more we shall have to draw upon our own genius; and the duller the
season, the more vivacious must we be to put our readers in spirits. But
we have consolation approaching in the shape of amusing work.
Immediately that parliament is up, the newspapers will begin to lie,
"like thunder," Tom Pipes would say. What mysterious murders, what
heart-rending accidents, what showers of bonnets in the Paddington
Canal, what legions of unhappy children dropped at honest men's doors!
We have got a file of the "Morning Herald" for the last ten years;--and
we give the worthy labourers in the accident line, fair notice, that if
they hash up the old stories with the self-same sauce, as they are wont
to do, without substituting the pistol for the razor, and not even
changing the Christian name of the young ladies who always drown
themselves when parliament is up, we shall take the matter into our own
hands, and write a "Chapter of Accidents" that will drive these poor
pretenders to the secrets of hemp and rats-bane fairly out of the
field.--Ibid.

* * * * *


AWKWARDNESS.


Man is naturally the most awkward animal that inhales the breath of
life. There is nothing, however simple, which he can perform with the
smallest approach to gracefulness or ease. If he walks,--he hobbles, or
jumps, or limps, or trots, or sidles, or creeps--but creeping, sidling,
limping, hobbling, and jumping, are by no means walking. If he sits,--he
fidgets, twists his legs under his chair, throws his arm over the back
of it, and puts himself into a perspiration, by trying to be at ease. It