any unworthy persons
from bearing the sacred symbol of domestic virtues. We cannot excuse his
limiting these virtues to the circle of his court. We must only remember
that such was the feeling of the age in which he lived. Liberalism had
not yet raised the war-cry of the working classes. But here was his
mistake: it was a needless regulation. Except in a very few cases of
hypocrisy joined to a powerful intellect, men, not by nature
_umbrellarians_, have tried again and again to become so by art, and yet
have failed--have expended their patrimony in the purchase of umbrella
after umbrella, and yet have systematically lost them, and have finally,
with contrite spirits and shrunken purses, given up their vain struggle,
and relied on theft and borrowing for the remainder of their lives. This
is the most remarkable fact that we have had occasion to notice; and yet
we challenge the candid reader to call it in question. Now, as there
cannot be any _moral selection_ in a mere dead piece of furniture--as
the umbrella cannot be supposed to have an affinity for individual men
equal and reciprocal to that which men certainly feel toward individual
umbrellas,--we took the trouble of consulting a scientific friend as to
whether there was any possible physical explanation of the phenomenon.
He was unable to supply a plausible theory, or even hypothesis; but we
extract from his letter the following interesting passage relative to
the physical peculiarities of umbrellas: "Not the least important, and
by far the most curious property of the umbrella, is the energy which it
displays in affecting the atmospheric strata. There is no fact in
meteorology better established--indeed, it is almost the only one on
which meteorologists are agreed--than that the carriage of an umbrella
produces desiccation of the air; while if it be left at home, aqueous
vapour is largely produced, and is soon deposited in the form of rain.
No theory," my friend continues, "competent to explain this hygrometric
law has been given (as far as I am aware) by Herschel, Dove, Glaisher,
Tait, Buchan, or any other writer; nor do I pretend to supply the
defect. I venture, however, to throw out the conjecture that it will be
ultimately found to belong to the same class of natural laws as that
agreeable to which a slice of toast always descends with the buttered
surface downwards."

But it is time to draw to a close. We could expatiate much longer upon
this topic, but want