Paris to London. De English Ladies, I say to myself, must be de most best educate women in de whole world. Dere is schools for dem every wheres-in a hole and in a corner. Let ne take some walks in de Fauxbourgs, and what do I see all round myself? When I look dis way I see on a white house's front a large bord wid some gilded letters, which say Seminary for Young Ladies. When I look dat way, at a big red house, I see anoder bord which say Establishment for Young Ladies by Miss Someones. And when I look up at a little house, at a little window, over a barber-shop, I read on a paper Ladies Schol. Den I see Prospect House, and Grove House, and de Manor Houseso many I cannot call dem names, and also all schools for de young females. Day Schools besides. And in my walks, always I meet some Schools of Young Ladies, eight, nine, ten times in one day, making dere promenades, two and two and two. Den I come home to my lodging's door, and below de knocker I see one letter-I open it, and I find a Prospectus of a Lady School. By and bye I say to my landlady where is your oldest of daughters, which used to bring to me my breakfast, and she tell me she is gone out a governess. Next she notice me I must quit my appartement. What for I say. What have I done? Do I not pay you all right like a weekly man of honour? O certainly, mounseer, she say, you are a gentleman quite, and no mistakes but I wants my whole of my house to myself for to set him up for a Lady School. Noting but Lady Schools!--and de widow of de butcher have one more over de street. Bless my soul and my body, I say to myself, dere must be nobody born'd in London except leetle girls!"

CHAP. XX.

THERE is a certain poor word in the English language which of late years has been exceedingly ill-used-and it must be said by those who ought to have known better.

To the disgrace of our colleges, the word in question was first perverted from its real significance at the very head-quarters of learning. The initiated indeed are aware of its local sense, but who knows what cost and inconvenience the duplicity of the term may have caused to the more ignorant members of the community? Just imagine, for instance, a plain, downright Englishman who calls a spade a spade,induced perhaps by the facilities of the railroads-making a summer holiday and repairing to Cambridge or Oxford, maybe with his whole family, to see he does not exactly know what-whether a Collection of Pictures, Wax-Work, Wild Beasts, Wild Indians, a Fat Ox, or a Fat Child but at any rate an "Exhibition!"

More recently, the members of the faculty have taken it into their heads to misuse the unfortunate word, and by help of its misapplication are continually promising to the ear what the druggists really perform to the eye-namely, to " exhibit" their medicines. If the Doctors talked of hiding them, the phrase would be more germane to the act: for it would be difficult to conceal a little Puly-Rhei-Magnes. sulphat. —or tinct. jalapæ, more effectually than by throwing it into a man's or woman's stomach. And pity it is that the term has not amongst medical men a more literal significance: for it is certain that in many diseases, and especially of the hypocondriac class—it is certain, I say,

that if the practitioner actually made "a show" of his materiel the patient would recover at the mere sight of the "Exhibition."

This was precisely the case with the Rev. T. C. Had he fallen into the hands of a Homeopathist with his infinitesimal doses, only fit to be exhibited like the infinitessimal insects through a solar microscope, his recovery would have been hopeless. But his better fortune provided otherwise. The German Medicin Rath, who prescribed for him, was in theory diametrically opposed to Hahnemann, and in his tactics he followed Napoleon, whose leading principle was to bring masses of all arms, horse, foot, and artillery, to bear on a given point. In accordance with this system, he therefore prescribed so liberally that the following articles were in a very short time comprised in his "Exhibition :"

A series of powders, to be taken every two hours.

A set of draughts, to wash down the powders.
A box of pills.

A bag full of certain herbs for fomentations.
A large blister, to be put between the shoulders.
Twenty leeches, to be applied to the stomach.

As Macheath sings, " a terrible show!"—but the doctor, in common with his countrymen, entertained some rather exaggerated notions as to English habits, and our general addiction to high feeding and fast living an impression that materially aggravated the treatment.

"He must be a horse doctor!" thought Miss Crane, as she looked over the above articles-at any rate she resolved-as if governed by the proportion of four legs to two-that her parent should only take one half of each dose that was ordered. But even these reduced quantities were too much for the Reverend T. C.-the first instalment he swallowed-the second he smelt, and the third he merely looked at. To tell the truth, he was fast transforming from a Malade Imaginaire into a Malade Malgré Lui. In short, the cure proceeded with the rapidity of a Hohenlohe miracle-a result the doctor did not fail to attribute to the energy of his measures, at the same time resolving that the next English patient he might catch should be subjected to the same decisive treatment. Heaven keep the half, three-quarters, and whole lengths of my dear countrymen and country women from his Exhibitions!

