Franklin. I take-Eh! O! -as much exercise Eh!-as I can, Madam Gout. You know my sedentary state, and on that account, it would seem, Madam Gout, as if you might spare me a little, seeing it is not altogether my own fault.

Gout. Not a jot! your rhetoric and your politeness are thrown away; your apology avails nothing. If your situation in life is a sedentary one, your amusements, your recreations, at least, should be active. But let us examine your course of life. While the mornings are long, and you have leisure to go abroad, what do you? Why, instead of gaining an appetite for breakfast by salutary exercise, you amuse yourself with books, pamphlets, or newspapers; you eat an inordinate breakfast; immediately afterward you sit down to write at your desk, or converse on business. Thus the time passes till one, without any kind of bodily exercise. What is your practice after dinner? To be fixed down to chess, for two or three hours! What can be expected from such a course of living, but a body replete with stagnant humors, ready to fall a prey to all kinds of dangerous maladies, if I, the gout, did not occasionally bring you relief by agitating these humors, and so purifying or dissipating them? Fie, then, Mr. Franklin! But amidst my instructions I had almost forgot to administer my wholesome corrections: so take that twinge, and that!

Franklin. O! eh! O!-0-0-0-0! As much instruction as you please, Madam Gout, and as many reproaches, but pray, madam, a truce with your corrections!

Gout. No, sir, no; I will not abate a particle of what is so much for your good, therefore

Franklin. O! eh-h-h! It is not fair to say I take no exercise, when I do very often, going out to dine, and returning in my carriage.

Gout. That, of all imaginary exercise, is the most slight and insignificant, if you allude to the motion of a carriage suspended on springs. By observing the degree of heat obtained by differ ent kinds of motion, we may form an estimate of the quantity of exercise given by each. Thus, for example, if you turn out to walk in winter with cold feet, in an hour's time you will be in a glow all over; ride on horseback, the same effect will scarcely be perceived by four hours' round trotting; but if you loll in a carriage, such as you have mentioned, you may travel all day, and gladly enter the last inn to warm your feet by a fire. Flatter yourself, then, no longer, that half an hour's airing in your carriage deserves the name of exercise. Providence has appointed few to roll in carriages, while he has given to all a pair of legs, which are machines infinitely more commodious and serviceable

Franklin. Your reasonings grow very tiresome.

Gout. I stand corrected. I will be silent, and continue my office; take that, and that!

Franklin. O! O-o! Talk on, I pray you!

Gout. No, no; I have a good number of things for you to night, and you may be sure of some more to-morrow.

Franklin. What, with such a fever! I shall go distracted. O! eh! Can no one bear it for me?

Gout. Ask that of your horses; they have served you faithfully.

Franklin. How can you so cruelly sport with my torments? Gout. Sport! I am very serious. I have here a list of your offences against your own health distinctly written, and can justify every stroke inflicted on you.

Franklin. Read it, then.

Gout. It is too long a detail; but I will briefly mention some particulars.

Franklin. Proceed; I am all attention.

EI

Gout. Do you remember how often you have promised yourself, the following morning, a walk in the grove of Boulogne, or in your own garden, and have violated your promise, alleging, at one time, it was too cold, at another, too warm, too windy, too moist, or what else you pleased; when, in truth, it was too nothing, but your insuperable love of ease?

Franklin. That, I confess, may have happened occasionally probably ten times in a year.

Gout. Your confession is very short of the truth; the gross amount is one hundred and ninety-nine times.

Franklin. Is it possible?

Gout. So possible that it is fact; you may rely on the accuracy of my statement. You know Mr. B.'s gardens, and what fine walks they contain; you know the handsome flight of a hundred steps, which lead from the terrace above to the lawn below. You have been in the practice of visiting this amiable family twice a week after dinner, and, as it is a maxim of your own that "a man may take as much exercise in walking a mile up and down stairs as in ten on level ground," what an opportunity was there for you to have had exercise in both these ways! Did you embrace it, and how often?

Franklin. I cannot immediately answer that question.
Gout. I will do it for you; not once.

Franklin. Not once? I am convinced now of the justness of poor Richard's remark, that "our debts and our sins are always greater than we think for."

Gout. So it is! You philosophers are sages in your maxims, and fools in your conduct.

Franklin. Ah! how tiresome you are!

Gout. Well, then, to my office; it should not be forgotten that I am your physician. There!

Franklin. Ó-o! what a physician!

Gout. How ungrateful are you to say so! Is it not I, who, in the character of your physician, have saved you from the palsy, dropsy, and apoplexy? one or other of which would have done for you long ago, but for me.

Franklin. I submit, and thank you for the past, but entreat the discontinuance of your visits for the future; for in my mind one had better die, than be cured so dolefully. Permit me just to hint that I have also not been unfriendly to you. I never feed physician or quack of any kind, to enter the lists against you; if, then, you do not leave me to repose, it may be said you are ungrateful too.

