of such discussions and societies now-a-days, of which cui bono should be the motto, but whereof I would not for a ton of gold be supposed to speak lightly. Oh, by no means!) He proceeded to explain his views at length, and his purpose having been received with a unanimous approval, the constitution was signed, the officers were elected, and Bob was placed in the Presidential chair of

THE METAPHYSICAL SOCIETY.

And now, reader, Bob was in his glory. Many were the discussions held by that erudite body, and numerous were the elucidations of the scientific mysteries which had baffled the mightiest intellects of past ages. I do especially remember me of one discussion, in which our venerated President himself largely participated. It was deemed of much interest to the cause of learning, that the debates of the Society should be preserved on record; wherefore, the office of Grand Stenographer had been instituted, into which responsible station I had been sworn, with great solemnity, a short time previous to the period to which I refer. It had been determined to hold a grand debate upon a question of grave importance. The President's proclamation had gone forth, with an imposing aspect. Three gigantic hand-bills were indited by his private secretary. One of these was fastened with ten-penny nails upon the portal of the Interniculum Frumenti, (as the corn-crib was classically denominated;) a second on the vestibulum of the Temple of the Muses, (or, as it was termed by the common people, the Pig-pen,) and the third was emblazoned on the academic Stabulum.

I subjoin a true copy of the document, taken from the records of the Society.

'SOCII SOCIETATIS METAPHYSICE.

'Convocabunt in ædibus Academiæ Cæ, dimidium horæ post septimum, die Jovis, vigesimo Januarii.

'Orationis argumentum est maximi momenti, quia involvit casus scientiæ, antea nunquam agitatos.

'Quamobrem, nos, Præfectus hujus Societatis eruditæ, per hoc mandamus omnibus sociis, fautoribus Metaphysicarum, congregare accurate ædibus ante dictis.

Questio quæ, proponitur argumento, ut sequitur: 'An chimera, bombinans in vacuo, devorat secundas intentiones.'

* In hac re, nusquam aberramini, sub pœna sexdecim caudarum gallorum.

'ROBERTUS EDWARDUS, Præs.' Such was the manifesto of President Bob; and it may not be improper to annex, for the benefit of the general reader, a true rendition into the vernacular, of the question on which the Metaphysical Society was to exercise its intellectual energies.

This, then, was the subject of discussion: Whether a chimera, ruminating in a vacuum, devoureth second intentions.'

The erudite reader cannot fail to perceive the importance of the occasion, and its tendency to create an irrepressible interest in the republic of letters. I pass over the various speculations on the subject, which had agitated the philosophical world previous to the assembling of this august body and, deeming that the preceding remarks sufficiently introduce the main object, I plunge at once, in medias res.

On the twentieth day of January, in the year of grace one thousand eight hundred and twenty-six, a grand meeting of the Metaphysical Society of Ca was held in the academic buildings of that ilk.

thirty minutes and seventeen seconds past seven o'clock, post meridiem, the great door of the ante-room was thrown open, and the President, supported on the right by the chief Curator, Jehoiakim Smilax, and on the left by the Censor-general, Eliphalet Flunk, entered the hall, with a dignified step.

The members rose in respectful silence, and the President, acknowledging their salutations with gracious condescension, passed on to his official seat. The attendant officers sat in their respective places, on either side of the Presidential chair, and the Grand Stenographer, John Ollapod, surrounded by the insignia of his station, occupied his accustomed conspicuous position.

The hall, which was of large dimensions, was brilliantly illuminated with five dipt candles, of a superior quality, tastefully arranged in porter bottles, of a sea-green hue. The whole scene presented an imposing aspect, and was calculated to inspire the beholder with feelings of solemnity and awe.

My space will not permit me to extract from the records the whole of the President's address, which followed an unbroken silence of three minutes, one quarter, and some odd seconds. I subjoin only these obser

vations:

'MY BRETHREN: You are assembled to give to a subject which has heretofore confounded the wisdom of man, the infallible test of your deliberations. The eyes of all Europe are upon you; and you occupy an altitude before both hemispheres, calculated to call forth your undivided energies. Comment from me were useless.

'Now therefore, brethren, invoking the aid of our blessed Minerva to your righteous endeavours, I quaff this smaller, otherwise called cock-tail, to the victory of truth, and the downfall of error.'

He spake and taking from the custody of the Grand Treasurer, who was in waiting by his side, a tin cup of considerable capability, he transferred the generous fluid contained therein, to the interior of his abdominal regions. His replenished corpus sank gently into the official receptacle, where, after recovering his natural equilibrium, he signified to the brethren his pleasure that the discussion should commence. Whereupon Mr. Elnathan Rummins arose, and and thus addressed the assembly:

'MR. PRESIDENT: In getting myself up to discourse to this learned body on the affirmative side of the question submitted to our decision, I feel a diffidence commensurate with the stupendousness of the subject. Yet, having bestowed upon it much studious research and attention, I feel imperiously bound to express it as my decided opinion, that a chimera, ruminating in a vacuum, does devour second intentions. I will briefly submit my reasons.

