of these patriotic men,
their learning, their modesty, their disinterestedness, we have often
had a twinge of the philanthropic extorted by the loss inflicted on
our native city--she may come to want a doze of julap, and have nobody
to mix it!--and have said to ourselves, as we have looked more than
one of these worthies in the face, [Greek: O alein Athenai, Pallados
th'orismata, Oion steresesth andros]!

One day after dinner a little bit of gold rolled over the table to the
doctor, from a bluff-looking gentleman opposite--it was well
aimed--"There, doctor! _there's your fee_; but don't you begin again
prating a parcel of stuff to my wife about her complaints--she is
quite well--and if you frighten her into illness, take notice, you
will get a different sort of fee next time!" All this, half joke, half
earnestly, must have been very agreeable to the guests."

PRIVATE MUSIC PARTY.

Let us try to describe the last musical party at which we assisted. A
scramble amid piles of unbound music; the right _cahier_ found,
snatched up, and opened at the well-thumbed solo with which she has
already contended for many a long hour, and now hopes to execute for
our applause. Alas! the piano sounds as if it had the pip; the
paralytic keys halt, and stammer, and tremble, or else run into each
other like ink upon blotting paper, and the pedals are the only part
of the instrument which do the work for which they were intended. We
should be sorry that our favourite dog had his paw between them and
the lady's slipper. The dust which succeeds the concerto proves
satisfactorily that it is possible to be frisky without being lively;
its vulgarity is so pronounced that it offends you like low
conversation. Another concerto follows--ten folio pages! whew!!----Oh,
ye ebony and ivory devils! oh, for an exorcist to put you to
flight! Cramped fingers are crossing each other at a great rate; we
really tremble for the glue, and the pegs, and the wires, and the
whole economy of the instrument, at that critical juncture when the
performers arrive at a piece of mysterious notation, where a great
many tadpole-looking figures are huddled together under a black
rainbow. At such a "passage" as this, it seems one would think the
house were on fire, and no time to be lost; the black mittens and the
white now _Rob-Royishly_ invade each other's territory; each snatches
up something and carries it off, like the old marauders of the Border
country; and repr