WIT AND SENTIMENT. CUTTING PATTERNS.-"Please, sir," said a snub nose girl, fourteen years of age, to a country dealer in dry goods, "to send ma'am the patterns of your calicoes, and put 'em cheap, for she is going to get a new gown soon, and wants to see as what'l wash." A respectable farmer, not forty miles from this place, has the singularly happy talent of not saying a word too much. A young man wishing to obtain his consent to marry his daughter, called upon him one day when he happened to be in the field ploughing with his oxen. It was, past all doubt, a fearful matter for a running a parallel with the furrow several times round diffident man to broach, and the hesitating lover, after the field, and essaying with all his courage to utter the important question, at last stammered out-"I-I-I that-that-as how I-I-I should be gl-gl-glad to-m-m-mar-mar Shopkeeper. Who is your ma'am? FARMER.-Take her and use her well, whaw, haw, Girl. Yes sir, I know that-but then she sewed-marry your daughter." them all up for patchwork, and would not give me any, but told me to go shopping myself. "SOUR GRAPES."-Perhaps there is no propensity of the human mind more truly beneficial in averting or at least softening the ills of life than that which leads us to slight and undervalue those blessings which are absolutely and positively beyond our reach. An old tradition gives a curious instance of this spirit as follows:When Noah had snugly secured himself in his Ark, and the rain had commenced pouring down in right earnest, a reprobate who had long had his own sport with the aforesaid ungainly building, now finding the joke rather against him and the water above his knees, walked up and desired to treat for a "chance in."Noah informed him, with the politeness of a diplomatist but the decision of a general, that his proposition or his person was utterly inadmissible. A second trial was attended with the same success. At last our graceless wight, finding the water washing his shoulders, and that there was no further time for mincing matters, wading again up to the Ark, humbly entreated an admission. But Noah was still inexorable, and it was plainly a gone case. Turning, therefore, on his heel with all the disdain and indignation so natural to a man in his awkward predicament, "Go to thunder with your old ark," says our hero, "I don't believe there is going to be much of a shower!" CRYING THE HOUR--A married gentleman, who had been drinking and carousing with some boon companions till a very late hour, just as he arrived at his own door heard the watchman cry, "Half past two o'clock, and all's well!" "That will never do," thought he, "to have my wife know I come home at this late hour. I must make the watchman tell a different story." With that, he seized him by the collar, and draging him up to the door, told him to cry half past eleven. As the honest watchmen demurred to this, the husband, being plenus Bacchi, or pretty tolerably well corned, up fist and knocked him down. Then presently picking him up again, he bade him cry as he told him, otherwise he would knock him down again. Poor watchy would fain have called for help; but as the spirited husband held his fist ready poised to let drive again, he concluded to do as he was bid; wherefore opening his mouth, he stammered out-"H-h-h-a-l-f p-a-s-t- e-l-e-v-e-n o'c-l-o-c-k, by particular request, and all's well!"-N. Y. Constellation. 46 HUMOROUS LETTER.-The following humorous let. ter was addressed by a veteran to Admiral Boscawen: Sir, I had the honour of being at the taking of Port Mahon, for which one gentleman was made a Lord; I was also at the losing of Mahon, for which another gentleman has been made a Lord; each of those gentlemen performed but one of those services; surely I, who performed both, ought at least to be made a Lieutenant. Which is all from your honour's humble servant, &c." Buck. Mrs. Piozzi,) whom I knew to be a most extraordi A KIND-HEARTED WIFE-A Mrs. Ramsay, (said nary steady-minded, and gentle-mannered woman, was one night extremely ill. She called up her confidential maid servant to her bed side, and, whispering in a because if you do, Mr. Ramsay may be awoke; you low tone, said, "Jane, I am dying, but make no noise, know when his slumbers are broken he grows nervous, and cannot fall asleep again; but do you leave me now, and come in at the usual hour in the morning, you will then find me dead, and he will have had his proper allowance of sleep." She died as was antici pated. THE VIRGIN WHIG.