My nine hundredth birthday! And now I feel th approach of age and infirmity. My beard has beco white as the blossoms of the almond-tree. I am strained to use a staff when I journey; the stars lor bright than formerly; the flowers smell less odo have laid Zillah in the tomb of the rock; M gone to the dwelling of Mahalaleel; my sons tal at the council and in the field; all is changed future is become the short past. The earth lence; the ancient and the honourable are the young and the vicious. The giants length and breadth of the land, where people; all is changed. The beasts sters of the deep growl and press fury; traditions, visious, and th What fearful doom hangs over t it is enough that I am leavi eight score years and the tale I, in very deed, trod this It is false, I am yet a boy long busy dream; of br giving in marriage; ( and warring; sorrowi but it is false to cal' of the night, an "Lamech, my garden of oaks "My father shadows w arms, and right, m tomb, bette wh prescribed as should excludustry. As every day do not fatten any flocks or scanty than their meals. Upon essels, with the pulpit of the lecteur were ranged a number of earthen pots with porringers to correspond instead of ther porringers were placed in front of wooden s, and each monk had, besides these articles, a redCourel plate in which was a bunch of grapes imported from a country where they never ripen, and speckled all over with an unwholesome and greenish blue. The soup exhaled a sour smell of roots; the bread was black, and seasoned only with certain fibrous vegetables, without any sauce whatever. Upon the white walls were written pious maxims in praise of sobriety and fasting, precepts as meagre as the larder of the monastery is empty. The very stomach heaves at the aspect of so much austerity and suffering. Occasionally at evening prayers the superior says:-" My brethren, let us pray for the soul of the mother (or the sister) of one amongst us, who is dead." Each monk then takes his part in the mournful ceremony; they pray, they tremble, but he whom death has thus deprived of his relation remains for ever ignorant of his misfortune. What frightful uncertainty! and what horrible nights must the wretched monks pass! The Trappists have no sort of recreation. M. de Rancé forbade study, as the source of disputes and relaxation, so that these ignorant monks, badly fed and condemned to perpetual sufferings, are as brutalized and as useless to their fellow-creatures as the inmates of a madhouse. Nothing in these gloomy and savage practices, and in this dark and bigoted idolatry, resembles the primitive law of Jesus Christ. Thus to degrade and imprison the creatures of God is not, assuredly, the proper way to glorify the Creator. Moral suicide will never cease to be a suicide. In vain did we seek in the faces of these poor monks for the traces of violent passions or great misfortunes. Their physiognomies were vulgar, hard, stupid, and ignoble; even devotion appears wanting; and their heads have, for the most part, an almost disgusting charater.-Times. SONNETS. BY GEORGE N. TWINN. To him, who six drear days hath been confined Within the city's pent-up walls and bounds, How pleasing is the country! On his mind How softly sweet fall the deep charming sounds g brooks that flow so clear along! breeze, that kisses perfumed flowers, oved lay, or speckled thrush's song he cool retreats of woodland bow many joys the fields display! eyes can rest on has a cha ght, for sorrow's fled aw? les his throbbing bosor his heart does quie' e" in all he can me Nature' me lesson 1 that e s of t e fr W. n, and wonder, ask whe ir soul-enlivening tints and v Rendered more beautiful from falling ». Nature alone shall my instructor be, Her lessons make the soul unshackled-free. This thought oft rises in my mind, that when Yes, the cold world will hold its cruel gloom, QUEEN ANNE'S FARTHINGS. FEW Errors have become more popular than that of the extreme rarity of the Farthing coinage of Queen Anne. Many a tyro in numismatics, on inspecting the cabinet of a coin collector, has exclaimed: "But you have not a Farthing of Queen Anne? You know there were only three of them struck." And so current has been this belief, that, probably, no practical Error has occasioned more mischief and mortification to those who have been misled by it, than that which we are about to elucidate. This task has often been wned with a. attempted, but has never been so satisfactorily performed as by our friend Mr. William Till, the respectable medallist, in London; who, at our request, in the year 1835, drew up as complete an explanation of the Error as his extensive acquaintance with numismatics, and his long experience in coin-dealing, enabled him to accomplish. Mr. Till observes: "it will scarcely be believed, that persons from almost all parts of England have travelled to the metropolis, on the qui vive to make, as they supposed, their fortunes, with a Farthing, or a presumed Farthing of Anne, in their possession; and which, on being taken to the British Museum, has been found to be almost or entirely worthless.