Always return into the dish, before it goes from table, any portion of a ragout that your friends may leave in their plates. It is ten to one if your careless servants think of doing so afterwards. Instead of waiting for the dessert, let your children come in with the first course—they cannot be used to good society too soon. They will furnish topics for conversation, and if any present be vulgar enough to require a second supply of soup, when the tureen is at low water mark, they will probably relieve your embarrassment by upsetting it, and so dispose of the question. Help the darlings first—they are dearer to you than mere visitors, to whom you might, otherwise, inadvertently transfer some delicate bits on which the little cherubs had set their minds. Do not detain the toothpick long after dinner—it's unpleasant to be kept waiting for it. If a lady request you to select an apple for her, bite a piece out. How can you recommend it without? Always wipe the brim of a pot of porter with your sleeve, if you are about to hand it to a lady. HIEROGLYPHICUM IN FUTURO. The Queen of Hearts, VIRGO, a bright constellation, (That she'll turn up a trump is the hope of the nation), By a whole pack of outlandish knaves who are suing, Is sorely beset, for she shrinks from their wooing. Each holds out a circle in which to entrap her, And ev'ry one hopes that _he_ shall kidnap her. But occult operations behind the state curtain Shew an _Elph_, that makes _their_ success very uncertain. Now, look to the left, and you'll see that _Egalité_, That awful French thing, wants to pull down _Regality_; And, much to the horror of all Christian people, It tugs at the Church,—or, at least, at the steeple. A sage-looking wight, who is marking the "Movement," Seems to think it by no means would be an improvement; But as prophecies often show forth strange vagaries, And, nine times in ten, are explained by contraries, Let us hope we shall find that a people's affection Is the very best remedy 'gainst disaffection. May it crush the foul traitors who love revolution, And preserve all that's good in our wise constitution. [Illustration: JANUARY.—New Year's Eve. ] JANUARY [1838 [Illustration] [Illustration] JACK FROST. Hail, Snow! not the white head at Snow and Paul's, But speaking city-wise, that oddity Which rises higher as the more it falls, A paradoxial commodity. The schoolboy's long expected an-nu-al;— Abandon'd now are wicket, bat, and ball; Gradus, degraded—manual, underfoot— Rebate, at discount—routed, cubic-root.