excess, and is at hand in a garden. Smoke not before breakfast, nor till an hour has elapsed after a good meal. Smoke not with or before wine, you destroy the wine-palate. If you love tea, postpone pipe till after it; no man can enjoy fine tea who has smoked. In short, smoke not till the day is done, with all its tasks and duties. "I have seen men of pretension and position treat carpets most contumeliously, trampling on the pride of Plato with a recklessness that would bring a blush to the cheek of Diogenes himself. Can they forget the absorbent powers of carpet tissues, and the horrors of next morning to non-smokers, perhaps to ladies? Surely this is unaesthetic and illiberal: it is in an old man most pitiable, in a young one intolerable, in a scholar inexcusable, from an uncleanness that seems willful. Let the young philosopher avoid such practice, and give a wide berth to those who follow them. Take the following rules, tyro, _meo periculo_:-- 1. Never smoke when the pores are open: they absorb, and you are unfit for decent society. Be it your study ever to escape the noses of strangers. First impressions are sometimes permanent, and you may lose a useful acquaintance. 2. Learn to smoke slowly. Cultivate 'calm and intermittent puffs.'--_Walter Scott._ 3. On the first symptom of expectoration lay down the pipe, or throw away the cigar; long-continued expectoration is destructive to yourself and revolting to every spectator. 4. Let an interval elapse between the filling of succeeding pipes. 5. Clean your tube regularly, and your amber mouthpiece with a feather dipped in spirits of lavender. Never suffer the conduit to remain discolored or stuffed. 6. A German receiver can be washed out like a teacup, and the oil collected is of value, but a meerschaum should never be wetted. A small sponge at the end of a wire dipped in sweet oil should be used carefully and persistently round and round, coaxing out any hard concretions, till the inside be smooth in its dark polished grain, of a rich mahogany tint. The outside, also, well polished with sweet oil and stale milk, then enveloped in chamois leather. The rich dark coloring is the pledge of your safety--better there than darkening your own brains.