then be safely allowed, for the unfortunate people generally feel the return of the malady, and will ask in time to be restrained. This was the case with Dr. Hosack, and with many whom every reader has heard of in his circle of acquaintance. Physicians, lawyers, the benevolent, generally admit the necessity of a wider, healthier legislation in regard to this unfortunate class, and that everything should be subordinated to their ultimate care and restoration. No object of higher importance, indeed, is now before the American people, and the State which first codifies, by the highest standards of Natural Law and Medical Science, its whole legislation on the subject of insanity, will accomplish a reform never to be forgotten in its history. OF LITERARY HUSBANDS. THAT LADIES SHOULD BEWARE of Getting Such, and Why. THERE could be few more critical tasks than to write a treatise on the choice of wives or husbands, but we need not be overscrupulous about warning ladies in search of husbands to beware of men of literary habits, and we should be doing a kindness if we advise literary men contemplating matrimony to select for their wives judicious and patient nurses rather than charming and brilliant women. There is a comfortable doctrine held by wives that all husbands are more or less selfish, and we admit that there is much to be said in support of this theory. Hunting husbands, shooting husbands, Parliamentary husbands and business husbands generally seek their own amusement as the principal end of their lives, while the pleasures of their wives are regarded as desirable but secondary objects; but none of the above-mentioned are so purely selfish as are certain literary husbands. Strictly pleasure-seeking husbands often study their own amusements only, while they worship their wives. Literary husbands also study their own amusement only, while they worship themselves. Moreover, in intercourse with their fellow-creatures, ordinary mortals usually imbibe some fresh ideas or learn a little entertaining gossip, and are consequently more or less agreeable companions to their wives. But the literary man spends the day at home in his own den, where his brain feeds chiefly upon itself, with a few books, by way of condiment, by writers holding his own identical opinions; so that he is unlikely to be very fresh or amusing, when he seeks the society of his wife. Like a savage animal that cannot be approached without danger, the literary husband, as we have said, spends his time in his study. He may be concocting jokes for a comic paper or writing a treatise on Christian gentleness; but, for all that, when sitting at his writing-table, he will be as ill-tempered and as snappish as a bull terrier on his chain. The judicious wife will be wary in approaching him on such occasions. If the kitchen chimney is on fire, or if the pipes are bursting, "dear George" must not be disturbed on that account, or the heat of his wrath and the explosion of his temper are likely to exceed the worst that can happen from those domestic calamities. He may be writing the most calm and urimpassioned judgment on the disputes between the Guelphs and the Ghibelines; but it would be unwise in his wife to calculate on his giving an equally temperate decision on a squabble between the cook and the butler during the hours that he spends in his chair of literary jurisdiction. It is true that there are some literary husbands who will make attempts to be courteous when invaded in their sanctums. They will assure their wives that they "are not in the least in the way," while their nervous restlessness too plainly belies their words; they may even assume a ghastly smile when a thorough reorganization of their rooms is suggested, and there may be a very pretty struggle between the parental and the literary instincts when their youngest children are brought into their dens, but it only requires half an eye to see that they are in reality as much put out as a servant disturbed at a meal, which we take to be the extreme example of human acridity. Perhaps the most remarkable expression ever assumed by a literary husband is that which he wears when his wife requests him to come into the drawing-room to help to entertain some friends, especially when she assures him that they are aware he is at home. His face, again, is a study if she enters his room when he is in the middle of a long and carefully prepared sentence with the pleasing announcement that the housekeeper complains of "a smell" in one of the back passages. Much literary work is apt to engender irritability. When the mind is deeply absorbed in some interesting subject, and an idea has been grasped after considerable mental exertion, abrupt interruption is very trying. A sudden disturbance of such a kind will produce actual headache in some people. It is also exceedingly irritating to feel that the clew which had only just been found, after so much trouble, has been lost, perhaps never to be regained. It is needless to add that much literary occupation, relieved by but little fresh air and exercise, is a most