MORAL.--When in country villages, don't talk about rôle-ing, unless you mean to do it! * * * * * Since the _gilet de matin_ has superseded the _robe de châmbre_, or dressing-gown, it is marvelous to see with what wrath the fast men, club-men, and other highly civilized forms of humanity, pursue the ancient garment. One of the most vigorous assaults on the gabardine in question, comes to us as A FLING AT DRESSING-GOWNS. My name is Albert Fling. I am an active, business, married man, that is, wedded to Mrs. Fling, and married to business. I had the misfortune, some time since, to break a leg; and before it was mended Madame Fling, hoping to soothe my hours of convalescence, caused to be made for me a dressing-gown, which, on due reflection, I believe was modeled after the latest style of strait-jacket. This belief is confirmed by the fact that when I put it on, I am at once confined to the house, 'get mad,' and am soberly convinced that if any of my friends were to see me walking in the street, clad in this apparel, they would instantly entertain ideas of my insanity. In the hours of torture endured while wearing it, I have appealed to my dear wife to truly tell me where she first conceived the thought that there was a grain of comfort to be found in bearing it on my back? She has candidly answered that she first read about it in divers English novels and sundry American novels, the latter invariably a rehash of the first. In both of these varieties of the same species of books, the hero is represented as being very comfortable the instant he dons this garment, puts his feet in slippers, picks up a paper and--goes to sleep. A friend of mine who has discovered that Shakspeare knew all about steam-engines, electric telegraphs, cotton-gins, the present rebellion, and gas-lights, assures me that dressing-gowns are distinctly alluded to in _The Tempest_: 'TRINCULO: O King Stephano! look, what a wardrobe here is for thee! CALIBAN: Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash. Having thus proved its age, let us next prove that it is in its dotage, and is as much out of place in this nineteenth century as a monkey in a bed of tulips. We find in the Egyptian temples paintings of priests dressed in these gowns: proof that they are antiquely heathenish. And as we always associate a man who wears one with Mr. Mantilini, this proves that they are foolish. _Ergo_, as they are old and foolish, they are in their dotage. I have three several times, while wearing this gown, been mistaken for Madame Fling by people coming to the house. The first time I was shaving in my chamber: in bounced Miss X----, who believed, as it was rather late, that I had gone down-town. She threw up her hands, exclaiming: 'Good gracious, Fanny! do you shave?'