In farm-houses midst pleasant valleys, in log-cabins which dot clearings midst western prairies, even in the unsubstantial tents of seekers in El Dorado, they turn to its pages for amusement, moral cultivation and instruction. These demands have been often attended to, though perhaps a trifle too gravely. The time has at length come, when the growing public taste bids us prepare to have a little fun. Human folly is the best and most natural subject for human ridicule. To laugh with the manes of the Jolly old Grecian philosopher, is more agreeable than to snivel with the lugubrious ghost of his weeping rival. We therefore must needs have a hearty guffaw together, and as the most appropriate subject for mirth, suppose we select that incarnation of vapid creation, but that idol of self-esteem—a City Dandy. The assertion made by the ancient sage Socrates, that “a dandy is like a jackass, because he wears his Sunday-coat every day,” would scarcely fit a modern exquisite, whose diurnal attire varies with each revolution of the sun. The apothegm of Plato, that “a monkey owes his distinction to his tail and a fop to his tailor,” is not thoroughly apt, because the human ape owes something (generally a considerable sum) to his hatter and boot-maker. The well-known assertion of Virgil, “_in squirtibus nihil sed aquæ lactissimus_”—in squirts you will find nothing but milk and water—has about it the usual license taken by poets, inasmuch as if we examine _our_ squirts, they will be pronounced empty. Bacon’s celebrated maxim in his Novum Organum, that “what are considered petty matters are often of importance, but there is no importance in a _petit maître_,” will probably be acquiesced in by common people, though those implicated by the serious pun may think it uncommonly impudent. Newton’s position taken in the _Principia_, that “in apples and men there is much specific gravity, but mushrooms and dandies are of trifling lightness,” may be disputed by the latter, who with some show might liken their weight to that of “some pumpkins.” Euclid’s celebrated rule, “a plane superficies is every where flat, _e.g._ a dandy who is plainly superficial is a flat every where,” has long been a fixture in geometrical lore, which may be doubted, though dangerous to dissent from. We, therefore, seek in vain in the lessons of ancient science and wisdom for competent authority to settle the question—“What is a dandy?” _Hamlet_, who being the “glass of fashion and the mould of form,” was of course a fop, did on one occasion confess that himself and some other leaders of the ton at that time, yclept _Horatio_ and _Marcellus_, were “fools of nature,” and horribly shook their dispositions “with thoughts beyond the reaches of their souls.” His candid admission that exquisites are natural fools—“rather weak in the upper story,” and unable to stand the overpowering weight of grave thought—has long been admired as a fine picture of the mental condition