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276 ABERNETHY AND LISTON. With all his power of creati g mirth, and provoking laughter in others, Liston was, when at home, the dullest man imaginable, and a prey to low spirits, which frequently threatened his reason. 13y the persuasion of his wife, he went to the celebrated Abernethy, so well known for the brusquerie of his manner. Litton was ushered into the surgeon’s room, and was received with a slight bow by the old cur, who was unacquain ted with the name or person of his visi tor. “Sit down, sir. What ails you V ’ said the doctor. Liston stated his complaint with gravi ty and deliberation. “Is that all?” inquired Abernethy. “There’s nothing the matter with you. Low spirits ! Pooh ! pooh ! Go to the Covent Garden to-night, and see Liston perform ; if that has no effect, go again I to-morrow : that will do it. Two doses of Liston will restore a melancholy mad man. There—go—go.’’ Liston was taken aback —tipped his guinea—and made a most theatrical exit. YArvines Cyclopaedia of Anecdotes. LOUIS XIV., A MUSICIAN. One day as that austere coutier, the Duke de Montausier, for whom Boileau wrote so magnificent an apology, was on the point of leaving the study of Louis XIV., after a serious and interesting con versation, the king stopped him. “I know,” said Louis, “that besides a vast fund of sterling sense, your Grace possesses a great deal of wit and taste. Whether the point under discussion is one of the most serious importance, or of the lightest possible nature, you always show the keenest apreciation and the most correct judgement. 1 have here got a new song, and 1 should like to know what you think of it. “Your Majesty does me great honour,” replied the Duke; “but 1 think it would be better if you w’ere to consult Monsieur Quinault, or Monsieur de Benserade.” “Not at all, Duke. lam particularly anxious to hear your opinion, and I des’.re that you express it without the least re serve.” “Sir, lam all attention.” Hereupon the king commenced singing, to a popular air, one of the most wretched songs ever written in the Trench lan guage. After he had concluded, he turned to the Duke and said : “Well, sir, what do you think of it.” “I think that your Majesty is exceed ingly kind to take any notice of a rhapso dy like that, written by some miserable rhymster ” “You think it is bad, then?” said the Kin/, blushing up to the eyes, and then i turning very pale. SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE. “Sir, it is detestable.” “Suppose, 1 told your Grace,” contin ued the King, endeavouring to conceal his feelings, “suppose I told you that the author of the work for which you express such contempt, was the King of France?” “In that case, I should say to the King of France that he ordered me to speak without reserve, and that I obeyed him. ’ Louis XIV. reflected fora moment or two, and then stretching out his hand to the Duke, said : “ You are right, sir, and lam glad I consulted you. My song is a very stu pid one; nevermind, I will not write any more.” The King kept his word.— True Flay. GOOD ADVICE. * * “Harper” says there is a world of good advice in this passage from a letter of Charles Lamb, to Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet: “You are too much apprehensive about your complaint. The best way in these cases is to keep yourself as ignorant as you can —as ignorant as the world was before Galen—of the entire inner con stractions of the animal man ; not to be conscious of a midriff; to hold kidneys (save of sheep and swine) to be an agree able fiction ; not to know whereabout the gall grows; to account the circulation of the blood a mere idle whim of Harvey’s ; to acknowledge no mechanism not visi ble. For, once fix the seat of your dis order, and your fancies flux into it like so many bad humours. Those medical gentry choose each his favourite part; ; one takes the lungs, another the liver, and refers to that whatever in the animal I economy is amiss.” He goes on to coun sel his friend, “above all, to use exer cise ; to keep a good conscience; avoid tamperings with hard terms of art, ‘vis cosity,’ ‘scirrhosity,’ and those bugbears by which simple patients are scared into their graves. Believe the general sense of the mercantile world, which holds that desks are not deadly. It is the mind , and not the limbs , that taints by long sit tiny. Think of the patience of tailors; think how long the Lord Chancellor sits ; think of the brood in jj hen.” THE TAILOR. A tailor grown tired of the shop-board, took a bold leap from his seat into the pulpit, where he soon acquired great pop ularity. Elated with success, he attempt ed to convert the dean of St. Patrick to the true faith. Accordingly lie introduced himself to Swift, saying— “l have a commission from Heaven to teach you the true father, which you have so long abused.” “1 believe you,” replied Swift, “and as you come to relieve the perplexed state of my mind at this very instant, you are well acquainted, no doubt, with that pas | sage in the Revelation of St. John, where he describes a mighty angel coming down from Heaven, with a rainbow on his head, a book open in his hand, and setting his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon the earth. lam quite at a loss to calculate the extent of such a stride; but 1 know it immediately lies within the line of your trade, to tell me how many yards of cloth it would take to make a pair of breeches for that angel V’ The tailor’s confusion could only be equalled by the precipitancy of his re treat. RANDOM READINGS. —A hardy son of the ocean on retiring to his ship, after the taking of Vera Cruz, captured a donkey, and immediately : mounted him, but seating himself on the rump, the animal kicked up and came near throwing him off. A soldier told him to sit further forward on the mule and he would not kick so. The tar re plied—“l II see you blow’d first; this is mine, and I’d like to know who will stop me from riding on the c quarter deck of my own jackass .” —“You are no gentleman,” said an an gry disputant to his antagonist. “Are you quietly asked the other. “Yes, I j am, sir !” “Then I am not,” was the j caustic reply. —A western editor thinks Hiram Pow ers, the sculptor, is a swindler, because he chiseled an unfortunate Greek girl out of a block of marble. —Every man has his price, so said Walpole; but he never said as much of, woman. The fact is, Walpole judged the ladies only too correctly, for he knew, as well as we do, that many of those dear ; creatures are beyond all price ! —‘Have you not mistaken the pew, : sir? 1 blandly said a Sunday Chesterfield to a stranger, as he entered it. I beg your pardon, replied the intruder. “I fear 1 have ; I took it for a Christian’s” —Why is a clock the most persever ing thing in creation ? Because it is never more inclined to go on with its business than when it is completely wound up. —“I suppose,” said a quack, while fee ling the pulse of his patient, “that you think me a fool.” “Sir,” replied the sick man, “ I perceive yon can discover a man’s thoughts by his pulse.” —.\l rs. Palmita, in her speech at the Women’s Rights Convention, said that it had been argued that women were the wickedest portion of mankind, which po sition she triumphantly refuted as fol lows: —A rib taken from a man was formed into woman, and was accepted as bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. If one rib was so wicked, what a mass of wickedness the whole man must be! [December 11^