2

two crystal windows in front. These are so constructed as to command an extensive prospect, and, if always kept clean and bright, will prove of considerable utility, as well as a great ornament to the house. I advise you not to look through them at every object that passes; and above all things, I would have you shut them early at night, as many disagreeable circumstances happen from a neglect in this particular. You may open them as early as you please in a morning.

On each side I observe a small portal to receive company; pray take care they do not always stand open, as you will be crowded with visitors, and perhaps with some you may not like. Let them never be shut against your worthy parents, a sincere friend, or a fellow-creature in distress.

I took notice of one gate in the front, at which all your company goes out. In general I recommend it to you to keep it closely barred, lest, should any bad characters be seen forthcoming, you draw a scandal on your residence. If at any time on necessary occasions, it should be opened, I would lay a strict injunction of watchfulness on the two porters, who stand as sentinels, in liveries of scarlet, just without the ivory palisade.

Some ill-advised people paint the two pannels, just below the windows; an example which I hope you will shun rather than follow.

This part of the edifice is supported by a pillar of Corinthian marble, whose base is ornamented with two semi-globes of alabaster, before which most prudent people draw a curtain of needlework; a practice of late years strangely neglected by some, who, by such conduct, prove themselves grossly deficient in policy, propriety, and good taste.

Beneath is the great hall, in which I understand you have a small closet of exquisite workmanship. This I suppose is the place of your secret retirement, open to none but yourself or some faithful friend. Take care always to keep it clean, and furnished with a small but well-chosen library of the best practical authors. Enter it frequently, especially when you return from public worship or from visiting your friends.

Avoid two opposite errors, which the owners of many houses fall into. Let not the outside hall appear like the shop of an undertaker fitting out a funeral, and crowded with gloomy objects and woful countenances; nor like a lord mayor's coach, bedaubed with gilding and finery. Let it be plain, neat, and always clean, to convince the world that you attend more to utility than ornament.

You must not be surprised to find the tenement you inhabit subject to decay and accident. It is the common effect of time to efface beauty and diminish strength. During the short space you have already lived in it, repairs have been frequently wanted.

These you must consider as plain intimations that the house itself, in a certain number of years, will fall, and like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck behind.'

If I recollect right, you are only a tenant-at-will, and may be turned out, with or without warning; for that was the condition on which it was let to you. Be always ready therefore to go at a moment's notice, and be particularly careful to keep the furniture in the globular turret, and the contents of the little closet, arranged in good order, that you may be able to lay your hand on them without perplexity or confusion.

It will be in vain to attempt to do it, as some have fancied they can, in the bustle and hurry of a sudden removal. A neglect of this important precaution has proved an irreparable injury to thousands.

Excuse this hasty epistle, pardon the liberty I have taken, and impute it to the warm zeal and sincere attachment of Your humble servant.

No. IV.

TWO CHARACTERISTIC EPISTLES.

I.

WHEN Louis XVIII., under the title of Count de Lille, was obliged to quit the Continent after the

Peace of Tilsit, and take refuge in England, he landed at Yarmouth from the Swedish frigate Freya, and was rowed ashore by a boat's crew from H.M.S. Majestic. Pleased with the attention shown him, the royal exile left fifteen guineas as a guerdon to the men to drink his health. The honest tars, in obedience to an order which had formerly been issued on the subject of taking money from strangers, refused to avail themselves of this munificence. The present case, however, being rather an exceptional one, the men held 'a talk' on the matter, when they resolved to transmit the following letter to Admiral Russell. As a specimen of blunt and unadorned honesty, it is perhaps unrivalled :

'MAJESTIC, 6th day of November 1807. 'PLEASE YOUR HONOUR,-We holded a talk about that there £15 that was sent us, and hope no of fence, your honour. We don't like to take it, because, as how, we knows fast enuff, that it was the true King of France that went with your honour in the boat, and that he and our own noble King, God bless 'em both, and give every one his right, is good friends now; and besides that, your honour gived an order, long ago, not to take any money from no body, and we never did take none; and Mr. Leneve, that steered your honour and that there King, says he won't have no hand in it, and so does Andrew Young, the proper coxen; and we hopes no offence.

So we all, one and all, begs not to take it at all. So no more at present, from your honour's dutiful servants, (Signed)

ANDREW YOUNG, Coxen; JAMES MANN, LEWIS BRYAN, JAMES LORD' (and twelve others).1

II.

IN Mr. Ballantyne's recent work, Shifting Winds, we have a very characteristic effusion, in the shape of a 'hambigooous' letter, the joint production of Stephen Gaff the fisherman, his wife and little daughter; a letter 'that you can't make head nor tail of nohow; one as 'll read a'most as well back'ard as for'ard, an' yet has got a smack o' somethin' mysterious in it, w'ich shows, so to speak, to what pint o' the compass your steerin' for-d'ye see?'

'SUR,-i beggs to stait that ittle bee for your int'rest for to look arter that air gurl cald Eme as was left yoor doar sum dais bak, if yoo doant ittle bee wors for yer, yood giv yer eers an noas too to no wat i nos abowt that gurl, it's not bostin nor yet threttenin i am, no, i'm in Downrite arnist wen i sais as yool bee sorrie if yoo doant do it.

'Now sur, i must cloas, not becaws my papers dun, no nor yet my idees, but becaws a nods as good as a wink-yoo no the rest. wot iv said is troo as gospl.

1 From Chambers's Book of Days, ii. 554.