† From York, and even from Ireland, persons have come: a * If you answer in the affirmative, he is ready for you, armed at all points, with the old story: "Why, there never were but three: the Museum has two of them, and would give a large sum for the third!" In the Times, Sept. 26, 1826, a magistrate relates the circumstance of a poor man coming to London from Bedfordshire, with a real but common farthing of Queen Anne, in the hope of making his fortune by it. Se Farthing? w them, of A. and the et of a ve Bar to one Accus. of fiction, with accounts ruck for approval, but from which no copies for c.. ation have been taken. The portraits on the obverses are much the same; the busts ornamented with drapery, and the head adorned with a string of pearls. The reverses, except in one instance, differ from the common Farthing which circulated; and, on the pattern, in which no difference exists, we find, instead of Anna Dei Gratia,' the legend Anna of the seventeenth to t.. Regina,' surrounding the queen's bust. This pattern is rare." all aware of the usual simplic The value of these Farthings varies from £1. to £3.; but under Edward I., or even Henry the scarcest has brought upwards of £5. at a public auction. they had no foreign luxuries; they ran the common and real Farthing of Anne, which was current by the price, were indifferent; they seldom trave. It is, however, only important here to specify the value of servants, except for husbandry; their horses, their county. And even then hospitality must have greatly limited, if the value of manors were really than we find it in many surveys. Twenty-four generally, and which is stated by Mr. Till to bring from 78. to 128., and if extremely fine in preservation, may be worth a guinea. Some are found with a broad rim, and are con འཚེ་ no greater seems a suff sidered more scarce than the others. I speak of these coins cient multiple when we would raise a sum mentioned by a as being in copper." Dr. Dibdin states the value of this Farthing to be under 5s. Mr. J. Y. Akerman, a numismatist, recognises "the common current Farthing of Anne" as scarce, but scarcer with the broad rim.t Mr. Till states, that there must have been from 300 to 500 of the farthings issued, as they are, by no means, rare; and he has seen no less than 38 of them at one time. In the Observer newspaper, date 1837, it is stated: we have heard from good authority, that the keepers of the British Museum are continually pestered with letters and applications upon this subject; and it is not very long since a noble Earl addressed a letter to the trustees, or some of the officers, for information, in consequence of one of his lordship's tenants having discovered what he thought was "a Queen Anne's Farthing." "It may be in the recollection of some of our readers, that the famous Mr. Christie, the auctioneer, sold one of these spurious coins for several hundred pounds." The Rev. Dr. Dibdin (in his Northern Tour, p. 733) relates : "One of them, of 1713, was shown to me by a father, who said he should leave it to his son, as a £500. legacy." writer under Edward I. to the same real value expressed i our present money; but an income of £10 or £20 was inspection, and she was to select one out of the three. This was accordingly done; but before the queen had signified her approbation of either, she expired; and, of course, there was no issue of a further coinage in her reign. The dies be came useless; but it is probable that before they were destroyed, many other impressions were taken from them, and given away as curiosities. Hence it is easy to account for the number of Queen Anne's Farthings which have, from time to time, been brought to light; but it is obviously a mistake so to call them, because they never could become the coin of the realm without the sovereign's sanction; and no such proclamation is on record." Unfortunately for this explanation, the specimen with the date 1714, the year of Anne's death, is by no means rare. Dr. Dibdin states, that "Anne was always averse to a copper coinage, though much wanted. Croker exerted his abilities in engraving the dies, hoping their elegance and beauty would merit her attention; but it was to no purpose; the queen could not be brought to hear of a copper coinage; and the nominal Queen Anne's Farthings are these trial pieces."