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a mere stump, with a carious triplex fang; worse than useless; it was positively injurious. If the case were his, he should give such tenant immediate notice to quit. With a pair of pincers he would serve the ejectment himself, as an empty house was preferable to a bad tenant.

Another friend requested me to be careful in selecting an operator on my tooth, for that he went to a dentist once, under anguish scarcely endurable, to have a large double tooth like mine extracted. He made a round O of his mouth; the operator popped in the instrument, and u-g-h!-a-h!-it slipped. He felt as if a loaded wagon had passed over his head. The dentist apologized, saying, "It was a common occurrence; gentlemen did not mind it much, because the next attempt was always successful."

A gentleman, who had been waiting for me in the parlour was now introduced, who exclaimed:

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The city of Dublin, the metropolis of Ireland, is the capital of the county of the same name. about three miles in length, and two in breadth; and is seated at the head of a spacious bay, seven miles from the Irish sea. It has two cathedrals, nineteen parish churches, twenty-seven Roman Catholic chapels, numerous meeting-houses for sects of various denominations, four foreign churches, and a synagogue. Among the principal public buildings are the castle, (the residence of the viceroy,) the National Bank, (formerly the Parliament House,) Trinity College, the Law Courts, the Royal Exchange, the Custom House, the Royal Hospital of Kilmainham for invalids, the Linen Hall, the Theatre Royal, and the Royal Barracks; also, Carlisle, Essex, and Sarah bridges, three of the seven over the Liffey. The Phenix Park, at the west end of the city, is a royal enclosure, seven miles in circuit; it includes the villa of the viceroy, the seat of the principal secretary, and a few others; also, the Hibernian schools, a salute battery, and the ammunition magazine. Besides the silk, woollen, and cotton manufactories, carried on in the suburbs, there are other branches of useful traffic in different parts of the metropolis; and its foreign trade is considerable. The harbor is obstructed by two banks of sand, which prevent vessels of large burden from going over the bar; it has a mole nearly four miles in length, with a lighthouse at the extremity, and another on the promontory opposite, called the Hill of Howth; on the northwest side of which is an extensive pier, enclosing a spacious harbor. Three miles below the city is a fortress, called the Pigeon House; and here, also, is a commodious dock. The Liffey divides the city almost

into two equal parts, and has extensive and noble quays on both sides. Two canals pass from the Liffey, named the Royal and the Grand: the latter extends upwards of forty miles to the Barrow navigation, and a branch is carried in a west direction to the Shannon, below Banagher; the former communicates with that great river above Lanesborough, and by a lateral cut, unites with the Boyne.

HINTS TO TALKERS.

I was once walking along one of the long and empty streets in the west end of London, along with a young friend, who, like myself, generally resided in Edinburgh, but now was just returned from an extensive tour in the United States of America. Suddenly, my companion started, and seemed greatly alarmed, saying, hurriedly, "For God's sake, let us go down this side street!" I accompanied him in the direction he indicated, though I could see nothing in front to alarm him, nor indeed any object at all, except a well-dressed middle-aged looking man, who was advancing from the opposite direction, and was still at a considerable distance. When we had reached a place of safety, as my friend called it, he gave the explanation, which he saw from my looks was required. "That gentleman," said he, "whom we were just now about to meet, is a valetudinarian whom I had the misfortune to encounter in a coffee-house when I was last in London. I do not think he is really very ill: only, like the most of Englishmen, he has perhaps been all his life in the habit of every now and then taking what they call a little medicine, and may have thus, perhaps, made himself ill in spite of himself

However, having fallen into conversation with the old gentleman one evening in the public room at our hotel, he began to give me such a recital of his many and complicated disorders, and of his various attempts to get quit of them, as made me almost as ill as he represented himself to be. I tried many expedients to cut him short, but was at length fairly obliged to take refuge in my bedroom. Nothing else would do. Now, the man would not perhaps be so very tiresome as he is, if it depended solely on what he

has to say.

