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B. The Dutch subscribed for it to serve them instead of dykes.*

* A witty correspondent of Leigh Hunt-probably Charles Lambthus "pampers" into pleasant "exaggeration" the joke about the "dry book: "

What? and do you really mean to say that this is "a specimen of a joke run down?" For "run down," read "wound up." There are limits to human wisdom, but none to folly. Hercules might come to a stand-still, but our merry friend with the bauble was never heard to exclaim ne plus ultra. After reading your pleasant article in our coterie the other evening, we took down "the book" you allude to (it gets into most libraries of any size), and it quickly inspired us with the following dry jokes: —

A. Et certamen erat, Corydon cum Thyrside, magnum, Posthabui seria ludo. Allons. I know an infant who, on merely seeing it, was cured of water in the head.

B. A dropsical gentleman, given over by his physicians, was never tapped again after he had read it.

A. Carry a copy under your arm, and you need no umbrella.

B. A number were sent over to Ireland, just at the time they had almost abandoned the idea of reclaiming bogs.

C. A friend of mine on the coast has recovered ninety acres of land from the sea, by possessing a copy. He calls it his Copyhold land.

A. Southey tells me, that Kehama had one in his pocket when he walked into the ocean, and it divided.

B. When I travel, I always take it to read in bed; and though I never use a warming pan, I never had the rheumatism in my life.

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A. It must be a very ancient work, for we owe to it the origin of the terms dry study," "dry reading," &c.

C. It is not generally known, but the conjurer rubs himself with it, before he dips his arm in boiling water.

B. Some one swearing, kissed it in jest, which brought on the complaint of parched lips. Feeling this, he threw it down, and trampling on it, was laid up with chilblains.

C. It is an excellent substitute in bathing for an oil-skin cap.

A. It is said to be very superior in efficacy to a deviled biscuit.

D. It is found in most libraries, which occasions such an accumulation of dust in those places.

B. A nurse, who took it up by accident, was obliged to wean the child directly.

D. A widow that I know, after burying her husband, retired to her closet,

A RAINY DAY.

HE day that we speak of is a complete one of its kind, beginning with a dark wet morning, and ending in a drenching night. When you come down stairs from your chamber, you

find the breakfast-room looking dark, the rainspout pouring away, and unless you live in a street of traffic, no sound out of doors but a clack of pattens and an occasional clang of milk-pails. (Do you see the rogue of a milkman? He is leaving them open to catch the rain.)

We never see a person going to the window on such a morning, to take a melancholy look out at the washed houses and pavement, but we think of a reanimation which we once beheld of old Tate Wilkinson. But observe how

sour things may run into pleasant tastes at last. We are by no means certain that the said mimetic antique, Tate Wilkinson, was not Patentee of the York Theatre, wore a melancholy hat tied the wrong way, and cast looks of

and having read a page, never shed another tear. This may be considered its greatest miracle!

C. Its author, who is said to have run mad during the dog-days, wrote it on the sands of Africa, from whence it was brought to this quarter of the globe by means of the Sirocco. "Nil dictum, quod non dictum prius," is, as you now see, a mighty foolish maxim; and, as a foolish bit of Latin makes a very appropriate conclusion to the English that precedes it,

"Vivas in amore jocisque —

Vive vale. ""

[Live and preserve your health for other folks,

And don't forget to love, and crack your jokes] - ED.

