pot it and don't hang it. A rope is a bad Cordon Sanitaire. Above all, don't despond about it. Let not anxiety "have thee on the hyp." Consider your health as your best friend, and think as well of it, in spite of all its foibles, as you can. For instance, never dream, though you may have a "clever hack," of galloping consumption, or indulge in the Meltonian belief, that you are going the pace. Never fancy every time you cough, that you are going to coughypot. Hold up, as the shooter says, over the heaviest ground. Despondency in a nice case is the over-weight that may make you kick the beam and the bucket both at once. In short, as with other cases, never meet trouble half-way, but let him have the whole walk for his pains; though it should be a Scotch mile and a bittock. I have even known him to give up his visit in sight of the house. Besides, the best fence against care is a ha! ha!—wherefore take care to have one all round you wherever you can. Let your "lungs grow like Chanticleer," and as like a GAME cock as possible. l expands the chest, enlarges the heart, quickens the circulation, and "like a trumpet makes the spirits dance." 3 A fico then for the Chesterfieldian canon, that laughter is an ungenteel emotion. Smiles are tolerated by the very pinks of politeness; and a laugh is but the full-blown flower of which a smile is the bud. It is a sort of vocal music-a glee in which everybody can take a part:—and "he who hath not laughter in his soul, let no such man be trusted." Indeed, there are two classes of Querists particularly to be shunned; thus when you hear a Cui Bono? be sure to leave the room; but if it be Quid Rides? make a point to quit the house, and forget to take its number. None but your dull dogs would give tongue in such a style; for, as Nimrod says in his "Hunt after Happiness," "A single burst with Mirth is worth a whole season of full cries with Melancholy." Such, dear reader, is the cheerful Philosophy which I practise as well as preach. It teaches to "make a sunshine in a shady place," to render the mind independent of external foul weather, by compelling it, as old Absolute says, to get a sun and moon of its own. As the system has worked so well in my own case, it is a duty to recommend it to others: and like certain practi tioners, who not only prescribe but dispense their own medicines, I have prepared a regular course of light reading, whereof I now present the first packet, in the humble hope that your dull hours may be amused, and your cares diverted, by the laughing lucubrations which have enlivened Hood's Own. THE PUGSLEY PAPERS. How the following correspondence came into my hands must remain a Waverley mystery. The Pugsley Papers were neither rescued from a garret, like Evelyn,-collected from cartridges like the Culloden,-nor saved, like the Garrick, from being shredded into a snow storm at a Winter Theatre. They were not snatched from a tailor's shears, like the original parchment of Magna Charta. They were neither the Legacy of a Dominie, nor the communications of My Landlord,-a consignment, like the Clinker Letters, from some Rev. Jonathan Dustwich,—nor the waifs and strays of a Twopenny Post Bag. They were not unrolled from ancient papyri. They were none of those that "line trunks, clothe spices," or paper the walls of old attics. They were neither given to me nor sold to me,—nor stolen,— nor borrowed and surreptitiously copied,-nor left in a hackney coach, like Sheridan's play,-nor misdelivered by a carrier pigeon,-nor dreamt of, like Coleridge's Kubla Khan,-nor turned up in the Tower, like Milton's Foundling MS.,—nor dug up, nor trumped up, like eastern tales of Horam harum Horam the son of Asmar,—nor brought over by Rammohun Roy, nor translated by Doctor Bowring from the Scandinavian, Batavian, Pomeranian, Spanish, or Danish, or Russian, or Prussian, or any other language dead or living. They were not picked from the Dead Letter Office, nor purloined from the British Museum. In short, I cannot, dar not, will not, hint even at the mode of their acquisition: the reader must be content to know, that, in point of authenticity, the Pugsley Papers are the extreme reverse of Lady L.'s celebrated Autographs, which were all written by the proprietor. No. I.-From Master RICHARD PUGSLEY, to Master ROBERT ROGERS, at Number 132, Barbican. DEAR BOB, Huzza!-Here I am in Lincolnshire! It's good-bye to Wellingtons and Cossacks, Ladies' double channels, Gentlemen's stout calf, and ditto ditto. They've all been sold off under prime cost, and the old Shoe Mart is disposed of, goodwill and fixtures, for ever and ever. Father has been made a rich Squire of by will, and we've got a house and fields, and trees of our own. Such a garden, Bob!-It beats White Conduit. Now, Bob, I'll tell you what I want. I want you to come down here for the holidays. Don't be afraid. Ask your Sister to ask your Mother to ask your Father to let you come. It's only ninety miles. If you're out of pocket money, you can walk, and beg a lift now and then, or swing by the dickeys. Put on cordroys, and don't care for cut behind. The two prentices, George and Will, are here to be made farmers of, and brother Nick is took home from school to help in agriculture. We like farming very much, it's capital fun. Us four have got a gun, and go out shooting: it's a famous good un, and sure to go off if you don't full cock it. Tiger is to be our shooting dog as soon as he has left off killing the sheep. He's a real savage, and worries cats beautiful. Before Father comes down, we mean to bait our bull with him. There's plenty of New Rivers about, and we're going a fishing as soon as we have mended our top joint. We've killed one of our sheep on the sly to get gentles. We've a pony too, to ride upon when we can catch him, but he's loose in the paddock, and has neither mane nor tail to signify to lay hold of. Isn't it prime, Bob? You must come. If your Mother won't give your Father leave to allow you,-run away. Remember, you turn up Goswell Street to go to Lincolnshire, and ask for Middlefen Hall. There's a pond full of frogs, but we won't pelt them till you come, but let it be before Sunday, as there's our own orchard to rob, and the fruit's to be gathered on Mon day. If you like sucking raw eggs, we know where the hens lay, and mother don't; and I'm bound there's lots of birds' nests. Your old friend and schoolfellow, No. II.-From the Same to the Same. DEAR BOB, When you come, bring us a 'bacco-pipe to load the gun with. If you don't come, it can come by the wagon. Our Public House is three mile off, and when you've walked there it's out of everything. Yours, &c., RICH. PUGSLEY. No. III.-From Miss ANASTASIA PUGSLEY, to Miss JEMIMA MOGGRIDGE, at Gregory House Establishment for Young Ladies, Mile End. MY DEAR JEMIMA, Deeply solicitous to gratify sensibility, by sympathizing with our fortuitous elevation, I seize the epistolary implements to inform you, that, by the testamentary disposition of a remote branch of consanguinity, our tutelary residence is removed from the metropolitan horizon to a pastoral district and its con |