'Firstly, I will take leave to premise, that after serious and mature deliberation, I have brought my mind to the settled belief that Metaphysics is considerable of a science that all the ideas we have, are derived from two sources,-viz: sensation and reflection, and that the latter is the root from which all abstract ideas are generated. I am discussing this question, Mr. President, upon the supposition that the doctrine of abstract ideas is fully established. In my mind, it is entirely so, and therefore I shall not argue this disputed point. If my premises are false, my conclusions will collapse, and my learned opponent must benefit by the error.

"What is a chimera, in the modern philosophical sense? Sir, we can derive no idea of it from our senses; the faculty of abstraction must be resorted to for a definition; the mind must be withdrawn from the contemplation of external objects, and, wrapping itself in the solitude of its own originality, must frame from its own exclusive resources, an idea of this singular being.

'But notwithstanding this apparent difficulty, there is, in fact, nothing more easy than a description of this idea. My own reflections have led me to the conclusion, that a chimera is an immaterial, incorporeal, intangible, and invisible essence,

having no local habitation, and possessing neither form, extension, nor substance. Thus, I may indulge the pleasing hope, that I have, in a very simple manner, conveyed to the Society a clear apprehension of the nature of this abstraction.

From this description, it will be perceived, that a chimera possesses no incarnate attributes, but is the emanation of a spiritual essence, and therefore must be eminently endowed with the faculty of thought, or, in other words, of rumination.

'Having thus briefly pointed out the abstract idea of a chimera, and proved its implied powers of rumination, I proceed, secondly, to show that it possesses the undoubted capability of ruminating in a vacuum. To this end, let me very properly show the nature of a vacuum. Little need be said on this subject.

'According to some modern philosophers, there are several species of vacua,—but the vacuum cacervatum is that to which I particularly refer; this is conceived as a space entirely destitute of matter; and, in my apprehension, its existence was successfully urged by those illustrious men who professed the Pythagorean, the Epicurean, and the Corpuscularian philosophy: but as the human mind is composed of discordant principles, the spirit of opposition (for I cannot imagine it to have been any thing else,) induced the advocates of the Cartesian doctrines to deny its existence. They urged, that if there be nothing material in an enclosed space, the walls of the enclosure must be brought into contact; thus insisting upon the principle, that extension is matter. But the Corpuscular authors, with much promptness, refuted the arguments of the Cartesians and Peripatetics, by the existence of various circumstances; and they instanced planetary and cometary motion the fall of bodies- the vibration of the pendulum — re-refraction and condensation― the divisibility of matter, etc.

'Now permit me to observe, Mr. President, that it is altogether impossible to effect motion in a plenum. I do not wish to make this position depend for support upon my bare assertion- I am borne out in it by the dictum of Lucretius,-thus: Principium quonam cedendi nulla daret res, - undique materies quoniam stipata fuisset.' Although I might well rest here, Mr. President, upon such mighty authority, I will nevertheless enter upon the proofs which go to the establishing of this principle.

'First. All motion is in a straight line, or in a curve which returns into itself,as, for example, the circle and the ellipsis-or in one that does not return into itself, as the parabolic curve. Second-that the moving force must always be greater than the resistance. Now it is perfectly clear from this, that no quantum of force, even though increased ad infinitum, can produce motion, where the resistance is also infinite: consequently, it is not possible that motion can exist, either in a straight line, or in a non-returning curve; because, in either of these cases, the amounts of force and resistance would counterbalance each other, that is, they would be infinite.

'You will therefore perceive, Mr. President, that there remains only the motion of a revolving curve practicable and this must either be a revolution upon an axis, or an annular motion round a stationary body now both of these would be impossible in an elliptic curve, and consequently, all motion must be in circles geometrically true; and the bodies thus revolving must either be spheres, spheroids, or cylinders-otherwise the revolution in a plenum would be altogether impracticable. But, Sir, such figures and motions have no existence in nature; yet we know, from the evidence of the senses, that motion, in a non-returning curve, does exist-therefore a vacuum must exist.

'Having now shown that a chimera is a creature of the imagination, and that therefore it does not require the inhalation of atmospheric air to support life, and having shown the nature and existence of the vacuum, it is of course evident that a chimera may ruminate in a vacuum.

'I proceed, in the next place, to demonstrate, that a chimera thus ruminating, does devour second intentions.'

Ar this stage of his speech, Rummins exhibited symptoms of exhaustion, and on motion of Mr. Jeremiah Tompkins, the question was postponed until the next ensuing meeting. Whenever I feel disposed to make my reader bolt a few solids, among his intellectual edibles, I shall fling in a scrap from the 'Society.' I think I can demonstrate thereby, that a great deal of plausible argument can be used, to demonstrate a small amount of fact, mingled with an immensity of error. Metaphysics, now-a-days, cannot be deemed a very clear science. Muddy brains

have elucidated it to death. That was not a bad description of the art given by the Scotchman: Metaphysics, mon, is where the hearers dinna ken what the speaker is talking anent, and he does na ken himsel':' but the following definition of one of the metaphysical tribe, by my friend Norman Leslie, is perhaps as good a one as can be found: Metaphysician: Encountered a Doctor.'

