ON VAPOURING, OR TALKING BIG. (From Recreations of a Country Parson,' by A. K. H. B.) in-vet'-e-rate, incurable av'-en-ue, a walk between two rows of me-nage (Fr.), a household, an establishment hand, a measure of four inches spav'-in, a disease in the hocks of horses cre-dence, belief im-pli'-cit, entire, complete ni-tor in ad-ver'-sum (Lat.), I struggle Mr. Boyd, one of the first Essayists of the day, is a Scotch Clergyman. His Essays were first published in Fraser's Magazine,' under the above initials, by which he is best known. It is natural enough to pass from thinking of one human weakness to thinking of another; and certain remarks of a fellowtraveller, not addressed to me, suggest the inveterate tendency to vapouring and big talking which dwells in many men and women. Who is there who desires to appear to his fellowcreatures precisely what he is? I have known such people and admired them, for they are comparatively few. Why does Mr. Smith, when some hundreds of miles from home, talk of his place in the country? In the etymological sense of the words it certainly is a place in the country, for it is a seedy one-storied cottage without a tree near it, standing bleakly on a hill-side. But a place in the country suggests to the mind long avenues, great shrubberies, extensive greenhouses, fine conservatories, lots of horses, abundance of servants; and that is the picture which Mr. Smith desires to call up before the mind's eye of those whom he addresses. When Mr. Robinson talks with dignity about the political discussions which take place in his servants' hall, the impression conveyed is that Robinson has a vast establishment of domestics. A vision rises of ancient retainers, of a dignified housekeeper, of a bishop-like butler, of Jeameses without number, of unstinted October. A man of strong imagination may even think of huntsmen, falconers, couriers-of a grand baronial ménage, in fact. You would not think that Robinson's establishment consists of a cook, a housemaid, and a stable-boy. Very well for the fellow too, but why will he vapour? When Mr. Jones told me the other day that something or other happened to him when he was going out to the stables to look at the horses,' I naturally thought, as one fond of horse-flesh, that it would be a fine sight to see Jones's stables, as he called them. I thought of three handsome carriage-horses sixteen hands high, a pair of pretty ponies for his wife to drive, some hunters, beauties to look at 6 6 and tremendous fellows to go. The words used might even have justified the supposition of two or three racehorses, and several lads with remarkably long jackets walking about the yard. I was filled with fury when I learned that Jones's horses consisted of a large brougham horse, broken-winded, and a spaviñed pony. I have known a man who had a couple of moorland farms habitually talk of his estate. One of the commonest and weakest ways of vapouring is by introducing into your conversation, very familiarly, the names of people of rank whom you know nothing earthly about. 'How sad it is,' said Mrs. Jenkins to me the other day, ' about the duchess being so ill! Poor dear thing! We are all in such great distress about her! We all' meant, of course, the landed aristocracy of the district, of which Mrs. Jenkins had lately become a member, Jenkins having retired from the hardware line and bought a small tract of quagmire. Some time ago a man told me that he had been down to Oatmealshire to see his tenantry. Of course he was not aware that I knew that he was the owner of just one farm. This is my parish we have entered,' said a youth of clerical appearance to me in a railway carriage. In one sense it was; but he would not have said so had he been aware that I knew he was the curate, not the rector. 'How can Brown and his wife get on?' a certain person observed to me; they cannot possibly live: they will starve. Think of people getting married with not more than eight or nine hundred a-year! How dignified the man thought he looked as he made the remark! It was a fine thing to represent that he could not understand how human beings could do what he was well aware was done by multitudes of wiser people than himself. It is a cheap horse that of Wiggins's,' remarked Mr. Figgins; 'it did not cost more than seventy or eighty pounds.' Poor silly Figgins fancies that all who hear him will conclude that his own broken-kneed hack (bought for 251.) cost at least 150. Oh, silly folk who talk big, and then think you are adding to your importance, don't you know that you are merely making fools of yourselves? In nine cases out of ten the person to whom you are relating your exaggerated story knows what the precise fact is. He is too polite to contradict you and to tell you the truth, but rely on it-he knows it. No one believes the vapouring story told by another man; no, not even the man who fancies that his own vapouring story is believed. Everyone who knows anything of the world knows how, by an accompanying process of mental arithmetic, to make the deductions from the big story told, which will bring it down to something near the truth. Frequently has my friend Mr. Snooks told me of the crushing retort by which he shut up Jeffrey upon a memorable occasion. I can honestly declare that I never gave credence to a syllable of what he said. Repeatedly has my friend Mr. Longbow told me of his remarkable adventure in the Bay of Biscay, when a whale very nearly swallowed him. Never once did I fail to listen with every mark of implicit belief to my friend's narrative, but do you think I believed it? And more than once has Mrs. O'Callaghan assured me that the hothouses on her fawther's esteet' were three miles in length, and that each cluster of grapes grown on that favoured spot weighed above a hundredweight. With profound respect I gave ear to all she said; but, gentle daughter of Erin, did you think I was as soft as I seemed? You may just as well tell the truth at once, ye big talkers, for everybody will know it at any rate. It is a sad pity when parents, by a long course of big talking and silly pretension, bring up their children with ideas of their own importance which make them appear ridiculous, and which are rudely dissipated on their entering into life. The mother of poor Lollipop, when he went to Cambridge, told me that his genius was such that he was sure to be Senior Wrangler. And possibly he might have been, if he had not been plucked. It is peculiarly irritating to be