by nature to be her protectors. Much harder, therefore, is the lot of the unhappy female, who, instead of being left a dead weight, is exposed to become an opprobrium to society. the subject of a lampoon. Loquacity ac cordingly, from its prejudicial tendency, cannot be held too much in abhorrence. Woe to those unmerciful tattlers who, not satisfied with adhering to the manifold Certain it is that inveterate enmity, di- topics of general conversation, will attempt vested of particular malice, could never be to pry into family secrets for the sole purproductive of more injurious effects than pose of divulging them, and when their an incautious slip of the tongue; and, not intrusion is prevented will set their imagiunfrequently, in the anxious desire of show-nation at work to turn into ridicule, at ing wit, or exciting laughter, when the least, such as they cannot defame. character of an absentee can be made D. W. THE TRIFLER.-No. XIX. CONJUGAL love is, certainly, a very my lovely Eliza-my life-my soul-my great and requisite virtue, more especially || charming creature—my heaven upon earth at this period; yet it must be confessed my heart's darling-and many more such whenever that virtue is publicly displayed honied expressions. it becomes a folly, approaching to vice; and deserves to be exposed, because it gives a license for the witlings of the age to break their scurvy jests on the sacred state of marriage itself. I passed the day yesterday with Sir Andrew Sugarcane and his lady; and Sir Andrew is a man of good understanding, finished by a liberal education, and he certainly possesses a tender and benevolent heart. His wife is a notable, economical woman, but, at the same time, a very agreeable companion; her person is elegant, and her dress always neat and fashionable. Who could have thought that marriage, by making these two one flesh, should have made them a couple of fools? Yet their ridiculous fondness in company actually has made them so. They are so extremely fond that they make those who are lookers on appear like a parcel of fools. In the largest parties Lady Sugarcane is miserable if she cannot sit next to her dearest life. Sir Andrew could not eat a morsel if he sat at a distance from his lovely darling. When they get together then their happiness begins: she pinches his ear and fondles his chin; he tickles her knees and turns her ringlets round his finger; and they often watch to steal a kiss, when they think the attention of the company is engaged. Their language consists of the following appellations:-My dearest Sir Andrew I am very far from wishing to depreciate the affections, nay, even the fondness that ought to subsist between those pairs who marry from mutual affection; but as the Spectator justly remarks, "there are private hours enough in the twenty-four to employ the most tender passion ever painted in romance." As I know Sir Andrew and his sweet wife have really a mutual love for each other, I can acquit them of those intentions which the ill-natured world, I know, are willing to ascribe to their excessive public fondness; namely, that they are only concealing, by these endearments, the disgust they both feel towards each other. As I know to the contrary, and that they both are endowed with good sense, I hope they will reflect in time, and subscribe to the truth of this maxim, that virtue, when carried to an extreme, is nearly connected, not only with folly, but touches close on vice. To put this subject out of my own head, as well as out of that of my reader, I subjoin the following letter, on the disappoiutments often attending promised plea sures: TO MRS. CONSTANTIA BAGATELLE. MADAM,-I am one who, though not accustomed to view every thing on the dark side, yet I cannot forbear saying, that the disappointments we experience in this world far outbalance our pleasures or our comforts; and I must ever subscribe to the truth of that maxim-Promise yourself much pleasure, and you will be sure to meet only with disappointment or mortification. Allow me merely to state a few instances which have lately come under my obser vation. turned politician; she hates poetry and the drama, and declares she will never set foot in those houses where politics are prohibited from the drawing-rooms and boudoirs. Miss Clara Salvator has such a passion for painting, that she is day and night behind her easel. She grows thin, her skin is turned yellow, and she is in a constant fever, her health being entirely under My wife and last week were to have had a very large party; our drawing-room was elegantly prepared, and we were our-mined by her assiduous attention to the selves dressed in the newest style of fashionable home costume. But all our expence and preparations were mere loss of time; for more than three-fourths of those whom we invited did not think proper to come to our rout. It was the same when we gave a little dance to our young friends last Christmas: one young lady, who was an excellent dancer, and on whose company we had particularly reckoned, fell down before a large looking-glass, put out her hip, and sprained her aukle, as she was practising her steps, and trying to skip and bound after the manner of some eminent Opera dancer. Another, writing to some first or second cousin, spilt a box of silver sand upon her writing, and being seated carelessly by an open window, the wind blew several particles of this sand into her eyes, which gave her the most violent pain; and those bright eyes which have made so many conquests, are at this very moment covered with a broad bandeau, so that she apppears like the Goddess of Fortune, or rather like the God of Love. A little sprightly lady of quality, who resides in a charming villa on the banks of the Thames, and is only in London for two or three months in the winter, has lost a law-suit, which it is feared, will completely ruin her. She passed all the dreary season bewailing her lot in the country, and I fear that grief will kill her before the next summer takes place. pencil; her mother cannot persuade her to lay it aside; she pants to become an honorary member of the Royal Academy, and behold her chef d'œuvres exhibited there annually. She thinks more of being famed as an artist than of being known as the heiress to an immense