the lower end of the table," decline taking snuff altogether! Recollect that our blood and misery flow copiously to supply your senses with that slight gratification. It may be truly said, that our blood forms the stream that bears tobacco to the white man's home. Abjure the practice, and spare our groans." I now felt my sleeve pulled, and, turning round, saw Addison, who told me, that Will. Honeycomb had just brought him some snuff of a delicious flavour, and invited me to partake of it; when "What are you doing there, with all the snuff-boxes before you?" said one of my companions in a very loud tone. The noise seemed to scare all the figures back to their lids; for, in a moment, they resumed their former stations. News of Literature. ANECDOTE OF MATHEWS. At the Garrick Club one night, Mr. Henry Johnstone was called out of the room to a gentleman; in a few minutes we heard a great noise and bustle, and Johnstone, in a loud tone, say, "Sir, you cannot go into the room where the club is: none but members are on any account admitted." "Talk not to me of your rules," said the stranger: " I insist upon being admitted;" and after a long controversy of "I will go," and "you sha'n't go," the door was burst open, and both contending parties came tumbling in together. The stranger placed himself next to me, and I thought him the ugliest and most impudent fellow I ever met with. He went on with a rhapsody of nonsense, of his admiration of our society, filled himself a glass of wine, and drank to our better acquaintance. Moody, with great solemnity, requested the intruder to withdraw, for no one could have a seat at that table who was not a member. The stranger replied, "I don't care for your rules; talk not to me of your regulations; I will not stir an inch." "Then," cried the infuriated Moody, "old as I am, I will turn you out." Moody jumped up and throttled the stranger, who defended himself manfully; all was confusion, and poor Moody was getting black in the face, when the stranger threw off his wig, spectacles, and false nose, and before us stood Mathews himself in propria persona. So well did he counterfeit his assumed character, that, except Henry Johnstone, who was his accomplice in the plot, not one amongst us suspected him. The part was admirably managed by Mathews, who had taken an opportunity of leaving the room, to prepare himself for his disguise, while a song was going on which engrossed the attention of the company. DR. SOUTH. Dr. South, whilst he held the living of Caversham, was called out of bed, one cold winter's morning, by his clerk, to marry a couple, who were then waiting for him. The doctor hurried up, and went shivering to the church, where, seeing nobody but an old man of 70, a woman about the same age, and his clerk, he asked, in a pet, where the bridegroom and bride were, and what that man and that woman did there? The old man replied, they came there to be married. The doctor, looking sternly at him, married!-Yes, married, said the old man, hastily; better marry than do worse. -Go, get you gone, you silly old fools, said the doctor, get home and do your worst; and immediately hobbled out of the church in a passion, after remonstrating with his clerk, for calling him out of bed on such a sleeveless errand. ORIGIN OF GUILDS IN ENGLAND. (From Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, 1656). The next thing I am to take notice of is the Guilds, or fraternities. Gild proceedeth from the Saxon word geld and gild, which signifieth money; because that such, as were either for charity, religion or merchandize sake associate, did cast their moneys, goods, yea and sometimes lands together, for the publique support of their own common charge. These had their annual feasts and neighbourlike meetings: which custom, as Sir H. Spelman observes, was more anciently used by the Franks, Longobards, and other nations; and is still continued by the Germans, who call the frequently yearly banquets of the country people, made at their common charge, Gilden. As to the direct time when these had first a beginning in England, there is nothing of certainty to be found, forasmuch as they were in use long before any formal licences were granted them for such meetings, or for conferring grants of lands or rent towards the support of their publique expenses in what sort so ever. VALUE OF MONEY IN ANCIENT TIMES. About the year 900, king Alfred left to each of his daughters 100l. in money. In 1221, Joan, eldest daughter to king John, upon her marriage with Alexander, king of Scotland, had a dowry of 1000l. In 1278, Edward I. gave with his daughter Joan, contracted