getting a-head, and running mountain-high upon your shelves, before you have summoned courage to tame them, by sorting and sending them to the binder.

14. (S.)

As an author-those moments during which you are relieved from the fatigues of composition, by finding that your memory, your intellects, your imagination, your spirits, and even the love of your subject, have all, as if with one consent, left you

in the lurch.

15. (S.)

In coming to that paragraph in a news-paper, for the sake of which you have bought it, finding, in that only spot, the paper blurred, or left white, by the press or slapped over with the sprawling red stamp.

16. (S.)

Reading news-paper poetry ;-which, by a sort of fatality which you can neither explain nor resist, you occasionally slave through, in the midst of the utmost repugnance and disgust.

17. (S.)

As you are eagerly taking up a news-paper, to be yawningly told by one who has just laid it down,

that "there is nothing in it."-Or, the said Paper sent for by the lender, at the moment when you are beginning to read it.

18. (S.)

Having your ears invaded all the morning long, close at your study window, by the quack of ducks, and the cackle of hens, with an occasional bassaccompaniment by an ass.

Tes. So much for the joys of Reading :now for those of Writing; most of which, by the bye, I experienced in minuting down the very items I am going to read to you :

19. (T.)

Writing a long letter, with a very hard pen, on very thin, and very greasy paper, with very pale ink, to one whom you wish-I need'nt say where.

Sen. Stay; I have another reading distress, of which I am reminded by seeing Mrs Testy at her novel-when I have finished it, I will give up the writing miseries to you; for you seem to have prepared yourself under that article, and I have not.

20. (S.)

On arriving at that part of the last volume of an enchanting novel, in which the interest is wrought up to the highest pitch,-suddenly finding the remaining leaves, catastrophe and all, torn out.

Tes. So much the better-novels, indeed! -besides, as the leaves of a novel are good for nothing that I can see but to set the reader a whimpering, why, the loss of them would answer the end just as well: for there you have a "hiatus valdè deflendus."--And so now, with your leave, I will go back to my Writing.

21. (T.)

Burning your fingers with an inch of sealing wax; and then dropping awry the guinea to which you are reduced by the want of a seal.

22. (T.)

In writing:-neither sand, blotting paper, nor a fire, to dry your paper; so that, though in violent haste, you sit with your hands before you, at the end of till the ink thinks proper

page,

other every to dry of itself:-or toiling your wrist for ten

minutes together, with a sand-glass that throws out two or three damp grains at a time; and, in consequence of such delay-(but this calamity deserves a separate commemoration)—

23. (T.)

Losing the post-and this, when you would as willingly lose your life.

24. (T.)

Emptying the ink-glass, (by mistake for the sandglass,) on a paper which you have just written out fairly-and then widening the mischief, by applying restive blotting paper.

25. (T.)

Putting a wafer, of the size of a half-crown piece, into a letter with so narrow a fold, that one half of the circle stands out in sight, and is presently smeared over the paper by your fingers, in stamping the concealed half.

26. (T.)

Writing on the creases of paper that has been sharply doubled.

N

Ned Tes.

"Double, double,

"Toil and trouble!"

SHAK.

Mrs Tes. Nay, Mr Testy, with such an up-and-down hand as yours is, you ought, I think, to be glad of an opportunity of writing, here and there, one straight line.

27. (T.)

In sealing a letter-the wax in so very melting a mood, as frequently to leave a burning kiss on your hand, instead of the paper :-next, when you have applied the seal, and all, at last, seems well over,---said wax voluntarily "rendering up its trust," the moment after it has undertaken it.-So much for "Fyn sigellak; well brand, en vast houd!"

28. (T.)

Writing at the top of a very long sheet of paper; so that you either rumple and crease the lower end of it with your arm against the table, in bringing it lower down, or bruise your chest, and drive out all your breath, in stretching forward to the upper end.