unutterable dissatisfaction at a rainy morning, purely to let his worthy successor and surpasser in mimicry, Mr. Charles Mathews, hand down his aspect and countenance for the benefit of posterity. We once fell into company with that ingenious person at a bachelor's house, where he woke us in the morning with the suspicious sound of a child crying in another room. It was having its face washed; and had we been of a scandalizing turn, or envied our host for his hospitality, we should certainly have gone and said that there was a child in his house who inherited a sorrowful disposition from somebody, and who might be heard (for all the nurse's efforts of a morning) whining and blubbering in the intervals of the washtowel; - now bursting into open-mouthed complaint, as it left him to dip in the water; and anon, as it came over his face again, screwing up its snubbed features and eyes, and making half-stifled obstinate moan with his tight mouth. The mystery was explained at breakfast; and as it happened to be a rainy morning, we were entertained with the reanimation of that "living dead man," poor Tate aforesaid, who had been a merry fellow, too, in his day. Imagine a tall, thin, withered, desponding-looking old gentleman, entering his breakfast-room with an old hat on, tied under his chin the wrong way of the flap, - a beaver somewhat of the epicene order, so that you do not know whether it is his wife's or his own. He hobbles and shrinks up to the window, grunting gently with a sort of preparatory despair; and having cast up his eyes at the air, and seen the weathercock due east and the rain set in besides, drops the corners of his mouth and eyes into an expression of double despondency, not unmixed (if we may speak unprofanely) with a sort of scornful resentment; and turns off with one solitary, brief, comprehensive, and groaning

· Christ!".

ejaculation of “EhWe never see anybody go to the window of a rainy morning, but we think of this poor old barometer of a Patentee, whose face, we trust, will be handed down in successive fac-similes to posterity, for their edification as well as amusement; for Tate had cultivated much hypochondriacal knowledge in his time, and been a sad fellow, in a merry sense, before he took to it in its melancholy one.

The preparation for a rainy day in town is certainly not the pleasantest thing in the world, especially for those who have neither health nor imagination to make their own sunshine. The comparative silence in the streets, which is made dull by our knowing the cause of it, - the windowpanes drenched and ever-streaming, like so many helpless cheeks, - the darkened rooms, - and at this season of the year, the having left off fires; - all fall like a chill shade upon the spirits. But we know not how much pleasantry can be made out of unpleasantness, till we bestir ourselves. The exercise of our bodies will make us bear the weather better, even mentally; and the exercise of our minds will enable us to bear it with patient bodies in-doors, if we cannot go out. Above all, some people seem to think that they cannot have a fire made in a chill day, because it is summer-time, a notion which, under the guise of being seasonable, is quite the reverse, and one against which we protest. A fire is a thing to warm us when we are cold; not to go out because the name of the month begins with J. Besides, the sound of it helps to dissipate that of the rain. It is justly called a companion. It looks glad in our faces; it talks to us; it is vivified at our touch; it vivifies in return; it puts life and warmth and comfort in the room. A good fellow is bound to see that he leaves this substitute for his company when he goes

out, especially to a lady; whose solitary work-table in a chill room on such a day, is a very melancholy refuge. We exhort her, if she can afford it, to take a book and a footstool, and plant herself before a good fire. We know of few baulks more complete, than coming down of a chill morning to breakfast, turning one's chair as usual to the fireside, planting one's feet on the fender and one's eyes on a book, and suddenly discovering that there is no fire in the grate. A grate, that ought to have a fire in it, and gapes in one's face with none, is like a cold, grinning, empty rascal.

There is something, we think, not disagreeable in issuing forth during a good, honest summer rain, with a coat well buttoned up, and an umbrella over our heads. The first flash open of the umbrella seems a defiance to the shower, and the sound of it afterwards, over our dry heads, corroborates the triumph. If we are in this humor, it does not matter how drenching the day is. We despise the expensive effeminacy of a coach; have an agreeable malice of self-content at the sight of crowded gate-ways; and see nothing in the furious little rain-spouts, but a lively emblem of critical opposition, — weak, low, washy, and dirty, gabbling away with a perfect impotence of splutter.

Speaking of malice, there are even some kinds of legs which afford us a lively pleasure in beholding them splashed.

Lady. Lord, you cruel man!

Author. Nay, I was not speaking of yours, madam. How could I wish ill to any such very touching stockings? And yet, now I think of it, there are very gentle and sensitive legs (I say nothing of beautiful ones, because all gentle ones are beautiful to me), which it is possible to behold in a very earthy plight;—at least the feet and ankles.

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