you, Sir." Never mind, thought I; I am engaged to a capital Edinner, and shall meet a jolly party.

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The time approached, and I left the office. At the door, I was met by an urchin, who wished me a merry Christmas," showed me his Christmas piece, and asked me for a Christmas-box. Out of all patience, I told him I had no peace at Christmas myself, and gave him a Christmas-box on the ear promising, if he came again, that I would give him another, another year. Leaving him, I encountered a croaking old neighbour, who drawled out, in a most dismal tone of voice, "merry Christmas to you, friend; the cholera's spreading fast, I perceive." Arrived almost within a street's length of the promised feast, I heard a strange voice behind me say, "merry Christmas to you, Sir;" at the same time, I felt a familiar tap on the shoulder, and, turning round, beheld John Doe and Richard Roe. I was marched off to a lock-up house; "a merry Christmas to you," said the keeper, as he turned the key upon me, and left me in a room without food or fire. I summoned, in succession, three supposed friends, who, one after another, refused to bail me, but each wished me "a merry Christmas" as he went away. Disappointed and wretched, I sent for an attorney of the Insolvent Court, who told me that, as soon as I could let him have ten pounds to begin with, I might send for him again. As he was going, I called after him, to inquire how soon he thought I could get liberated. "About the end of March," he answered; and wishing me "a merry Christmas" shut the door.

For the last fifteen years-that is to say, ever since I have been married and unsettled-such, or some such, has been my comic annual. What wonder, then, if I hate the sound of that which is to me but a sound?-if I begin to doubt whether there is, in reality, any such thing as a merry Christmas-and if the one solitary pleasure I felt on Monday last, was not in giving sixpence to a melancholy mendicant, in return for his reminding me that "it only came once a year."

ORIGIN OF THE NAME OF ROME.

The following curious origin of the name of Rome is given by Mr. Dryden, in his translation of Plutarch's Lives. A certain number of Trojan warriors escaped from the siege of Troy, and succeeded in anchoring their vessels in the Tiber, near the spot occupied by Rome. The wives of these worthies, at the instigation

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of a lady named Roma, set fire to their ships, and consequently cut off their means of leaving the place by water. They settled, therefore, at Rome, built the city, and named it after the noble dame, who caused their detention. "From this," continues our translator, came the custom at Rome for women to salute their husbands and kinsmen with kisses, because those women, after they had burnt the ships, did make use of such like allurements to pacify their husbands, and allay the displeasure they had conceived.-DRYDEN'S PLUTARCH, VOL. 1. p. 91, 2..

EXTRACTS FROM FULLER.

Philosophers place memory in the rear of the head, and it seems the mine of memory lies here, because these men naturally dig for it-scratching it when they are at a loss.

Fancy is the most boundless and restless faculty of the soul: for while the understanding and the will are kept, as it were in libera custodia to their objects of verum et bonum, the fancy is free from all engagements: it digs without space, sails without ship, flies without wings, builds without charges, fights without blood-shed in a moment striding from the centre to the circumference of the world: by a kind of omnipotency creating and annihilating things in an instant. And things divorced in nature are married in fancy as in a lawless place.

Infant Smiles.-Some, admiring what motives to mirth infants meet with in their silent and solitary smiles, have resolved-how truly, I know not-that then they converse with angels, as indeed, such cannot among mortals find any fitter companions.

Such is the sociableness of Music, it conforms itself to all com panies both in mirth and mourning, complying to improve that passion, with which it finds the auditors most affected. In a word, it is an invention, which might have beseemed a son of Seth to have been the father thereof: though bitter it was that Cain's great-grand child should have the credit first to find it, than the world the unhappiness longer to have wanted it.

Beautiful Thought-St. Monica, drawing near to death, sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness, through the chinks of her sickness-brokenbody.

Waller has versified this in the well-known lines:

The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,

Lets in new light through chinks which time hath made."

An Elder Brother is one, who makes haste to come into the world, to bring his parents the first news of male posterity, and is well. rewarded for his trouble.

A Good Master, in correcting his servants, becomes not a slave to his own passion. Not cruelly making new indentures of the flesh of his apprentice. He is tender of his servant in sickness and age. If crippled in his service, his house is his hospital. Yet how

many throw away those dry bones, out of the which themselves have sucked the marrow!

Horses are man's wings, wherewith they make such speed. A generous creature, a horse is, sensible in some sort of honour and made most handsome by that which deforms men most-pride.

Camden.-It is most worthy observation how he (Camden) enquired after ancient places, making hue and cry after many a city which was run away, and by certain marks and tokens pursuing to find it; as by the situation on the Roman highways, by just distance from other ancient cities, by some affinity of name, by tradition of the inhabitants, by Roman coins digged up, and by some appearance of nuns. A broken urn is a whole evidence, or an

old gate, still surviving, out of which the city is run out. Beside, commonly some spruce town, not far off, is grown out of the ashes thereof, which hath so much natural affection, as dutifully to own. those reverend nuns for her master.

PIETY OF THE GOTHS.

