In a number of the London Times, for 1821, there is an account of the directions, given by an old Irish expert in such matters, who was about to die, respecting his own _wake_--"Recollect to put three candles at the head of the bed, after ye lay me out, two at the foot, and one at each side. Mind now and put a plate with the salt on it, just atop of my breast. And d'ye hear--have plinty o' tobacky and pipes enough; and remimber to have the punch strong. And--blundenoons, what the devil's the use o' pratin t'ye--sure it's mysilf knows ye'll be after botching it, as I'll not be there mysel." No. XCII. That man must be an incorrigible _fool_, who does not, occasionally, like the Vicar of Wakefield, find himself growing weary of being always _wise_. In this sense, there are few men of sixty winters, who have not been guilty of being over-wise--of assuming, at some period of their lives, the port and majesty of the bird of Minerva--of exercising that talent, for silence and solemnity, ascribed by the French nobleman, as More relates, in his travels, to the English nation. A man, thus protected--dipped, as it were, in the waters of Lethe, _usque ad calcem_--is truly a pleasant fellow. There is no such thing as getting hold of him--there he is, conservative as a tortoise, _unguibus retractis_. He seems to think the exchange of intellectual commodities, entirely out of the question; he will have none of your folly, and he holds up his own superlative wisdom, as a cow, of consummate resolution, holds up her milk. If society were thus composed, what a concert of voices there would be, in unison with Job's--_we would not live alway_. Life would be no other, than a long funeral procession--the dead burying the dead. I am decidedly in favor of a cheerful philosophy. Jeremy Taylor says, that, "_the slightest going off from a man's natural temper is a species of drunkenness_." There are some men, certainly, who seem to think, that total abstinence, from every species of merriment, is a wholesome preparative, for a residence in Paradise. The Preacher saith of laughter, _it is mad, and of mirth, what doeth it?_ But in the very next chapter, he declares, _there is a time to dance and a time to sing_. We are told in the book of Proverbs, that _a merry heart doeth good, like a medicine_. There has probably seldom been a wiser man than Democritus of Abdera, who was called the laughing philosopher; and of whom Seneca says, in his work De Ira, ii. c. 10, _Democritum aiunt nunquam sine risu in publico fuisse; adeo nihil illi videbatur serium eorum, quæ serio gerebantur_: Democritus never appeared in public, without laughter in his countenance; so that nothing seemed to affect him seriously, however much so it might affect the rest of mankind.--The Abderites, with some exceptions, thought him mad; or, in Beattie's words, when describing his minstrel boy-- "Some deem'd him wondrous wise, and some believ'd him mad."