a sudden swell, and dashed against the top of the rock to the infinite hazard of every life in it. There are said to be numbers of seals, or sea-calves, all along the coast, which inhabit these rocks and caves very much."

Mrs Anne Plumptre's "NARRATIVE of a RESIDENCE in IRELAND during the Summer of 1814, and that of 1815." p. 252.

CCVII. CHALLENGING THE JURY.

An Irishman was told, if he objected to any of the jury, he might challenge them. "Faith, then," said he, "if they don't acquit me, I'll challenge every man of them."

CCVIII. LORD STAIR.

Louis XIV, being told that Lord Stair was the most well bred man in Europe, determined to put the matter to the test He accordingly invited his Lordship to take an airing with him, and, when the carriage arrived, bade him get in and take his seat. Lord Stair bowed and obeyed.

CCIX. JULIUS CESAR.

A soldier bragged, in the presence of Cæsar, of the wounds which he had received in his face. Cæsar, knowing him to be a coward, told him, the next time he ran away, not to look behind him.

CCX.

CURIOUS EFFECTS OF LARGE EMPIRES,
Exemplified in the Chinese World.
AN ORIGINAL PAPER, BY A BRITON

THE Chinese is the most populous empire, which mankind ever consented to obey and its Sovereign inspires respect, and enforces submission, through the most peopled portion of the globe, and over three fifths of the human race. He has vanquished and subjected the hereditary enemies of his kingdom, and doubly enlarged his ample patrimony. He touches with one hand the remotest East, and with the other holds the sceptre over the humbled hordes of Tartary, the distant mountaineers of Thibet, and the swarthy sons of Siam or Pegu. The British dominions alone check his wide career on the West, the bulwark of Russian Tartary alone on the North. Contrasted with his wide domain, the "Roman world" sinks into insignificance : the boasted realms of Iran or Mogulis-tan, lose their claim to grandeur and opulence: the tented monarchs of the house of Timour aud Zingis appear feeble Lords and inconsiderable Chieftains. The annual increase of the Chinese population ascends to two millions; the weakest of its seventeen native, and its five tributary, provinces, out-numbers Great-Britain; the greatest exceeds the population of the Russian territory. Europe united to Africa in one mass of nations, under one chief, would not rival its wonderful numbers, or equal the august and imposing appearance of its polity. Earth exhibits no second scene so awfully interesting as the regularity and order of the Chinese universe. Four hundred millions of human beings repose under the shadow of that sublime and elevated throne: are marshalled into provinces governed by similar rules, and regulated by military, civil, and collegiate mandarines with similar powers are honoured by the same public rewards, or disgraced by tho same marks of public infamy and are subdivided into classes which never can unite

or even approach, and which transmit the Imperial commands in a lengthened succession of subordination, from the first servant of the crown, very emphatically denominated "the other Emperor," through the various orders of mandarines, to the humble coulie or the humbler slave. They are a regulated orderly empire, whose different ranks are distinguished by legal "ceremonies" and a legal dress whose villages or cities include in their names, their legal eminence; whose canals of three month's sail, worthy of such a monarchy, are all Imperial property whose inland rivers, gigantic as the ample canals which they partially feed, are each superintended by a watchful magistrate, and their banks repaired by Royal munificence: whose granaries, vast as their domain, in the season of famine are gratuitously opened to supply its innumerable subjects, and to diffuse relief and abundance through a circle of hundreds of thousands of miles; whose military, comparatively few, are subject to the civil magistrate, and in this favoured land of peace, form the pomp, not the terror, of its court and the sovereign;-whose court is guarded, not by thousands drawn from an unpeopled country, but by the filial affection of a grateful, happy, gentle nation; by the fidelity of a band of eunuchs and by the presence and the lives and the fortunes of the contented dependant rulers of thousands; rulers who "stand near this mighty throne, and hold it firm." Such a scene must claim respect from all mankind, must attract the admiration of philopsohical Europe.

The late embassy of the Hollanders, indeed, feebly attempts to paint in mean or disgusting colours, the rude manners, the uproar, the uncleanliness of the Court of Pekin. It represents its feasts as contemptible, its viands as nauseous, the present of food from the Imperial banquet, as worthy the vulgar and the slave, not the lofty Ambassadors of an European state its games as puerile and trifling, its actors the most wretched of buffoons the interior apartments of the place as dark and confined, inferior in architecture, inconvenient in form: its boasted public audience, a scene of incivility and disorder. The deba

:

sing description reminds every classical reader of the "tented fields" of the great Chagan of the Huns, in the history of Gibbon or the haughty leaders of the Turkmans in their native plains, when the governors of the remote Constantinople sent their humble Ambassadors to offer obeisance to the chief of their savage hordes.

But the reflecting reader observes, not with fastidious contempt, but in silent admiration, the noble simplicity of the "Father of China:" whose plain, though immensely extensive palace, whose summer tent or moveable court, in short all whose unadorned majesty mocks the vain magnificence of the kings of the earth. His food so moderate and unvaried, his habit so modest, his eye mild and encouraging; his taste attempered to the national taste; his manners popular and patriotic; his queens, his coulies, his chambers, and all their unexpensive decorations, only distinguished from those of his nobles, or his opulent subjects, by their proportions and superior circumference; in short, so elevated a sovereign, " high raised above all rival height," great by the eminence of his humility, exalted in his royal discharge of the offices of the national religion, illustrious by the example of royal husbandry, and patriotically selfish in promoting the advancement of his infinite subjects, such a character cannot be viewed, without the mingled sensations of reverence and of love; these are scenes and this an empire, which cannot be contemplated without astonishment at the progress of Chinese civilization, that land of permanent peace; and a reluctant admittance of the inferiority of European politics, or the European system of "eternal wars."

CCXI. CRABBE.

A lady, hearing a gentleman say he very much admired Crabbe's tales, asked how they were dressed.

CCXII. THE STOCKS.

An Irishman was advised to put his money in the stocks, but declined doing so, lest he should not be able to get it out again, as had often been the case with his legs.

CCXIII. OSTLER.

A gentleman, whose horse had been defrauded of his corn, told the ostler that his name was a contraction of oat-stealer.

CCXIV. SHOOTING RUBBISH.

A gentleman, seeing a carter shooting rubbish in front of his house, bade him take it to Hell and shoot it there. "Perhaps, Sir," replied the Carter, "I'd better take it to Heaven: 'twould be more out of your Honour's way."

CCXV. THROUGH THE WOOD, LADDIE.

A gentleman at a party was fined so often for punning, that some one ventured to lay him a wager against his forbearing to make puns for the space of 20 minutes. The gentleman accepted the wager and retired to the window in order to be safe from temptation. Whilst there, he saw a bricklayer slip his foot through a hole in a scaffold, and involuntarily began to whistle the tune "Through the wood, laddie.”

CCXVI. MEDICINE.

A lady, urging her husband to take some medicine, said she would be hanged if it did not cure him. The husband