There are few men, indeed, of healthy mental constitution, but, in the language of The Dramatist, "dote upon a jest within the limits of becoming mirth.”

The intimate union of the mind and body renders any exhilaration of the one beneficial to the other. Viewed in this light, the mission of the joker is by no means unimportant. A joke that elicits a peal of laughter puts us in a better humour with ourselves, and disposes the mind to a warmer sympathy with humanity. If possessed of the happy knack to suit himself to his hearers, a hearty humorist is an invaluable acquisition in a general company. We have seen the sudden entrance of such a one the signal for welcoming smiles of gaiety, where but a short time previously a drowsy stillness and oppressive languor were beginning to reign. What a contrast to the approach of the stiff, solemn man? As he draws near he acts like an east wind upon the mind-chilling, damping, blasting all buoyant mirthfulness. Commend us rather to the joker, of the jovial, laughter-loving face and merry, twinkling eye. To society such a one is worth his weight in gold. We believe he contributes more to the preservation of social order and happiness than miles of legislative enactments and shiploads of demure homilies. When the mind is depressed with cares and anxieties, it is then the rivets that fasten our moral and social obligations are most

apt to give way. A witty sally that dispels this depression may often restore the mind to its lost tone, and turn the thoughts into happier channels. The man who, in a twinkling, can transform the sombre hues of melancholy into the sunny tints of joy-who, by the magic of his voice, can dissipate the darkness and bid the light break forth-is no common man. Brief the gleam may be, but not valueless; rather, like the fitful bursts of sunny splendour through the cloudy masses of an autumn day, we appreciate it all the more because of the general gloom.

In joking, however, there are some who forget altogether the wise man's observation, that "there is a time. for everything under the sun." They possess such an intense perception of the ludicrous that it often manifests itself at times and in circumstances anything but appropriate. The subject of a good joke is presented to such an individual's mind, and out it must come. He is like a veteran sportsman, who mechanically places his finger on the trigger of his gun whenever a tempting shot offers; pop goes the gun, the game is down. He must have his joke, even on the most solemn occasions-not from any paucity of feeling, but from a total want of command over the workings of the bump-risible. Like good-hearted, honest Mr. John Chick, in "Dombey and Son," who, totally oblivious of

his situation, hums all manner of merry staves and catches, even when going to a funeral. John, for such untimely developments of his musical genius, procureth unto himself sundry sharp reprimands and angry looks, only to forget them and perpetrate the like indecorums the next minute. A jocular propensity, unaccompanied with prudence and good-nature, is oftentimes a dangerous possession. There is no weapon at once so easy and so difficult of use as ridicule. The weakest may wield it; a wise man only can use it. By a single ridicule-suggesting joke we may create for ourselves animosities that long years will be insufficient to eradicate, till we have reason to exclaim with the poet

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Unhappy wit, like most mistaken things,

Atones not for the envy which it brings;

Whose fame with pains we guard and lose with ease,
Sure some to vex, but never all to please.

'Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun;

By fools 'tis hated, and by knaves undone !”

Let us never, therefore, for the purpose of raising a smile, wound the feeling of a friend; let no personal bitterness be mixed up with our jocularity; let us ever remember that the sacrifice of truth is but poorly compensated by a laugh; let us beware of revengeful or thoughtless ridicule; let us aim in all our jocular sallies, not to annoy, but to render happier and better, those

around us. The kindly feelings that thus radiate from our own bosoms to those of others, will return like the dews exhaled from earth to heaven, in refreshing showers of love and benevolence upon our hearts; and we will then come near realising the true "Philosophy of Joking."

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ON THE ADVANTAGES OF NOT KNOWING ANYTHING OF WHAT YOU ARE SPEAKING OR WRITING ABOUT.

THE Baconian apothegm, "Knowledge is power,' while true in a large and philosophical sense, is liable to considerable limitations in the every-day business and intercourse of life, as most of us have occasion to learn. Without being quite prepared to maintain, as the converse of that famous maxim, that "Ignorance is power," many of us must have experienced, at one time or other, that it too has a considerably potential voice in the management of mundane affairs. It was the saying of a celebrated statesman that one would be astonished to learn with how little knowledge a country is sometimes governed; and, coming down to the lower level of every-day life, we are continually reminded, by illustrations thrusting themselves under our noses, how small a modicum of wisdom may suffice for the successful