ever lived, and at the same time three as healthy, hearty, and merry fellows, as the world has seen, and never wrote a line of regular churchyard poetry in their lives.

Political hypochondriacs are as thick as flies at midsummer, and are more headstrong, absurd, and obstinate, than any of the other classes. No matter how monstrous their dogmas are, the pertinacity with which they cling to them leaves the man with the cast-iron nose far behind. A member of the English parliament got it into his head, and all the other members could not get it out, that the great cause of distress among the poor was the plentifulness of the grain harvests, that starvation was a necessary consequence of over-production, and the more wheat there was grown the less there would be eaten. In this country certain people advocate a tariff that will increase commerce and support the navy, by doing away with the necessity for ships and sailors; while others believe in a dissolution of society, in consequence of a few men, calling themselves masons, getting together in a snug room, for the purpose of singing and drinking without fear of interruption. Indeed, there is no notion too improbable to find its way into the head of a political hypochondriac. Many well-meaning individuals firmly believed as soon as General Jackson became

president, that men would hang on trees as thick as acorns, that he would fire the city of Washington, destroy the constitution of the United States, put the country under martial law, keep his hand in practice by shooting a dozen citizens or so of a morning before breakfast, and do a number of other improper things for reasons best known to himself; and when they are told that no such thing has happened, they very wisely shake their heads, and say the ides of March are not yet over. There is another set of political hypochondriacs who credit whatever the newspapers tell them, and of course are worse than all the rest put together.

Then there are the religious hypochondriacs, who firmly believe that no one can be in the right except themselves—

Some think on Calvin heaven's own spirit fell,
While others deem him instrument of hell.

But this is ticklish ground. In theatricals the cases of hypochondriacism are innumerable, and generally incurable. I have seen matrons of forty-five years of age and one hundred and fifty pounds weight, who really thought they looked and played the girlish Juliet to perfection, and whom no criticism could convince to the contrary; and I have seen a little fat fellow of five feet and an inch, who

looked upon himself as the beau ideal of Roman grandeur and dignity. I have seen Miss

fancy

she could play a fashionable lady, and Mr. imagine that he looked like a gentleman. I have seen-but cases multiply too fast.

The greatest hypochondriac of modern times, however, is undoubtedly Robert Owen. This very singular individual has taken it into his head, that by means of certain strange doctrines which have the immediate effect of crazing the intellects of those who dabble in them, the world is to be regenerated, and the perfectability of human nature accomplished. He actually believes the time is coming when men will not lie, nor women flirt-when banks will not break nor bills be protested-when tailors will keep their words and gentlemen pay their debts-when brokers will be generous and politicians independent-when a man will love his neighbor as himself, and lend him money without interest or security-when Cobbett will be consistent and Lady Morgan unaffected, and other things equally strange and improbable. This is the greatest case of hypochondriacism on record, either moral or medical, and any man who will believe these things, will believe that the world is growing honester.

IDLE PEOPLE.

Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note

Unto the sweet bird's throat,

Come hither, come hither, come hither!
Here shall he see

No enemy,

But winter and rough weather.-Shaks.

THERE is no class of human beings visited with more matter-of-course vituperation than idle people. Idleness! it is the greatest vice of civilization, for it is the least profitable. Men may lie, and cheat, and game, and drink, and break the ten commandments in whatsoever way they please, and they will find apologists; but for idleness, no one lifteth up his voice to speak. From the busy haunts of men, from the toil and turmoil of the marts of traffic, from the din and smoke of manufactories, from the high courts of Mammon, it is for ever banished only on the pleasant hill side, in the waving meadow, and under the ancient forest 13

VOL. I.

trees, or by the babbling brook and lazy river hath it sought out an undisturbed retreat; and there its devotee is to be found, stretched luxuriously along the green sward, worshipping his divinity after his own calm and easy fashion. Foolish fellow! up and away unto the crowded city, for there money, "the white man's god," is to be made-spend thy days in bargaining and wrangling and over-reaching, and thy nights in scheming and calculating until thou art worth a million! but rest not, relax not, toil and bargain and wrangle on, and thou mayest yet be worth a million and a half! and then if death some morning put a stop unto thy profitable speculations, think, for all thy care and anxiety -thy joyless days and sleepless nights—what a glorious consolation is thine! The poor idler goes to his grave not worth a groat, while thou descendest to thine everlasting rest with more money invested in the funds than any man on 'change!

"Idleness," saith the proverb, "is the mother of mischief." How strange that such a noisy brawling urchin should spring from so inoffensive a parent! For my own part, I have a respect for idle people; and, when no one suffers by their idleness, they are the most sensible people on the face of the earth-your only true philosophers. Love of ease is natural to man, and industry came into the world