EARLY HOURS.
We learn that Mr. Cobbett dines at twelve o'clock on suppawn and butcher's meat, that he sups on bread and milk at six, that he goes to bed at nine, that he rises every morning of his life at four; that before ten o'clock he has finished his writing for the day, and, that though no man has written more than he has, that he never knew any one who enjoyed more leisure than he does, and has done. "Now is there a man on earth who sits at a table, on an average, so many hours in the day as I do? I do not believe that there is: and I say it, not with pride, but with gratitude, that I do not believe that the whole world contains a man who is more constantly blessed with health than I am. In winter I go to bed at nine, and I rise, if I do not oversleep myself, at four, or between four and five. I have always a clear head; I am ready to take the pen, or begin dictating, the moment I have lighted the fire, or it has been lighted for me, and, generally speaking, I am seldom more than five minutes in bed before I am asleep."
AN IRISH VILLAGE INN.
The form and plan in all parts of the country are pretty nearly the same, though the furniture varies; the hospitable door (inns are proverbially hospitable) stands always open, but the guests are sheltered from the thorough air by a screen, composed like the rest of the mansion, of mud; the partition walls which separate it from the adjoining rooms reach no higher than the spring of the roof, so that warmth and air, not to mention the grunting of pigs, and other domestic sounds, are equally diffused through all parts of the tenement; from the rafters, well blackened and polished with smoke, depend sundry flitches of bacon, dried salmon, and so forth, and above them, if you know the ways of the house "may be you couldn't find (maybe you couldn't means, maybe you could) a horn of malt or a cag of poteen, where the gauger couldn't smell it." If you are very ignorant, you must be told, that poteen is the far famed liquor which the Irish, on the faith of the proverb, "stolen bread is sweetest," prefer, in spite of law, and—no—not of lawgivers, they drink it themselves, to its unsuccessful rival, parliament whisky. Beneath the ample chimney, and on each side of the fire-place, run low stone benches, the fire of turf or bog is made on the ground, and the pot for boiling the "mate, or potaties" as the chance may be, suspended over it by an iron chain; so that sitting on the aforesaid stone benches, you may inhale, like the gods, the savour of your dinner, while your frostbitten shins are soothed at the same time by the fire which dresses it.—Monthly Magazine.
THE TRUE GENTLEMAN.
By a gentleman, we mean not to draw a line that would be invidious between high and low, rank and subordination, riches and poverty. The distinction is in the mind. Whoever is open, loyal, and true; whoever is of humane and affable demeanour; whoever is honourable in himself, and in his judgment of others, and requires no law but his word to make him fulfil an engagement—such a man is a gentleman: and such a man may be found among the tillers of the earth. But high birth and distinction, for the most part, insure the high sentiment which is denied to poverty and the lower professions. It is hence, and hence only, that the great claim their superiority; and hence, what has been so beautifully said of honour, the law of kings, is no more than true:—
It aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her,
And imitates her actions where she is not.