mistake them, for they have a very peculiar physique, being remarkably expansive and solid in the lower dimensions of their persons. Their centre of gravity is considerably lower down than that of the generality of the human species. The head counts almost for nothing, in their corporeal quantity, like those Dutch toys which are all bodies, and will sit on one end do what you will to put them on any other. Veering about as they do, now turning this way, and now that, and whirling round and round, you would naturally think that they would become so giddy that they could not stand on their legs at all, but their conformation is their security, their breadth and weight below defends them from all the casualties of vertigo—

The latest wind that may prevail

Sweeps on their wide expanse of tail,
And turns them quick to face the gale,
With sudden bound;

Till yet another breath of wind

Shall blow upon their broad behind,

And then they have another mind
To wheel around.

No, they are not giddy,—their heads are so small and their quantity of brain so minute, they don't suffer the least inconvenience them

selves from giddiness. They are weathercocks, meant to vacillate and be the playthings of the winds, and all they want is a pivot and a perch, plenty of feather and tail, and their organization is complete.

We observe by that contemptuous sneer and curl of the lip that you don't admire human weathercocks. They certainly are not an admirable folk. You recal how those ancient Roman weathercocks extolled now Brutus and now Marc Antony, now the conspirators and now the stricken Cæsar. "Live, Brutus, live, live! Bring him with triumph home to his house. Give him a statue with his ancestors. Cæsar's better parts shall now be crowned in Brutus." And then, "We'll burn the house of Brutus. Most noble Cæsar! we'll revenge his death. O, royal Cæsar! Hear the noble Antony. We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die with him." Those Roman citizens were all tails, and spread their feathers to each succeeding wind of eloquence. You can never be sure of the Fantails and Feathershafts. Blow upon them behind and they face about to you as the infallible and only oracle, till another

eath catches them in the rear, and they are

off again to crow their approval in some other direction of the wind of opinion or feeling.

Did it ever happen to you to have a weathercock in the circle of your acquaintance? Of course it did. Everybody knows a weathercock or two, and confoundedly inconvenient people they are to know too. They are not the least use in counsel, for they will always reflect your own opinion, though it may vary half-a-dozen times in as many minutes. Tell them that yonder cloud is almost in shape of a camel, and they will answer, 'tis like a camel indeed. Should you happen to think it is like a weasel, you will be told it is backed like a weasel. Or like a whale, and it will be very like a whale. And all this without any desire to fool you to the top of your bent, but because they cannot help being such arrant fools themselves.

"Some praise at morning what they blame at night; But always think the last opinion right.

While their weak heads, like towns unfortified,
'Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side.
Ask them the cause; they're wiser still they say;
And still to-morrow's wiser than to-day."

The matter becomes more serious if you should be so unfortunate as to have a weathercock in the very small and select circle of your

friends. You can afford to laugh at a weathercock acquaintance,—his broad and well-weighted tail may afford some amusement to you, and your humour may incline you now and then to use him as a toy, and make him turn about to every point of the compass for your own entertainment and that of any of your circle who may enjoy the fun. But you can't afford to laugh at a weathercock friend. You don't choose your friends by their tails; and 'tis a grievous disappointment to you to discover at a critical moment that your friend's gravity is low down. behind, and that he whom you have all along believed to be firm on a pair of human legs, with a good head on his shoulders, and as good a heart in his breast, is after all but a big-bodied broad-tailed cock on a pivot. No, no, this is no laughing matter. A weathercock may be all very well on the top of a church-steeple, but no man wishes to be on terms of friendly intimacy with the fac-simile of such a thing, and to make himself ridiculous by calling such a thing his personal friend.

It is not complimentary to be called a weathercock, and sometimes the term is unjustly applied to any one who may happen to change

his opinion. Now opinions are not invariably sound, either in religion, politics, or anything else, and it is rather to be encouraged than not, that people should occasionally change their opinions. A man who makes a boast of never having changed his opinion, very probably never had any opinion to change. You can pronounce no one a weathercock until you have well ascertained that all his ballast is behind, until you have examined and found correct that he carries a tail-a tail, too, sufficiently expansive to catch the shifting breezes of opinion, and that he is actually poised on a pivot. These are the conditions and circumstances of a genuine weathercock. A man with a normal head on his shoulders can turn round to another opinion by the inward force of his own sterling good sense, and on his own normal legs; but if he is constantly changing his opinions you may be sure that he is not on his legs, but on a pivot. No man with the customary weight of brain in his head could endure the giddiness of going backwards and forwards and round and round. If he be in this perpetual and ever-varying motion, you may be confident that he is pivoted, and that his heaviest weight