Is IT not singular, how one thought brings on another! Now this slight discussion of metaphysics and abstraction, reminds me of a bachelor, an accidental and slight acquaintance of mine, who remains in single blessedness, because, he says, he has always been accustomed, 'e'en from his boyish days,' to look at women in the abstract. Fine eyes, he regards merely as filmy globes of water, that shut their coward gates against an atom; lips, he deems but horizontal lines of flesh, constituting the aperture into which beef, pork, potatoes, and other eatable substances, periodically enter. The bloom on the cheek of woman, he considers superfluous blood, prophetic of speedy decay; smiles, in his esteem, are merely the effect of nervous excitement; and frowns, he thinks, are the proper elucidators of the human heart, especially woman's, which he says has always a small portion of discontent and anxiety predominant therein. Holding such notions, he is, of course, somewhat unhappy; but he dissipates his ennui by a copious reception of vinous fluids; and is, moreover, a potent eater of oysters. I am half inclined to believe in metempsychosis, and to suppose that the souls of these testaceous articles if souls they have-ascend him into the brain, and give the impetus to his present opinions. At any rate, he is quite a dolt. I always cut him in the street. His reckless life has undone him, as it were. He owes every body; has been often in jail; and those who keep his company, are in something such a situation as one would be at sea, in a leaky boat, they must be evermore 'bailing him out.' I think he has come to his present sentiments, in consequence of the treatment he receives; every body, females especially,. considering him a nonentity, while he looks at them in the abstract.

TO-MORROW will be Christmas. Happy day! How I envy the young hearts that its advent will cheer!-whose elastic and bounding affections it will revive and strengthen! Would to heaven I were a millionaire, for to-morrow only! There should not be a rosy face in the Union, that should not be the brighter for my benefactions. I would distribute presents to every urchin and miss I met; and that holiest of all pleasures, benevolence, should nestle warmly in my bosom. God bless the children! - unsullied by the guileful contacts of the world; fresh in their feelings, simple in their desires, fervent in their loves, they are the emblems of blessedness and peace. Truly of such is the kingdom of Heaven; and sweetly did the characteristic meekness of our Saviour appear when he said, 'Suffer little children to come unto me!' Would that I were again a boy! Would that I had my few years to live over again! I would enjoy the present, as it rolled on the future;

I would revel in the light of sparkling eyes, and the smile of lips, that the grave has closed and sealed forever! I would sing, and shout, and fly my kite, and glide down the snowy hill, on my little craft, as in days of yore. I would enjoy the spring, as I used once to do; that pleasant season, as William Lackaday, Esquire, observes in the play, when the balmy breezes is a-blowin', and the primroses peeps out, and the little birds begins for to sing;'-and I would make it a point, to have no enemies. I would do this without being a Joseph Surface, too; for I hold insincerity to be the most detestable of all the vices for which men go unhung.

It strikes me, that Christmas is not celebrated with such soberness and godliness as it was wont to be. People drink more than formerly; they do not become devout over the deceased turkey, or adolescent hen, that lies in solemn lifelessness before the eater; but they meet in clubs, and consort with publicans and sinners. If Christmas happeneth toward the close of the week, they keep up' the same until Sunday hath gone by; and it is not until the even song of the second day of the week ensuing the festival, that they can bring themselves to cease from their wassail; and even then they do it with much oh! considerable— reluctance, exclaiming, as they ruminate bedward, ‘Sic transit gloria Monday!

BEFORE I close with Christmas, let me relate a little story, just now told me, connected in some degree with that glorious holiday.

Publicans are classed, in the New Testament, with sinners, as though there were something demoralizing in the business of keeping open house; but if the conjunction be not an error of the translators, I know of at least one exception to the rule. The individual is hereby immortalized.

Some twenty or twenty-five, or it may be thirty years ago, the landlord of the Bush tavern in Bristol (England) was so far a benevolent man, that on every Christmas-day he used to set an immense table, at which whosoever would was at liberty to sit and replenish his inner man with as much roast beef and plum-pudding as he could dispose of a privilege of which, it may well be supposed, the poor of that ancient and by no means elegant city were not backward to avail themselves. But the dinner alone, flanked as it was by an ad libitum distribution of stout ale and cider, could not appease the generous propensities of mine host of the Bush: he was in the habit, also, of giving away a score of guineas, upon the same anniversary, which were bestowed, in small sums of from five shillings to twenty, upon such of the free guests as appeared to stand most in need of something more than a dinner.

It had been observed for some weeks, toward the close of a particular year, which I do not remember, that an elderly personage, whom nobody knew, was in the habit of stepping into the Bush every day, and taking a single glass of brandy-and-water, with which he contrived to dally so long as was requisite for the thorough perusal of a London paper, brought down by the guard of one of the night coaches. A London paper was a great thing, at that time, in Bristol. The gentleman was elderly, as I have said; and moreover, his person and garb, as well as