lican. For the benefit of such portrait painters, I will record an apposite anecdote of Mirabeau, premising that his face was deeply indented with the small-pox. Anxious to be put in nomination for the National Assembly, he made a long speech to the voters, minutely pointing out the precise requisites that a proper and efficient member ought to possess, and, of course, drawing as accurate a likeness as possible of himself. He was answered by Talleyrand, who contented himself with the following short speech: "It appears to me, gentlemen, that M. de Mirabeau has omitted to state the most important of all the legislative qualifications, and I will supply his deficiency by impressing upon your attention, that a perfectly unobjectionable member of the Assembly ought, above all things, to be very much marked with the small pox." Talleyrand got the laugh, which in France always carries the election.

CANDOUR-In some people may be compared to barleysugar drops, in which the acid preponderates over the sweet

ness.

CANT.-Originally the name of a Cameronian preacher in Scotland, who had attained the faculty of preaching in such a tone and dialect, as to be understood by none but his own congregation. This worthy, however, has been outcanted by his countryman, Irving, whose Babel tongues possess the superior merit of being unintelligible not only to his flock, but even to himself.

In the present acceptation of the word, as a synonyme of hypocrisy as a pharisaical pretension to superior religion and virtue, substituted by those great professors of both, who are generally the least performers of either, cant may be designated the characteristic of modern England. Simulation and dissimulation are its constituent elements-the substitution of the form for the spirit, of appearances for realities, of words for things.

CARE-The tax paid by the higher classes for their privileges and possessions. Often amounting to the full value of the property upon which it is levied, care may be termed the poor-rate of the rich. Like death, care is a sturdy summoner, who will take no denial, and who is no respecter of persons. Nor is the importunate dun a whit improved in his manners since the time of Horace, for he beards the great and the powerful in their very palaces, and scares them even in their throne-like beds, while the peasant sleeps undisturbed upon his straw pallet. Under the perpetual influence of these drawbacks and compensations, the inequalities of fortune, if measured by the criterion of enjoyment, are rather apparent than real; for it is difficult to be rich without care, and easy to be happy without wealth.

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CASTLE.-In England every man's cottage is held to be his castle, which he is authorized to defend; even against the assaults of the king; but it may be doubted whether the same privilege extends to Ireland.- My client," said an Irish advocate, pleading before Lord Norbury, in an action of trespass, "is a poor man-he lives in a hovel, and this miserable dwelling is in a forlorn and dilapidated state; but still, thank God! the labourer's cottage, however ruinous its plight, is his sanctuary and his castle. Yes the winds may enter it, and the rains may enter it, but the king cannot enter it." "What! not the reigning king?" asked the joke-loving judge.

CASUISTS-a question for. Lord Clarendon, speaking of Fletcher of Saltoun, says, "he would willingly have sacrificed his life to serve his country, though he would not have committed a base action to save it." Quere ?-Can any action be termed base which has for its object the salvation of our native country? Was Brutus a murderer or a patriot, when he delivered Rome from the usurper of its liberties by assassinating Cæsar? Is tyrannicide justifiable homicide?—“ Non nobis est tantas componere lites."

CAT-A domestic quadruped, commonly, but, we believe, erroneously supposed to have nine lives; whence, we presume, a whip, with the same number of lashes, is called a cat-o'-nine tails. Few creatures have more strikingly exhibited the caprice and folly of mankind, for the cat, according to times and localities, has been either blindly reverenced or cruelly persecuted. Among the Egyptians it was a capital punishment to kill this animal, which was worshipped in a celebrated temple dedicated to the goddess Bubastis, who is said to have assumed the feline form to avoid Typhon; a fable, reversed in the fairy tale of the cat metamorphosed into a young lady. The sympathies of the Egyptians seem to have descended to the Arabians, for it is recorded of Mahomet, that when a favourite cat had fallen asleep, on the sleeve of his rich robe, and the call to prayers sounded, he drew his scimitar and cut off the sleeve, rather choosing to spoil his garment, than disturb the slumbers of his four-footed friend.

In England, on the contrary, owing partly to the superstitious connexion of this animal with witches, and partly to that barbarism which never wants an excuse for cruelty, the unfortunate cat appears to have been always considered a proscribed creature, against one or other of whose nine lives, if it ventured beyond the threshold of its owner's house, every hand might be lifted.

CATACHRESIS.-The abuse of a trope, or an apparent contradiction in terms, as when the law pronounces the accidental killing of a woman to be manslaughter. The name of the Serpentine River, which is a straight canal, involves a catachresis, and we often, unconsciously, perpetrate others, in our daily discourse; as when we talk of wooden tomb-stones, iron mile-stones, glass ink-horns, brass shoeing-horns, &c.

Every one recollects the fervent hope expressed by the late Lord Castlereagh, that the people of this happy country would never turn their backs upon themselves. This was only a misplaced trope; but there is sometimes, among his fellow

countrymen, a confusion of ideas that involves an impossibility. An Irishman's horse fell with him, throwing his rider to some distance, when the animal, in struggling to get up, entangled its hind leg in the stirrup. "Oh, very well, sir,” said the dismounted cavalier; "if you're after getting on your own back, I see there will be no room for me."

The following string of Catachreses is versified, with some additions and embellishments, from a sermon of an ignorant field-preacher:

Staying his hand, which, like a hammer,
Had thump'd and bump'd his anvil-book,
And waving it to still the clamour,
The tub-man took a loftier look,
And thus, condensing all his powers,
Scatter'd his oratoric flowers.-
"What! will ye still, ye heathen, flee,

From sanctity and grace,

Until your blind idolatry

Shall stare ye in the face?

Will ye throw off the mask, and show
Thereby the cloven foot below ?—
Do-but remember, ye must pay
What's due to ye on settling day!
Justice's eye, it stands to sense,

Can never stomach such transgressions,
Nor can the hand of Providence

Wink at your impious expressions.
The infidel thinks vengeance dead,
And in his fancied safety chuckles,
But atheism's Hydra head,

Shall have a rap upon the knuckles.

CELIBACY.-A vow by which the priesthood, in some countries, swear to content themselves with the wives of other people.

CEREMONY.-All that is considered necessary by many in religion and friendship.

CENSORIOUSNESS.-Judging of others by ourselves. It will invariably be found, that the most censurable are the most censorious; while those who have the least need of indulgence, are the most indulgent. We should pardon the mistakes of others as freely as if we ourselves were constantly committing the same faults, and yet avoid their errors as carefully as if we never forgave them. There is no precept however, that cannot be evaded. "We are ordered to forgive our enemies but not our friends," cries a quibbler. "We may forgive our own enemies, but not the heretics, who are the enemies of God," said Father Segnerand to Louis XIII. Many people imagine that they are not only concealing their own misconduct in this world, but making atonement for it in the next, by visiting the misdeeds of others with a puritanical severity. They may well be implacable! "I should never have preserved my reputation," said Lady B-, "if I had not carefully abstained from visiting demireps. I must be strait-laced in the persons of others, because I have been so loose in my own. ."—"My dear lady B-!" exclaimed her sympathising friend, "upon this principle you ought to retire into a convent!"

CHALLENGE.-Calling upon a man who has hurt your feelings to give you satisfaction-by shooting you through the body.

CHANCELLOR—The present Lord.*-One who throws his own lustre upon that high office, from which all his predecessors have borrowed theirs. It has been objected to Lord Brougham that he is ambitious, and long had his eye upon

* For present, we must now read late.