obliged to listen to a vapouring person pouring out a string of silly exaggerated stories, all tending to show how great the vapouring person is. Politeness forbids your saying you don't believe them. I have sometimes derived comfort under such an infliction from making a memorandum, mentally, and then, like Captain Cuttle, making a note' on the earliest opportunity. By taking this course, instead of being irritated by each successive stretch, you are rather gratified by the number and enormity of them. I hereby give notice to all ladies and gentlemen whose conscience tells them that they are accustomed to vapour, that it is not improbable that I have in my possession a written list of remarkable statements made by them. It is possible that they would look rather blue if they were permitted to see it. Let me add, that it is not always vapouring to talk of one's self, even in terms which imply a compliment. It was not vapouring when Lord Tenterden, being Lord Chief Justice of England, standing by Canterbury Cathedral with his son by his side, pointed to a little barber's shop, and said to the boy, I never feel proud except when I remember that in that shop your grandfather shaved for a penny!" It was not vapouring when Burke wrote, 'I was not rocked, and swaddled, and danced into a legislator; Nitor in adversum is the motto for a man like me!' It was not vapouring when Milton wrote that he had in himself a conviction that by labour and intent study, which he took to be his portion in this life, he might leave to after ages something so written as that men should not willingly let it die.' Nor was it vapouring, but a pleasing touch of nature, when the King of Siam begged our ambassador to assure Queen Victoria that a letter which he sent to her, in the English language, was composed and written entirely by himself. It is not vapouring, kindly reader, when upon your return home after two or three days' absence, your little son, aged four years, climbs upon your knee, and begs you to ask his mother if he has not been a very good boy when you were away; nor when he shows you, with great pride, the medal which he has won a few years later. It is not vapouring when the gallant man who heroically jeoparded life and limb for the women's and children's sake at Lucknow, wears the Victoria Cross over his brave heart. Nor is it a piece of national vapouring, though it is, sure enough, an appeal to proud remembrances, when England preserves religiously the stout old Victory, and points strangers to the spot where Nelson fell and died. MENSURATION. To find the hypotenense of a right-angled triangle. (1) If the base of a right-angled triangle be 45 ft. and the perpendicular 28 ft. what is the hypotenense? (2) What is the hypotenense when the base is 91 ft. and the perpen dicular 60 ft? (3) The base of a triangle is 86 ft. and its perpendicular 90 ft.; what is its hypotenense? (4) What must be the length of a ladder to reach a window 14 ft. from the ground, the bottom of the ladder being placed 10 ft. from the house? (5) The rafters in the roof of a certain house form a right angle at top, and they are 24 and 34 ft. in length respectively, the side-walls of the house being of the same height; what is the width of the house? ROCK-SALT, COAL, AND SULPHUR. (From 'Physical Geography, su-per-fi'-cial-ly, as upon the surface ef-flor-es'-cence, the production of flowers, gran-it'-ic, formed of granite dis'-lo-ca-ted, displaced, put out of joint by Sir John Herschel.) met-a-mor'-phic, relating to a complete ob-lit'-er-a-ted, effaced, destroyed ROCK-SALT is commonly disposed in thick beds, either superficially as Africa, or at very great depths, as in the Polish mines at Wieliczka; sometimes at great heights above the sea, as in the Cordilleras and in Savoy. The greatest deposit in England is near Northwich in Cheshire. In Spain, at Cordova, it forms a rugged precipice four or five hundred feet high, of such purity as to require only pounding to be fit for use. At Lahore in India a similiar mass occurs. In Affghanistan a road is cut out of solid salt at the foot of cliffs of that mineral 100 feet high. The island of Ormuz, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, is a rock of salt. It is almost always found associated with gypsum. Borax, a salt of great utility in the chemical arts, is one of rare and sparing distribution. The greater part in use is the product of a lake in Thibet, where, under the name of tincal, it is dug out in impure masses from the edges and shallows of the lake, being associated with common salt in the water. It occurs also in the province of Potosi in Peru. The boracic acid is found in hot springs near Sasso in Tuscany, and in Volcano, one of the Lipari Islands, in great purity. Soda, in the state of carbonate, occurs in abundance in the natron lakes of Egypt, and in four Hungarian lakes, and as an efflorescence on the surface of the earth in various arid and desert countries. Nitre is found encrusting chalk, limestone, or calcareous tufa, also in limestone caverns in North America, and in immense abundance as an efflorescence on the surface of the soil in several districts of India, as well as in Spain, Italy, and Hungary. The nitrate of soda, or 'cubic nitre,' as it is sometimes improperly called, forms a horizontal stratum many feet in thickness, and forty leagues in extent, in the district of Tarapaca in Peru, near the frontiers of Chili. Porcelain Clay results from the decomposition of the felspar in granitic formations. Under the name of kaolin, it is quarried in China. It occurs also in great purity at Aue in Saxony, and at Meissen in Austria, near Passau, at Limoges, and near Bayonne in France. The porcelain manufactories of Worcester are supplied from St. Austel in Cornwall, at the foot of the granite range. In the granite districts of Ireland it also occurs abundantly. COAL-Happily for mankind this most useful mineral is very abundantly distributed over the world, though limited in its occurrence to those regions where the limestone of the (thence called) carboniferous series and their associated beds crop out to the surface or underlie other superficial beds at accessible depths. Coal is generally deposited in 'coal basins,' or great concave depressions of the strata, partly owing, no doubt, to the general curve of the ocean-beds in which the deposit was formed, but much more to their being broken up and dislocated by lateral upheavals, so that the parts no longer correspond T |