steeples. Through chimneys, lightning has a
way into most houses, and therefore it is wise,
by opening doors or windows, to give it a way
out. Where the air is least jammed and
packed out of doors, and comparative calm
prevails, there is least danger. The principle of
the lightning conductor is to take advantage
of the preference of lightning for metals, and to
direct it from the house or ship, by giving it
what it prefers to strike; while the principle of
the advice I am giving, is, to turn away the blow
by facilitating its course through the air. In
France and Italy it used to be the custom to
try to scare the demon of lightning away, by
ringing the holy bells in the church steeples:
superstition thus hoping to lessen the aërial
danger by increasing the aërial disturbance!
The bellringers in those cases ran risks similar
to the risks incurred by persons seeking shelter
under tall trees. During the night of the
14th of April, 1718, four-and-twenty churches
in one district of Brittany were struck by lightning;
and M. Fontenelle remarked that they
were precisely the churches in which the bells
were rung to drive the lightning away, while
the churches spared were precisely those whose
bells were not rung. Wherever, then, the
aërial strife is fiercest, there the danger is
greatest; and if we keep out of the way of
currents or draughts, we keep out of the way of
the lightning.

THE GOLDEN MEAN.

LOOKING back into the past, I see with the
eyes of memory two sheets of caricatures by
Gillray, which are respectively headed, The
Effects of Flattery, and The Effects of Truth.
They each consist of a series of figures, placed
in pairs, with the good old-fashioned labels
coming out of their mouths—labels that leave
no doubt as to the end and intention of the
figures. In the Flattery series, there is a
general buoyancy and happy result; in the
Truth series, there is a pervading bitterness
and palpable failure. The young man in
French revolution dress, with top-boots, and
tip-top neckcloth, makes a neat hit when he
tells his old uncle, "Uncle, you're the best
judge of horseflesh in the world. On the word
of a sportsman, your new mare is the neatest
thing I ever crossed." For uncle replies:
"Jack, you know what's what; and since you
admire the new mare so much, I'll make you a
present of her." Also Mrs. Jones comes out
pleasingly, when she says to the old maid with
the smallest of muffs, and the most pinched of
bonnets, "As lovely as ever, my dear friend!
I protest you are the paragon of neatness!"
The smiling reply is, "Mrs. Jones, I always
took you for a woman of discernment. Why do
I see so little of you? Pray come home with
me, and take a cup of tea."

In the other print how different are the
results of Truth! The young girl in a sash who
exclaims to her fat relative, "Dear aunt, I
protest you are as lusty again as when I saw
you last!" is met by the rejoinder, "It would
be more becoming in you, Miss, to speak with a
little more consideration. Everybody tells me
I am fallen away prodigiously." Look at
another couple. An ancient gentleman, in an
easy chair, and in the easy undress of a
loose wrapper, says to an ancient in buckskins,
"Old friend, it is time for you and me to give
over acting and dressing like boys! I am
sixty-five, and you cannot be much less." To
which the friend, with screwed up mouth,
responds, "I regret to say, Mr. Brown, you
were never famous for speaking the truth. I
appeal to your good lady if I am more than five-
and-forty."

That these caricatures express realities of the
human constitution, few will deny. The "ca' me,
and I'll ca' thee" principle is a beneficial
principle. Oh, the might of its infinite diffusion
through the myriad animalculine acts, whose
very exuviæ constitute the mountains of the
moral world! Consider how many hours there
are in the day, which the presence or absence of
agreeable titillation may convert into a blessing
or a curse! Reflect what it would be to be
always rubbed the wrong way! A man might die
of it. And it would be to his credit, to die of it.
So admirably constituted are we, our
neighbour's good opinion is essential to our vitality.
And how should our neighbour show his good
opinion? How, but by studying to please, and
by studying the art of pleasing; for it is an art.
Flattery, quotha! Kindly feeling, say I! If a man
thinks it worth his while to flatter me, that is in
itself a flattery, and shows tender consideration
for me. But, if he thinks it worth his while to
flatter me well, his benevolence towards me
assumes a higher aspect, and becomes sublime.
If he lays it on tenderly, if he avoids the grossness
of flattering me to my face, and only
whispers my praise to a third person, that it may
come gently round to me, I say, God bless him,
for he is a good man! Men called sincere, are
not good men; neither indeed are they sincere.
At best they only seek a vent for their own ill
tempers. And then some of the most artful
men I ever had the misfortune to be taken in
by, had attained the summit of the Ars celandi
artem by covering their duplicity with a mask
of brusquerie.

But the golden mean is difficult to hit. A
man may be tickled, as certainly as he may be
clawed, to death. Between the Ecstatics and
the Depredators, between the Cold and the
Hot, the "airs from Heaven," and the "blasts
from Hell," what tonics, diatonics, semitones,
and demi, semi, quavers!

Now, there are Mrs. Bliss and her daughters.
Their praise is a perpetual hyperbole; in their
glare of raptures there is no more shade nor
perspective than in a tea-tray Chinese landscape.
In ten minutes after the charming widow has
entered my drawing-room she has exhausted
every epithet of transport and wonder. When
she has dubbed a wretched drawing on a screen
"the finest thing I ever saw in my life!" what