net of "Miseries!"-all of the first water, and in the rightest order for our use! "si quid novisti rectius istis, Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum." Hor. Sen. I had myself intended to open with another of the same species-but you have struck me dumb. Tes. Pho, pho!-let's have it; when a diamond does not come in the way, we must put up with a pearl. Sen. Well, then-if you won't despise me, 2. (S.) Having to pass the maid as she is scowering the stairs ;-to which I intended to add-seeing, hearing, or guessing, any thing at all of the matter, when washing and drying are going on in the house; or, what is worse still, having to duck, and flap, your way through lines, or rather lanes, of clammy clothes, just hung out to dry. 3. (T.) On coming into the room, frost-bitten,-at tempting to stir a very compact fire with a red hot poker, which, from being worn to a thread towards the bottom, bends double at the slightest touch, without moving a coal. Sen. Yes; or, on the other hand, 4. (S.) Raising them too much, when the grate is overcharged; and so, notwithstanding all your caution, disposing the live coals over the carpet, and among the petticoats of the ladies. 5. (S.) Feeling your arm and elbow cold—and, on looking farther into the matter, perceiving that you have long been leaning in slop, which has dabbled you to the skin. 6. (T.) Squatting plump on a cat-which you had not seen in your chair. 7. (T.) After having toiled and melted yourself to an oil, in raking out a large and obstinate fire, at going to bed, which, at last, you seem to have effected-turning round at the door, and seeing it burning and roaring up far more fiercely than ever-and this, two fires, instead of one. 8. (T.) In attempting to throw up cinders, oversetting and scattering them in all directions, by dashing the edge of the shovel, as if with a violent deter mination, against the upper bar of the grate. 9. (T.) Fumbling in vain at a rusty refractory door. lock, of which the hasp flies backward, and there sticks-so that you are at last obliged to leave the door flapping and whining on its unoiled hinge, and fanning you into an agueyour own fury furnishing the fever. 10. (T.) Sitting for hours before a smoky chimney, like a Hottentot in a craal;-then, just as your sufferings seem, at last, to be at an end-puff, puff!—whiff, whiff!—again, more furiously than ever. 11. (T.) Waking, stiff and frozen, from a long sleep in your chair, by the fire-side; then, crouching closer and closer over the miserable embers, for want of courage to go up to bed; and so, keeping in the cold to be warm!-when you go at last, your candle stinks out in the passage, and you are left to grope your way, blundering, and breaking your shins at every step, against the bannisters; every stair, too, creaking and groaning under your weight, though you tread as tenderly as possible, for fear of waking the house, consisting chiefly of invalids, whom you feel that you are rousing, one after another, from their dozes, as you pass their several doors. 12. (S.) Elbowing off both your candles at once, and then setting them up in this state: 13. (T.) Toiling at a rotten cork with a broken screw, and so dragging it out piece meal-except the fragments of it which drop into the bottle. 14. (S.) Grinding coals or cinders into the carpet, in turning upon your heel:-then, after stooping, in a frenzy, to pick up the filthy fragments, and at last walking away satisfied that you have done so, crushing fresh parcels of them in other parts; and so on for an hour. 15. (S.) When you have taken infinite pains to paste a drawing, or other choice thing, very nicely, seeing the paper, after all your pressing and smoothing in one part, start up in a thousand bulbous blisters in other places. 16. (S.) Just as you have finished dressing yourself more nicely than usual, to receive company at dinner, -creeping down into a dark, damp cellar for wine; and then unexpectedly finding, from a sudden chill about the lower part of the leg, that you are going by water. ́ |