But besides the tedium of his endless recital of clinical miseries, there is an unhappy dulness in his very voice, which proves by far the severest part of the affliction. If a sloth, for instance, were a beast of prey, which fastened upon you as a spider does upon a fly, and if it emitted a humming self-satisfied sound while sucking your blood, like a schoolboy at his bread and butter, your circumstances and sensations would, I dare say, exactly resemble mine when this man was pouring his prosey stream into my ears. I positively had to go to the opera next night, in order to restore my nerves to their wonted tone. Before that time, however, you may be sure I had taken care to shift my quarters, to prevent the possibility of falling in with the same man again. I did not see him any more, sir, till about a twelvemonth after, when, in turning the corner of a street in New-York, I met him full in the face, and, of course, fell plump into his toils. After the slightest possible recognition, “Oh, by the way," said he, laying, at the same time, a finger like a grappling-iron aboard of my button-hole, 66 as I was saying when I saw you last, I got no good of Lignum's scorbutic drops. All stuff, sir. The irritation continued as bad as ever" -and so on he went, with his monotonous gummy voice, as if the time and space that intervened since our last rencounter had been as nothing in his estimation. Why, sir, there is a particular jest in Joe Miller, which I always used to think highly improbable, though certainly very droll. A gentleman, riding along a bridge one day, turned about to his servant, and asked if he liked eggs, to which, saith the chronicler, John answered Yes.' 'How?' said the gentleman exactly that day twelvemonth, at the same hour, when passing along the same bridge. Poached, sir,' replied the man, without a moment's hesitation. I always used to think this a mere fiction; but now, I saw that such an incident might be quite real. There is nothing, sir, on earth like the perseverance of a regular twaddler in the line of his vocation. You may break him off if you will, or if you can; but till you have fairly heard him out, he will never think himself quits with you he still holds himself in readiness, at whatever part of the world or whatever period of future life he meets you again, to resume the thread of his discourse.

"I listened, sir, for half an hour to the leaden narrative, which still seemed as far from the conclusion as ever. Many an effort I made to give the affair a turn-to throw in a jest, and escape under its cover-but no: every struggle I made served but to fix his finger the more nervously in my cloth. I had no consolation but the apathy of despair, and that I could not resign myself to. However, as good luck would have it, a procession came suddenly upon us, preceded by a band of music, and followed by a sweeping crowd of boys. We were for half a minute drifted along together, he still clinging furiously to the breast of my coat; but at length he parted from me, and, to my infinite

satisfaction, I saw him borne away in a contrary direction from myself-still turning, however, towards me an eager and anxious look, as if he were like to burst with suppressed information respecting the efficacy of Morrison's universal medicines.

"Sir, I met my tormentor once more; but it was on the tops of different stage-coaches, which were passing each other upon the road. He recognised me just as we shot athwart each other: his dull eye kindled, he threw forward his heavy head as if to speak, and instinctively put forth his finger to catch hold of my button. I was safe, however, for this time. We were rapidly taken out of each other's sight. I could only guess, by his look, as he loomed away into the distance, how distressed he was at being still obliged to postpone what he had to say about the medical preparations which he was beginning to discuss in New-York. Since then, I have not once met him till this day; and you may conceive, from what I have told you, how much reason I had to be alarmed at his approach, how much reason to be delighted at my good fortune in eluding him. This pleasure, however, is only temporary. I am destined, I see, to hear out his story: go where I like, it will come upon me somewhere. All I can do is to put off the evil day as long as I can." If there be any spark of humane feeling in the twaddlers, they will surely be impressed by this striking anecdote of the misery inflicted by one of their fraternity, and will exert themselves as much as possible to correct their fault. Just let every man make a resolution never to speak above fifteen seconds at a time about himself, or any thing that is his, and he will never be otherwise than an agreeable member of the community. There is a respectability in suffering which disposes every man to listen for awhile, with decent attention, to the narratives which sick people are always so ready to give to their friends. But this good and kind feeling should not be abused: there is a limit to our sympathies, beyond which all is hypocrisy; and it would be well if the afflicted would join a just calculation of this extent of general compassion, with their own sense of the importance of their distresses, when they begin to talk upon the subject. If there be this limit to our interest in the sick, how much narrower are the bounds of that which we are naturally inclined to take in the personal affairs and little vanities of able-bodied men! We should, if we really esteem ourselves, be far above all miserable attempts to set ourselves off before a neighbor, by boring him, as he will call it, with our concerns, when he has enough to attend to, of his own.

DREAMS.

Oh! there is a vision of early youth,

And it never comes again;

"T is a vision of light, of life and truth,
That flits across the brain:
And love is the theme of that early dream,
So wild, so warm, so new,
That in all our after years I deem,

Our early dreams we rue.

Oh! there is a dream of maturer years,
More turbulent by far;

"T is a vision of blood, and of woman's tears,
For the theme of that dream is war;
And we toil in the field of danger and death,
And shout in the battle array,

Till we find that Fame is a bodiless breath,
That vanisheth away.

Oh! there is a dream of hoary age,

"T is a vision of gold in store;
Of sums noted down in a figured page,
To be counted o'er and o'er:

And we fondly trust in our glittering dust,
As a refuge from grief and pain,
Till our limbs are laid on that dark bed,

Where the wealth of the world is vain.

And is it thus, from man's birth to his grave,
In the path which all are treading?
Is there nought in that long career to save
From remorse and self-upbraiding?
O yes, there's a dream so pure, so bright,
That the being to whom it is given,
Hath bathed in a sea of living light;

And the theme of that dream is HEAVEN.

