The stir of life is brightening round,
Thy structures swell upon the eye,
And mirth and revelry resound
In triumph to the sky,

But a stern moral may be read,

By those who view thy lonely gloom :
Oblivion's fall alike is spread

O'er slave, and lordly tomb.

The sad, the gay, the old, the young,

The warrior's strength, and beauty's glow,
Resolved to that from which they sprung,
Compose the dust below,

SHAKING HANDS.

CALLIOPE.

Among the first things which we remember noticing in the manners of people, were two errors in the custom of shaking hands. Some we observed grooped every body's hand alike, -with an equal fervor of grip. You would have thought that Jenkins was the best friend they had in the world; but on succeeding to the squeeze, though a slight acquaintance, you found it equally flattering to yourself; and on the appearance of somebody else (whose name, it turned out, the operator had forgotten) the crush was no less complimentary:-the face was as earnest and beaming, the "glad to see you" as syllabical and sincere, and the shake as close, as long, and as rejoicing, as if the semi-unknown was a friend come home from the deserts.

On the other hand, there would be a gentleman now and then as coy of his hand, as if he were a prude or had a whitlow. It was in vain that your pretensions did not go beyond the civil salute of the ordinary shake; or that being introduced to him in a friendly manner and expected to shake hands with the rest of the company, you could not in decency omit his. His fingers, half coming out, and half retreating, seemed to think that you were going to do him a mischief, and when you got hold of them, the whole shake was on your side; the other hand did but proudly or pensively acquiesce, there was no knowing which you had to sustain it, as you might a lady's in handing her to a seat and it

:

was an equal perplexity to know how to shake or to let it go. The one seemed a violence done to the patient; the other an awkward responsibility brought upon yourself. You did not know, all the evening, whether you were not an object of dislike to the person; till on the party's breaking up, you saw him behave like an equally ill-used gentleman, to all who practised the same unthinking civility.

Both these errors, we think, might as well be avoided : but of the too, we must say we prefer the former. If it does not look so much like particular sincerity, it looks more like general kindness; and if those two virtues are to be separated, (which they assuredly need not be, if considered without spleen) the world can better afford to dispense with an unpleasant truth than a gratuitous humanity. Besides, it is more difficult to make sure of the one, than to practice the other; and kindness itself is the best of all truths. As long as we are sure of that, we are sure of something, and of something pleasant. It is always of the best end, if not in every instance the most logical means.

This manual shyness is sometimes attributed to modesty, but never, we suspect, with justice, unless it be that sort of modesty, whose fear of committing itself is grounded in pride. Want of address is a better reason, but this particular instance of it would be grounded in the same feeling. It always implies a habit either of pride or distrust. We have met with two really kind men, who evinced this soreness of hand. Neither of them, perhaps, thought himself inferior to any body about him, and both had good reason to think highly of themselves; but both had been sanguine men contradicted in their early hopes. There was a plot to meet the hand of one of them with a fish-slice, in order to show him the disadvantage to which he put his friends by that flat mode of salutation; but the conspirator had not the courage to do it. Whether he heard of the intention, we know not; but shortly afterwards he took very kindly to a shake. The other was the only man of a warm set of politicians, who remained true to his first love of mankind. He was impatient at the change of his companions, and at the folly and inattention of the rest; but though his manner became cold, his consistency still remained warm; and this gave him a right to be as strange as he pleased.

OYSTER EATERS,

BY PERCY NORTH.

The other night, after witnessing Miss Mitford's Tragedy of Rienzi, I dropped into an oyster shop in the purlieus of Old Drury. Having put my "dozen natives" out of sight, I sat some time sipping the remains of my pint of porter, and as I am somewhat of an observant character, I derived some amusement from noticing the various modes of oyster eating, and from the conversation of the parties around me.

One put the edge of the shell to the tip of his tongue, and with one gulp seemed to send his victim to the "regions below." Another's mouth appeared to act as a loadstone to the oysters, for by putting his lips in an oval shape, and drawing his breath inwards, he contrived to swallow the contents without letting the shell defile his mouth. There was a grey headed old gentleman in a snuff-colored coat, and a corresponding countenance of snuff-colored sternness, that sat deliberating on the oyster before he put it to his mouth, as long as he kept munching it before he let it pass the passage of his throat; and the quantity of munches he gave it was about as many as a German gives a beef steak. One Robin Roughhead of a fellow, who was so near sighted that he could scarcely see the table before him, in finding the way to his mouth, rubbed the oysters so much against his nose, that he seemed as though he doubted their sweetness. It will, however, be too long a task to enumerate all the modes of oyster eating, for whilst one was drinking hot milk with them, acccording to the plan of Dr. Kitchener, another was turning them into the hollow shell, and smothering them with as much pepper and vinegar as the value of the oyster he was eating. Thus, as the modes of devouring oysters are as opposite as the antipodes are to each other, I shall at once dismiss this portion of my subject, and proceed to enumerate some small portion of the conversation of

those around me.

One little knot was discussing the State of Russia and Turkey. An old gentleman was showing, by quotations from Colonel Evan's book, the immense resources of Russia: that she has upwards of 800,000 effective troops, and that hav