ed perfectly gentle, as long as it carried double) seizing the opportunity of throwing its astonished rider, without farther ceremony, by furiously rearing at one end, and plunging at the other.

82. (S.)

Being called in as an umpire in a matrimonial quarrel

Tes. Hey day!-

'quæ mens tam dira, miserrime conjux, Impulit his cingi telis? aut quò ruis?" inquam: "Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis

Tempus eget!".

VIRG.

Sen. Mr Testy, I agree with you in your dislike of being interrupted :-I must begin again

(S.)

Being called in as an umpire in a matrimonial quarrel-which leaves you the choice of splitting on one of the six following rocks :-viz.

1. That of remaining silent-(for which both parties hate you; each supposing that you secretly favour the other.)

That of pronouncing that both are in the wrong

(for which you are, obviously, hated by both.) 3. That of insinuating that both may be in the right—

(hated, again, on both sides; each being more enraged at your contre, than grateful for your pour.)

4. That of defending the lady at the expense of the gentleman-(still hated by both;-by her, for attacking her caro sposo, whom she will suffer no one to despise but herself;-by him, for siding with the enemy.)

5. That of defending the gentleman at the expense of the lady-(this case is, inversely, the same with the last.)

6. That of endeavouring to make peace, by treating

the matter" en badinage"-(for which both are far too much in earnest, as well as far too eager for victory, not to hate you most of all.) -The best course, perhaps, if you cannot steal away, is to be taken with a sudden and violent fit of the tooth-ache, which may last ad libi

tum.

Tes. Your concluding Misery takes in two parties, and should be divided between us;

one moiety for you as a Bachelor, and the other for me as a Benedict.-Well, but what subject comes next? for I must hurry into the library to meet a confounded fellow, who

Sen. Thank you for the hint, Sir; the Library itself shall find us a subject: let us try whether literary enjoyments ought to rank at all higher than any of the preceding. I must inform you that, during the intervals between my late delightful visits, I have generally fled for refuge to the book, or the pen; and if you have been at all in the practice of depending upon the same supports, and found them as miserably fallacious as I have, we shall have no difficulty in lengthening the list of our Groans, from this source.

Tes. None:-I never, yet, took up a book that I did not, in five minutes afterwards, fling to the other end of the room; nor a pen that I did not split up to the feather against the table, before I had scrawled two lines with it.-Books, and Pens, then, by all means, for our next theme; I defy the good old dame who vented her spite against reading and

writing, for having brought her son to the gallows, to bear them more ill will than I do. -To-morrow morning, then, I beg we may talk over our studies, together, in my library aforesaid.

me.

Sen. Well proposed:-you may expect

DIALOGUE THE EIGHTH.

MISERIES OF READING AND WRITING.

Testy, Senior and Junior.-Sensitive. (Testy's house at Highgate.)

Testy. [Throwing the book which he had been reading into the fire, as he sees Sensitive enter.]

GET you gone, and be burnt, for your pains!

-Here, Sensitive, take a Misery warm from the heart, while I am still suffering under it; -I will follow it with a cluster of others.

GROAN 1. (T.)

Reading over a passage in an author, for the hundredth time, without coming an inch nearer to the meaning of it at the last reading, than at the first; then passing over it in despair, but without

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