A fair exhibition of the neat cattle of society. A hard row to hoe.

3. A perpetual blister-alias, a sociable next door neighbor, who has taken a violent affection for you, in return for your no less violent antipathy to him.

Tes. To her, if you please-I am sure that odious Mrs. M'Call will fairly worry me out of my life, if she stays in our neighborhood three months longer.

Ned Tes.

"Væ miseræ nimium vicina !"-VIRG.

4. A fellow who, after having obliquely applied to you for instruction upon any subject, keeps showing a restless anxiety to seem already fully informed upon it; perpetually interrupting your answer with “Yes, sir— yes, yes, I know; true, I am perfectly aware of that-O, of course !" &c.

5. Visiting a remarkably nice lady, who lets you discover, by the ill suppressed convulsion of her features and motions, that she considers your · shoes as not sufficiently wiped, (in your passage over at least twenty mats,) that you stand too near to a darling jar, lean rather too emphatically against the back of your chair, &c., &c., till you begin to envy the situation of real prisoners.

6. Tearing your throat to rags in abortive efforts to call back a person who has just left you, and with whom you have forgotten to touch on one of the most important subjects which you met to discuss.

7. After having been accidentally detained on a water excursion far beyond the time you have to spare, rowing homeward, against wind and tide, with an appointment of the utmost consequence before you, which, you know, will soon be-behind you. Then, in plucking out your watch to see how much too late you shall be, jerking it over the side of the boat, and seeing it founder in an instant.

8. Suddenly thinking of your best argument in a debate at dinner, and, in your eagerness to state it, swallowing your wine the wrong way, and so squeaking and croaking more and more unintelligibly, with the tears running down your cheeks, till the conversation has been turned, or your antagonist has left the company:

Divisions made by raillery. Schisms, not witticisms.

-" in mediis conatibus, ægri

Succidimus;-non lingua valet, non corpore notæ

Sufficiunt vires-nec vox, nec verba sequuntur."*-Virg.

9. After having left a company where you have been galled by the raillery of some wag by profession-some fellow of more bitterness than brains

Ned Tes. A wag of many tales, with a sting to each—

To think, at your leisure, of a repartee, which, if discharged at the proper moment, would have blown him to atoms.

10. Losing your way in an argument, so as to be obliged suddenly to hold your tongue, though, an instant before, you had the whole series of your reasonings full in view, and, could you have brought them to bear upon your opponent at the proper moment, he must have been struck dead.

11. Accompanying a fond father in his attendance at his daughter's 'dancing day,” at a petty boarding-school.

12. After relating an excellent story, or pointed witticism, to a strange company-the frosty silence, vacant stare, with which it is received by the different auditors, of whose stupidity you had not been aware.

Tes. Yes, yes, I have been there too-you might as well crack jokes in a dormitory at the dead of night, as in certain parties" Joco uti illo, quidem, licet-sed sicut in somno et quietibus cæteris.”

Sen. By the way: praiseworthy children, in general, are a frightful bore. I boarded in a house once where there was a little girl, who was a marvel of perseverance. As to music,

* We, 'midst our strugglings, fainting powerless,
Fail-not the tongue can do its wonted task,

Nor in our frames the well-known functions serve,
Nor voice, nor will articulation come.

Music racks are well named: likewise, the strains of which they are the instruments.

she did not play-she worked. How she did strive and wrestle with that piano! It was a good deal the biggest, but it gave in, at last, and did not resist any more, but only complained. I gave in, too. I came pretty near going "right off the handle," to be numbered among the killed and wounded of the "Battle of Prague," (or its modern successor;) but I escaped-saved myself by running away at

Sen. That's very true, as far as the girl is concerned.-Poor little heavy-headed, light-bodied, bright-eyed, darkcheeked thing! She did not live long. Unnatural education made her what she ought not to have been, and killed her when she ought not to have died. If I had been coroner, I would have given a verdict-"Died of injudicious friends."

1

Noisy pets, that might as well be trum-pets, or pet-ards, at once.

13. Coming in too late for a breakfast engagement, and being contemplated in silence by the rest of the company, who have done, but who think it polite to remain seated round the table, while you hastily wash down your glazed toast and butter, with drawn, vapid, cold tea-which, bad as it is, you prefer to the operose process of a fresh preparation for you.

Ned Tes. Call me what you please, but don't call me— late to meals.

14. Invading an humble regular family, (while quietly assembled round the dinner-table,) upon the wrong day. On entering the room you catch the servant in the act of removing the cloth-now to be re-laid, and slowly spread with the lukewarm ruins of the late meal, tumultuously remanded from the kitchen, half rescued as it is from the clutches of the powers below; and alternately seasoned, as you proceed, with stigmas upon every fork-full you take up, and panegyrics upon the delightful party with whom you were anxiously expected to partake it on the day before.

15. Balking a good gape, by forcing your lips close together, in order to keep it a secret from a bore, that you are yawning in your sleeve at his stupidity. Likewise: paying a long visit at the retired house of a wellmeaning soul, whose only idea of entertaining you, is that of never leaving you a moment by yourself.

16. Seeing a swaggering smatterer in knowledge encircled by his levee of listeners, who blindly recognize his claim to be considered as an oracle; perpetually and bowingly consulting him, and then patiently swallowing the response, like a bolus, without venturing to analyze it.

17. Being caught in the fact of ogling your charmer, by the person from whom you are most desirous of concealing your tender anguish.

18. On making a morning call at the house of a retired old lady, all your conversation wholly giving way to that of the dumb creatures who compose her parlor menagerie-parrots, macaws, cats, puppies, squirrels, monkeys, &c., &c.—which open upon you altogether at the moment of your entrance, and never cease till that of your departure:

It's sometimes pleasant to be found "not at home"-never, to be found out.

The good old Dowager seeming rather pleased with, so far from once attempting to silence, this horrible "strife of tongues."

19. Finding that your sagacious servant has cautiously denied you to the only person whom you ordered him to admit, and who has gone away without leaving his address; or, that he has as carefully produced you to the single person whom you had sworn him to exclude—OR BOTH!

20. Keeping an old engagement with foggy folks, when strongly solicited to join a party of bright ones.-Item, receiving an invitation of the latter kind on the day after the party has taken place.

21. Immediately after expressing to a person your sorrow at having been from home when he lately called upon you-incautiously letting out some circumstance which completely disproves your alibi.

Ned Tes. Too bad, indeed!-a man is never at a worse non plus than when, like poor Darius,

"exposed he lies."

Sen. Yes, and you may proceed

"without a friend to close his eyes!"

as he looks the man who has detected him, in the face.

22. The hour before dinner, during which you sit in a solemn circle of strangers:

"Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia torrent !”*—VIRG.

* Horror, e'en silence' self appalls their souls!