myself that I was quite ready to go; and indeed, my hold upon life was so feeble, (a slight change in the weather would have snapped it, so it seemed,) my very breath was so fluttering and unsatisfactory, that I thought it would be as well perhaps to have done with it. The faces of friends, and the out-door world, with all its many goings-on, were pleasant to behold, but _faintly_ so--indistinctly; my pulsations had gone down to such extreme tenuity, that the effort of getting at a pleasure killed it. But I was mistaken; for just before dying, the thought of my cigars came to me like a blessing; and although my physician told me I had but a few moments to live, I would not be refused. A cigar was brought; I seized it in my bony fingers, held it up to the light, smelt of it, and fondled it till the light was brought; and then, with what little grace my strength would allow, I inhaled that divine tobacco! How complacently, as far as I was able, did I then look around upon my surviving friends! My eyes, however, closed very soon from languor, and my breath now coming only at rather long intervals, the puffs were far between; notwithstanding which, I lived it through to the last inspiration; but in the closing draught, the fire from the cigar burnt my mouth so badly that I--awoke, and found I had actually bitten my lip in a most shocking manner! Well, Sir, you may think it was pleasant _not_ to be dying, and so it was; but as I then felt, I think I would sooner have gone, if I could have taken with me the fragrance of that incomparable regalia.'' . . . OUR new friend, the writer of the '_Lines to an Early Robin_,' who desires us to send him six numbers of the KNICKERBOCKER containing his article, inquires 'which kind of his writing we should prefer, prose or poetry?' We hardly know what to say, in answer to this categorical query. It will not perhaps be amiss, however, to adopt the _in medio tutissimus ibis_ style of the traveller, who, upon calling for a cup of tea at breakfast, handed it back to the servant, after tasting it, with the remark: 'If this is tea, bring me coffee--if it is coffee, bring me tea; _I want a change_.' If what 'M.' sends us is poetry, let him send us prose; if it is prose, (and it certainly 'has that look,') let him send us poetry, by all means. . . . JUDGES and other legal functionaries, though ostensibly 'sage, grave men,' are oftentimes sad wags, and fond of fun and frolic. From one of this class we derive the annexed: 'A few months since, in a neighboring town, a knight of the yard-stick was paying his addresses to a Miss INCHES, who, beside some personal attraction, was reputed to be mistress of a snug fortune. At first, the lady encouraged his addresses, but afterward jilted him. Rendered desperate by his double loss, the young man went home and deliberately shot himself; and the coroner's jury next morning brought in a verdict of '_Died by Inches_!'' . . . HOW very beautiful are these lines