-Northern Tour, page 733. + The British Press newspaper of the 14th of February, 1814, and the Numismatic Journal, April 1837, contain the report of a very curious trial which took place at Dublin, relating to one of these pieces. In the Observer, just quoted, the writer, in an attempted explanation of the Error, states: "What will the reader think when he is informed that there is not, nor ever was, a single Queen Anne's Farthing in existence! yet such is the truth. The following particulars are derived from a source on which the most confident reliance may be placed, and they will abundantly clear up the whole mystery. Some time before the death of Queen Anne, it was her intention to issue a coinage of Farthings, and she gave directions to that effect. Those directions more particularly were, that three dies of different patterns should be sunk, and a specimen of each struck off for the Queen's For further details, see the Mirror, No. 722. Mr. Till has reprinted his communication, with additions and corrections, in his ingenious little Essay on the Roman Denarius and English Silver Penny, 1837. A publican once procured one of these counters, which he placed in his window, as the real Farthing of Queen Anne. Credulous persons came far and near to view this "great curiosity," and the landlord turned his deception to good account; for deception it was, as one of the first medallists of the age appointed a meeting with this man, and exhibiting a real, but common Farthing of Anue, attempted to convince him of his Error, but the hoax was too profitable to be relinquished. who grunted out their orisons in a most singular manner. The reverse side of the hill was also covered with monks in the same position; they looked like a flock of sheep. The discipline of the Trappist monks is exceedingly rigorous, although many ridiculous errors have been spread abroad respecting their mode of life, &c. A strict silence is enjoined; the monks never converse with each other, and only speak to strangers out of the house. This makes manifest the absurdity of the formula, " Brother, we must all die!" which the public generally believe is addressed by one monk to another whenever they chance to meet. The porter, Friar Pâcome, replied, on an inquiry about this matter, " It would hardly be worth while to infringe upon our rules for the sake of uttering a sentence which teaches nothing to anybody." Equally false is the notion that the Trappists dig every day a portion of their grave. Friar Pâcome observed on this head :"In a few years' time the grave would become a well. To dig a grave every day is the means of hardening the mind against the thoughts of death, rather than of causing it to reflect seriously upon such things. The custom very often deadens the imagination, and it is not all gravediggers that are saints!" In the cemetery every hillock is surmounted by a wooden cross and a stone pot containing the holy water. On conducting us towards the house brother Pàcome requested us to keep a profound silence. When M. de Rancé reformed La Trappe, he prescribed manual labour, and ordered that the monks should exclusively subsist on the produce of their industry. As every day of their life is a jour maigre, they do not fatten any flocks or herds. Nothing can be more scanty than their meals. Upon an iron table placed on tressels, with the pulpit of the lecteur at the further end, were ranged a number of earthen pots filled with water, with porringers to correspond instead of glasses. Other porringers were placed in front of wooden spoons, and each monk had, besides these articles, a redcoloured plate in which was a bunch of grapes imported from a country where they never ripen, and speckled all over with an unwholesome and greenish blue. The soup exhaled a sour smell of roots; the bread was black, and seasoned only with certain fibrous vegetables, without any sauce whatever. Upon the white walls were written pious maxims in praise of sobriety and fasting, precepts as meagre as the larder of the monastery is empty. The very stomach heaves at the aspect of so much austerity and suffering. Occasionally at evening prayers the superior says:-" My brethren, let us pray for the soul of the mother (or the sister) of one amongst us, who is dead." Each monk then takes his part in the mournful ceremony; they pray, they tremble, but he whom death has thus deprived of his relation remains for ever ignorant of his misfortune. What frightful uncertainty! and what horrible nights must the wretched monks pass! The Trappists have no sort of recreation. M. de Rancé forbade study, as the source of disputes and relaxation, so that these ignorant monks, badly fed and condemned to perpetual sufferings, are as brutalized and as useless to their fellow-creatures as the inmates of a madhouse. Nothing in these gloomy and savage practices, and in this dark and bigoted idolatry, resembles the primitive law of Jesus Christ. Thus to degrade and imprison the creatures of God is not, assuredly, the proper way to glorify the Creator. Moral suicide will never cease to be a suicide. In vain did we seek in the faces of these poor monks for the traces of violent passions or great misfortunes. Their physiognomies were vulgar, hard, stupid, and ignoble; even devotion appears wanting; and their heads have, for the most part, an almost disgusting charater.