residence. The chief clerk (who has the keenest
nose and sharpest talon for a recalcitrant
bankrupt of any managing clerk in the
square) keeps rabbits, portioned his laundress's
daughter when she married, and always weeps
when he goes to the play, and the "Rent
Day" is performed. The clerks who write the
doom of clients, the runners, the process-servers,
leave their deadly cunning, and remorseless
writs, and life-destroying processes
in their desks and blue bags and greasy
leathern pouches; they leave their skin behind
too; and, after office-hours, are joyous boon
companions, irreproachable husbands in small
suburban cottages, sweethearts leaving nothing
to be desired, free-hearted roysterers always
willing to be their twopence to another's
twopence, men and brothers feeling another's
woe, hiding the faults they see, showing
mercy, inter aiding and assisting each other.
And, believe me, this species of duality is not
the most uncommon. The butcher is, nine
times out of ten, kind-hearted and peaceable
at home; Sanson, the executioner, had a
passion for the cultivation of flowers, and
played prettily on the piano; General Haynau,
I dare say (for the sake of argument, at least),
is a "love" of an old gentleman in private life,
with such "loves" of grey moustachios, and so
full of anecdote! Do you think the tiger
is savage and brutal in domestic life; that
the hyena does not laugh good-humouredly in
the bosom of his family; that the wolf can't
be sociable? No such thing. I dare say
that clouds do sometimes obscure the
zoological felicity; that Mrs. Tiger occasionally
complains, should the antelope be tough or
the marrow scanty; that Miss Hyena may
lament the hardness of the times and the
scarcity of carrion; and that Mr. Lupus may
do worse than he expected during the winter;
but, perhaps, they don't howl, and yell, and
craunch, and tear at home?

We grow so accustomed to see people in
one character and costume, that we can
scarcely fancy the possibility of the duality
they certainly possess. For us the lion must
be always lying in a hole under a rock, waiting
for a traveller. We ignore his duality,
the lion at home. We have grown so
accustomed to a Mr. Charles Kean in a spangled
tunic, or a Mr. Buckstone in a skyblue coat and
scanty nankeen trousers, that we can't fancy
them in private life save in similar costumes,
asking for beer in blank verse, in the first case;
throwing the spectators into convulsions of
laughter by poking the fire, in the second.
We so mix up double men and double dresses
and double avocations, that we fail to recognise
even persons with whom we are familiar
when they have laid the state dress and state
character aside, and walk abroad plain men.
We see a quiet-looking gentleman in plain
black cheapening asparagus in Covent Garden
Market, and are told that he is the Speaker of
the House of Commons. Where is his bagwig,
his mace that he should use as a walkingstick,
or at least carry under his arm like an
umbrella? Where is his three-cornered hat,
with which he does those curious hanky-panky
tricks in counting members? We are shown a
stout gentleman in a white hat and a cut-away
coat close to a handsome quiet-looking man,
smoking a cigar, and are told that one designed
the Crystal Palace, and that the other raised
the Britannia Bridge. Where are their compasses,
their rules, their squares? Why don't
they walk about the streets with their hands
thrust in their waistcoats, their hair thrown
back, their eyes in a fine frenzy rolling?
Without going quite so far as the boy who
believed that every judge was born with a
wig on his head and ermine on his shoulders,
can you, can I, fancy a judge in a jacket and
a wide-awake hat? Is there not something
unnatural and inharmonious in the realisation
of the picture of an archbishop in a
nightcap? We can fancy a burglar cleaning
his dark lantern, oiling his centre-bit,
loading his pistols; but can we fancy him
tending his sick wife, or playing with his
children?

It may be the ruling habit, after all, and
not the ruling passion that is strong in
death. The schoolmaster who directed his
scholars to be dismissed; the judge who sent
the jury to consider of their verdict; the
warrior who murmured tête d'armée! the
mathematician who gave the square of twelve;
the comedian who said, "drop the curtain;
the farce is over;" all these responded more to
some watchword of habit, than of a predominant
passion. Doctor Black, though an excellent
schoolmaster, can scarcely be said to
have had a passion for teaching boys their
accidence; it was, perhaps, more the habit of
the judge to sum up evidence for the jury, than
his passion; though Napoleon certainly had a
passion for war; the mathematician (I forget
his name) was habituated to arithmetical
exercises, and gave the square of twelve
through the force of habit; and as for the
actor, as for poor Molière, he was a comedian
through necessity, and not, Heaven knows,
through any passion for performing. Among
the instances where the ruling passion does
really seem to have been strong in death,
those of the miser who wished the candle to
be extinguished, as "he could die in the
dark," and the Highland Cateran who objected
to extreme unction as an "unco waste
of ulzie," seem to me the most worthy of
notice; though I am afraid the foundation on
which their authenticity rests is rather
dubious.

CHIPS.

CLIMATE OF AUSTRALIA.

SOME information on this subject may be
useful, just now:—Port Jackson, in New
South Wales, on which the city of Sydney
stands, is found, by thermometrical comparison