A Roman General, in the latter ages of the empire, and the first of christianity, having sworn to the Goths to observe certain conditions, he was asked, whether he swore by his God, or by the head of the Emperor (Honorius). "For," said they, "if you swear by the Almighty, and committed perjury, you might be absolved from your vow; but if you swear by the life (caput) of the Emperor, you must observe your oath under the penalty of treason, perjury, and impiety. Heu pietas! heu prisca fides !

ROMAN INTEREST.

It is observed, that in calculating their Interest, the Romans divided the principal into one hundred parts, one of which they allowed to be taken monthly, and this, which was the highest rate of interest permitted, they called usuraè centissimæ amounting yearly to 12 per cent. Now, as the as, a Roman pound, was commonly used to express any integral sum and was dividible into 12 parts or unciaè, these 12 monthly payments or unciae were therefore held annually to amount to one pound or ausuarius; and so the usuraè asses were synonymous with the usuraè centissimæ. All the lower rates of Interest were denominated according to the relation they bore to this centissimal usury: for the several multiplies of the unciaè, or duodecimal parts of the as, were known by different names according to their different combinations: sextans, quadrans, triens, quincunx, semis, septunx, bes, dodrans, dextrans, deunx, containing respectively 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 unciaè or duodecimal parts of an as.

The most extraordinary book ever written in the English language is, without exception, "The Friend: a Series of Essays, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge." Whether we regard the matter it contains, or the manner in which that matter is arranged, or the headlong or rambling eloquence of the style-let us regard it how we will, it is, in truth, a marvellous work. The author's description of Sir Thomas Brown, as a writer, will apply, in a great measure, to himself. Rich in various knowledge, exuberant in conceptions; contemplative, imaginative; often truly great and magnificent in his style and diction. But, it is, after all, a book which few have read; and, what is more, which few can read. Young J the barrister, says it always gives him the head-ache to read more than three pages; and I have heard older men make the same remark. Yet, it is really a splendid example of mental magnificence. What can be more forcibly eloquent than the following passage?"The example of France is indeed a warning to Britain."" A nation wading to their rights through blood, and marking the track of Freedom by devastation. Yet let us not embark our feelings against our reason. Let us not indulge our malignant passions under the mask of humanity. Instead of railing with infuriable declaration against these excesses, we shall be more profitably employed in developing the sources of them. French Freedom is the beacon, which, if it guides to equality, should shew us likewise the dangers that throng the road.

"The annals of the French Revolution have recorded in letters of blood, that the knowledge of the few cannot counteract the ignorance of the many; that the light of philosophy, when it is confined to a small minority, points on the possessors as the victims, rather than the illuminators, of the multitude. The patriots of France either hastened into the dangerous and gigantic error of making certain evil the means of contingent good, or were sacrificed by the mob, with whose prejudices and ferocity their unbending virtue forbade them to assimilate. Like Sampson, the people were strong-like Sampson, the people were blind. Those two massy pillars of the temple of Oppression-their Monarchy and Aristocracy,

With horrible convulsion to and fro

They tugg'd, they shook; till down they came and drew

The whole roof after them with burst of thunder
Upon the heads of all who sat beneath--

Lords, Ladies, Captains, Counsellors and Priests,

Their choice nobility!"-FRIEND, VOL. II. p. 242, 3.

From the same Essay, I transcribe the following eloquent appeal. It has been, in part, obeyed by the foundation of the blessed institutions-" Infant Schools."

"Go, preach the Gospel to the poor." By its simplicity, it will meet their comprehension, by its benevolence soften their affections, by its precepts, it will direct their conduct, by the vastness of its motives ensure their obedience. The situation of the poor is perilous: they are, indeed, both

"From within and from without
Unarmed to all temptations."

Prudential reasonings will, in general, be powerless with them. For the incitements of this world are weak in proportion as we are wretched :

The world is not my friend, nor the world's law,
The world has got no law to make me rich.

They, too, who live from hand to mouth, will most frequently become improvident. Possessing no stock of happiness, they eagerly seize the gratifications of the moment, and snatch the froth from the wave as it passes by them. Nor is the desolate state of their families a restraining motive, unsoftened as they are by education, and benumbed into selfishness by the torpedo touch of extreme want. Domestic affections depend on association. We love an object, if, as often as we see and recollect it, an agreeable sensation arises in our minds. But alas! how should he glow with the charity of father and husband, who gaining scarcely more than his own necessities demand, must have been accustomed to regard his wife and children-not as the soothers of finished labor, but as rivals for the insufficient meal! In a man so circumstanced, the tyranny of the Present can be overpowered only by the ten-fold mightiness of the Future. Religion will cheer his gloom with her promises, and by habituating his mind to anticipate an infinitely great Revolution hereafter, may prepare it even for the sudden reception of a less degree of amelioration in this world.-FRIEND, VOL. II., p. 257, 8.

To relieve the mind from the intense labour of following up the reasoning of the author, lighter essays, are interspersed, which have been principally called “landing-places, or essays interposed for amusement, retrospect, and preparation." One of these it is in the sacred volume-is a pathetic tale, so beautifully told, albeit a tale of humble life-that he must have, indeed, a hard heart, who can peruse it unmoved. "The account," we are informed by Mr. Coleridge, "was published in the city (Nuremberg) and in the same year I read it, when I was in Germany, and the impression made on my memory was so deep, that though I