clergyman go down the pulpit stairs again after
having mounted them half-way, to touch the
eagle at the bottom? Could a barrister leave
his seat every now and then, for the purpose of
laying a hurried hand on the dock?

Tricks of speech are well-nigh universal, but
as they are for the most part picked up from
persons among whom we habitually live, they
do not attract much attention, unless one
speaks often in public. A man who has
constantly to make speeches, ought to guard most
carefully against little peculiarities of diction,
particularly if he be a preacher. There is a
story told of a clergyman who was constantly
using the expression "rhyme or reason." Ten
or twenty times in a single sermon he would
bring it in. At last an intimate friend told
him privately that the constant recurrence of
this phrase excited unseemly mirth among
his parishioners, and he determined to break
himself of it. So he wrote his next sermon out
in full, instead of making notes only, as had
been his custom, and was careful to omit the
objectionable phrase. "How did you like
your sermon to-day?" a lady was asked, on
returning from church, by a chance visitor at
her house. "Very much," she replied. "There
was neither rhyme nor reason in it."

Some subscribers to lending libraries have a
most disgraceful trick of pencilling amateur
notes on the margins of books they read.
Sometimes they content themselves with notes
of interrogation, or of admiration: these last
being by no means intended to express the
sentiment implied by the name. When they
really admire they underline the text, and write
at the side, "Perfectly true," or "I like this."
A fact which might prove interesting to the
author, if one can imagine a man getting his
own book out of a library, but which cannot be
of the slightest importance to any one else.
More frequently, however, the marginal notes
are of an unfavourable character. "Stuff,"
"idiotic folly," are common criticisms, and
sometimes the opinion of the reader on the
whole work is summed up on the final page in
these words: "A more stupid book I never
read in my life!"  In some very flagrant
instances two annotating readers differ, and the
later one indulges in scornful criticism of the
remarks of the former, to the extreme annoyance
of after-borrowers of the book, who are
curious, and cannot pass the half legible
pencillings undeciphered. How much simpler
and more serviceable it would be for critic
number two to express his opinion of critic
number one with a piece of india-rubber.

What can there be in the perusal of the daily
journals and periodical literature in general, to
misguide men into tricks? It seems to have
that effect. I never frequented a reading-room
without being annoyed by the little nervous
habits of some .of its visitors. One man will
make a tremendous noise in his throat: not
once or twice, which would matter very little,
but at regular intervals, like a passing bell,
and with much the same effect upon the nerves.
It is impossible to help listening for its
recurrence, and the difficulty of fixing the attention
upon the page before one's eyes is very great,
under such circumstances. Another man will
cross one leg over the other and swing it, with
an effect quite dazzling to his neighbour; but
the worst offender of all, is the reader who
has a trick of resting his toe on the ground
and causing his leg to vibrate in a distressing
manner, of which I despair of conveying any
idea unless you have suffered from the infliction.
The more interested he grows in what
he is reading, the faster goes the limb, and
you cannot defend yourself, as in the case of
the swinging nuisance, by holding a broad
sheet before your eyes and so shutting him out
of sight, for after a little time the vibration
becomes perceptible over the whole room, until you
might imagine yourself on board a steamer.
Nay, it is far worse than the shaking caused by
paddle-wheels or screw, for that is so honestly
violent that the system soon becomes accustomed
to it: whereas the tremulous motion
excited by the vibrating leg, is of an irritating
description ever young and fresh. A
constant reader at our local Athenæum (who
indeed almost lives there), has all these tricks,
and one more. On Wednesdays and Saturdays
he collects the weeklies as they are brought in,
and sits upon them while he studies the
newspapers. Then he draws them out, one by one,
and reads them in a very leisurely manner.
The committee have several times been appealed
to, to point out to him. what a selfish and exasperating
habit this is; but they insist on condoning
his peculiarities, because he is a learned
man and took a high degree at his university.
But this is wrong. Tricks should surely count
before honours.

            Early in December will be ready
                  THE COMPLETE SET
                                OF
                 TWENTY VOLUMES,
With GENERAL INDEX to the entire work from its
commencement in April, 1859. Each, volume, with
its own Index, can also be bought separately as
heretofore.

THE NEW SERIAL TALE, HESTER'S HISTORY,
commenced in Number 488, will be continued
from week to week until completed in the present
volume.

             FAREWELL SERIES OF READINGS.
                                     BY
                  MR. CHARLES DICKENS.

MESSRS. CHAPPELL AND Co. have the honour
to announce that MR. DICKENS'S FINAL SERIES
OF READINGS, comprehending some of the chief
towns in England, Ireland, and Scotland, will
commence at ST. JAMES'S HALL, LONDON, on Tuesday,
October 6.

All communications to be addressed to MESSRS.
CHAPPELL AND Co., 60, New Bond-street, London, W.