-An awkward affair, which oc curred to one of the Judges on the Western Circuit, at Taunton, has recently been the subject of much mirth in the Temple Hall. It appears that the Judge having finished his labours, had cast off his forensic wig at his lodgings, and retired into the next room to wait for his brother Judge, whom he was about to accompany to some of the local aristocracy to dinner. The female servant of the house had entered the bed chamber by a side door, and, not knowing the Judge was in the next room, in a frolic arrayed herself in the Judge's wig. Just at this moment, when the fair Mopsey was admiring herself in the looking glass, the Judge unexpectedly entered the apartment, and poor Mopsey catching a sight of his stern countenance, looking just over her shoulder, in the glass, was so much alarmed that she fainted, and would have fallen on the ground, if the learned Judge, impelled by hu manity, had not caught her in his arms. At this critical moment his brother Judge arrived, and opening his dressing-room door with a view to see if he was ready, discovered his learned brother with the fainting maid in his arms. Not wishing to interrupt what he thought to be an amour, he quickly attempted to withdraw, when his brother Judge vociferated," For God's sake, L, stop and hear this matter explained." 66 Never mind," said L, "my dear brother, the matter explains itself;" and he left his learned brother to recover the fainting maid as he could.—Lon. Age. THE VALUE OF MARRIED MEN.-"A little more animation, my dear," whispered Lady B. to the gentle Susan, who was walking languidly through a quadrille. "Do leave me to manage my own buisness, Mamma," replied the provident nymph; "I shall not dance my ringlets out of curl for a married man." "Of course not, my love; but I was not aware who your partner was.' WIT AND SENTIMENT. NAVAL ANECDOTE.-When Commodore Decatur arrived at Gibraltar in the summer of 1815, on his way to Algiers, a great number of British officers, and among them an American gentleman, were assembled on an eminence to view the American fleet. Decatur sailed into the harbor with his squadron in very handsome style and passed without coming to anchor, his object being merely to make signals to the sloop of war Ontario. The English officers were very desirous of knowing the different names of the vessels as they approached, and as the shrewd Yankee pretended to know a ship the moment he saw her broadside, they crowded around him eagerly for information. The first frigate, he said, was the Guerriere; the second, the Macedonian; the third, the Java; the next was the Epervier; the next the Peacock; and the next, "O the next," they exclaimed with indignation, and immediately moved off, highly disgusted with the reminiscences brought to their mind by the names of the vessels of the Yankee Squadron. AN EUTHANASIA.-An old lady, residing not far from Exeter, was perhaps one of the most brilliant examples of conjugal tenderness that the last century produced. Her husband had long been dying, and at length, on the clergyman of the parish making one of his daily visits, he found him dead. The disconsolate widow in giving him an account of her spouse's last moments, told him her "poor dear man kept groaning but he could not die; at last," said she, "I recollected I had got a piece of new tape in the drawer, so I took some of that and tied it as tight as I could round his neck, and then I stopped his nose with my thumb and finger, and poor dear! he went off like a lamb." 479 Sir John Malcom relates the following anecdote of Lord Clive:-"When Clive was a young man a friend called on him one day, and found him sitting with books and a pistol on the table. "Take that pistol,' said Clive to his visitor, and fire it out at the window:' he did so at once; before the smoke subsided, and while the room rung with the report, Clive sprung to his feet, exclaiming,-"God has something for me to do yet-I snapped that pistol at my head twice before you came in-yet it did not go off-God has work for me yet." A TAME SPIDER.-We are told in the life of the celebrated Baron Trenck, that his inhuman persecutors, astonished at his serenity in prison, under all his ill treatment, kept watch upon him, and discovered that he had found amusement in taming a spider; they immediately deprived him of even this consolation. The story of the tame spider has been doubted. We are told, however, by Signor Pellico, who was confined ten years on a charge of treason, by the present emperor of Austria, that he made a pet of a spider on the wall, which he fed with knats and flies, and which became at last so domesticated, that he would crawl into his bed, or on his hand, to receive his allowance. JUDICIAL WIT.