and irresponsible imp, "Nobody," at length bestowed the name on his eldest apprentice, and held him accountable for all the acts of the bodiless evil-doer.

We offer to our fair readers the following attempt to make something out of nothing:

"U 0 a 0 but I 0 u,

0 0 no 0 but 0 0 me;

O let not my 0 a 0 go,

But give 0 0 1 0 u so."

The English version reads thus:

“You sigh for a cypher, but I sigh for you;
O sigh for no cypher, but O sigh for me:
O let not my sigh for a cypher go,

But give sigh for sigh, for I sigh for you so."

Some, again, love nothing-others more amiable, hate it, and others are said to fear nothing. Some erudite authors fill their ponderous pages in reality with-nothing, although ostensibly with words. What, indeed, could afford more demonstrable evidence of its verity, than this present writing-nothing commenced it, nothing continued it, and-nothing must close it; and as this brings us to the dilemma of its endless duration, we at once take refuge in the following clever "summing up" of a sonnet, by an anonymous writer :

"Mysterious nothing! how shall I define

Thy shapeless, baseless, placeless emptiness;
Nor form, nor color, sound, nor size are thine.
Nor words, nor fingers, can thy voice express;
But though we cannot thee to ought compare,

A thousand things to thee may likened be,
And though thou art with nobody no where,

Yet half mankind devote themselves to thee,
How many books thy history contain,

How many heads thy mighty plans pursue,

What lab'ring hands thy portion only gain,
What busy-bodies thy doings only do,

To thee the great, the proud, the giddy bend,

And, like my sonnet-all in nothing end."

We might here, perhaps, have effected a safe retreat from the entaglement of our knotty topic, were we not desirous of atoning for our trifling, by an attempt to educe a moral from it. Lest some should think we have proved the obverse of what we proposed, and actually made nothing out of nothing, we are frank to confess, this is not what we designed in the treatment of this untenable and intractable topic. But to our moral.

Some unfortunate persons, there may be, who are accustomed erroneously to construe the term we have so often played upon, as synonymous with others of a very different signification. For instance, those who are addicted to "libations deep" would have you believe that intoxication is nothing, so would the purloiner, theft;-the profane, swearing;—the indolent, industry;—and the man of violence, murder.

"'T is nothing says, the fool; but says his friend

'Tis nothing, sir, will bring you to your end!"

And this sagacious couplet brings us to ours, in the words of a well-remembered classic author, which may be construed according to the taste of the reader, without impugning the modesty of the writer

"Nihil tetigit non ornavit "

Ir has been said that recreation, exactly considered, is an advantage which few, if any, are willing altogether to forego, and which the most severe philosophy does not deny. It is, in one form or other, the object of universal pursuit,-for without its participation to some extent, life would lose its principal attraction, and mankind would degenerate into the settled gloom of moody melancholy. Relaxation from the severer toils of life is as necessary to human existence, as light is to the physical universe; without its appropriate indulgence, all the pleasant things which impart their thousand charms to our social economy, would at once become eclipsed in

the darkness of desolation and despair. If it be true that man is the only animal that laughs, is it fair to infer that, by an occasional indulgence of his risible faculty, he is but fulfilling a part of his destiny. Very much might be urged in favor of a hearty laugh; it is not only highly exhilarating, but also very infectious, and the doctors tell us it is an excellent help to digestion and health. Shakspeare's advice is not only admissible, but decidedly to be commended, where he says:

"Frame thy mind to mirth and merriment,

Which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens life."

Who does not prefer a smiling face to a frowning one-the jocund Spring to the dark forms of Winter? Somebody has said he would any day sacrifice a good dinner to gaze on a beautiful face; and scarcely any face looks otherwise when it is lit up with smiles; especially if it be a woman's.

There are some ascetic souls whose lugubrious visages cast dark shadows wherever they go, and whose presence, like the fabled Upas tree, diffuses a deadly poison over all the felicities and gaieties of life. All nations have proved by common consent the fallacy of seeking to impose restraints against the necessary recreations of life-the temporary respite from toil; while the stern necessities of our mental and physical constitution have long since invested the usage with the authority of law. D'Israeli has an amusing chapter devoted to the amusements of the learned, from which we shall cite a few facts illustrative of, and introductory to our subject:

'It seems that among the Jesuits it was a standing rule of order, that after an application to study of two hours, the mind should be bent by some relaxation, however trifling. When Petavius was engaged upon his 'Dogmata Theologica,' a work of the most profound erudition, the favorite recreation of the learned father, was at the close of every second hour, to twirl his chair round for five minutes. Agesilaus, it is well known, amused him

self and his children by riding on a stick: the great Scipio diverted himself by picking up shells on the sea shore. Tycho Brahe amused himself with polishing glasses for spectacles and mathematical instruments; and Descartes beguiled himself of his literary labors, like John Evelyn, Pope, Cowper, and many others, in the culture of flowers. The great Samuel Clarke, was fond of regaling his logical abstractions by sundry antics, such as leaping over tables and chairs, and the ridiculous pastimes indulged in by the eccentric Dean Swift, are doubtless remembered by the reader. Contemplative men seem to have been fond of amusements accordant with their pursuits and habits. The tranquil recreation of angling, has won a preference with many over more boisterous pursuits; from the fascinations imparted to it by the quaint and delightful work of Izaac Walton. Sir Henry Watton styles angling, 'Idle time not idly spent;' to a meditative mind, possibly, it may be so, but we think many a devotee of 'fly fishing,' will be found to have been much more lavish in his expenditure of time, than is warranted by its results. Paley, it may be remembered, was accustomed to indulge in this pursuit: he had a portrait painted with a rod and line in his hand,-a somewhat singular characteristic for the sage and reverend author of 'Natural Theology.' There are certain national indications connected with the amusements and recreations of a people. For example, the French,-unlike ourselves and the English, who toil and tug at business 'from morn to dewy eve,'-spend half their time in their numerous resorts of amusement, and emphatically take it 'cooly;' business of any kind being with them rarely an engrossing pursuit.

"The Italian devotes three-fourths of his 'precious time,' to similar follies and fetes; and the Spaniard is 'next of kin' to him in this respect, for he both can scarcely be said to enjoy his leisure, since his life is almost uniformly a state of inertness. The German, on the contrary, is all the while absorbed in mystic abstractions, and etherializing aloft in the fumes of his meerschaum."