a
most unassuming deportment, a mild adolescent in fact, that any Hiram or
Jonathan from between the ploughtails would of course expect to handle
with perfect ease. Oh, he is taking off his gold-bowed spectacles! Ah,
he is divesting himself of his cravat! Why, he is stripping off his
coat! Well, here he is, sure enough, in a tight silk shirt, and with two
things that look like batter puddings in the place of his fists. Now see
that other fellow with another pair of batter puddings,--the big one
with the broad shoulders; he will certainly knock the little man's
head off, if he strikes him. Feinting, dodging, stopping, hitting,
countering,--little man's head not off yet. You might as well try to
jump upon your own shadow as to hit the little man's intellectual
features. He needn't have taken off the gold-bowed spectacles at all.
Quick, cautious, shifty, nimble, cool, he catches all the fierce lunges
or gets out of their reach, till his turn comes, and then, whack goes
one of the batter puddings against the big one's ribs, and bang goes the
other into the big one's face, and, staggering, shuffling, slipping,
tripping, collapsing, sprawling, down goes the big one in a
miscellaneous bundle.--If my young friend, whose excellent article I
have referred to, could only introduce the manly art of self-defence
among the clergy, I am satisfied that we should have better sermons and
an infinitely less quarrelsome church-militant. A bout with the gloves
would let off the ill-nature, and cure the indigestion, which, united,
have embroiled their subject in a bitter controversy. We should then
often hear that a point of difference between an infallible and a
heretic, instead of being vehemently discussed in a series of newspaper
articles, had been settled by a friendly contest in several rounds,
at the close of which the parties shook hands and appeared cordially
reconciled.

But boxing you and I are too old for, I am afraid. I was for a moment
tempted, by the contagion of muscular electricity last evening, to try
the gloves with the Benicia Boy, who looked in as a friend to the noble
art; but remembering that he had twice my weight and half my age,
besides the advantage of his training, I sat still and said nothing.

There is one other delicate point I wish to speak of with reference
to old age. I refer to the use of dioptric media which correct the
diminished refracting power of the humors of the eye,--in other words,
spectacles. I