-While Chief Justice Parsons was holding a term of the Supreme Court in Ipswich, Massachusetts, a juryman presented himself with an excuse against serving on the panel. "What is the matter?" asked the judge. "I have a white swelling on my knee, which causes me great pain when I keep long in one position," was the reply. "Stand aside, Sir, till I ascertain what others may present themselves." It was found that a sufficient number were retained for the jury, and the infirm juror was again before the Judge. What did you say ailed you?""I am subject to severe turns of colic," was the an"You had better have stuck to your white swelling," said Parsons-"I can't excuse you." When at Norwich, Conn., the eccentric Lorenzo Dow presented the President with a pole having some clay fasten to the lower end, some motherwort in the middle, and some hickory sprigs at the top. On pre-swer.. senting them he said, "Here is Clay at the bottom, Wirt in the middle, and Old Hickory triumphant above them both," and then leading up his wife, he said, "Friend Jackson, shall I introduce you to my wife, Lucy ?"-" How do you do, Lucy" said the President, as he took lady Dow's hand, amid shouts of mirth. Daniel Webster, when a young practitioner, had a bad case to manage in Court. His client told him that there was one witness against him, who if he testified, would ruin him. "When the trial comes on (said Webster) point him out to me." The man was shown to him, sitting on an upper seat near the bench, in a crowded court room. Webster with his withering glance, surveyed him from head to foot. The witness receded a short distance. During the examination of other witnesses, Webster gave him another piercing look. He removed farther towards the door. Three or four more scrutinizing observations, looked the wit A west countryman, who had lately occasion to provide himself with a pair of new shoes, took the measure of his own foot to a nicety, intending to send a boy to the shoemaker's, about three miles distant, to fetch him the shoes. Something, however, occurred to prevent the boy from going, and the man resolved to go himself. He accordingly set off for the cord-ness out of Court! wainer's, and was about half way on his road, when he suddenly stopped short, scratched his head, and muttered to himself, "Confound it! I forgot the measure." Back he went accordingly to procure it, and then proceeded to his original destination, where he learned with astonishment from the man of awls, that his foot would answer better than the measure! [Scotsman. EXPOSITION ON THE MARRIAGE SERVICE-A Welch man had sentence of death passed upon him for having two wives, but he stormed and swore, "Uds split hur nails, hur see no reason they had to hang hur for having two wives, when the priest told hur, before a great people, hur might have sixteen:four better, four worse, four richer, four poorer." Instead of for better, &c. Mr. Kabe wrote to his wife, that he had been very ill, and lay speechless six weeks in the month of Feb ruary. ALLOWANCE FOR CONTINGENCIES.-A drover passing through the town of Lowell, stopped at a tavern, and wishing to count his cattle, placed a man at the gate to number them as they passed through. The last having entered the yard, the drover asked how many there were. "Sixty-two," was the reply. "How can that be," said the drover; "I had but fifty when I started, and I have sold two." "O, well," replied the man of figures, "thinking there might be some that passed through without my seeing them, I made an allowance for the contingency." A BRIGHT ONE.---An Irish woman called at a gro. cer's the other day, and asked for a quart of vinegar. It was measured off, and put into her gallon jug. She then asked for another quart, to be put into the same vessel. "And why not ask for half a gallon, and done with it?" said the grocer. "Och! bless your little bit of a soul," answered she, "it's for two persons."-Merc. Jour. For then the earth was newly crown'd What made my frozen cheek feel queer? And in my face, as facing you, I stood to seal my bliss, You threw cold comfort, when you should At least have thrown a kiss. TOM SMITH. IT'S ALL MY EYE AND TOMMY. Tom Smith-he kept a blacksmith's shop Says he, "to strike while the iron's hot Or nothing now." He little thought Tom took a boat, and started off,- And as he cross'd the stream, he thought "With me 'tis sink or swim. "If they should pay it-what a treat, If not, retreat I must; So, if a dust they don't kick up, They'll come down with the dust." Tom at the Bank the check presents; The clerks begin to grin; And then, instead of getting notes, 64 He found they noted him. A forgery," salutes his ear, From all of them at last. "Yo Your cheque is forged," said they, "but you Are sure of being cast." To Cope, the marshal, he's consigned; But found he could not cope with those With six offenders he was chain'd, And fastened side by side, He dream't not, when he cross'd the stream, Of going with the tied. Poor Tom was tried, and guilty found 'Twas then he gasped for breath; To prove his writing-one they found, The judge told Tom, "He must be hung, So though he did not get the note, And Tom was hung. Now let me quote For "Tom's no more"-his lordship wrote, 66 And so, no more of Tom." "Pride must have a FALL," exclaimed a mechan ic as he knocked down a dandy who had abused him |