EDMUND BURKE.

The private life of Edmund Burke cannot fail to excite a deep interest in those who know and appreciate the exceeding value of the social virtues. While his public life claims our admiration and respect, his private life compels irresistibly our love and our esteem.

The affectionate friendship and regard of men of such sterling value as the Marquis of Rockingham and Lord Charlemont were not lightly nor unworthily bestowed on Burke, and afford no slight testimony of his private worth; and the high estimation which he obtained with Johnson. and Parr, Fox, Wyndham, and his numerous intimates, combined with the tone of respectful consideration in which he was invariably spoken of by those politically opposed to him, including Pitt, Wilberforce, Thurlow, and others, serve to place his public character eminently high.

In his intercourse with his own family, however, it was, that the real excellences of his heart shone forth. As a son, his respectful attention and submission to parental authority and advice, even at a period of life when most men either wholly throw off, or at best treat lightly, such restraint, appears, indeed, to have been admirable. As a husband, his attachment to his excellent and accomplished wife was most ardent, and truly she was in every respect highly deserving of it. Her best eulogium

was

pronounced by him when he declared that amid the troubles and anxieties of his political life he

never failed to find alleviation for all his cares in his home-" they vanished the moment he entered under his own roof." Could higher testimony be borne to the worth of a wife? As a father, his affection for his son appears to have been unbounded, and the poignancy of his sorrow at his death was consequently most intense; indeed, there can be little doubt that it accelerated the termination of his own life; for, though after the first few days of the most extravagant evidence of mental anguish, he appeared to recover some composure, yet long afterwards circumstances apparently trivial would call forth a reiteration of his sorrow. A feeble old horse, which had been a great favorite with his son, and his constant companion in all rural journeyings and sports when both were alike healthful and vigorous, was, in his age, and on the death of his master, turned out to take the run of the park for the remainder of his life, with strict injunctions to the servants that he should neither be ridden nor molested by any one. While walking one day in solitary musing, Mr. Burke perceived this worn out servant approach close up to him, and at length, after some moments spent in viewing his person, followed by seeming recollection and confidence, the poor animal deliberately rested its head upon his bosom. The singularity of the action itself-the remembrance of his deceased son, its late master, who occupied much of his thoughts at all times, and the apparent attachment and almost intelligence of the poor brute, as if it could sympathize with his inward sorrows, rushing at once into his mind, totally overpowered his firmness, and throwing his arms over its neck, he wept long and loudly.

Many things are related of Burke, showing the playful and affectionate intercourse he continued through his whole life to keep up with his brothers and the other members of his family. Richard Burke was a man of considerable talent and wit, and it was his habit to read the newspaper aloud at the breakfast table every morning, making such comments as his whim and drollery suggested. On one occasion, when the paper proved unusually barren of subjects for his genius to exercise itself upon, he turned to his brother's speech in the House of Commons the preceding night, and having read a part of it correctly, he suddenly introduced something of his own of quite an opposite nature to the report, and continued apparently to read with a perfectly grave face, until interrupted by his brother Edmund, with the exclamation-"This is all wrong, Dick; they quite mistake me." A silent assent was nodded by the wag, who, nevertheless, continued his teasing career of invention. "These people," again exclaimed Burke, " are either malicious or foolish, to make me say such things." Richard, however, unmoved by the simple perplexity of his brother at the stupidity of the reporters, went on with something still more outrageous, till finally his gravity gave way at the solemn assurance, I declare to God, Dick, I said nothing of the kind."

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He delighted in the society and conversation of children, whom it was his favorite occupation to instruct and amuse, and so successful was he in rivetting their attention and affections, that many boys, who were in the habit of spending their vacations with him, declared when grown to manhood they looked back to the period of their occasional sojourns with him as the happiest and most interesting of their lifetime, and that they derived more pleasure from the amusing stories which Mr. Burke told in his rural walks than from any thing they have

since read. Of this amiable trait, a circumstance, which occurred during one of his visits to Ireland, is very characteristic. Being on a visit at the house of his sister, Mrs. French, near Loughrea, and happening to stroll into the village, on a marketday, in the evening, after an early dinner, his attention was attracted by a group of children, gazing with intense admiration on the exterior of a kind of puppet show, a mode of theatrical exhibition. The anxious curiosity and the lamentations of the youthful group at their inability to gratify it, induced him to bargain with the proprietor for admission of the whole, when some of his friends, coming up at the moment, insisted upon exercising their privilege as his entertainers, in paying the showman. "No, no, my dear friends," said he, "this pleasure must be all my own; perhaps I shall never again have the opportunity of making so many human beings happy." Of the principle of benevolent and kindly feeling which appeared to guide him in the every-day transactions of life, the following may serve as an example. A dispute occurring with the lord of the manor in which his property at Beaconsfield was situated, about the right of ownership in a number of oak trees which stood outside of his park-paling, it was referred, the value being considerable, to the decision of a court of law. So confident was his adversary of his success, that he had directed the bell-ringers of the village to be in readiness the moment the news arrived, to celebrate his victory. The result, however, proved directly contrary to what he expected; and Mr. Burke's servants, thinking their master entitled to the same demonstration of village joy, were proceeding to express it, when, hearing what was going on, he gave peremptory orders to desist. "It is bad enough to quarrel with a neighbor," said he, "without attempting to triumph over him;" and added, when the intention of the other was urged, "what he would have done is of no consequence; I have simply to consider what I ought to do."