His third visit to the Englisher at the Adler was his last. He found the Convalescent in his travelling dress,-Miss Ruth engaged in packing-and the Schoolmistress writing the letter which was to prepare Miss Parfitt for the speedy return of the family party to Lebanon House. It was of course a busy time; and the Medicin Rath speedily took his fees and his leave.

There remained only the account to settle with the landlord of the Adler; and as English families rarely stopped at that wretched inn, the amount of the bill was quite as extraordinary. Never was there such a realization of the "large reckoning in a little room."

"Well, I must say," murmured the Schoolmistress, as the coach rumbled off towards home, "I do wish we had reached Gotha that I might have got my shades of wool."

Humph!' grunted the Rev. T. C., still sore from the recent disbursement," they went out for Wool, and they returned shorn."

AN ESSAY-ON LEGS.

BY LAMAN BLANCHARD, ESQ.

If we admit self-preservation to be the first law of nature, we must acknowledge that self-love stands as A 1. among the Affections.

Some degree of self-love-more or less-is at all events common, by common consent, to the children of men. But among man's male children, another rule holds good, and it is this; that the said self-love divides and subdivides itself into a multitude of little predilections and partialities, that settle upon some particular quality of the brain, or faculty of the body; so that in addition to one's proper and natural amount of affection, due to and diffused over one's entire self, we have branch-affections extending and belonging, and carrying especial liking and favour, to various distinct portions of our own organization.

He

That one man, in addition to his stock of general and equally distributed self-love, cherishes a particular regard for some particular vice that forms part of himself, requires no vehemence of assertion. loves that one disposition of his nature, because it is a manly vice, or a small tender vice, or a frank bold vice, or a vice that hurts nobody but himself (for it is astonishing how readily self-love reconciles itself to self-injury) or because it is a pleasant vice, or a profitable one, or one that is less shabby than his neighbours. He has his favourite aversions too, as well as his favourite attachments. This is admitted.

Admitted, too, that another man, equally self-loving, has as fond and exclusive a partiality for some especial virtue that belongs to him. He is fond of it perhaps for its own sake, perhaps because it happens to be his (for he might not have admired it in another);—or because its maintenance through life has cost him something, or because it has brought him some credit and renown-a value-received virtue. He is proud of his humility, he frankly brags of his candour-he is intoxicated with a sense of his exemplary sobriety. All this is undeniable.

At the same time, it is perfectly intelligible. We may openly proclaim the hatred we cherish, and, according to Johnson, get liked for it: we may secretly nurture an overweening regard for anv stray virtue we may chance to possess; we may encourage a partiality for any small talent that may be ours over other talents as surely our own, and of infinitely more importance; that is to say, a man who is great at chiselling a statue, may take a more particular pride in being famous for cutting out paper-likenesses with scissors; and one who is confessedly able in debate, may like much better to be told that he dances well. There have been philosophers, who would have been less pleased with the tribute" You reason wisely," than with the compliment"You sing like a gentleman."

Extol some great lawyer for unerring knowledge, and he may listen unmoved; and you pour delight into his very soul.

judgment, and profundity of but praise his taste in wines There was a great comedian

who felt no pleasure in the laughter he every where raised; but if you told him that his whist playing was perfect, you made him happy for a week.

These examples of the little wayward partialities in which self-love indulges are, as we have said, intelligible enough. Not equally so are those that extend to, and settle upon, some particular organ of the animal frame which each man owns-some feature of the face, some limb of the body natural.

Yet what so common as instances of this species of favouritism— rather should we not say, what so universal as these predilections!

Go where we will, among the sublime of the earth or the ridiculous, among the beautiful or the ordinary, the gray-headed or the flaxen-haired-take all degrees from Hyperion to Caliban-and what is to be seen but ever-varying examples of this same favouritism settling upon limbs and features in which nobody but their owners ever perceived any distinguishing mark, not possessed by other limbs and features of their class.

