What shall be said of the sea-monk, cruel
and deceptive monster, who lifts up a monk's
cowled head out among the waves near shore,
and with a man's cry seduces men to their
destruction? We have seen enough to lose
surprise at finding Nereids fully treated of as
fishes, and even also Scylla, and the Sirens.
In treating of Sirens, the zoologist quotes
Isidore's opinion, that the account of them is
a fable of deceitful women, only to dispute it,
upon the authority both of philosophers and
holy men, who have regarded them as true
sea monsters.

That we may close the list again at letter
Z, let us name the Zitiron, which was a fish
carrying a knightly shield before its breast,
and with a head like a knight's head in a
helmet, with the visor down. Also the Zedrusus,
an enormous fish of the Arabians,
with such vast bones that they were sawn
into planks, as oak-trees are, and used for
timber.

WAR AND WASHING.

THE man who makes a blade of grass grow
where no grass grew before is a benefactor to
his country. Let us contemplate the exalted
man. How benevolent he must look—how
dignified his attitude must be when he is
observing the newly-introduced herbage, and
the nobleness of his character is not a bit diminished
by the fact that he is himself benefited
by the novelty,—nay, if he were
enriched beyond the imaginings of a Jew or
an army contractor, his merits would remain
the same; he would still be a benefactor to
his country, and an honour to his sex and
name.

A blade of grass, in this traditionary saying,
is, of course, a mere parable or similitude; it
means many blades of grass—many acres of
grass, and not of grass alone, but corn, and
wine, and oil. It means, in fact, the cheapening
and increasing of the food of man,—it
means an annual allowance out of the bounteous
exchequer of our agricultural patron of
so many pounds a-year to every man who
keeps a house—my own share, in case of a considerable
diminution in the price of beef and
mutton, not to mention potatoes and bread,
would be a very pretty little fund for
pleasure trips to London, and perhaps a
month at the sea-side. But, with war howling
all around the world and gallant seamen
covering themselves with glory by courageous
dashes at granaries and mills—burning the
finest Dantzic (as quoted at eighty-four
shillings) in quantities which would feed a
moderate county for a twelvemonth, and
ships and barques and alll the small fry of commercial
craft, employed day and night in
conveying away mountains of biscuit and
innumerable loads of wheat and flour, there
is no chance of either additional blades of
grass or diminished prices of food. And yet,
with taxes rising and no prospect of a speedy
crumpling up of our gigantic enemy, some
means must be found of economising our present
expenditure, or increasing our present
means.

Where then shall I begin my economy?
If I bring havoc and desolation into the
kitchen, and reduce rny establishment by
sending away my cook, how shall we get on
for dinner? We can't eat even the tenderest
lamb in a state of nature, and a raw round
of beef is a frightful idea. Then the housemaid?
Are we to live covered over with
dust? windows unopened when we come
down in the morning; cloth—and eggs—unlaid?
water boiling in the kettle, but
nobody to bring it into the parlour? And
supposing all this got over, who is to wait at
dinner?—Are we to bring in the dishes ourselves,
and change the plates? O, true, it
must  be the nursery-maid—so called by a
kind of hereditary nomenclature, for, properly
speaking, we have had no nursery for
many years. Ah, I see, it must be that quiet,
silent individual who is always in a corner of
any bedroom you happen to go into, also
always on the stairs on her way to the
kitchen with a seam in her hand; also
always in the housekeeper's room apparently
in the act of rising from tea or dinner. She
must go. And is the cook to be worked to
death in sewing on buttons and mending
stockings, in addition to all her other work?
Is the housemaid to have no help in cleaning
out the drawing-room and the passage, and
the three best bedrooms; in short, is the house
to be turned either into a treadmill, if the remaining
two do their duty, or a wilderness of
sand and confusion if they don't? It can't,
then, be the nurserymaid. I have no others. I
have reduced to the lowest stage of reduction
already, and I must find out some other
means of making the two ends meet. My
clothes? I dress even at present in the
oldest of habiliments, as if I were perpetual
president of the Antiquarian Society. My wife
and children must dress respectably—of
course, they must—and that consists in
bonnets that don't cover above four inches of
the back of their heads, and gowns that
sweep the ground in front, as if they had
all prodigious feet—which they haven't,—or
wore trains, and had put on their clothes the
wrong way; their gloves, of course, fresh once
a-week, and a perpetual succession of ribbons
and scarfs, as if they lived in a rainbow. O,
yes, of course, they must dress respectably
and I must pay the very respectable amount
contained in the milliner's bill,—so there is
no chance of economy in that quarter. I was
disheartened for a long time—utterly
puzzled how to contract my expenditure by
a single shilling, when fortunately, I went
and saw a friend of mine,—a very excellent
and sagacious friend, and a friend I think he
will turn out to a good many people who may
read this paper. They will certainly consider
him, at all events, equal, if not superior,