fortune; nor can she be said to exist, except in the midst of paint, oils, and canvas. Mr. J writes poems and romances, and by bringing out beautiful copies of his works, dedicated to ladies of quality, the author moves always in the first circles, and he has no time to spare to middling people like ourselves. Belville, who was the very life of our little evening parties, passes all his nights now at the subscription houses in the neighbourhood of St. James's. Our friend Pelham, unfortunately for us, has taken a house at Keunington, and as he dreads the north winds, and cannot bear to cross the bridges in an evening, we never see him during the winter. Thus are all the friends, in whose society we once so much delighted, scattered about. Oue is lame, another has a violent cough, one has a hoarseness, another is troubled with a continual sneezing. As for me and my wife, we have one thing to be thankful for, our health is good, we have not even a head-ache; though I must own, we are not without much vexation at the loss of many of those amiable acquaintances, which were wont to shed a lustre over all our social hours. SAMUEL SOCIABLE, ON TRUE AND FALSE WIT. THERE is no subject on which men differ from each other so widely as that of a joke, a good thing, or a smart touch. The wit of one is the vulgarity of another; and, in many cases, you must find your company understanding as well as good humour. I have never found a just standard of taste laid down with respect to wit. Every station in life has its peculiar likings. Men of learning have a wit peculiar to themselves; and ignorant men are pleased with what is disgusting to men of knowledge. A dunce thinks all wit unprofitable, because he cannot understand it; and a genius often finds it unprofitable, because he is not enabled to communicate that quickness of apprehension, which served him to form a witty saying or allusion. Having seen many varieties of dispositions, and many unsuccessful wits, I flatter myself that I can offer a few hints, which may not be unserviceable to professed wits. In a short essay, like this, I can give hints only. Long dissertations, or recollections of trite opinions, come not within my plan. In the first place, when I mention wit, I mean it in general, and shall not confine myself to this or that species. Wit, then, is intimately connected with morality. The inference from this position, if I am allowed to hold it, is, that obscenity and blasphemy are not wit. If there are any men who do not allow my position, I must beg their kind indulgence, and that they will allow a conceited puppy to retain an opinion, with which he was very early impressed, and which he has found it his interest and happiness to find out the merit of some good things, which are, and have been, applauded. Driving a blind horse into a china and glass shop, is no wit, because it makes no pleasing impression on the persons to whom it is addressed. Even the spectators are afraid to laugh, lest the enraged shopman should break their heads; and if this trick, which has been esteemed a devilish good thing, should be attended with the death of a child, who may hap pen to be trod upon by the horse, I beg to know where the wit lies? Pulling a chair from under a person, at the moment he is about to sit down, has been thought a high stroke. But let us see what effects it produces. The man fallsthe company laugh-but owing to their ignorance; for their laughter is turned into sorrow, if not indignation, when they find that the person, by his fall, has received a contusion at the back of his head, is senseless, and recovers with great difficulty. This case I have been a witness of. But what says the sufferer himself; or what says he whose wit has proved so dangerous? I believe there are few who know what a cracked skull, or a bruise are, that do not agree with me in expelling this species of wit from the catalogue. Stealing a blind man's dog, has been mentioned as vastly funny, and monstrous clever; but, for funny, 1 read wicked; and for clever, I read cruel. In the year 1745-6, one of the rebels in Edinburgh, went boldly near to the Castle, which was then in possession of the King's troops, while the rest of the town was in possession of the rebels; and lifting up his Highland petticoats, presented a very insulting part of the body to the soldiers in the Castle. This was reckoned a monstrous good joke: he was applauded by his fellows with repeated shouts. But mark the sequel; an engineer on the halfmoon battery, took aim with a four pounder, and hit him so as to shatter the wit to pieces. The goodness of the jest now vanished, since it produced a repartee so in, some years since, a young gentleman || some are so fond, being therefore destitute who had diverted the table with many of the necessary pretensions and principles, very witty feats and sayings, at last, by will, it is hoped, fall into a merited con. way of a capital stroke, threw a quart bot- tempt; and it is recommended to those tle, just emptied of the wine, at my head. who wish to excite merriment, to have reThe consequence was, my being carried course to such means only as are harmless, home speechless. When I recovered, I and of which even the party who may be could not help expressing some little dis-devoted to its exercise will not complain; pleasure at the poignancy of the jest; but the gentleman took this in deep dudgeon, and remarked, that "some people liked nobody's wit but their own." For the life of me, however, I cannot find out the wit of this bottle affair, even although 1 hazarded that life in order to try it. This gymnastic kind of wit, of which for if either a mental or a corporal uneasiness follow, the jest, in my judgment, is a bad one; and the sufferer, as well as the spectators, will be apt to decide upon it as the result either of ignorance, illnature, or a savage and uncivilized dispo sition. ALFRED. ON THE ANALOGY BETWEEN ANIMALS AND VEGETABLES. classes which, at first sight, appear to be so widely removed, are found, upon a closer examination, to be separated by no precise or determinate boundary. In every circumstance, plants, to a certain degree, resemble animals. The structure and ir THE study of nature is certainly the most delightful that can engage the attention