-Times. SONNETS. BY GEORGE N. TWINN. To him, who six drear days hath been confined Within the city's pent-up walls and bounds, How pleasing is the country! On his mind How softly sweet fall the deep charming sounds Of gurgling brooks that flow so clear along! Give me, oh give me Nature's page alone! This thought oft rises in my mind, that when QUEEN ANNE'S FARTHINGS. FEW Errors have become more popular than that of the extreme rarity of the Farthing coinage of Queen Anne. Many a tyro in numismatics, on inspecting the cabinet of a coin collector, has exclaimed: " But you have not a Farthing of Queen Anne? You know there were only three of them struck."* And so current has been this belief, that, probably, no practical Error has occasioned more mischief and mortification to those who have been misled by it, than that which we are about to elucidate. This task has often been attempted, but has never been so satisfactorily performed as by our friend Mr. William Till, the respectable medallist, in complete an explanation of the Error as his extensive London; who, at our request, in the year 1835, drew up as coin-dealing, enabled him to accomplish. acquaintance with numismatics, and his long experience in Mr. Till observes: "it will scarcely be believed, that per sons from almost all parts of England have travelled to the metropolis, on the qui vive to make, as they supposed, their fortunes, with a Farthing, or a presumed Farthing of Anne. in their possession; and which, on being taken to the British Museum, has been found to be almost or entirely worthless.† From York, and even from Ireland, persons have come: a *If you answer in the affirmative, he is ready for you, armed at all points, with the old story: "Why, there never were but three: the Museum has two of them, and would give a large sum for the third!" In the Times, Sept. 26, 1826, a magistrate relates the circumstance of a poor man coming to London from Bedfordshire, with a real but common farthing of Queen Anne, in the hope of making his fortune by it. poor man from the former, and a man and his wife from the latter, place. Indeed, it is to be regretted, that these are not the only instances known by many. Most of our countrymen labour under the delusion, that Queen Anne struck only three Farthings: I beg leave most unequivocally, and with deference, to assure them, that Farthings of her were struck to the number of some hundreds.* To trace, with any degree of certainty, this fable to its original source, would be extremely difficult; but from information obtained from our chief medallist, it appears that some years since, a lady in Yorkshire having, by accident, lost a Farthing of Anne, which, from some circumstance or other, was rendered valuable to her, she offered a reward for the same, thereby stamping a fallacious and ridiculous value on it. Others, on the contrary, believe that only three were struck, and that the die broke on striking the third.t "In the British Museum," continues Mr. Till, "are six distinct varieties of the Farthings of Queen Anne: indeed, there may be said to be seven; but one sort alone really circulated, and this is the variety on which we see the figure of Britannia on the reverse, and below it, in the exergue, the date 1714, (No. 6.) I count in my own cabinet, from fifteen to twenty of them. "The other six varieties are what are termed pattern pieces, struck for approval, but from which no copies for circulation have been taken. The portraits on the obverses are much the same; the busts ornamented with drapery, and the head adorned with a string of pearls. The reverses, except in one instance, differ from the common Farthing which circulated; and, on the pattern, in which no difference exists, we find, instead of Anna Dei Gratia,' the legend Anna Regina,' surrounding the queen's bust. This pattern is rare." The value of these Farthings varies from £1. to £3.; but the scarcest has brought upwards of £5. at a public auction. It is, however, only important here to specify the value of the common and real Farthing of Anne, which was current generally, and which is stated by Mr. Till to bring from 78. to 