Bentham, that in a country the greatest happiness of the greatest number is always to be looked to. The majority of modern improvements may be and are little things; but these "little things are dear to little man." They permit him to act more freely, to think more wisely; they are so many stumbling-blocks taken out of the way of general advancement. The ascetic may think that it pleases God to see men mortify the flesh and torture the body; but the wiser student of history well knows that the aggregation of troubles in this chequered life-troubles which can be easily avoided, and which require no heroism to bear-weans and wears away the heart from a prayerful gratitude, and renders a man unthankful and morose. With this reflection, he will not be unmindful of the amount of real blessings which society has received from the improvements of modern times.

ON RESPECTABLE PEOPLE.

ROM the energetic and rather puffy assistant of a neighbouring chemist we ordered, once upon a time, a box of grey powder pills. These pills, containing a preparation of that thrice famous medicine which the great Theophrastus Bombast Paracelsus von Hohenheim discovered, were destined to stir up the liver of a little foreign friend who was staying with us, and who, in addition to a bloodless cheek, presented a complexion which, in water-colours, might have been imitated by a mixture of bistre and Roman ochre, and which was not unlike brown holland before it is washed. "About four grains of grey powder in each," we said blandly to the young chemist. "Yes, sir," was the quick answer.

Now, hardly was that answer given, when from the glass door labelled "Consulting Room," wherein the great practitioner ate, drank his grog, and talked cheerily with his friends, notwithstanding all the diseases in nosology, issued an unimposing little man in an enormous white neckerchief. He wore spectacles, and brushed the hair from a by no means capacious forehead. "Are you aware, sir," said he, in a

portentous voice, "that grey powder is mercury?" "Indeed." "Yes, sir." "A mild preparation?" said we, quietly. "Yes, sir, mild; but- -" and here the white neckerchief went into a hurried dissertation on the evils occasioned by mercury, and gave heaps of advice, which was of no consequence, and not suited to the occasion, as indeed he owned when we told him that we acted under the advice of one of the best of our physicians. Away we went, the pills were taken, the sluggish ("Torpid is the word, sir," said the chemist) liver was put in order, and the little foreigner's bistre complexion became a radiant coppery red, charining to behold. But we did not forget the white neckerchief: it set us a-thinking over the various disguises which poor humanity puts on, white neckerchiefs being amongst them. We know one most disorderly literary man who wears a white neckerchief on principle, who is called upon to say grace at public dinners, who prospers upon his neckerchief, and who charges his publishers so much more on the strength of that ornament. What is a white neckerchief, and why is it worn, save as a sign and a badge? The elaborate ornament of the Jewish priests dwindled down to the less ample lace of the Roman Catholic, and that in its turn to the lawn bands worn by our clergy, judges, barristers, blue-coat and charity boys, and these gave way to the more convenient white "chokers,” as some people contemptuously call them. Of course they originally meant something, just as the buttons at the back of our coats were intended at one time to button up the long and heavy flaps to; but having, as in dress coats, done away with the flaps,

we must still continue the buttons. So the dissenting brethren, who wear white neckerchiefs in voluminous folds, little dream of imitating at a distance a papistical abomination. One of our muscular-Christian clergyman wears a check neckerchief, and one of the most popular amongst the dissenters goes about, in a free-and-easy way, with a slouch felt hat, nay, occasionally appears in that which police-reports name a "billy-cock :" but their reverend brethren look askance at them. Washerwomen alone bless them; and one hundred and fifty thousand clerics of all ranks, wearing white neckerchiefs, must give a fillip to trade, as well as stamp us as, what we indeed are, the most respectable nation under the sun.

Nevertheless, respectability is a great bugbear and a great sham. It undoubtedly does some good: it does this negative good, that under its shadow respectable mediocrity thrives, whilst the fiercer genius starves, or is obliged to burst out in some other channel. It-respectability—also lulls men to sleep, and encourages them in the very bad habit of taking others upon trust, just as if half of us were not continually engaged in playing a quiet game, in which the other half are sure to be the losers. It quietly covers over people with a smooth outside, whilst beneath the worst vices may infect them unseen. Some of the very best men have missed the respect of the world; and some of the very worst have secured it, by, as it were, wearing white neckerchiefs. Sydney Smith, than whom few wiser or shrewder men ever lived, found what it is to kick against respectability. He was by far too wise and too witty for a clergyman, and, like Hamlet, "lacked

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preferment." He knew where the fault lay, and, after a long life, gave this quiet advice to his parishioners :- Be respectable. Not only study that those with whom you live should habitually respect you, but cultivate such manners as will secure the respect of persons with whom you occasionally converse. Keep up the habit of being respected, and do not attempt to be more amusing and agreeable than is consistent with a preservation of respect." That is, at all hazards you are to be respectable. To be clever is one thing; to be too agreeable and pleasant, to be sharp and witty, is another; but here is the authority of a man who found that people could very well exist without talent, without cleverness, without even good-humoured fun; but that, for an ordinary mortal to be happy, he must assume a certain degree of respectability, in short, he must assume the white neckerchief.

Our ordinary life is not a very happy one, and, on the whole, it is a dull one. If we look at a poor painter, who draws a figure passably, and who can manage to produce a pretty good landscape, if we see him give himself the airs and assume the position of a man of genius, we may perhaps laugh at him; but relatively to the other stupid people in the world, who really know nothing, or next to nothing, he is one. It is astonishing how dull and uninformed the great mass of the respectable world is: it is a heavy, dead weight, which requires a great deal of strength to move, but which, when it is moved, is almost irresistible. Hence, like the thin philosopher who carried lead in his pockets to prevent his being blown away, unless we have respectability with us,