a cane in his hand, school for the morning just having concluded. Powdered hair, spectacles, a pen lolling on his ear, a trim white neckcloth, and a black suit, gave a neat consequence to this master of the rod. He strutted up to us, with one hand in his breeches' pocket, and with that movement of the person observed when one is travelling through the tangling stools, desks, and boxes in a school-room.

"I fear we have taken you away from your important duties, Mr. "Mac Snapper." "Don't mention it, sir; I beg you won't; beg you "won't mention it." "We have called in answer to your letter respect❝ing our advertisement for Board and Lodging.' "Oh! oh!-yes,

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yes, yes; very good, sir; very good, sir. Why, let me bless me, what "a hubbub those boys are making below; why, let me see, the terms "would not be more than 1601. a year for both, provided you have no objection to two beds in one room!!-Your meals would be like my own, and Mrs. Mac Snapper is a very domesticated lady; would see to "all your wants. One thing I must premise-my doors are closed by ten every night, except on peculiar occasions." "What may be "the number of your pupils, Mr. Mac?"-Mr. Snapper. "I beg your "pardon! only sixty, sir; a very important change, but the "rising generation, you know, sir, the rising generation, sir." "You are right, sir; we will either write or call when we determine." With this convenient and universal excuse for saying "I decline," we parted-to meet no more.

Reader, have you ever moralized? If not, this moment shelter your cranium in a hat, and take a street ramble, glancing attentively as you pass at the multitudinous phizzes you meet-every one will have its moral. For instance, if you perceive a man with canine features, and a selfish tacitness of expression, put him down as an unworthy Scoundrel, and moralize on cupidity and its miseries. If you see an eye replete with tears, hanging reluctantly on the eyelids, as snowflakes on a drooping leaf--or a face with every feature knotting into grim grimace-or a peevish body just risen from a sprawl on the pavement, draw this moral reflection from their several visages; that sorrows are certain, though accidental, and though your blood is now warmed with joy, and your heart beats lightly as a sunbeam on the slumbering wave, you may be partly or entirely murdered before you get home-your eye be whipped out by some coachman's mastigoferous skill, or you may be deposited under a wheel, or jammed into nothingness by a tumbling mansion. Once more, if you meet a gay hoary fellow, with a worm-eaten face and languid dreaminess of aspect; or an old hack of fashion, wrinkled to her eyes, and painted like a sign-board, you cannot choose but to moralize here, and silently quote Solomon, "There is a time for all things," and rotting joys are more intolerable than the sternest pangs of undeserved woe. Now don't imagine this is another start from the subject: I moralized in this way, as I strutted, somewhat tired, to the next applicant to our advertisement, and the approaching issue

will prove what I have remarked above, that "sorrows are ac"cidental."

"Shew them up, Anne!-shew them up, Anne! and see that they wipe their shoes; d'ye hear, you stupid creature?" cried a querulous voice, as we stood waiting at the end of a dark passage. "Shew them up, Anne! wipe their shoes, &c." I muttered to myself, as I climbed the stairs, for it was impossible to walk lollingly up them; they were almost as much on the acclivity, as the sides of the Chimboracco mountain, or (I hate exaggerations) as the ladders which hang from the entrances to hay-lofts. The staircase was such as becomes old maids, long, narrow, and gloomy. There was too a freezing preciseness, with much meanness, in her little pinched drawing-room. Every object appeared glued to its place, excepting four cats, seated on the backs of chairs in different parts of the room, and exchanging amatory ogles. The fire-screens appeared like naughty children put in the corner; a work-box that was never opened, stood on the table, and china tea cups of the ancient style were reposing on the mantle-piece. You might have imagined from the neatness of the room, that no human being, except the owner, disturbed the sanctified regularity of her chamber. The chairs were solemn as statues, and I verily believe, there was not a crumb on the carpet, or a speck on the window, to attract the attention of a fly--but flies, I am aware, were out of fashion then, so their absence alone did not bode a famine. And where is the old maid during this time?Why! she was spooning some mixture in a golden-hued saucepan, and just finished a stir when we appeared. I know not if there be a curse connected with the skins of old maids, nor am I quite certain that they deserve one; but there is a fretfulness in the hues of their countenance, a dark distempered expression of mingled feelings about it, when they are verging to two-score and ten, that cannot be mistaken. I wish Government would lay a tax on old maids, instead of windows and hair-powder!

"My dear beauty!-pray be seated, sir. You sweet beauty!"will you approach the fire, gentlemen?" Beauty! where was the beauty? Dapper and myself were very far from being Apollos, and there was not a glimpse of beauty in herself. What could she mean? Why, she was soothing a capricious, groaning, half tail-less poodle, that was fretting himself on the carpet before her, and indulging meagrims o'er a saucer of milk! I took my chair, looked frowningly at "Beauty!" then at the mistress, and listened to the following overture, while the speaker presided over the dog-caudle: "I presume, you are the gentlemen whose advertisement I an"swered?"-Two full-neck bends from both of us satisfied her, and she continued:-" Being single, and residing in a house somewhat "too capacious for my occupation, I should have no objection to permit "two reputable gentlemen to domesticate in my parlor; a sopha-bed "could be managed in the sitting one, and the other would be left "to your mutual selection. Being of a quiet disposition myself, I

"should expect that the lodgers would be peaceable and order—.” "As Ilive, here's an enormous toad!" screamed Dapper, while something rattled like an empty box against the opposite wall. The old maid turned awful;--it was the partner* of her bed, her beloved tortoise, that frightened Dapper had kicked unwittingly from his feet! The hot spoon fell from her hand; the poodle yelled; the lady, in her haste to turn round, fell over a chair; and all the cats frisked up their tales, and scamped round the room like wild horses! Such a scene admitted of no delay. I snatched my hat; hawled Dapper after me; cleared the stairs with a few muscular leaps; and speedily unburdened myself of a long-restrained laugh at the other side of the street door!

