DECIMALS. 



tomouring a froward child -weighs 

 but as a feather in the recorded scale 

 of his benevolence." 



STERNE'S DEATH. 

 There is one passage in Sterne 

 which the circumstances of his death 

 render pathetic. A believer in the 

 doctrine of presentiment would 

 think it a prop to his theory. It is 

 as striking as Swift's digression on 

 madness, in the Tale of a Tub. " Was 

 I in a condition, to stipulate with 

 death, I should certainly declare 

 against submitting to it before my 

 friends ; and, therefore, I never seri- 

 ously think upon the mode and man- 

 ner of this great catastrophe, which 

 generally takes up and torments my 

 thoughts as much as the catas- 

 trophe itself; but I constantly draw 

 the curtain across it with this wish, 

 that the Disposer of all things may 

 so order it, that it happen not to 

 me in my own house but rather 

 in some decent inn. At home I 

 know it the concern of my friends, 

 and the last services of wiping my 

 brows and smoothing my pillow, 

 will so crucify my soul, that I shall 

 die of a distemper which my phy- 

 sician is not aware of; but in an 

 inn, the few cold offices I wanted 

 would be purchased with a few 

 guineas, and paid me with an un- 

 disturbed but punctual attention." 

 It is known that Sterne died in 

 hired lodgings, and I have been 

 told that his attendants robbed 

 him even of his gold sleeve-buttons 

 while he was expiring. (Ferriar's 

 Ulust.) 



DAVID HUME. 



Lord Charlemont relates the fol- 

 lowing anecdote of Hume, illustrat- 

 ing his generous appreciation of the 

 talent of his opponents : One day 

 that he visited me in London, he 

 came into my room laughing, and ap- 

 parently well pleased. " What has 

 put you into this good humour, 

 Hume 1" said I. " Why, man," re- 



plied he, "I have just now had the 

 best thing said to me I ever heard. 

 I was complaining in a company, 

 where I spent the morning, that I 

 was very ill-treated by the world, 

 and that the censures put upon me 

 were hard and unreasonable ; that I 

 had written many volumes, through- 

 out the whole of which there were 

 but a few pages that contained any 

 reprehensible matter, and yet, that 

 for those few pages I was abused 

 and torn to pieces. ' You put me 

 in mind,' said an honest fellow in 

 the company, ' of an acquaintance 

 of mine, a notary-public, who, hav- 

 ing been condemned to be hanged 

 for forgery, lamented the hardships 

 of his case ; that, after having writ- 

 ten many thousand inoffensive 

 sheets, he should be hanged for one 

 line.'" 



DOUBLING DOWN A PAGE, AND TURN- 

 ING OVER A NEW LEAF. 



It being reported that Lady 

 Caroline Lamb had, in a moment 

 of passion, knocked down one of 

 her pages with a stool, the poet 

 Moore, to whom this was told by 

 Lord Strangford, observed, " O ! 

 nothing is more natural for a liter- 

 ary lady than to double down a 

 page." " I would rather," replied 

 his lordship, "advise Lady Caroline 

 to turn over a new leaf." 



DECIMALS. 



It is at first sight surprising, 

 that in the progression of numbers, 

 and in calculation, the number of 

 ten, and the decimal progression, 

 should have been preferred to all 

 others. The cause of this prefer- 

 ence is, that it corresponds with 

 the number of our fingers, in which 

 all men are accustomed to reckon 

 from their infancy. They count, 

 in the first place, the number of 

 their fingers. When the units ex- 

 ceed the number of their fingers, 

 they pass to a second ten. If the 

 number of tens increases, they coxint 



