I know of no principle which it is of more importance to fix in the minds of young people than that of the most determined resistance to the encroachment of ridicule. Give up to the world, and to the ridicule with which the world enforces its dominion, every trifling question of manner and appearance; it is to toss courage and firmness to the winds, to combat with the mass upon such subjects as these. But learn from the earliest days to insure your principles against the perils of ridicule: you can no more exercise your reason, if you live in the constant dread of laughter, than you can enjoy your life, if you are in the constant terror of death. If you think it right to differ from the times, and to make a stand for any valuable point of morals, do it, however rustic, however antiquated, however pedantic it may appear--do it, not for insolence, but _seriously_ and _grandly_--as a man who wore a soul of his own in his bosom, and did not wait till it was breathed into him by the breath of fashion. Let men call you mean, if you know you are just; hypocritical, if you are honestly religious; pusillanimous, if you feel that you are firm: resistance soon converts unprincipled wit into sincere respect; and no after-time can tear from you those feelings which every man carries within him who has made a noble and successful exertion in a virtuous cause. BULLS AND CHARADES. A bull--which must by no means be passed over in this recapitulation of the family of wit and humor--a bull is exactly the counterpart of a witticism: for as wit discovers real relations that are not apparent, bulls admit apparent relations that are not real. The pleasure arising from bulls, proceeds from our surprise at suddenly discovering two things to be dissimilar in which a resemblance might have been suspected. The same doctrine will apply to wit and bulls in action. Practical wit discovers connection or relation between actions, in which duller understandings discover none; and practical bulls originate from an apparent relation between two actions which more correct understandings immediately perceive to have none at all. In the late rebellion in Ireland, the rebels, who had conceived a high degree of indignation against some great banker, passed a resolution that they would burn his notes; which they accordingly did, with great assiduity; forgetting, that in burning his notes they were destroying his debts, and that for every note which went into the flames, a correspondent value went into the banker's pocket. A gentleman, in speaking of a nobleman's wife of great rank and fortune, lamented very much that she had no children. A medical gentleman who was present observed, that to have no children was a great misfortune, but he thought he had remarked it was _hereditary_ in some families. Take any instance of this branch of the ridiculous, and you will always find an apparent relation of ideas leading to a complete inconsistency.