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We cannot conclude our notices of this great man better than by transcribing the tribute paid to his memory in a Paris journal of the day; it was written by the talented M. Cazales. Died, at his house, at Beaconsfield, with that simple dignity, that unostentatious magnanimity, so consonant to the tenor of his life and actions, the Right Honorable Edmund Burke. There never was a more beautiful alliance between virtue and talents; all his conceptions were grand-all his sentiments generous. The great leading trait of his character, and that which gave it all its energy and its color was that strong hatred of vice, which is no other than the passionate love of virtue; it breathes in all his writings; it was the guide of all his actions; but even the force of his eloquence was insufficient to transfuse it into the weaker or perverted minds of his contemporaries. This has caused much of the miseries of Europe-this has rendered of no effect, towards her salvation, the sublimest talents, the greatest and rarest virtues that the beneficence of Providence ever concentrated in a single character for the benefit of mankind. But Mr. Burke was too superior to the age in which he lived. His prophetic genius only astonished the nation which it ought to have governed.' O'G.

POISONS OF THE ANCIENTS.

At the College of Physicians, London, Sir Henry Halford lately read a curious paper, in which he

investigated the causes of the death of certain celebrated characters of antiquity, with especial reference to the knowledge of poisons possessed by the ancients. Sylla, he observed, died in consequence of the rupture of an internal abscess, through an excess of rage, which, according to Valerius Maximus, produced a violent vomiting of blood, and death. Crassus, the eminent lawyer, and friend of Cicero, died of pleurisy; and Sir Henry remarked, that the course of treatment for this disorder prescribed by Celsus, and in use at the time, namely, bleeding, cupping, and blistering, was so similar to that pursued at the present day, that nothing was probably left undone that could have saved his valuable life. Pomponious Atticus, whom Cicero loved as a brother, and who was on friendly terms with all parties in the disturbed times in which he lived, was said to have died of a fistula in the loins; it was probably, Sir Henry thinks, a dysentery, ending, as that disorder commonly does, in an affection of the lower bowels. He had recourse to starvation, a very common expedient amongst the Romans, and died in ten days, aged seventy-seven. The latter end of Socrates was brought about by the common mode of despatching persons capitally convicted at Athens, namely, by a narcotic poison; but neither Xenophon nor Plutarch tells us the species of poison. The poisons of this class known to the ancients were aconite, white poppy, hyoscyamus, and hemlock. The black poppy might be the Theban drug. The hyoscyamus was used at Constantinople, and was very likely the nepenthe spoken of by Homer. But most probably the poison administered to Socrates was the same given to other condemned criminals, viz. cicuta, hemlock. Juvenal attributes his death to hemlock. Whatever may have been the species of poison, it was one of weak and slow operation; for the executioner told Socrates that if he entered into earnest dispute, it would prevent its effect, and it was sometimes necessasy to repeat the dose three or four times. Its operation was gradually to produce insensibility, coldness of the extremities, and death. What was that poison by which Hannibal destroyed himself? It is improbable we shall ever know. Modern chymistry has discovered a variety of subtile poisons that might be introduced into a ring, and, under certain circumstances, destroy life. One drop of prussic acid might produce paralysis, and, if taken into the stomach, would instantly arrest the current of life. But it is not likely that the Carthagenians were acquainted with prussic acid. Lybia most probably produced poisons sufficiently subtile and destructive to accomplish the fatal purpose of Hannibal. As to the report of its being bullock's blood, that, Sir Henry Halford observed, must be a fable, as well as in the case of the death of Themistocles, for it is well ascertained that the blood of that animal was not poison. An accomplished nobleman had told Sir Henry that he had been present at a bull-fight in Spain, when, after the matador had killed the bull, a person ran up, caught the animal's blood in a goblet, and drank it off, as a popular remedy for consumption. With respect to the poison with which Nero destroyed Britannicus, comparing the account given by Tacitus, with the effects of laurel-water, Sir Henry was disposed to think that this was the identical drug.

Early Hours. Since the introduction of candles, luxury has increased. Our forefathers rose with the lark, and went to bed with the sun.

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