We had now given five personal answers, and were unsuccessful in either. What a bore it is to be lodging-hunting! There's the trouble of getting new ones, and quitting old ones; most of all, the trouble of packing, cleansing, and securing all one's " goods and chattels," which become, as it were, partial to their accustomed situations, and seem loath to be fixed in new ones. The reader will perceive from this, that I was annoyed with my labors, and half wished I had not disagreed with Mrs. Ramsbottom. Our last call was on a diseased bachelor. We found him pillowed in an armed chair, with flanneled legs, swelling on a stool. He was all over gout, round as a pumpkin, and evidently labored dreadfully under phlegmatic uneasiness. "Poor "sufferer!" thought 1, "thou hast been busy at the bottle, and "many a luscious sip of wine has juiced those lips, now parched "with the fever of malady!" What a contrast was this room to the one we had just left! Here were strewed all the messes which distinguish the chambers of invalids. It was a bed-room without a bed. Medicinal slops and drafts, pill-boxes and mortars, and dismissed bandages, were scattered round us. A nurse, almost as bronzed in face as the table she attempted to clear, whimpered an excuse for the "state the room was in," and then quietly arranged her body in a retired seat.

"How d'ye do, gentlemen ?" was the good-tempered salutation from the bachelor. "Don't frown at me for being the victim of this "cursed gout-O Lord! nurse, rub down this leg, and pour out some stuff from yonder vial-hope you never have the gout, "gentlemen? 'tis a horrible victimizing complaint." "Terribly so, "sir. Pray what are the rooms and conveniences we could have "here as boarders and lodgers? We call in reply to your letter "received yesterday." "Rooms! oh! oh! I beg pardon. Why, "let me see. Nurse could make your breakfasts and tea; and as "for dinner, you young sprigs, with lightsome limbs and hearts, can "easily attend to this, I'll warrant me. There's an attic and a parlor; "the furniture, to be sure, is not over handsome; but Molly could

To some this may appear an improbability; but the fact has been proved by the writer, beyond the admission of a doubt!

"brighten up the chairs, and hang up a looking-glass. You young "sprigs don't care about pomps and fine furniture, I'll warrant me."O Lord! nurse, rub down this other leg." Now, go down, and "bring me my pocket-book, and I'll tell the gentlemen the terms." Before we had time to object, nurse was flown. I liked the bachelor, but could not reconcile myself to the lodging. A glance from Dapper translated his thoughts to me; and I rose with the excuse, that we were "fearful the accommodations were not just the thing." The hour was late, and during our travels we had not stopped to attend to an appetite becoming somewhat ravenous:-little did we think that we were doomed to ride home! Dapper (from some reason not since explained) bolted down stairs, without stopping to look before him. Just as I reached the second landing-place, a squall, a crash, and a clatter startled me. On arriving at the passage, the noise was explained! Dapper had tumbled blindly over the decrepid nurse, that was hobbling up with a loaded waiter for some purpose, and had been fairly overturned in the road. The pocket-book was still clenched in one sprawling hand. Dapper did not escape; his face had pitched into a bason of broth, and every feature was partially mustardized. The sight would have been ridiculous had this been all: but he was bleeding profusely at the mouth, and the tickling pepper was in his eyes. I strained my back to lift the old nurse on her legs; helped Dapper to the door, and was seated in a hackney coach, just as the thump of the bachelor's crutch was sounding for an explanation. Thus ended our search for "board and lodging." We spoke not a word, "nor funeral note," as we were rolled homewards; and I thought Mrs. Ramsbottom's door never smiled with such welcome as when we entered it on our return. Dapper is hardly yet recovered from his fall, which occasioned a serious laceration and we have since determined to pay Mrs. Ramsbottom, in preference to wandering once more" in search of board and lodging." R. M.

STANZAS.

1.

O thou art now a shape of light
Before the Eternal Throne;

And charms and form more soft or bright,
This world ne'er ceased to own.

I might have deem'd a soul like thine,
Earth could not long possess;

But must have been like thee divine,
Could I have mourned thee less.

2.

The sigh will breathe, the tear will fall,
In memory of thee,

Not e'en thy love can teach me all
Pure as thyself to be.

Life hath no task so dark or stern,

That I will seek to shun;

But, O forgive me, if I yearn

To find its dim hours done.

3.

The storm of grief hath died away,
But left a settled gloom;

O'er which the smile may sadly play,

Like sunbeams on the tomb;
When skies above are blue and bright,
And flowers around it blow;

But all is darkness worse than night,
And dreariness below.

ZARACH.

POETRY, PAINTING, AND MUSIC.

[CONTINUED FROM OUR LAST.]

I have already expended so much time upon this part of our subject, that I have but brief space left to trace the effects produced by others of the arts of greater or less dignity and importance. Indeed it would be a useless task; every member of the society will very readily apply the principles laid down; and I may venture to say, that whether referred to painting, music, architecture, or the drama, these are the only principles which prove to be general or satisfactory. All other explanations and theories of what are called standards of taste, seem to me to be nothing more than idle and vexatious disputations.

It may be worth while, perhaps, to call your attention, for one moment only, to the very striking effects of association in the case of architecture. We possess but two styles or kinds of architecture, which essentially differ-the Grecian and Gothic. From either of these styles we reckon it characteristic of rashness, if not of barbarism, to depart in any degree. Their proportions are exactly copied, the minutest ornaments are studiously followed, and the introduction of any thing which cannot be justified by reference to certain acknowledged models, is deemed the result of gross ignorance or corrupt taste. How is this? Is there any inherent quality or beauty in their proportions, which would be violated and lost by any