed by the term brainfrom the alleged fear of injuring the credit of the par- stealers, I acknowledge myself indebted to Cassio in ties, as to destroy that credit quite as effectually as a the play of Othello, where, in a fit of remorse for getting publication of bankruptcy would do. Does the sparse drunk, he is made to exclaim, "Oh! that men should population of a country neighborhood afford so rare and put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their titillating a subject as a courtship, it furnishes one of brains!" This order may well follow its predecessor the highest treats a busy-body can possibly have; and in dignity, or rather in uselessness, since the greatest it not unfrequently happens that this courtship is, at optimist ever born would be puzzled to find out the way least interrupted, if not entirely broken off, by the exu- in which either can render any real, essential service to berant outpourings and embellishments of his delight | mankind. Although the alleged excuse for their pracat possessing such a secret, and at the prospect of par- tice-so long as they retain sense enough to offer any ticipating in all the customary junketings and feastings-is to cheer the spirits-to gladden the heart, the unupon such joyous occasions. The whole of this order are great carriers and fetchers of every species of country intelligence; great intimates (according to their account) of all great people; and above all-great loco

deniable effect of that practice is, to depress the one, and to pain the other. Melancholy expels merriment, and the solitary feeling banishes the social; for the intolerable shame inspired by the consciousness of the