pended on springs. By observing the degree of heat obtained

by different kinds of motion, we may form an estimate of the

quantity of exercise given by each. Thus, for example, if you turn out to walk in winter with cold feet, in an hour's time you will be in a glow all over; ride on horseback, the same effect will scarcely be perceived by four hours' round trotting; but if you loll in a carriage, such as you have mentioned, you may travel all day, and gladly enter the last inn to warn your feet by the fire. Flatter yourself, then, no longer that half an hour's airing in your carriage deserves the name of exercise. Providence has appointed few to roll in carriages, while he has given to all a pair of legs, which are machines infinitely more commodious and serviceable. Be grateful, then, and make a proper use of yours. Would you know how they forward the circulation of your fluids in the very action of transporting you from place to place, observe, when you walk, that all your weight is alternately thrown from one leg to the other; this occasions a great pressure on the vessels of the foot and repels their contents; when relieved, by the weight of being thrown on the other foot, the vessels of the first are allowed to replenish, and by a return of this weight this repulsion again succeeds: thus accelerating the circulation of the blood. The heat produced in any given time depends on the degree of this acceleration; the fluids are shaken, the humors alternated, the secretions facilitated, and all goes well; the cheeks are ruddy and health is established. Behold your fair friend at Auteuil, a lady who received from bounteous nature more really useful science than half a dozen such pretenders to philosophy as you have been able to extract from all your books. When she honors you with a visit it is on foot. She walks all hours of the day and leaves indolence and its concomitant maladies to be endured by her horses. In this see at once the preservative of her health and personal charms. But when you go to Auteuil you must have your carriage, though it is no further from Passy to Auteuil than from Auteuil to Passy.

Franklin. Your reasonings grow very tiresome.

Gout. I stand corrected. I will be silent and continue my office; take that, and that.

Franklin. Oh! oh-h! Talk on, I pray you!

Gout. No, no. I have a good number of twinges for you tonight, and you may be sure of some more to-morrow.

Franklin. What, with such a fever! I shall go distracted. Oh! eh! Can no one bear it for me 1

Gout. Ask that of your horses; they have served you faith fully.

Franklin. How can you so cruelly sport with my torments t

Gout. Sport 1 I am very serious. I have here a list of offenses against your own health distinctly written, and can justify every stroke inflicted on you.

Franklin. Kead it, then.

Gout. It is too long a detail, but I will briefly mention some particulars.

Franklin. Proceed. I am all attention.

Gout. Do you remember how often you have promised yourself the following morning a walk in the grove of Boulogne, in the Garden de la Muette, or in your own garden, and have violated your promise, alleging at one tjme it was too cold, at another too warm, too windy, too moist, or what else you pleased, when in truth it was too nothing but your inseparable love of ease?

Franklin. That, I confess, may have happened occasionally, probably ten times in a year.

Gout. Your confession is very far short of the truth; the gross amount is one hundred and ninety-nine times.

Franklin. Is it possible 1

Gout. So possible that it is fact; you may rely on the accuracy of my statement. You know M. Brillon's gardens and what fine walks they contain; you know the handsome flight of a hundred steps which lead from the terrace above to the lawn below. You have been in the practice of visiting this amiabh family twice a week after dinner, and it is a maxim of your own that "a man may take as much exercise in walking a mile, up and down stairs, as in ten on level ground." What an oppoitunity was here for you to have had exercise in both these ways I Did you embrace it, and how often?

Franklin. I cannot immediately answer tha* question.

Gout. I will do it for you. Not once.

Franklin. Not once J

Gout. Even so. During the summer you went there at six o'clock. You found the charming lady, with her lovely children and friends, eager to walk with you and entertain you with their agreeable conversation; and what has been your choice? Why, to sit on the terrace, satisfy yourself with the fine prospect, and passing your eye over the beauties of the garden below, without taking one step to descend and walk about in them. On the contrary, you call for tea and the chess-board; and lo 1 you are occupied in your seat till nine o'clock, and that besides two hours' play after dinner; and then, instead of walking home, which would have bestirred you a little, you step into your carriage. How absurd to suppose that all this carelessness can be reconcilable with health without my interposition!

Franklin. I am convinced now of the justness of Poor Richard's remark that "our debts and our sins a^e always greater than we think for."

Gout. So it is. You philosophers are sages in your maxims and fools in your conduct.

Franklin. But do you charge among my crimes that I return in a carriage from M. Brillon's?

Gout. Certainly; for having been seated all the while, you cannot object the fatigue of the day, and cannot want» therefore, the relief of a carriage.

Franklin. What, then, would you have me do with 09 carriage!

Gout. Burn it if you choose: you would at least get heat out of it once in this way; or, if you dislike that proposal, here's another for you: observe the poor peasants who work in the vineyards and grounds about the villages of Passy, Auteuil, Ghaillot, etc.; you may find every day among these deserving creatures four or five old men and women, bent and perhaps crippled by weight of years and too Jong and too great labor. After a most fatiguing day these people have to trudge a mile or two to their smoky huts. Order your coachman to set them down. This is an act that will be good for your soul; and at the same time after your visit to the Brillons, if you return on foot, that will be good for your body.

Franklin. Ah 1 how tiresome you are!

Gout. Well, then, to my office; it should not be forgotten that I am your physician. There!

Franklin. Oh-h-h f What a devil of a physician 1

Gout. How ungrateful you are to say so! Is it not I who, in the character of your physician, have saved you from the palsy, dropsy, and apoplexy? one or other of which would have done for you long ago but for me.

Franklin. 1 submit and thank you for the past, but entreat the discontinuance of your visits for the future; for in my mind one had better die than be cured so dolefully. Permit me just to hint that I have also not been unfriendly to you. I never feed physician or quack of any kind to enter the list against you; if, then, you do not leave me to my repose, it may be said you are ungrateful too.

Gout. I can scarcely acknowledge that as an objection. As to quacks, 1 despise them; they may kill you indeed, but cannot injure me. And as to regular physicians, they are at last convinced that the gout, in such a subject as you are, is no disease, but a remedy; and wherefore cure a remedy? But to our business; there!

Franklin. Oh 1 oh 1 for heaven's sake leave me, and I promise faithfully never more to play at chess, but to take exercise daily and live temperately.

Gout. I know you too well. You promise fair, but after a few months of good health you will return to your old habits; your fine promises will be forgotten like the forms of the last year's clouds. Let us, then, finish the account, and I will go. But I leave you with an assurance of visiting you again at a proper tine and place; for my object is your good, and you are sensible now that I am your real friend.

THE ART OF PEOCURING PLEASANT DREAMS

INSCRIBED TO MISS , BEING WRITTEN A.T HER REQUEST

As a great part of our life is spent in sleep, during which we have sometimes pleasant and sometimes painful dreams, it becomes of some consequence to obtain the one kind and avoid the other; for whether real or imaginary, pain is pain and pleasure is pleasure. If we can sleep without dreaming, it is well that painful dreams are avoided. If, while we sleep, we can have any pleasant dreams, it is, as the French say, autant de gayne, so much added to the pleasure of life.

To this end it is, in the first place, necessary to be careful in preserving health by due exercise and great temperance; for in sickness the imagination is disturbed, and disagreeable, sometimes terrible, ideas are apt to present themselves. Exercise should precede meals, not immediately follow them; the first promotes, the latter, unless moderate, obstructs digestion. If, after exercise, we feed sparingly, the digestion will be easy and good, the body lightsome, the temper cheerful, and all the animal functions performed agreeably. Sleep, when it follows, will