of man. That beauty, that order, that symmetry, which ruu through the works of the Creator, sooth the turbulence of passion, excite tender and placid emotions, and fill the feeling and contemplative mindritability of plants, and the power of perwith rapturous joy. Far different is the scene which human life presents. Man, the tyrant of the universe, has violated the fair form of the world, and created confusion, anarchy, and vice. The introduction of poverty, the division of ranks in society, the amazing extension of arts and commerce, have destroyed the primæval manners, and contributed to the degradation of the human race. The study of life, however useful, is certainly disgusting to an ingenious mind, and has a manifest tendency to weaken the force of moral obligation. From this chequered picture we gladly return to a more lovely scene. Our dispositions receive a tincture from our studies and pursuits. The contemplation of nature allures our souls to harmony. That universal system of gra. dation, and that subordination of the parts to the whole, teach contentment in our situation, and resignation to the divine will. We leave the habitation of groveling mortals, and, for a time, respire a purer air. The productions of nature ascend by gradual and imperceptible steps. Those forming certain motions, are in some measure common to both, The delicate shrink of the sensitive plant has long been the subject of wonder and surprise. The moving plant, a native of the East Indies, is affected by the mere impulse of the solar rays. During the night, or in cold or cloudy weather, it is still and torpid; but when the sun shines it is enlivened, and moves its leaves briskly in all directions. The Venus's fly-trap, a natural production of South Carolina, is a plaut of a very singular kind. Its leaves are furnished with a double row of prickles, with which it seizes and transfixes the small insects that approach it. The sleep of plants is per. formed variously, and in a manner the best adapted to their particular structure. The leaves of the tamarind tree contract round the tender fruit, and protect it from the nocturnal cold. The leaves of the chick weed, the swallow wort, &c. are disposed in pairs, and during the night they rise, join at the top, and conceal the flowers. The leaves of the Indian mallow, the ayenia, and the tree-primrose are placed alternately. Though horizontal, or even inclining in a downward direction during to much heat, and a wet sponge is placed the day, they rise at the approach of night, near it, but in a different direction from and embrace the stem. In the same man- that in which the root is proceeding, in a ner the night shade and the Egyptian velch || short time the root turns towards the erect their leaves during the night. The sponge. In this manner the direction of young buds of the white lupin are pro- the roots may be varied at pleasure. All tected by the pendulous state of the plants make the strongest efforts towards attaining a perpendicular position by in leaves. Plants have a singular power of accom-clining, turning, and even twisting their modating themselves to their situation, and of recovering their original position. In some instances they seem to be actuated by the principle of choice, and almost capable of reflection. When trees grow near a ditch, the roots which proceed in a direction that would necessarily bring them into the open air, instead of continuing their noxious progress, sink below the level of the ditch, or whatever excavation happens to be in their way, then shoot across and regain the soil on the opposite side. When the root is uncovered, without exposing it stems and branches to escape from darkness and shade, and to procure the influence of the sun. Place a wet sponge under the leaves of a tree, they soon bend downward, and endeavour to apply their interior surfaces to the sponge. If a vessel of water be placed within six inches of a growing cucumber, in twenty-four hours the cucumber alters the direction of its branches, bends either to the right or left, and never stops till it comes in contact with the water. THE GLEANER'S PORTE-FOLIO; CONSISTING OF INTERESTING ARTICLES FROM RECENT PUBLICATIONS, PUBLIC JOURNALS, &c. &c. ENGLISH PRIDE AND FRENCH VANITY. SOCIETY on the Continent is one of the greatest luxuries; it is, in fact, an interchange of polite vanity, and as it is itself so great an enjoyment, it constitutes a principal object of life. But the English, who are proud and reserved, take no pleasure in society, and accordingly they only meet when one of the number can gratify his pride and his hospitality by giving a dinner or a supper. Conversation is then an involuntary obligation, and except over a bottle of wine, which at once heightens the spirits and opens the heart, is seldom enjoyed by the real John Bull. It is in closing to his own fireside, in excluding all but his own family, in settling himself in a large arm-chair, with the consciousness that he is not obliged to entertain any body, that cousists the comfort, which is the boast of his language and his life. Comfort generally means a great consideration for self, and a total forgetfulness of other people. It is the same attention to comfort, or the same solitary pride, which prevents a restaurateur from flourishing; in London: : a better dinner might then be obtained for half the sum; but Mr. Bull likes to have a mutton chop in his own parlour. For the same reason a town on the Continent is full of reading-rooms, but an Englishman has his newspaper at home; and whilst a fine day in France brings every living soul out of doors, the haughty tailors and punctilious green grocers of England spend the evening in their close rooms of six feet square, almost poisoned by the smell of the cheese and apples in the cupboard. SOCIETY IN LONDON. "To love some persons very much, and see often those that I love," said the old Duchess of Marlborough, "is the greatest happiness I can enjoy." But in London it is equally difficult to get to love any body very much, or to see often those that we have loved. There are such numbers of acquaintances, such a succession of engagements, that the town resembles Vauxhall, where the dearest friends may walk round and round all night without |