The applications made by means of the notes which follow the advertisement show that the promise made by David and Ruth to repay all amounts when called upon is something more than a mere flourish. We should not like, though, to guarantee that these promises were always kept, and have no doubt that the concocters of the foregoing found, as so many others did before them, and not a few have done since, that kindness is generally obtained from the least expected, and often the least valued, quarter. This is a glorious dispensation of providence, and few people who have experienced misfortune, or have been in want of assistance, but have felt how compensating is the hidden power which guides our destinies. Yet writers who constantly rail about the insincerity of friendship make little or no mention of those truest friends, the friends who appear uninvoked, and do whatever has been asked in vain of others who may have promised freely, or who are in fact indebted to those they ignore in the moment of adversity. Burly old Grose, the friend of Burns, in his “Olio” gives a curious specimen of composition, which he says was the effort of a mayor in one of our University towns, though which is not stated. It tells us that-- WHEREAS, a Multiplicity of Dangers are often incurred by Damage of outrageous Accidents by Fire, we whose Names are undersigned, have thought proper that the Benefit of an Engine, bought by us, for the better Extinguishing of which, by the Accidents of Almighty God, may unto us happen, to make a Rate to gather Benevolence for the better propagating such useful Instruments. Some clever student of style may be able to tell, by a clue invisible to the uninitiated, whether this is Oxford or Cambridge. We are not learned in such matters, and so prefer to admire, without troubling ourselves to identify.