Self-love, however it may love the all of self, loves some one bit of it better than the rest. It is the most volatile of affections, until it has once fixed itself-and then it never after stirs from the spot. It will cling to the little finger of the right hand--it will settle on the great toe of the left foot-it will hang upon an eyebrow-it will take up its everlasting rest, astride, upon the bridge of a nose.

Seeing the places where this most perverse and whimsical feeling of preference makes its selection and takes up its abode, it is not too absurd to suppose that a man may be suspected of cherishing a particular partiality for the nape of his neck. He may not be vain of his high forehead, nor of his broad chest, nor of his well-turned feet; but he may think there is something not unhandsome, about the nape of his neck.

The hand, wheresoever regarded as an index to birth, the symbol of a fair descent, may have some show of reason for any preference accorded to it; but the preference should attach to both hands equally, and should not be cultivated beyond the aristocratic boundary. The partiality should by no means be extended to The Legs.

The Legs are not supposed by the most liberal in such matters, to be safe guides to a knowledge of birth and breeding Yet in the race of partiality, the Legs carry off the prize, beating every rival hollow.

Whiskers-it is true-amongst the great body of men-children-are very formidable competitors. There are men who care nothing about the finest crop of raven curls that ever figured in a novel or a hairdresser's window-who don't care about broad shoulders, who have no particular taste for small hands, who can do very well without white dazzling teeth; but who do confess, in the face of the whole world, to a penchant for whiskers.

The love of whiskers, in some natures, is intense. As the cataract did by Lord Byron, they haunt people like a passion. A passion for the mustache has been known to sprout up rather stiffly, but will never bear comparison with the partiality excited by the whisker. Civilized man, in some districts of society, would give his eyes themselves to save his whiskers; but legs outstrip them, nevertheless.

How then does the case stand? We see men, very average sort of

people, with no more self love or vanity than falls to the common lot, entertaining a violent affection for some especial portion of their own animal frames. Some look with partial eyes upon the left hand, some upon the right foot; some invest the whole strength of their weakness in the hair, the preferences of another cling to his nose; while one, whom we lately encountered, possessing brilliant eyes, a fine mouth, engaging manners, and goodly talents to sustain all, was vain of nothing upon earth but his ears, the donkey.

But far stronger, far more general and more lasting, than any of these preferences, is the preference which Man evinces for his Legs. There are persons who cannot get on in life in consequence of the surpassing excellence of their legs. Whenever they attempt to move, their legs are in the way. They may be said to be always stumbling over their legs, or to be trying to walk through the world with their legs uppermost.

It must be granted that persons who possess legs of the class to which the epithet "queer" is ordinarily applied, may at first find a little difficulty in making their way in the world. We see legs sometimes that appear to have been designed (appropriately enough) by Cruikshank. It might be imagined that they had been originally picked up, tied in a natural double knot, about the time of the deluge; having "neither the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man." They are past the aid of padding, and the miracle is how boots were ever fitted to them by the genius of cobblery.

Yet even in one of these extreme cases, there is no permanent difficulty, no real impediment to life's progress. The possessor of these queer appendages, compared with which the rudest branch of a corktree were symmetrical, soon becomes used to them. As he glances down at his person he sees nothing in the remotest degree resembling legs, and he forgets that he has such things about him. He is only conscious of possessing something not too shapeless to shuffle on with -and so on he shuffles. Awkward and ugly as they are, those legs bear him up without tripping. Far happier he than the Hero of the Handsome Legs-the owner of those precious pets that are always playing at cross purposes, by getting in their master's way, and carrying him into a fool's paradise.

Who knows not one such hero of a fool's paradise! Philosophers have held much disputation about the residence of the soul, while retained prisoner in the body. It has been settled that the dancingmaster's is in his toe, and the lawyer's in his tongue-that one man's is in the palm of his hand, and another's buttoned up in his breeches: pocket. Our hero's, past all doubt, lurks in his legs.

There is in them a superior consciousness, not common to the remainder of his corporeal substance. They are more than his better half. You might throw his head and heart into one scale, but his legs would never kick the beam in the other. He is disgusted when he hears the term "legs" applied to scamps and vagabonds. In his estimation they are the very quintessence of dust,"

The precious porcelain of human clay.

Were he a swan with two necks, instead of a goose with one, he would consent to break both rather than fracture either of his pets. How he