TEN SCHOOL MISERIES. 1. Waking in a bitter winter morning, with the recollection that you are immediately to get up by candle light, out of your snug warm bed, to shiver out to school, through the snow, for the purpose of being flogged as soon as you arrive. Eh, Sensitive!I don't think the blackest beard among us can go beyond that?—This misery is what I would call a mental cold pig. 8. (Tom T.) 2. Seeing the boy who is next above you flogged for a repetition which you know you cannot say even half so well as he did. 9. (Tom. T.) 3. At cricket-after a long and hard service of watching out-bowled out at the first ball.-Likewise, cricket on very sloppy ground, so that your hard ball presently becomes muddy, sappy, and rotten :-a jarring bat :-a right hand bat for a left handed player::-a hat, vice stumps. 10. (Tom T.) Winding up a top hadly grooved, so that the string bunches down over the peg; and, on your attempt to peg it down into the ring-" volat vi fervidus axis :"-i. e. it flies into the eye of a play fellow. 11. (Tom T.) 5. Your hoop breaking, and then trundling lame, and perpetually tripping you up, as you boggle along with it-the other boys, with good hoops, leaving you miles behind. 12. (Tom. T.) 6. The stocking perpetually coming down, as you run, and Bagging below the shoe, so as to be trampled in the dirt, (all, by and bye, to be snugly buttoned to your flesh,) and throw you down:-no garters, except twine, which you are, at last, obliged to use, though it cuts to the bone. A. 13. (Tom .T.) 7. Being obliged to take a severe licking from a boy twice as big, but not half so brave, as yourself;-then flogged for fighting because you, at first, aimed one blow, which however, did not reach the long armed rascal. 14. (Tom. T) 8. At dinner the joint lasting only as low down as to the boy immediately above you :-you are too stout to eat bread, and so go starved and broken hearted, into school. 15. (Tom. T.) 9. Fagging for a niggardly glutton, who does not leave you even the scraps of what you have stolen and dressed for him. 16. (Tom. T.) 10. Staying in on a whole holiday, for another boy's fault, falsely charged upon yourself:-very fine day; and the distant noise of all the other boys at play continually in your ears, as you mope, alone, in the house. "Sterniture infelix alieno vulnere, coelumque Aspicit, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos."-Virg. Sen. Well said, my noble boy!-We will swear him, like another infant Hannibal, to eternal hatred against our enemies.-Meantime, having finished our survey of diversions abroad, let us walk in, if you please, and try whether the House has any thing better to shew than the fields.-The first article on my list is Dancing. 17. (S.) Blundering in the figure all the way down a country dance, with a charming partner, to whom you are a perfect stranger; and who, consequently, knows nothing of you but your awkwardness. Tes. That offence may be forgiven, however; not so the following: 18. (T.) Entering into the figure of a country dance with so much spirit, as to force your leg and foot through the muslin drapery of your fair partner. Sen. There I feel for you indeed! Mrs. T. (who during this, and a few of the other dialogues, is sitting at work in another part of the room.) "Your feelings," Mr. Sensitive-Deuce take it!→→→ 66 my feelings," if you please ;-you seem to leave the poor lady, and her ruined petticoat, quite out of the account! Tes. Pho, pho! Mrs. T.-the petticoat may be mended again, and there would be an end of that ;but nothing short of amputation would satisfy the Lady's vengeance against the leg.-However, Madam, I have another dancing distress, in which, I am certain, you will join, in your heart, whether you choose to confess it or not :- 19. (T.) The plagues of that complicated evolution called "right hand and left," from the awkwardness of some, and the inattention of others; 20. (T.) Being compelled to shift your steps, at every instant, from jig to minuet, and from minuet to jig time, by the sleepy, ignorant, or drunken blunders of your musicians. Ned Tes. 66 Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis." Sen. I will now give you a ballroom "Groan," with which nothing in Holbein's "Dance of Death" can stand a moment's comparison. 21. (S.) When you have imprudently cooled yourself with a glass of ice, after dancing very violently, being immediately told by a medical friend, that you have no chance for your life but by continuing the exercise with all your might ;-then, the state of horror in which you suddenly cry out for "Go to the devil and shake yourself," or any other such frolicsome tune, and the heart sinking apprehensions under which you instantly tear down the dance, and keep rousing all the rest of the couples, (who having taken no ice, can afford to move with less spirit) -incessantly vociferating, as you ramp and gallop along, "Hands across, Sir, for heaven's sake!"-" Set corners, ladies, if you have any bowels !"-" Right and left-or I'm a dead man!"-&c. &c. Tes. Why, to you, Sensitive, such a violent remedy must have been almost as bad as the disease; though to be sure, as your friend the Doctor had described your case as so alarming, it was natural that you should try it : "Non tulit hanc speciem furiato mente Choroebus,* Virg. * A name evidently formed from Chorus, a company of dane ers. T. T. Sen. So much for dancing :-let us examine a few more domestic recreations.-Will Billiards give happiness? Tes. I'll tell you : 22. (T.) Missing your cue at every stroke-(" totum nec pertulit ictum.")—and this when you are particularly ambitious of shewing your play. Sen. Cards!-I will answer myself: 23. (S.) At the game of Commerce, losing your life in fishing..........for aces, when you had hooked two, and the third had several times nibbled at your bait.--Or, 24. (S.) When there is a very rich pool, and you have outlived all the players but one, he having gone up twice, and you not once-losing all your three lives running, Amid such mighty plunder, why exhaust Thy shaft flew thrice--and thrice my peace was slain !-Young Or, as Dryden pathetically puts it “Rich of three souls, he lives all three to waste." Pal. and Arc. *Note by the Editor. It must be confessed that this complaint, by innuendo, against her ladyship, for winning his friend's money, is but too much in harmony with Mr. Testy's usual habits of unpoliteness, |