rod or two, though this proceeds partly from the fear of sharks,—­as if sharks of the dangerous order were not far more afraid of the rocks than the swimmers of being eaten.  But the fact of the timidity is unquestionable; and we were told by a certain clerical frequenter of a watering-place, himself a robust swimmer, that he had never met but two companions who would venture boldly out with him, both being ministers, and one a distinguished Ex-President of Brown University.  We place this fact to the credit of the bodies of our saints.

But space forbids us thus to descant on the details of all active exercises.  Riding may be left to the eulogies of Mr. N.P.  Willis, and cricket to Mr. Lillywhite’s “Guide.”  We will only say, in passing, that it is pleasant to see the rapid spread of clubs for the latter game, which a few years since was practised only by a few transplanted Englishmen and Scotchmen; and it is pleasant also to observe the twin growth of our indigenous American game of base-ball, whose briskness and unceasing activity are perhaps more congenial, after all, to our national character, than the comparative deliberation of cricket.  Football, bating its roughness, is the most glorious of all games to those whose animal life is sufficiently vigorous to enjoy it.  Skating is just at present the fashion for ladies as well as gentlemen, and needs no apostle; the open weather of the current winter has been unusually favorable for its practice, and it is destined to become a permanent institution.

A word, in passing, on the literature of athletic exercises; it is too scanty to detain us long.  Five hundred books, it is estimated, have been written on the digestive organs, but we shall not speak of half a dozen in connection with the muscular powers.  The common Physiologies recommend exercise in general terms, but seldom venture on details; unhappily, they are written, for the most part, by men who have already lost their own health, and are therefore useful as warnings rather than examples.  The first real book of gymnastics printed in this country, so far as we know, was the work of the veteran Salzmann, translated and published in Philadelphia, in 1802, and sometimes to be met with in libraries,—­an odd, desultory book, with many good reasonings and suggestions, and quaint pictures of youths exercising in the old German costume.  Like Dr. Follen’s gymnasium, at Cambridge, it was probably transplanted too early, and produced no effect.  Next came, in 1836, the book which is still, after twenty years, the standard, so far as it goes,—­Walker’s “Manly Exercises,”—­a thoroughly English book, and needing adaptation to our habits, but full of manly vigor, and containing good and copious directions for skating, swimming, boating, and horsemanship.  The only later general treatise worth naming is Dr. Trall’s recently published “Family Gymnasium,”—­a good book, yet not good enough.  On gymnastics proper it contains scarcely anything; and the essays