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HERE does not, at this blessed moment, breathe on the earth's surface a human being that willna prefer eating and drinking to all ither pleasures o' body or soul." So speaks the Ettrick Shepherd, in the fulness of his content, contemplating with moist eyes the groaning supper-table, laden with a comfortable array of solid viands; after which fair and frank expression of his views we are somewhat pained to hear him denouncing in no measured terms "the awful and fearsome vice o' gluttony," as evidenced occasionally in women. His companions, too, those magnificent fellow-feeders, have a great many severe things to say about gudewives who betray a weakness for roasted pork, or an unfeminine solicitude for gravy; and Mr. Timothy Tickler unhesitatingly affirms that such a one, "eating for the sake of eating, and not for mere nourishment, is, in 129