"Wait awhile!" The words run along the telegraph of those narrow green lines that border the roads leading from the city, until they reach the slope of the hills, and the trees repeat in low murmurs to each other," Wait awhile!"

'By-and-by the flow of life in the streets ebbs, and the old leafy inhabitants, the smaller tribes always in front-saunter in, one by one, very careless seemingly, but very tenacious, until they swarm so that the great stones gape from each other with the crowding of their roots, and the feldspar begins to be picked out of the granite to find them food. At last the trees take up their solemn line of march, and never rest until they have encamped in the market-place. Wait long enough and you will find an old doting oak hugging a huge worn block in its yellow underground arms; that was the corner-stone of the State House. O, so patient She is, this imperturbable Nature!'

Dr. O. W. Holmes.

A LIVELY CHEESE.

At a friend's house Charles Lamb was presented with a cheese; it was a very ripe, not to say a very lively cheese, and, as Lamb was leaving, his friend offered him a piece of paper in which to wrap it, so that he might convey it more conveniently. 'Thank you,

said Charles, but would not several yards of twine be better, and then, you know I could lead it home?'

MR. SAMUEL ROGERS SITTING FOR
HIS PORTRAIT.

It is said that Mr. Rogers once asked the Rev. Sydney Smith's advice as to the position in which he should have his portrait taken? 'Oh,' said Sydney Smith, 'have it taken as if you were at church, in an attitude of devotion, with your countenance in your hat?

It is almost needless to say that Mr. Rogers was a singularly plain person, but it is not possible that Sydney Smith ever made so unkind or ill-bred a speech to him, or anybody else.

AN ANONYMOUS LETTER.

Mr. Thomas Raikes, who published a diary, was pitted with the small-pox, even to the tip of his nose. It seems that he wrote an anonymous, and rather offensive letter to Count D'Orsay, and as an additional insult he secured the envelope with a red wafer and stamped it with a thimble. D'Orsay guessed who was the sender, and, soon after happening to meet Raikes, he mildly counselled him thus-'The next time, mon

cher, you write anyone an anonymous letter and would rather not be found out, do not seal it with the tip of your nose.'

MR. WHO?

'That's empire, that which I can give away.'

Charles Lamb said the greatest pleasure he knew was to do a gocd action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.

There is nothing exciting in the following paper, indeed it is prosy enough, so let no one read it unless he takes pleasure in hearing of a kindly action.

On a certain occasion, with an impulse of singular magnanimity, I had abstained from bidding against the British Museum for a little book, on the possession of which I had much set my heart. When the prize was irrevocably gone I lamented my loss, and cursed my magnanimity. I cursed it loudly and frequently, for as the volume was almost unique, there seemed to be no chance of my ever meeting with another copy. It was a book for which I had long pined, it would have exactly filled a most important gap in my slender collection; indeed, its possession would have considerably enhanced the value of all the books on a certain short shelf. 'What,' groaned I, as Job himself might have groaned, 'what is the use

of having those other books if I haven't that particular

book?'

That little [volume] unpossessed,
Corrodes and cankers all the rest.'

Yes, it is too provoking—‘Life is a burthen.’ Some time afterwards, and by the merest accident, I heard of another copy of the same book; there are not four copies known, and, strange to say, this copy belonged to a man I knew, an opulent being, and a collector of books. All this was disheartening, for if he was rich, I felt sure he would be selfish ; and if he was a collector, would he not be infinitely more selfish? However, after pondering, I may say brooding over the matter for some weeks, I, at last, made up my mind.

I determined to employ an agent, one who would have my welfare at heart. He should negotiate an exchange, or a purchase. The agent I selected was a very wily fellow, as sagacious as a serpent. When I proposed my plan to him, Il me rit au nez, he knew there would not be the remotest chance of my getting the book, its possessor being himself a collector; that the very fact of my wishing to possess it would make 'the other party' reluctant to disgorge it. Alas! I feared my agent was right, for were not those exactly my own sentiments as regarded my brother collectors? However, the application was made; and, would you believe it, astounding as it may seem to any collector

who chances to read this little paper, the very next day my acquaintance, I may now venture to call him my friend, walked into my agent's place of business, with the book in his pocket. I ought to say that my friend is a learned man, a cultivated man, and he understood as well as I did the peculiar interest that attached to the book with which he was parting.

The title of the book is 'England's Helicon,' Ist edition, 1600, and my friend's name and address are— why may not I tell you my friend's name and address? Charles Lamb said the greatest pleasure he knew was to do a good action by stealth and to have it found out by accident. I think my friend knows a greater pleasure he is quite satisfied to do a kindness, and then to have done with it. I know, however, he agrees with Charles Lamb in a great many things.

MR. DOO!

'On the 15th instant, at his residence in Eaton Square, deeply regretted by all who knew him, John Doo, Esquire, F.S.A., F.G.S., F.R.G.S., J.P., in the 80th year of his age. Friends are requested' &c.

Apropos of this announcement, and as a pendant to what you have just been reading, I must tell you a long history concerning another little Book, also a volume of extraordinary rarity, of which, at one time,