onventional restrictions, like a mummy in its swathes.

The _very_ young lady is usually prodigiously careful of her little self:
she regards men as her natural enemies. Poor innocent!--This absurdity is
the fault of her education. They have made her believe that love is the
most abominable, execrable, infernal thing in existence. They have taught
her to lie and to dissimulate her most innocent emotions. But the time is
not far distant when the natural impulses of her heart will break down the
barriers that hypocrisy has placed around her. Woman was formed to love:
she must obey the imperious law of her being, and will love the moment her
inspirations for the _belle passion_ become stronger than her reason. I
may add, also, that when a young lady discovers a tendency this way, it
may be safely conjectured the object on which she will bestow her favour
is not very distant.

THE AUTHOR'S DIVISION OF HIS SYSTEM.

It has been a long-established axiom that there is but one great principle
of love; but then it assumes various phases, according to the thousands of
circumstances under which it is exhibited, and which, to speak in the
language of philosophy, it would be impossible to synthetise. Time, place,
age, the very season of the year, the ruling passion, peace or war,
education, the instincts of the heart, the health of the body and the mind
(if it be possible for the latter to be in a sane state when we fall in
love), the buoyancy of youth or the decrepitude of old age,--these, and
numerous other causes which I cannot at present enumerate, serve to modify
to infinity the form and character of the sentiment. Thus we do not love
at eighteen as we do at forty, nor in the city as we do in the country,
nor in spring as we do in autumn, nor in the camp as we do in the court;
nor does the ignorant man love like a learned one; the merchant does not
love like the lawyer; nor does the latter love like the doctor. It is upon
these different phases in the character of love that I have founded my
system. Next week I shall endeavour to describe some of the traits which
distinguish "The Lover." Till then, fair readers,--I remain your devoted
slave.

WITNESS MY

[Illustration: HAND AND SEAL.]

[Illustration: Alph. Lecourt]

* * * * *

GRANT'S MEDITATIONS AMONG THE COFFEE-CUPS.

We had long considered ourselves the funniest dogs in Christendee; and, in
the plenitude of our vanity, imagined tha