ingeniously dovetails the pieces together again, so that their real
owners can scarcely recognise them. He is furnished with a pair of
scissors and a pot of paste. He frequents the Chapter Coffee-house by
day, and the Cider-Cellar by night. He ruralises at Hampstead or
Holloway, and perhaps once a year steams it to Margate. He talks
largely, and forms the nucleus of a knot of acquaintances, who look up
to him as an oracle. He is always _going_ to set about some work of
great importance; he writes a page, becomes out of humour with the
subject, and begins another, which shares the same fate. His coat is
something the worse for wear; his wife is the only person in the world
who is blind to his transcendant abilities; and he has too much to do in
cultivating his own genius, to descend to the minutias of his children's
education.


SUPERSTITION.


In a little manual of piety, composed, in 1712, for the young ladies who
were then pensioners at the monastery of St. Augustin, at Bruges, we
have been surprised into frequent smiles by the scrupulous watchfulness
with which the ghostly writer followed the lady-pensioners (though with
pious fancy only) to the very sacred of sacreds! He was not contented
with directing them concerning the prayers which he believed proper to
be used when they assumed, or laid aside, their respective garments, but
even directed them what to do before they attempted to close an eye on
the softness of their pillows! Prayers are specified by this zealous
pastor for the following curious occasions:--

In putting on your petticoat.