Lord Stanhope says, “Every professed, inveterate, and incurable snuff-taker, at a moderate computation, takes one pinch in ten minutes.  Every pinch, with the agreeable ceremony of blowing and wiping the nose, and other incidental circumstances, consumes a minute and a half.  One minute and a half out of every ten, allowing sixteen hours and a half to a snuff-taking day, amounts to two hours and twenty-four minutes out of every natural day, or one day out of every ten.  One day out of every ten amounts to thirty-six days and a half in a-year.  Hence, if we suppose the practice to be persisted in forty years, two entire years of the snuff-taker’s life will be dedicated to tickling his nose, and two more to blowing it.  The expense of snuff, snuff-boxes, and handkerchiefs, will be the subject of a second essay, in which it will appear, that this luxury encroaches as much on the income of the snuff-taker as it does on his time; and that by a proper application of the time and money thus lost to the public, a fund might be constituted for the discharge of the national debt.”

Queries.—­Is not this subject worthy the attention of the finance committee?  Might not the cigar gentlemen add to the discharge of the debt?

P.T.W.

* * * * *

THE DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD.

(For the Mirror.)

  Our hearth—­we hear its music now—­to us a bower and home;
  When will its lustre in our souls with Spring’s young freshness come? 
  Sweet faces beam’d around it then, and cherub lips did weave
  Their clear Hosannas in the glow that ting’d the skies at eve!

  Oh, lonely is our forest stream, and bare the woodland tree,
  And whose sunny wreath of leaves the cuckoo carolled free;
  The pilgrim passeth by our cot—­no hand shall greet him there—­
  The household is divided now, and mute the evening pray’r!

  Amid green walks and fringed slopes, still gleams the village pond. 
  And see, a hoar and sacred pile, the old church peers beyond;
  And there we deem’d it bliss to gaze upon the Sabbath skies,—­
  Gold as our sister’s clustering hair, and blue as her meek eyes.

  Our home—­when will these eyes, now dimm’d with frequent weeping, see
  The infant’s pure and rosy ark, the stripling’s sanctuary? 
  When will these throbbing hearts grow calm around its lighted hearth?—­
  Quench’d is the fire within its walls, and hush’d the voice of mirth!

  The haunts—­they are forsaken now—­where our companions play’d;
  We see their silken ringlets glow amid the moonlight glade;
  We hear their voices floating up like paean songs divine;
  Their path is o’er the violet-beds beneath the springing vine!

  Restore, sweet spirit of our home! our native hearth restore—­
  Why are our bosoms desolate, our summer rambles o’er? 
  Let thy mild light on us be pour’d—­our raptures kindle up,
  And with a portion of thy bliss illume the household cup.