DILIGENCE AND PUNCTUALITY.

WE extract the following just remarks from Cobbett's "Advice to Young Men." First of all, in importance to you, is the husbanding of your time. The respect that you will receive, the real and sincere respect, will depend entirely on what you are able to do. If you be rich, you may purchase what is called respect; but it is not worth having. To obtain respect worth possessing, you must do more than the common run of men in your state of life; and to be enabled to do this, you must manage well your time; and to do this, you must have as much of the day-light, and a little of the candlelight, as is consistent with the due discharge of your duties. When people get into the habit of sitting up, merely for the purpose of talking, it is no easy

matter to break themselves of it; and if they do not go to bed early, they cannot rise early. Young people require more sleep than those that are grown up; there must be the number of hours, and that number cannot well be, on an average, less than eight; and if it be more in winter time, it is all the better, for an hour in bed is better than an hour spent in idle gossip. People should never sit talking till they do not know what to talk about. It is said, by the country people, that one hour's sleep before midnight is worth more than two hours' sleep are after midnight, and this I believe to be a fact. But it is useless to go to bed early, and even to rise early, if the time be not well employed after rising. In general, half the morning is loitered away. Those who first invented morning gowns and slippers could have very little else to do. These things are very suitable for those who have had fortunes gained for them by

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others; very suitable for those who live merely to consume the produce of the earth; but he who has his bread to earn, or who means to be worthy of respect, on account of his labors,has no business with morning gown and slippers. In short, be your business or calling what it may, dress at once for the day, and learn to do it as quickly as possible. looking-glass is a great deal worse than useless. Looking at the face will not alter its shape or its color; and perhaps of all wasted time, none is so foolishly wasted as that which is spent in surveying one's own face. Nothing can be of little importance, if one be compelled to attend to it every day of our lives; if we shaved but once a year, or once a month, it would hardly be worth naming; but this is a piece of work that must be done every day; and as it may cost only about five minutes of time, and may be and frequently is made to cost thirty, or even fifty minutes, this is a matter of real impor

tance. I once heard Sir John Sinclair ask Mr. Cochrane Johnstone whether he meant to have a son of his (then a little boy) taught Latin. No," said Mr. Johnstone, "but I mean to do something a great deal better for him." "What is that?" said Sir John. 66 Why," ," said the other, “teach him to shave with cold water, and without a glass." Which, I dare say, he did ; and for which benefit, that son has had good reason to be grateful. Only think of the inconvenience attending the common practice ! There must be hot

water; to have this, there must be fire; and in some cases a fire for this purpose alone. For want of these, the job is put off, until a later hour; this causes a stripping, and another dressing bout; or you go in a slovenly state all day, and, the next day, the thing must be done, or cleanliness abandoned altogether. If you be on a journey, you must wait the pleasure of the servants at the inn, before you can

dress and set out in the morning; the pleasant time for travelling is gone before you can move from the spot ; instead of being at the end of your day's journey in good time, you are benighted, and have to endure all the inconveniences attendant on taidy move

ments.

And all this from the, apparently, insignificant affair of shaving! How many a piece of important business has failed from a short delay! And how many of these delays proceed from this unworthy cause !

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Be always ready," was the motto of a famous French general; and pray let it be yours, and never, during your whole life, have to say, I cannot go till I be shaved and dressed." Do the whole at once, for the day, whatever be your state of life; and then you have a day unbroken by those indispensable performances. Begin thus in the days of your youth, and, having felt the superiority which this practice will give you over those, in all other respects