"For instance, your gay people, who toil through nominal pleasures, dressing by rule and compass, lacing, bracing, patching, painting, plastering, penciling, curling, pinching, and all to go out and be looked at: going from party to party in the middle of the night, pretending not to be sleepy, suppressing each rising yawn, and trying to make the lips smile and the eyes twinkle, and to look animated in spite of fatigue: and all this for no earthly purpose--too old to care about lovers, and without daughters to marry. Why should an ugly old maid of sixty-six take all these pains, or leave her own snug fireside, if she had not a touch of the popular complaint. "Then your man of pleasure, risking his life at every corner in a cab, with a restive horse; wearing all his clothes painfully tight to show off his figure, confining his neck in a bandage, pouring liquids down his throat, though he knows they will give him a headache, sitting up all night shaking bits of bone together for the mere purpose of giving somebody a chance of winning all his money, or offering bets on racehorses to afford himself and family an opportunity of changing opulence for beggary! He has the popular complaint of course. "Then your man of business: your public servant, toiling, and striving and figetting about matters of state, sacrificing health, and the snug comforts of a private gentleman, for the sake of popularity! _His_ complaint _is_ popular indeed. Then your physician, courting extensive practice, and ambitious of the honour of never having time to eat a comfortable meal, and proud of being called out of bed the moment he is composing himself to sleep! _He_ must be raving. Then your barrister, fagging over dull books, and wearing a three-tailed wig, and talking for hours, that his client, right or wrong, may be successful! All these people appear to me to be awfully excited: the popular complaint is strong upon them, and I would put them all into the straightest waistcoats I could procure." _Patriotic Follies_. "It is delightful to hear English men and women talk of their dear country. There is nothing like Old England, say they; yet paramount as their love of country appears to be, their love of French frippery is a stronger passion! They will lament the times, the stagnation of trade, the scarcity of money, the ruin of manufacturers, but they will wear Parisian productions. It is a comfort, however, to know that they are often deceived, and benefit their suffering countrymen without knowing it--as lace, silks, and gloves have frequently been exported from this country, and sold to English women on the coast of France as genuine French articles. How little does Mrs. Alderman Popkins dream, when she returns to her residence in Bloomsbury, that her Parisian pelisse is of Spitalfields manufacture, and that her French lace veil came originally from Honiton." * * * * * THE GATHERER. A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.