darling jar-lean rather too emphatically against the back of your chair-are in danger of waking Shock, by speaking in too high a key, &c. &c.-till you begin to envy the situation of real prisoners.

7. (T.)

in abortive efforts to

Tearing your throat to rags call back a person who has just left you, and with whom you have forgotten to touch on one of the most important subjects which you met to discuss.

8. (T.)

After having been accidentally detained on a water-excursion far beyond the time you have to spare, rowing homeward, against wind and tide, with an appointment of the utmost consequence before you, which, you know, will soon be behind you. Then, in plucking out your watch to see how much too late you shall be, jerking it over the side of the boat, and seeing it founder in an instant.

There, Sir; I have done; it is but a scanty budget of disasters, you'll say ;-but, to go back to our old distinction, what it wants in number, it makes up in weight, I hope.

Sen. They are very " decent sorrows," Mr Testy; don't be discouraged. Whether mine

deserve to be considered as excelling them, it is not for me to determine; you shall immediately be enabled to form your own opinion, for I have now collected courage to encounter the recapitulation. Take them, for the present, in their rude state ;—for I have not yet found calmness to digest each under the separate chapter of chagrins into which I have said that my social miseries resolve themselves.

9. (S.)

Suddenly thinking of your best argument in a debate, and, in your eagerness to state it, swallowing your wine the wrong way, and so squeaking and croaking more and more unintelligibly, with the tears running down your cheeks, till the conversation has been turned, or your antagonist has left the company;

"in mediis conatibus, ægri Succidimus;-non lingua valet, non corpore notæ Sufficiunt vires-nex vox, nec verba sequuntur." VIRG. *

* "We, 'midst our strugglings, fainting powerless,
Fail-nor the tongue can do its wonted task,
Nor in our frames the well known functions serve,
Nor voice, nor will articulation come."

Tes. Excuse me for interrupting you-but I just recollected a still worse case of the same kind :

10. (T.)

After having left a company in which you have been galled by the raillery of some wag by profession-thinking, at your leisure, of a repartee, which, if discharged at the proper moment, would have blown him to atoms. Or,

11. (T.)

Losing your way in an argument, so as to be obliged suddenly to hold your tongue, though, an instant before, you had the whole series of your reasonings full in view, and could you have brought them to bear upon your opponent at the proper moment, he must have been struck dead.

Sen. Nay, incalculably worse than all this is

12. (S.)

Losing your way," as you term it, in telling a story, through which you proceed very prosperously you arrive at the point—which you find yourself under the dire necessity of leaving out!

till

Or, what is to the full as excruciating—

13. (S.)

After relating an excellent story, or pointed witticism, to a strange company-the frosty silence, vacant stare, cold hum's and dry ha's, with which it is received by the different auditors, of whose stolidity you had not been aware.

Tes. Yes, yes-I have been there too;you might as well crack jokes in a dormitory at the dead of night, as in certain parties:"Joco uti illo, quidem, licet-sed sicut in somno et quietibus cæteris."-But stay— since you think yourself my master in storytelling Miseries, I am determined to cure you of that mistake, though I break in upon you

once more:

14. (T.)

After relating, at much length, a scarce and curious anecdote, with considerable marks of selfcomplacency at having it to tell, being quietly reminded by the person you have been so kindly instructing, that you had it-from himself!

Sen. You have won this hit, I confess

but the game will be mine, be assured ;—I proceed, and I think, shall stagger you with my first move :--

15. (S.)

After dinner, with a favourite party, when the cloth has been removed, and the wine of conversation, as well as of the bottle, is just beginning to brighten, seeing the door open, and a string of staring babies brought in, and carried round, to be caressed and admired, during the rest of the sitting; -an outrage from which there is not even a byelaw, or dead-letter statute, under our otherwise happy constitution, that will afford you the smallest redress.

16. (S.)

Coming in too late for a breakfast-engagement, and sitting down to be contemplated in silence by the rest of the company, who have done, but who think it polite to remain seated round the table, while you hastily wash down your glazed toast and butter, with drawn, vapid, cold tea---which, bad as it all is, you prefer to the operose process of a fresh preparation for you.

Tes. Breakfast!---pho! pho!---dinner :