Lord Brougham, in an essay published long ago in the _Edinburgh Review_, read a smart lesson to Parliamentary wits. "A wit," says his lordship, "though he amuses for the moment, unavoidably gives frequent offence to grave and serious men, who don't think public affairs should be lightly handled, and are constantly falling into the error that when a person is arguing the most conclusively, by showing the gross and ludicrous absurdity of his adversary's reasoning, he is jesting, and not arguing; while the argument is, in reality, more close and stringent, the more he shows the opposite picture to be grossly ludicrous--that is, the more effective the wit becomes. But, though all this is perfectly true, it is equally certain that danger attends such courses with the common run of plain men. "Nor is it only by wit that genius offends: flowers of imagination, flights of oratory, great passages, are more admired by the critic than relished by the worthy baronets who darken the porch of Boodle's--chiefly answering to the names of Sir Robert and Sir John--and the solid traders, the very good men who stream along the Strand from 'Change towards St. Stephen's Chapel, at five o'clock, to see the business of the country done by the Sovereign's servants. A pretty long course of observation on these component parts of a Parliamentary audience begets some doubt if noble passages, (termed 'fine flourishes,') be not taken by them as personally offensive." Take, for example, "such fine passages as Mr. Canning often indulged himself and a few of his hearers with; and which certainly seemed to be received as an insult by whole benches of men accustomed to distribute justice at sessions. These worthies, the dignitaries of the empire, resent such flights as liberties taken with them; and always say, when others force them to praise--'Well, well, but it was out of place; we have nothing to do with king Priam here, or with a heathen god, such as Æolus; those kind of folk are all very well in Pope's _Homer_ and Dryden's _Virgil_; but, as I said to Sir Robert, who sat next me, what have you or I to do with them matters? I like a good plain man of business, like young Mr. Jenkinson--a man of the pen and desk, like his father was before him--and who never speaks when he is not wanted: let me tell you, Mr. Canning speaks too much by half. Time is short--there are only twenty four hours in the day, you know.'" * * * * * MATHEMATICAL SAILORS. Nathaniel Bowditch, the translator of Laplace's _Mécanique Céleste_, displayed in very early life a taste for mathematical studies. In the year 1788, when he was only fifteen years old, he actually made an almanack for the year 1790, containing all the usual tables, calculations of the eclipses, and other phenomena, and even the customary predictions of the weather.