the Polytechnic Institution, or for a quiet,
nightly game at twopenny whist. At any
rate, I will suppose that moderate amusements
and the agrémens of society, including an
evening party now and then, and some high
days and holidays at Christmas and Easter or
so, will give an average of two hours per diem
—or six years more to be struck off the seventy.

Healthy and laborious and robust as I am
willing to allow my man to be, he cannot
expect to go through life without an attack
of some of those ailments to which all human
beings are liable. He will probably, as a
child, have the usual allowance of teething
fits, measles, hooping cough, chicken pox,
and scarletina; to say nothing of the supplementary,
and somewhat unnecessary fits of
sickness suffered by most babies through involuntary
dram-drinking in a course of
"Daffy's Elixir," " Godfrey's Cordial," and
the nurse's pharmacopoeia in general. When
my man grows up, it is probable that he
will have two or three good fits of illness:
strong fevers and spasms at the turning points
of life. Then, there will be days when he
will be " poorly," and days when he will be
"queer," and days when he will be " all overish."
Altogether, I assume that he will be
ill an hour a day, or three years during the
seventy; and a lucky individual he will be, if
he gets off with that allowance of sickness.

And let it be thoroughly understood that,
in this calculation, I have never dreamt of
making my man:

A smoker—in which case goodness alone
knows how many hours a day he would puff
away in pipes, hookas, cigars, cheroots or
cigarettes.

A drinker—or what is called in the North
of England, a " bider " in public-house bars,
or snuggeries; simpering over a gin-noggin,
or blinking at the reflection of his sodden
face in a pewter counter.

A " mooner," fond of staring into shop
windows, or watching the labourers pulling
up the pavement to inspect the gas-pipes, or
listening stolidly to the dull " pech " of the
paviour's rammer on the flags.

A day dreamer, an inveterate chess player,
an admirer of fly fishing, a crack shot, a neat
hand at tandem driving, or an amateur dog
fancier. Were he to be any of these, the whole
of his daily four-and-twenty hours would be
gone, before you could say Jack Robinson.

No; steady, robust, laborious, shall be this
man of mine. Let me recapitulate, and see
how many hours he has a day to be steady
and laborious in.

In bed      .     .     .     .     .        8 hours
Washing and Dressing .    .      Â½ an hour
Eating and Drinking .    .    .      2 hours
Love        .     .     .     .   .    .     1 hour
Talking     .     .     .     .    .  .      1 hour
Amusements .     .     .    .     .    2 hours
Sickness  .     .     .     .     .     .  1 hour
                                       Total 15½ hours.

These fifteen daily hours and a half, amount
in all to forty-six years and six months. To
these, must be added fifty-two days in every
year; on which days, being Sundays, my man
is forbidden to work at all. These fifty-two
sabbaths amount in the aggregate to eight
years, seven months, ten days and twelve
hours; and the grand total to be deducted
from the span of man's life is fifty-five years,
one month, ten days and twelve hours: leaving
fourteen years, ten months, nineteen days
and twelve hours, for my man to be steady
and laborious in.

Oh, sages of the East and West! oh, wise
men of Gotham, for ever going to sea in
bowls, political and otherwise—boastful
talkers of the " monuments of human industry,"
and the " triumphs of human
perseverance,"—lecturers upon patience
and ingenuity, what idlers you all are!
These few paltry years are all you can
devote from three-score and ten, to wisdom,
and learning, and art! Atoms in immensity
—bearers of farthing rushlights amid a
blaze of gas, you must needs think Time
was made for you, and you not made for
Time!

Did I so greatly err then, when, in a former
paper, I asked what antiquity was to a man,
or a man to antiquity? Should he be licensed
to prate so glibly of ages gone by, when he
can give but so sorry an account of the years
he really possesses for his own use and
benefit?

"What do you call Antiquity?" the
Titans might ask him, not in any way sneeringly
but in a tone of good-humoured banter.
"Where are your remote ages—your landmarks
of the days of old? Do you know that
from the first day that you were permitted
to call CHRISTMAS DAY, to the end of that
year which expired on the thirty-first of
December last, there have only elapsed nine
hundred and seventy-three millions, five
hundred and eleven thousand, two hundred
minutes;—nine hundred and odd million revolutions
of the minute hand on your watch?
And do you call that antiquity? Are these
few minutes to count for anything considerable
among the accumulated ages of the
World?"

The World!  I speak of ours—the parvenu
—the yester-born—the ball that has but
been some five thousand eight hundred and
fifty-two years a rolling, whose certificate of
birth is but of three billions, seventy-five
millions, nine hundred and eleven thousand,
two hundred minutes, date. The Egyptian
mummies buried three thousand years ago
in the caves behind Medinet Abou, but
now present amongst us in the British
Museum, make Time a baby. In its face,
Homer, with his paltry three thousand years of
age, seems as juvenile as the veriest schoolboy
who ever spouted Terence in the Westminster
Dormitory. The Chinamen, the Hindoos, nay,
the old Egyptians even—Osiris, Cheops,