likely cause of dyspepsia. Now, the combination of an original mind and a dyspeptic body may be highly favorable to amusing writing of a pungent and sarcastic nature, but it is far from being equally favorable to domestic happiness. Another thing that detracts from the sociability of a literary husband is his habit of relapsing into brown studies of long duration. Sometimes the ideas that refuse to be invoked in the study begin to flow in the drawingroom or dining-room, and a literary husband, when his ideas are "on the flow," is an object sacred from disturbance. When in that celestial condition he is, doubtless, worthy of great reverence, but he can scarcely be called an amusing member of society. There are many living creatures that are a nuisance in a house. A naughty boy is one; a mangy dog is another, and a third is an early student of the violin; but of all domestic nuisances a man who is writing a book is, to our mind, the worst. If he is writing it as a matter of business, he is an unmitigated bore. He thinks of nothing else. What is it to him that the country is involved in war, that the Ministry have been beaten, or that his drains are out of order, unless these facts have at least an indirect bearing on his work? He spends most of his time closeted in his study, and if he goes out he has a notebook at hand to receive his ideas. If he reads at all he confines himself to books bearing on the subject that he is treating in his great work. He is absent and preoccupied in the presence of his wife, and he enlivens her nights by talking in his sleep on the subject of his book. If he is writing it for pleasure rather than for business, he is an even greater nuisance, for then he not only makes it his own amusement, but expects those about him to make it theirs also. His book, its present and its future contents, must form the leading topic of conversation in the family if he is to be kept in good humor. As every half-dozen pages of cramped, blotted and much-corrected manuscript is finished, it is submitted to the various members of the family for perusal. Their verdict must, of course, always be favorable. How good! How clever! How amusing! It is easy enough to praise, and during a long life a wife may declare that each new specimen of her husband's scribbling is the best; but literary husbands have sometimes an unfortunate habit of asking their wives to make suggestions. In such cases, the wife is put into this awkward position, that if she makes suggestions she is pretty certain to be severely snubbed, while, if she makes none, she will be accused of taking no interest in the work. Worst of all, some literary husbands expect their wives to write out fair copies of their stilted and illegible scrawls, or they even go so far as to sit in armchairs smoking cigars while their wives write at their dictation. One of the most trying periods to wives of literary husbands is that during which the bundles of manuscript are traveling about from publisher to publisher. The husband can scarcely sleep at night, so anxious is he about the contents of the morning's postbag. Of course, miny days, or even weeks, elapse before the first publisher gives his verdict. At last a polite note, describing his regret at being unable to undertake the publication, renders the unhappy writer a savage in his family for a fortnight. Or perhaps a brown paper parcel arrives, containing the precious manuscript safe and sound, and also a slip of paper inscribed with the magic words, "Declined with thanks," after the receipt of which the disappointed aspirant will be quite unapproachable for some hours, and will be unendurable for many weeks. When the well-traveled manuscript has been at last accepted, the writer falls into a state of ecstasy for a time, but he assumes a bumptiousness that is not altogether agreeable to near relations. When the proofs arrive, the horrors seem to begin all over again. The husband shuts himself up for hours at a time, as of old, and everything has to give way to the great undertaking. The entertainment of the evenings is to have the book read aloud from "real print," this proceeding being rendered more attractive by the author's constantly stopping the reader by, "Wait a moment; if you will give me the proof, I think I will alter a word there." We are inclined to think that for a couple of months after the appearance of the first review of a book its author ought to be placed in solitary confinement. The time that follows is a trying one both to himself and his relatives. Even the most favorable of his critics rarely please him, for he considers that they praise the less important parts of his work, while they altogether omit to notice its clev erest features. If his panegyrists fail to satisfy him, what shall be said of his adverse reviewers? Do not those nearest and dearest to him remember the reception that he gave to a certain lukewarm criticism? And can they not vouch for the fact that one sneering review brought on an attack of his gout? But what shall be said of a particular article that appeared in one of