to the son of the king of the Romans, 10,000 marks sterling, and this to be returned in case the prince died before her. In 1314, Elizabeth, wife of Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, being imprisoned in England, was allowed, for herself and family, 208. a week. In 1330, Joan of Oxford, nurse to the Black Prince, had a pension of 10l. per annum; and Maud Plumpton, a rocker, had ten marks. In 1351, workmen were to take their wages in wheat, at 10d. the bushel; a master carpenter, mason, or tyler, was to be allowed at the rate of 3d. a day; their journeymen 2d., and boys 14d. In 1402, the salary of the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench was 40l. a year; in 1408, the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas had 54 marks per ann. 1545, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench had an addition of 30l. made to his salary, and the Justices of 20l. DRAMATIC SKETCH. In A long lean man, with all his limbs rambling-no way to reduce him to compass, unless you could double him like a pocket rulewith his arms spread, he'd lie on the bed of Ware like a cross on a Good Friday bun--standing still he is a pilaster without a base--he appears rolled out or run up against a wall-so thin, that his front face is but the moiety of a profile-if he stands cross-legged, he looks like a caduceus, and put him in a fencing attitude, you would take him for a piece of chevaux-de-frise-to make any use of him, it must be as a spontoon or a fishing-rod-when his wife's by, he follows like a note of admiration-see them together, one's a mast, and the other all hulk-she's a dome, and he's built like a glass-house-when they part, you wonder to see the steeple separate from the chancel, and were they to embrace, he must hang round her neck like a skein of thread on a lace-maker's bolster-- to sing her praise, you should choose a rondeau; and to celebrate him you must write all Alexandrines.-Sheridan. Or, ADVENTURES OF FARMER JOLTER AND HIS Cow. A TRUE STORY. * GILES JOLTER went, as village gossips tell, And as he quaff'd his nut-brown ale, } While he his joke enjoy'd and swigg'd his "nappy," The cow might there be bought By one of those good souls who make polonies, So the old cow was pass'd unheeded by, Until a cow-regenerator 'spied her, (A very skilful man in his profession) Of all her former smooth and sleeky looks,- You'll pay if I succeed- won't."-" Agreed, Agreed," replied the man,-" no cure, no pay." The doctor straight commenc'd his operation: To effect the much-desir'd renovation ; In faith, the job was done to admiration; So that the crown Was soon put down, With mutual thanks and real gratulation. • Those persons who read the Newspapers (and who does not?) cannot fail to recognize this "true story" as the mere poetical version of a fact which occurred at the Mansion House, and was related in the police reports. The owner view'd his cow with great delight; A salesman then he hir'd without delay, Fifteen pound ten's the lowest," said the man; Return'd to town, and gave to his employer As in the sequel we are bound to state To say what happen'd to the cow: The liquid would not come at her command; He'd better kept the one with which he'd parted, For summut is the matter." She went the doctor quickly came-when, lo! His horse-laugh rent the air- Why, 'tis the old one, farmer! you have dock'd her! You couldn't think, by trimming the old cow, And paring down her horns, it would produce A good supply of milk!-I wonder how You ever thought on't."-" Thought on't!-What I? the deuce! "I've sold the old 'un, doctor:-this an't that- "Oh, oh!" said Master Leech, "I smell a rat! The worthy magistrate could scarce refrain But in a sort of sympathising strain His lordship told the luckless wight CALCULATING CHILD. Whatever Locke may have written to prove that we are not born with ideas, the fact that some are naturally more quick of apprehension than others cannot be disputed; and the following instance, among many others of the same kind, goes very far to establish the notion of innate tenderness and capabilities of intellect: Vincent Zuccaro, a child of extraordinary arithmetical genius in Sicily, solved and explained the problem given below within a few moments after it had been proposed : Of three successive attacks made by a body of men, in the first attack the fourth part perished, in the second the fifth part, and in the third the sixth part. The assailants were then reduced 'But He thus furnishes a developement of what might otherwise be erroneously considered a confutation of Locke's doctrines on a miraculous extent of faculty. |