'I'm not a man who courts a row, But you insulted me, just now. By Jove, my friend, for what you've said, I've half a mind to punch your head. 'You won't forget to-morrow, eh? 'The man I like's the sort of man 'If any man addresses me, 'The houses have a quivering look : That corner one distinctly shook; I've got another fellow's hat; Well, never mind! all's one for that. The gas goes leaping up and down, 'There used to be a place near here 'There's hardly wind enough to blow 'My pipe's gone out: the air is chill; 'The tavern bar was warm and bright, 'Fun.' A DISTINCTION. 'Not drunk is he who from the floor H GHOSTS. 'Ghost stories are absurd. Whenever a real ghost appears, by which I mean some man or woman dressed up to frighten another, if the supernatural character of the apparition has been for an instant believed, the effect on the spectator has always been most terrible. Convulsions, madness, idiocy, or even death on the spot; but in our common ghost stories you always find that the seer, after a most appalling apparition, as you are led to believe, is quite well the next day! This shows that the apparition was the creature of his own mind.' Samuel T. Coleridge (1772-1834). JOHN WICKLIFFE. 'It was to the schism in the Papacy that Wickliffe was probably indebted for permission to end his turbulent life in peace, in his own parish, and in his own bed. The real disposition of Rome towards this arch-heretic was sufficiently testified when, forty-one years afterwards, the Council of Constance, in impotent rage, condemned his bones to be exhumed, burnt, and cast into the brook. But the Swift, such is its name, bore them to the Avon, that to the Severn, the Severn to the sea, to be dispersed unto all lands—which things are an allegory.' Thomas Fuller. En virtutem mortis nesciam. Vivet Lancinus Curtius Sæcula per omnia QUANTITY v. QUALITY. 'One of the strangest parts of Pagan worship in the East is the Mani, or praying machine. The deities are believed to be operated upon by the number of prayers, and as the devout cannot say them fast enough, a wheel is used, which enormously accelerates the process. In this way a man may sit talking of ordinary subjects to his friend while turning the wheel which repeats his prayers. 'In public places in Japan wheels with three spokes are benevolently mounted on stout posts for the gratuitous use of travellers. In a Buddhist monastery at Lahore there are about thirty wheels arranged along a gallery, capable of being moved at the slightest touch. Our guide ran his hand along the wall, setting all the wheels in motion, and thus, in one minute, saying, by proxy, more prayers than, by the ordinary method, he could get through in a day. There was a wheel outside the monastery, situate on the banks of a small stream, and, by a cog-wheel underneath, it was kept in perpetual praying motion by the water. 'The Maori have a string attached to their idols; the worshipper sits on a praying stone, at a little distance, holding in his hand the flax cord which is fastened about the idol's neck. Every now and again he gives it a jerk to make quite sure that the idol is not disregarding his petitions.' 'Day of Rest,' Aug. 1, 1876. A FUNERAL SERMON. A clergyman, an original, preached a funeral discourse on the beloved Princess Charlotte of Wales, and chose for his text: 'Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her, for she is a king's daughter.' After this sufficiently startling keynote, he began his sermon : 'If this was said of Jezebel, what honour should not be paid to one who was so virtuous, and so well beloved?' &c., &c. GUSTO. 'Gusto in art is power or passion defining any object. There is gusto in the colouring of Titian; not only do his heads seem to think, his bodies seem to feel. This is what the Italians mean by the morbidezza of his flesh-colour. It seems sensitive and |