128., and if extremely fine in preservation, may be worth a guinea. Some are found with a broad rim, and are considered more scarce than the others. I speak of these coins as being in copper." Dr. Dibdin states the value of this Farthing to be under 5s. Mr. J. Y. Akerman, a numismatist, recognises "the common current Farthing of Anne" as scarce, but scarcer with the broad rim.t Mr. Till states, that there must have been from 300 to 500 of the farthings issued, as they are, by no means, rare; and he has seen no less than 38 of them at one time. In the Observer newspaper, date 1837, it is stated: "we have heard from good authority, that the keepers of the British Museum are continually pestered with letters and applications upon this subject; and it is not very long since a noble Earl addressed a letter to the trustees, or some of the officers, for information, in consequence of one of his lordship's tenants having discovered what he thought was "a Queen Anne's Farthing." "It may be in the recollection of some of our readers, that the famous Mr. Christie, the auctioneer, sold one of these spurious coins for several hundred pounds." The Rev. Dr. Dibdin (in his Northern Tour, p. 733) relates : "One of them, of 1713, was shown to me by a father, who said he should leave it to his son, as a £500. legacy." "Having described the real and pattern Farthings of Queen Anne, (adds Mr. Till,) it may be desirable to mention a lot of trumpery tokens of brass, which have caused much trouble to the possessors, as well as annoyance to others, par| ticularly to the officers attached to the medal-rooms of the British Museum. "These tokens of brass are thinner than the real copper Farthings of Anne. On the head side, they present you with an execrable bust of the queen, with a long, scraggy neck, unlike that of this sovereign, with the legend Anna Dei Gratia.' On the reverse, the royal arms in the shape of a cross, (roses are sometimes seen between the quarterings :) indeed, very similar to the shilling of Anne before the Union: their date, generally, 1711. These worthless counters have caused an immense deal of trouble: the lower classes becoming possessed of them, and starting off (as before stated) for London, to make their fortunes. They would not be worth noticing here, were it not to publish them as pieces of no value whatever."-Popular Errors, Part III. LIVING IN ANCIENT TIMES. WE have reached, in this age, so high a pitch of luxury, that we can hardly believe, or comprehend, the frugality of Ancient Times; and have, in general, formed mistaken notions as to the habits of expenditure which then prevailed. Accustomed to judge of feudal and chivalrous ages by works of fiction, or by historians who embellished their writings with accounts of occasional festivals and tournaments, and were sometimes inattentive enough to transfer the manners of the seventeenth to the fourteenth century, we are not at all aware of the usual simplicity with which the gentry lived under Edward I., or even Henry VI. They drank little wine, they had no foreign luxuries; they rarely or never kept male servants, except for husbandry; their horses, as we may guess by the price, were indifferent; they seldom travelled beyond their county. And even then hospitality must have been greatly limited, if the value of manors were really no greater than we find it in many surveys. Twenty-four seems a sufficient multiple when we would raise a sum mentioned by a writer under Edward I. to the same real value expressed in our present money; but an income of £10 or £20 was inspection, and she was to select one out of the three. This was accordingly done; but before the queen had signified her approbation of either, she expired; and, of course, there was no issue of a further coinage in her reign. The dies became useless; but it is probable that before they were destroyed, many other impressions were taken from them, and given away as curiosities. Hence it is easy to account for the number of Queen Anne's Farthings which have, from time to time, been brought to light; but it is obviously a mistake so to call them, because they never could become the coin of the realm without the sovereign's sanction; and no such proclamation is on record." Unfortunately for this explanation, the specimen with the date 1714, the year of Anne's death, is by no means rare. Dr. Dibdin states, that "Anne was always averse to a copper coinage, though much wanted. Croker exerted his abilities in engraving the dies, hoping their elegance and beauty would merit her attention; but it was to no purpose; the queen could not be brought to hear of a copper coinage; and the nominal Queen Anne's Farthings are these trial pieces."