The shades of human character are so numerous, and the advantages resulting from an extensive acquaintance with them, of so much importance, that few subjects, perhaps, are more worthy of attention or speculation; and it would be a task of the highest advantage to society, could we trace the source and causes of the diversities, and point out the particular advantages resulting from each. By the former of these, we should, in some degree, be enabled to train the mind to the fashion most amiable and really advantageous; by the latter, we should have the opportunity of directing to their proper objects of pursuit the passions and dispositions as they are displayed before us. * * * * * BON MOT. A gentleman who possessed a much larger quantity of nose, than nature usually bestows upon an individual, contrived to make it more enormous by his invincible attachment to the bottle, which also beset it with emeralds and rubies. To add to his misfortunes, this honest toper’s face was somewhat disfigured by not having a regular pair of eyes; one being black, and the other of a reddish hue. A person happening once to observe, that his eyes were not _fellows_, congratulated him on that circumstance. The rosy gilled old tipler demanded the reason. “Because,” replied the jocular genius, “if your eyes had been _matches_, your nose would certainly have set them in a flame, and a dreadful conflagration might have been apprehended.” * * * * * * * * * _Account of the COURTSHIP and MARRIAGE of the celebrated DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON._ Johnson had from his early youth, been sensible to the influence of female charms. When at Stourbridge school, he was much enamoured of Olivia Lloyd, a young quaker, to whom he wrote a copy of verses, which I have not been able to recover; and I am assured by Miss Seward, that he conceived a tender passion for Miss Lucy Porter, daughter of the lady whom he afterwards married. Miss Porter was sent very young on a visit to Litchfield, where Johnson had frequent opportunities of seeing and admiring her; and he addressed to her the following verses, on her presenting him with a nosegay of myrtle: “What hopes, what terrors does this gift create, “Ambiguous emblem of uncertain fate: “Thy myrtle, ensign of supreme command, “Consign’d by Venus to Melissa’s hand; “Not less capricious than a reigning fair, “Now grants, and now rejects a lover’s prayer. “In myrtle shades oft sings the happy swain, “In myrtle shades despairing ghosts complain; “The myrtle crowns the happy lovers’ heads, “Th’ unhappy lovers’ grave the myrtle spreads: “O then the meaning of thy gift impart, “And ease the throbbings of an anxious heart! “Soon must this bough, as you shall fix his doom, “Adorn Philander’s head, or grace his tomb.”