ese compendiums of wit and wisdom have become
the greatest nuisances of all civilized society----

_Shepherd_. Tuts, man--what ails ye at Allbums?

_North_. They have broken that confidence between man and woman, which,
in our young day, used to form the delight of an acquaintance with an
amiable and accomplished female. In those happy times, how often have we
sat in a bright circle of the fair and young, and talked, and laughed,
in the gaiety of our careless hearts, without fear or apprehension! But
now we are afraid, in the presence of ladies, to give utterance to any
thing beyond a remark upon the weather. It is long since we have drilled
ourselves to attribute smiles and whispers, and even squeezes of the
hand, to their true source. We see an album lurking in every dimple of a
young maiden's cheek, and a large folio common-place book, reposing its
alexandrine length, in every curve of a dowager's double chin.

_Shepherd_. Tuts, man! What ails ye at Allbums?

_North_. No age is free from the infection. We go to a house in the
country where there are three unmarried daughters, two aunts, and a
grandmother. Complain not of a lack of employment on a rainy morning,
in such a domicile and establishment as this. You may depend upon it,
that the first patter of rain upon the window is the signal for all the
vellum and morocco bound scrap-books to make a simultaneous rush upon
the table. Forth comes the grandmother, and pushes an old dingy-coloured
volume into your hands, and pointing out a spare leaf, between a recipe
for curing corns, and a mixture for the hooping-cough, she begs you to
fill it up--with any thing you please.

_Shepherd_. Weel, weel, man--why canna you oblege the auld body?

_North_. What right has an old woman, with silver spectacles on her
long, thin nose, to enlist any man among the awkward squad which compose
her muster roll? Who can derive inspiration from the boney hand, which
is coaxingly laid on your shoulder, and trembles, not from agitation or
love, but merely from the last attack of the rheumatism?

_Shepherd_. But young leddies hae their Allbums, too, as weel's auld
anes.

_North_. And even the young ladies, James, presume too much upon their
power. Is there no way of getting into their books, but by writing in
their albums? Are we to pay for smiles at the rate of so many lines a
dimple? If the fair creatures are anxious to shew they can read, let
them discover it by the tenor of their c