-Northern Tour, page 733. For further details, see the Mirror, No. 722. Mr. Till has reprinted his communication, with additions and corrections, in his ingenious little Essay on the Roman Denarius and English Silver Penny, 1837. + The British Press newspaper of the 14th of February, 1814, and the Numismatic Journal, April 1837, contain the report of a very curious trial which took place at Dublin, relating to one of these pieces. In the Observer, just quoted, the writer, in an attempted explanation of the Error, states: "What will the reader think when he is informed that there is not, nor ever was, a single Queen Anne's Farthing in A publican once procured one of these counters, which existence! yet such is the truth. The following particulars he placed in his window, as the real Farthing of Queen Anne. are derived from a source on which the most confident Credulous persons came far and near to view this "great reliance may be placed, and they will abundantly clear up curiosity," and the landlord turned his deception to good the whole mystery. Some time before the death of Queen account; for deception it was, as one of the first medallists of Anne, it was her intention to issue a coinage of Farthings, the age appointed a meeting with this man, and exhibiting a and she gave directions to that effect. Those directions more real, but common Farthing of Anne, attempted to convince particularly were, that three dies of different patterns should him of his Error, but the hoax was too profitable to be relinbe sunk, and a specimen of each struck off for the Queen'squished. reckoned a competent estate for a gentleman; at least, the lord of a single manor would seldom have enjoyed more. A knight who possessed £150 per annum, passed for extremely rich. Yet this was not equal in command over commodities to £4000 at present. But this income was comparatively free from taxation, and its expenditure lightened by the ser. vices of his villeins. Such a person, however, must have been among the most opulent of the country gentlemen. Sir John Fortescue speaks of five pounds a-year as a fair living for a yeoman." So when Sir William Drury, one of the richest men in Suffolk, bequeaths, in 1493, fifty marks to each of his daughters, we must not imagine that this was of greater value than four or five hundred pounds of this day; but remark the family pride, and want of ready money, which induced country gentlemen to leave their younger children in poverty. Or, if we read that the expense of a scholar at the university, in 1514, was but five pounds annually, we should err in supposing that he had the liberal accommodation which the present age deems indispensable; but consider how much could be afforded for about sixty pounds, which would be not far from the proportion. And what would a modern lawyer say to the following entry in the churchwardens' accounts of St. Margaret, Westminster, for 1476: "Also paid to Roger Tylpott, learned in the law, for his counsel-giving, 3s. 8d. with fourpence for his dinner." Though fifteen times the fee might not seem altogether inadequate at present, five shillings would hardly furnish the table of a barrister, even if the fastidiousness of our manners would admit of his accepting such a dole. It is the vulgar idea that Queen Elizabeth's maids of honour breakfasted on beef-steaks and ale, and that wine was such a rarity as to be sold only by apothecaries as a cordial. The science of good living was as well understood in those days as it is now, though the fashion might be somewhat different the nobility had French cooks; and among the dishes enumerated, we find "not only beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, rabbit, capon, pig;" but also red, or fallow deer, and a great variety of fish and wild fowl, with pastry and creams, Italian confections, and preserved fruits, and sweetmeats from Portugal; nay, we are even told of cherries served up at twenty shillings a pound. The variety of wines can hardly be exceeded at present: for a writer of Elizabeth's time mentions fifty-six different kinds of French wine, and thirty-six Spanish and Italian wine, imported into England. "THE ROAST BEEF OF OLD ENGLAND." In the Notes to Hume's History of England, vol. i., SS, are some extracts from the Household Book of the establishment of the fifth earl of Northumberland, begun in 1512; and no baron's family lived on a more splendid scale. Yet they lived mostly upon salted meat. Thus: "Six hundred and forty-seven sheep are allowed, at twenty pence apiece; and these seem to be all cat salted, except between Lammas and Michaelmas, p. 5. Only twenty five hogs are allowed, at two shillings apiece; twenty-eight veals at twenty-pence; forty lambs at tenpence or a shilling, p. 7. These seem to be reserved for my lord's table, or that of the upper servants, called the knights' table. The other servants, as they ate salted meat almost throughout the whole year, and with few or no vegetables, had a very bad and unhealthy diet: so that Macpherson, Annals, p. 424. from Matt. Paris. + Difference of Limited and Absolute Monarchy, p. 133. Hist. of Hawsted, p. 141. § Nichols's Illustrations, p. 2. One fact of this class did, I wn, stagger me. The great Earl of Warwick writes to a private gentleman, Sir Thomas Tuddenham, begging the loan of twenty pounds, to make up a sum he had to pay. Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 84. What way shall we make this commensurate to the present value of money? But an ingenious friend suggested, what I do not question is the case, that this was one of many letters addressed to the adherents of Warwick, in order to raise, by their contributions, a considerable sum. It is curious, in this light, as an illustration of man ners. Hallam, Hist. Mid. Ages, vol. iii. pp. 451–453. there cannot be anything more erroneous than the magnifi cent ideas formed of the Roast Beef of Old England." Probably, this national dish is not older than the time of Charles II., when a roast chine of beef was a favourite supper viand; although this inference is from better authority than the anecdote of Charles knighting a loin of beef (Sir-loin), upon an oak table lately shown at Friday Hill House, Chingford, Essex.-Popular Errors, Part III. Varieties. The Ladies of Bogata wear neither shoes nor stockings; their feet are quite bare, and particularly well washed and clean. They are said to dislike shoeing, as much as a horse which has run wild till he is five or six years old. Emeralds.-The curé of Moufra, where the finest emeralds in the world are found, has a waistcoat with small emerald buttons, the greater part of which have been found in the crops of fowls and turkeys, picked up by them in their rambles, to digest their food. Among the crown jewels of Spain, is an emerald so large as to be used for a paper-weight. The Author of Waverley.-Mrs. Murray Keith, a venerable Scotch lady, from whom Sir Walter Scott derived many of the traditionary stories and anecdotes wrought up in his admir. able fictions, taxed him one day with the authorship, which he, as usual, stoutly denied. "What!" exclaimed the old lady, "d'ye think I dinna ken my ain groats among other folk's kail?" Union of Literary Compositions. At a large literary party in Edinburgh, a short time ago, in the course of conversation it was mentioned that a certain well-known literary character had written two poems, one called "The Pebble," the other "The Ocean;" that he was offering them to the booksellers, who, however, would not accede to his terms of publication, and that the worthy author was therefore puzzled not a little as to what he should do with his productions. "Why," remarked a sarcastic gentleman who was present, "I think the doctor could not do better than throw the one into the other." How to mount a Horse.-In Peru, a knot is tied in the horse's tail, into which the lady introduces her foot, as into a stirrup. Do you smoke, sir?" Do you smoke, sir?" said a London sharper to a country gentleman, whom he met with in a coffee-house, and with whom he wished to scrape an acquaintance. "Yes," said the other, with a cool, steady eye," any one who has a design upon me." Double Letters.-A pretty little maid of Erin presented herself at the post office the other day, and handing in a letter, modestly asked how much was to pay, as she said the letter was to her mother, and she wished to pay in advance. The clerk, on receiving it asked the usual question, "single or double?" When she replied with the most bewitching naïveté, at the same time blushing up to the eyes, “ Double, sir! I was married last week." Hang Together.-Richard Penn, one of the proprietors, and of all the governors of Pensylvania, probably the most deservedly popular, in the commencement of the revolution, (his brother John being at that time governor,) was on the most familiar and intimate terms with a number of the most decided and influential Whigs: and, on a certain occasion, being in company with several of them, a member of Congress observed that such was the crisis, "they must all hang together." "If you do not, gentlemen,” said Mr. Penn, “ I can tell you that you will be very apt to hang separately." Receipt for the Ladies.-Cream may be frozen by simply putting it into a glass vessel, and then placing the whole in an old bachelor's bosom. London: Published for the Proprietors, by W. BRITTAIN, Paternoster Row. Edinburgh: JOHN MENZIES. Glasgow: D. BRYCE. Printed by J. Rider, 14, Bartholomew Close. = |