breath, and is apt to exhibit those faults which a skillful toilet would have concealed, and which we would have been happier in not knowing. Ladies after a dance look like victims that have been tortured; and oh! gentle reader, may you never have the misfortune to be behind the scenes at a ballet! The first _ballerina_, after the greatest storm of applause, looks then but like a fallen angel scourged by furies. No, no! give balls and routes to boys and girls. A sensible man scorns at that, and takes it as no mark of respect for him to be invited to them. Let me lead the woman I fancy to dinner, and give me an hour’s conversation with her afterward, in the boudoir, and I will gladly resign meeting her in a crowd. Let the cook but half do his duty, and I will not be deficient in mine. A word, before I part, to the Blue Stockings—(I would _whisper_ it if I could do so in print)—It’s very well to quote Shakspeare, and Byron, and Milton, (whom nobody reads,) and Mrs. Hemans, who had much better written sermons. But if you want to acquire a lasting reputation, and choke off envy and detraction, have an eye to your cook. The most fastidious critic would sooner forgive a misquotation than the want of seasoning in a favorite dish. As much literary reputation may be acquired by dining literary men, as by imitating or plundering their writings. ----- [1] I hope that in a chapter on eating I may quote “Bacon.” [2] “Gray, my friend, is all Theory, and Green the Tree of life,” says Mephistophiles to the student, in Goethe’s Faust. * * * * * MORNING INVITATION. BY THE PRIVATE SCHOLAR. Let us go to the dewy mountain, love, ’Tis the time of the Maying weather; The lark is up in the blue above, The thrush in the briery heather; From the cottage elm the robin calls— List, love, to the gentle warning— We’ll away to the mountain waterfalls, And drink the dew of the morning. Let us go to the tangled greenwood fair, The scented buds invite us; The young red deer will gambol there, And a thousand songs delight us. Thy hand in mine, and mine in thine, In the wood-path we will linger, Where the dew is bright on the eglantine, As the jewel on thy finger. Let us go to the moor and the virgin lake— I hear the call of the plover; And the fisherman’s song comes over the brake, With the perfume of the clover. A bonny boat with a pennon gay, Like a nymph on the blue is sleeping— To the fairy lake, oh, let us away, While the sun from the hills is peeping.