discovered that his hat had gone before him, and suddenly finding a pause and a subject for his oratory, he exclaimed, "Gentlemen, I came here to emancipate you, and, d-n you, you have stolen my hat."

A propos to university graduations: when the present Duke of Gloucester took his degree, his father, who was at Cambridge to witness the ceremony, was also complimented with an honorary doctorate. The opportunity was seized upon by the professors to bring into the speeches (in which they introduce their children, the new graduates,) an appropriate compliment to their illustrious guest. Of this the royal visiter was duly warned; and as it was supposed that he might not have recently "rubbed

his Latin," as Queen Elizabeth phrased it, he was directed to be upon the alert, and whenever he oaught the word "principes," to infer a compliment and bow accordingly. With the professors of divinity and of law, things passed as had been prearranged, but Sir I. P., the Professor of Physic, was "ill at these numbers," and too indolent to compose a speech especially for the occasion; so away he went with the old humdrum string of commonplaces, touching the rise, progress, dignity, and importance of the art of honestly committing manslaughter: he had not, however, travelled far, before he arrived at a sentence beginning with "Hippocrates et Galen, principes medicinæ," and down went the head of the old duke, as if Galen and Hippocrates had belonged to the House of Hanover.

PROVIDENCE.

ARISTOTLE maintained that the barbarians were created expressly to become slaves;-while La Fiteau, a jesuit, who wrote a history of the aboriginal Americans, believed that none but an atheist would dare to say they were creatures of God's forming. In the same spirit, a modern judge had the assurance to assert that slavery is not contrary to Christianity, because bishops voted for it. Providence is, under all systems, the "prête-nom" for the injustices of man.

Madame de Genlis (Dictionnaire des Etiquettes) says, "Providence has instilled an irresistible love of the marvellous into the heart of man, in order to predispose him for receiving without difficulty the celestial lights of faith." Unfortunately for the hy pothesis, this capital contrivance has been as much at the service of the "devilish darkness" of a thousand-and-one false religions, as of the "celestial lights" of catholicity. If Voltaire had uttered such a sentiment, it would have been said, and with justice, that his object was to bring religion into contempt, and to expose the roguery of priests, who trade upon the weakness of human nature. love the marvellous, because they are greedy of strong sensations: and, as this propensity hurries them into false tastes, so it predisposes them to superstition and false creeds. Protestantism has too little of the marvellous for the warm sensibilities of the south; and even Madame de Genlis's popery is not wonderful enough for the good people of Spain and Portugal.

Men

TAKING A SHOWER-BATH.

A GREAT senator and statesman of the "Irish nation," being ordered a shower-bath lately, sent to the physician, who had prescribed the remedy, to know if he might soften the shock by wearing a brazen basin on his head. Oh, Cruikshank! what a subject! Bath, basin, statesman, and all!! And yet this being is a particle of the "collective wisdom" to which the destiny of a great nation is confided. Institutions which provide for human happiness can throw up no barricado to stem the influx of human absurdity: that which is made for man, and by man, is inevitably exposed to the imperfections both of the agent and object of all systems.

VIEWS OF THE CATHOLIC QUESTION.

"I SUPPOSE, my lord," said the foreign valet of the Earl of P. the other day, "I suppose we shall have the opera and the theatres open in England on Sundays, comme ailleurs, if the Catholic Bill passes ?"

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"I have not heard that," replied his lordship, smiling; "and I should rather think the contrary." "Diantre," replied the French emancipator, grinding his teeth, "Eh à quoi bon donc leur émancipation? qu'est ce que ça fait ?”*

*“What, then, is the use of emancipation ?”

"Let me send you some turbot, L-," said Mr., the other day at dinner, to a well known and respectable Irish catholic barrister.

"Turbot," replied the papist counsellor, coldly, "O! I am emancipated-I have done with fish!"

The Irish Catholics hate fish; but are rigorous observers of fasts, and of all forms and ordinances imposed by a church, to which, as much from a point of honour as of faith, they rigidly submit. How many of the idle forms of church discipline will fall into desuetude, with that feeling of sympathy for the persecuted faith that imposed them! a feeling which Catholic emancipation will cool down and obliterate.

VIRAGOES.

WOMEN of strong tempers always govern their husbands; women of strong minds influence them. A man's sole refuge against an ill-tempered wife is to run away from her, which he generally does when he can. The influence of a clever woman lies in the power she has of hiding it. Still the virago, I believe, has the best of it: for if the man, in affecting to submit, very frequently only conceals, still he endures. The key to the government of all men is their passions, but after these-but this is showing up the mystery of the craft;

"Plague on it, that rogues can't be true to themselves."

FEMALE PERSEVERANCE.

"Nous n'avons point de diable, assez diable, pour tenir tète à une méchante femme."

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La Descente de Mezzeten en Enfers.

WHY are women so much more pertinacious than men? Voyons un peu! A woman is like a mastiff: once she seizes on an idea, she never lets go, till she has fairly worried out her end. She has no physical strength; no force of reason comparable with man's; but she has stronger volition. The toughness of her will is a set-off against the fragility of her means; and she substitutes perseverance for power. Man yields, after a struggle, to her concentrated weakness, because he hates whatever interferes with his enjoyment. Like Falstaff, he loves above all things, "To take mine case in mine inn;" and to avoid a domestic bore, will assent to much, even when he does not approve. Man is essentially an epicurean; and woman, from necessity a stoic. In public affairs the mere force of volition often supplies the place of talent and resources; while its absence neutralizes and renders inefficient intellects of the finest and highest quality. To this may be referred much of the success of female intrigue, under the governments which have permitted its operation. It was doubtless to the reiterated attacks of Madame du Barri, that Louis the Fifteenth yielded, when he abandoned the most estimable and

"

There is no devil, sufficiently a devil, to make head against a wicked woman."

VOL. II.-P