pains; though it should be a Scotch mile and a bittock. I have even known him to give up his visit in sight of the house. Besides, the best fence against care is a ha! ha!--wherefore take care to have one all round you wherever you can. Let your “lungs crow like Chanticleer,” and as like a GAME cock as possible. It expands the chest, enlarges the heart, quickens the circulation, and “like a trumpet makes the spirit dance.” A fico then for the Chesterfieldian canon, that laughter is an ungenteel emotion. Smiles are tolerated by the very pinks of politeness; and a laugh is but the full-blown flower of which a smile is the bud. It is a sort of vocal music--a glee in which everybody can take a part:--and “he who bath not laughter in his soul, let no such man be trusted.” Indeed, there are two classes of Querists particularly to be shunned; thus when you hear a Cui Bono? be sure to leave the room; but if it be Quid Rides? make a point to quit the house, and forget to take its number. None but your dull dogs would give tongue in such a style,--for, as Nimrod says in his “Hunt after Happiness,” “A single _burst_ with Mirth is worth a whole season of _full cries_ with Melancholy.” Such, dear reader, is the cheerful Philosophy which I practise as well as preach. It teaches to “make a sunshine in a shady place,” to render the mind independent of external foul weather, by compelling it, as old Absolute says, to get a sun and moon of its own. As the system has worked so well in my own case, it is a duty to recommend it to others; and like certain practitioners, who not only prescribe but dispense their own medicines, I have prepared a regular course of light reading, whereof I now present the first packet, in the humble hope that your dull hours may be amused, and your cares diverted, by the laughing lucubrations which have enlivened Hood’s Own. [Illustration: DOCTORS’ COMMONS.] CONTENTS. PAGE Preface iii The Pugsley Papers 1 An Ancient Concert; by a Venerable Director 19 A Letter from an Emigrant 23 Sonnet on Steam; by an Under-Ostler 27 A Report from Below 28 The Last Shilling 32 Ode to M. Brunel 38 The Death of the Dominie 41 Over the Way 44 A Plan for Writing Blank Verse in Rhyme, in a Letter to the Editor 48 A Letter from a Market Gardener to the Secretary of the Horticultural Society 52