the weekly journals? Did not his wife contrive that the paper should be mislaid before he had read it, and did she not persuade him to start for a short tour to the west of France two days after its publication, with the hope of preventing him from seeing the obnoxious print at all? Did it not also happen that'a wellmeaning friend cut out the article and sent it after him, and had not his beloved wife a nice time of it when the said article reached him at St. Malow, here she had to bear the full and undivided consequences of his fury? We have carefully confined ourselves in this article to its special subject-namely, literary husbands. In conclusion, we may throw out a hint that there are also such persons as literary wives, but they are a subject on which we should tremble to enter. THE EARLY WATCHES. Night," when he makes Malvolio say, "I frown a while and perchance wind up my watch." EDWARD VI. appears to have been the first Englishman to wear a watch, and this consisted of "onne larum, or watch of iron, the case being likewise of iron gilt, with two plumettes of lead"-that is to say, it was driven by weights. This is supposed to have been received by the king as a present from Nuremburg, and was playfully There are also frequent pauses to ask the audience called a Nuremburg animated egg. An Italian sonnet, whether there are not "too many whiches' in that senwritten by Gasper Visconti, in 1490, makes mention of tence," or whether there ought to be a comma or a semi-watches, and Shakespeare refers to one in "Twelfth colon after the word "reliable," and the reader is often requested to begin again from the top of the page. The apparently interminable interval between the return of Queen Elizabeth had a watch in shape exactly like a the corrected proofs and the publication of the book has duck, with chased feathers, the lower part of which no tendency to make the author light-hearted. He alter-opened, and the face or dial was of silver, ornamented nately wonders when it will appear, and whether he was wise in writing it at all. He has almost reduced himself to forgetfulness of the whole matter when the book actually appears. His wife's cares and troubles then become very similar to those of a nurse who has the charge of "an invalid gentleman." He is put into a fever by the absence of any reviews of his in the first week after publication; and when no criticisms of it appear in the principal journals for a fortnight, or perhaps a month, he becomes infuriated with his publisher, who cannot, he says, be taking the slightest trouble about his book. He will also be much irritated if he does not receive prompt and very Guy Fawkes an 1 his associates had a watch when they favorable criticisms from the friends to whom he has pre- intended to blow up the House of Parliament, "to try sented copies. He will not be able to understand why conclusions for the long and short burning of the fusec." they have not thrown all other engagements and occupa- All these early watches had but one hand, and required tions on one side, and spent their time in greedily read-winding up twice a day, until, in 1550, springs were subing his book until it was finished. He will be secretly stituted for weights. angry, again, if any of his friends who profess to have read it with pleasure are found by no means to know it by heart when put through a viva voce examination. It may be readily imagined that under these conditions the author is scarcely the most amiable and light-hearted of men in his own family circle. with a gilt design. The outer base was of brass, and that in its turn was covered with black leather ornamented with silver studs. Mary Queen of Scots gave a curious token of affection to her faithful maid-of-honor, Mary Seaton, in the shape of a watch in the form of a skull, the dial occupying the place of the palate, and the works that of the brains. The hours were marked in Roman letters. A bell in the hollow of the shull received the works, and a hammer struck the hours. Striking watches were uncommon, and in the time of Louis XI. a stolen watch was, by its striking, discovered in possession of the thief. As THE diamond is found in the darkness of the mine, as the lightning shoots with most vivid flashes from the gloomiest cloud, so does mirthfulness frequently proceed from a heart susceptible of the deepest melancholy, "Come, haud my steed, ye little foot-page, Shod wi' the red gowd roun', Till I kiss the lips whilk sing so sae sweet;" And lightlie lap he doun. "Kiss nae the singer's lips, master, Kiss nae the singer's chin; Touch nae her hand," quoth the little foot-page, "If skaithless hame ye wad win. "O wha will sit in yer toom saddle, He took aff his hat, a' gowd i' the rim, He seemed a' in luve wi' his gowd raimènt, "The Summer dew fa's soft, fair maid, Aneath the siller moon; But eerie is thy seat i' the rock, "Come wash me wi' thy lilie-white hand, Below and 'boon the knee; And I'll kame thae links o' yellow burning gowd "How rosie are thy parting lips, "Tak' aff thae bars and bobs o' gowd, And thraw me aff thy green mantle, |