Gout. I can scarcely acknowledge that as any objection. As to quacks, I despise them; they may kill you, indeed, but cannot injure me. And as to regular physicians, they are at last convinced that the gout, in such a subject as you are, is no disease, but a remedy; and wherefore cure a remedy? But to our business. There!

Franklin. 0! O! Leave me, and I promise faithfully never more to play at chess, but to take exercise daily, and live temperately.

Gout. I know you too well. You promise fair; but after a few months' good health, you will return to your old habits; your fine promises will be forgotten, like the forms of the last year's clouds. Let us, then, finish the account, and I will go. But I leave you, with an assurance of visiting you again at a proper time and place; for my object is your good, and you are sensible now that I am your real friend. FRANKLIN (ABRIDGED).

1. ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND. - Halleck.

GREEN be the turf above thee, friend of my better days!
None knew thee but to love thee, nor named thee but to praise.
Tears fell when thou wert dying from eyes unused to weep,
And long where thou art lying will tears the cold turf steep.
When hearts whose truth is proven, like thine, are laid in earth
There should a wreath be woven to tell the world their worth;

And I, who woke each morrow to clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow, whose weal and woe were thine,
It should be mine to braid it around thy faded brow,

But I've in vain essayed it, and feel I cannot now.

While memory bids me weep thee, nor thoughts nor words are free, The grief is fixed too deeply that mourns a man like thee.

2. WOMAN'S MISSION.- Ebenezer Elliott.

What highest prize hath woman won in science or in art? What mightiest work by woman done boasts city, field, or mart? "She hath no Raphael," Painting saith; "no Newton," Learning

cries;

"Show us her steamship, her Macbeth, her thought-won victories!"

Wait, boastful man! though worthy are thy deeds, when thou art true,

Things worthier still, and holier far, our sister yet will do;
For this the worth of woman shows: on every peopled shore,
Ever as man in wisdom grows, he honors her the more.

O, not for wealth, or fame, or power, hath man's meek angel striven,
But, silent as the growing flower, to make of earth a heaven!
And, in her garden of the sun, Heaven's brightest rose shall bloom:
For woman's best is unbegun, her advent yet to come!

Sleet! and Hail! and Thunder! and ye Winds that rave,
Till the sands thereunder tinge the sullen wave,
Winds, that, like a demon, howl with horrid note
Round the toiling seaman in his tossing boat,
From his humble dwelling, on the shingly shore,
Where the billows swelling keep such hollow roar,
From that weeping woman, seeking with her cries
Succor superhuman from the frowning skies, -
From the urchin pining for his father's knee,
From the lattice shining-drive him out to sea!
Let broad leagues dissever him from yonder foam
Ah! to think man ever comes too near his home!

4. THE RHINE. - From the German.

No, they shall never have it, the free, the German Rhine!
Though, vulture-like, to seize it, with talons fierce, they pine:
So long as gently floating between its banks of green
A ship shall on the current of its dear stream be seen,
No, they shall never have it!

They shall never have it never!-the glorious German Rhine,
While on its storied borders shall grow the oak and vine;

So long as the proud shadows of tall cliffs o'er it gleam,
So long as old cathedrals are imaged in its stream,
No, they shall never have it!

No, they shall never have it, the free, the German Rhine,
While round its graceful daughters the arms of strong men twine;
And while one fish within it springs glittering from the deep,
And while soft midnight music shall o'er its waters sweep;
No, they shall never have it, the German Rhine's free wave,
Till its sacred tide is flowing above the last man's grave!

I said unto the dawn, "Why art thou bright

With amber glow, and tints of

rosy light?"

I said unto a maid, as morning fair,

"Why wreathe with smiles thy lip, with flowers thy hair! Beauty and morn! ye quickly must decay,

Soon fade your tints, and flit your smiles away!

Therefore adorn not!"

"I deck myself," the Dawn replied, "in light,
In amber glow and roseate splendor bright,
In those rich hues rejoice to be arrayed,

Nor ask, nor know, when fate shall bid them fade;
He who the moon and stars ordained to shine
Made those rich hues and fading splendor mine,
Therefore I mourn not!"

"I deck myself," replied the beauteous maid,
"Ere yet the spring-time of my youth doth fade.
Shall that short spring in settled gloom be past
Because stern fate must bid it fade at last!
He who its plumage on the bird bestows,
Who gives, and takes, the colors of the rose,

In Him I trust, and mourn not!"

CLXIX. THE COMPLAINT OF A PAIR OF LUNGS.

PART FIRST.

1. As you have given place to the recital of the grievances of a Stomach, we claim the privilege of being heard in regard to some of the abuses to which we, a respectable pair of Lungs,

* See page 157.