It is very erroneously stated by many persons, both in writing and in speaking, that the period between the first arrival of the company and the serving up of the dinner is most weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. But as there is no spot of earth so barren as not to produce some curiosity to reward the toil and gratify the taste of the botanist, so there is no attitude or condition of our being which may not yield some fruit of instruction and amusement to the moral botanist. We deserve the thanks of our readers for much that we communicate in the way of information and amusement, but perhaps for nothing so much as for directing their attention to the great and valuable truth, that even the usually-considered dreary half hour before dinner is not absolutely barren and worthless. Peradventure also, by directing the attention to this matter, we may prevent many a dinner from being spoiled, because we thus present a strong inducement to an early arrival. He that arrives first is pretty certain that the rest of the company can have no opportunity of pulling his character to pieces behind his back. For when the host expresses to the rest of his party his wonder that Mr Smith is not come, then the good people who are hungry and impatient begin to talk about Mr Smith, and they use him ungently, treating his transgressions with no candour, and honoring his virtues with no encomium. There is also something very curious in observing the different effects which dining produces on different persons. Some will enter the drawing-room brimfull of intelligence, telling everybody everything that everybody knows, and nobody cares about. There are people who entertain the strange notion that tongues were made to talk about mere matters of fact; and when they have said their say, they are silent for the rest of the evening. There are again others who, before dinner, look as wise and as stupid as owls; who seem at a most painful loss what to do with their hands, or their feet, or their eyes; who having no motive to look at one object in the room more than at another, let their eyes roll unmeaningly and incessantly about as if they were endeavouring to keep them open without looking at anything. But when these apparently inanimate imitations of Chinese Mandarins have had their dinner, their looks are brightened and their tongues loosened, and as before dinner they seemed as if they were wishing most ardently for an opportunity to simper at something which might be said by another, they after dinner give forth that which interests and delights. The period before dinner is also one of great importance for the exhibition of personal decoration. Then, and then only, has dress its right display, and its full complement of observers. In this brief digression it is impossible to enter into one half, or one twentieth of the particulars which may interest and delight an observant mind. "Sermons in stones and good in everything,"