be almost eaten up before he be dead; it is very pleasant to behold." Degenerate moderns would most certainly be unable to enjoy such hospitality, and would be cured as thoroughly of any appetite as if their host had employed another of the secrets of our ancestors. "That guests may not eat at table, do this: You must have a needle that dead people are often sewed up in their winding-sheet; and at beginning of supper secretly stick this under the table; this will hinder the guests from eating, that they will rather be weary to sit, than desirous to eat; take it away when you have laughed at them awhile." Take it away, we must say now to the old book. As we have said, our specimens, drawn from an immense mass of the same kind, do not represent the sole character of the volume. It states, also, a very large number of facts, confirmed and explained in the present day, being a fair transcript of the average standard of opinion among learned doctors upon a great number of things. Have we not made a little progress since those good old times, and would it be a pleasant thing to get them back again? To come home to every man's breakfast-table, we may ask the public to decide between the coffee now made, and the coffee of the good old times. In a somewhat expensive book, addressed only to wealthy readers, Drs. Read and Weckir disclose this secret of good coffee, for the ladies and gentlemen of 1660:--"Take the berry, put it in a tin pudding-pan, and when bread hath been in the oven about half-an-hour, put in your coffee; there let it stand till you draw your bread; then beat it and sift it; mix it thus: first boyl your water about half-an-hour; to every quart of water put in a spoonful of the pouder of coffee; then let it boyl one-third away; clear it off from the setlings; and the next day put fresh water; and so add every day fresh water, so long as any setlings remain. _Often Tryed._" Authors and Books.