was best. Success depended on catching the ball dexterously, when dealt, and conveying it away, through all the opposition of the adverse party; or, if that was impossible, to throw it into the hands of a partner, who, in his turn, was to exert his utmost efforts to convey it to his own goal, which was often three or four miles distant from that of his adversaries. The number of players was indeterminate, but generally from forty to sixty on a side.

MUCK, OR RUNNING A MUCK,

Is a practice that has prevailed time immemorial. in Batavia. To run a muck, in the original sense of the word, is to get intoxicated with opium, and then rush into the street with a drawn weapon, and kill any one that comes in the way, till the party is himself either killed or taken prisoner. If the officer takes one of these amocks or mohawks (as they have been called by an easy corruption) alive, he has a considerable reward; and the un happy wretches are always broken alive on the wheel: but such is the fury of their desperation, that three out of four are necessarily destroyed in attempting to secure them.

From this horrid custom, most probably origi

L

nated the common vulgar expression of muck sweat, applied to persons when in a great heat of body, occasioned by exercise, &c.

THE ORIGIN OF THE LYRE.

The Hermes, or Mercury, of the Egyptians, sirnamed Trismegistus, or thrice illustrious, who was, according to Sir Isaac Newton, the secretary of Osiris, is celebrated as the inventor of music.

The account given by Apollodorus of the manner in which he accidentally invented the lyre, is at once entertaining and probable. "The Nile (says Apollodorus), after having overflowed the whole country of Egypt, when it returned within its natural bounds, left on the shore a great number of dead animals of various kinds, and, among the rest, a tortoise; the flesh of which be. ing dried and wasted by the sun, nothing remained within the shell but nerves and cartilages, and these, being braced and contracted by the drying heat, became sonorous. Mercury, walking along the banks of the Nile, happened to strike his foot against this shell; and was so pleased with the sound produced, that the idea of a lyre started into his imagination. He constructed the instru ment in the form of a tortoise, and strung it with dried sinews of dead animals."

How beautiful to conceive the energetic powers of the human mind in the early ages of the world, exploring the yet undiscovered capabilities of Nature, and directed to the inexhaustible store, by the finger of God, in the form of accident!

PALM-BRANCHES, ANCIENT CUSTOM OF

WEARING.

The palm-branch, or palm-tree, was anciently used as an emblem of victory, being carried be. fore the conqueror in processions and rejoicings for having overthrown the enemy. It was also presented to the kings of Syria as a token of submission, or a kind of present, or token. This tree was very common about Jericho; from one common root it produces a great many suckers, which, by their spreading, form a small forest upwards, to which the prophet alludes, when he says, "The righteous shall flourish like a palmtree." It produces its leaves like hair upon the top of its trunk: there are two sorts, the male and female; the male renders the others fruitful by means of a flower which is inclosed in its fruit: the leaves turn round like curls in hair, and their extremities hang down towards the ground.

BIDEFORD, IN DEVONSHIRE, ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD.

Though no mention of Bideford appears in any known record previous to the Conquest, the etymology of its name is a proof that it existed in Saxon times. Bi, signifying situated, and ford, are Saxon words, and evidently the derivatives of By-the-ford, By-de-ford, and Bideford, in all which ways the name of the town has been written. This etymology is the more certain, as there is now a fording place a little above the bridge, and which, in former times, was the common passage for travellers.

The bridge at Bideford was constructed about the middle of the fourteenth century, and is the largest in Devonshire. It is built with stone, and consists of twenty-four irregular arches, all which are said to have been originally pointed; but, from the repairs made at different periods, several of them are now circular. Its extreme length is 677 feet; the base of each pier is defended from the violence of the floods, and other accidents, by a quantity of loose stones confined by stakes. The principal contributor towards the expenses of its erection, was Sir Theobald Grenville, Knt. but the structure was much forwarded through the conduct of the bishop of the diocese,

who granted indulgences to those who gave money to aid the work.

The history of the foundation of this bridge is thus related in Prince's Worthies." At first, the town of Bytheford had no other passage over the river there but by boats, the breadth and roughness whereof, upon times, was such as did often put people in jeopardy of their lives; and some were drowned, to the great grief of the inha bitants. To prevent which great inconveniences, some did at divers times, and in sundry places, begin to build a bridge; but no firm foundation after often proof being to be found, their attempt in that kind came to no effect. At this time Sir Richard Gornard, or Gurney, was parish priest of the place, who, as the story of that town hath it, was admonished by a vision in his sleep, to set on the foundation of a bridge near a rock, which he should find rolled from the higher grounds upon the strand. This at first he esteemed as a dream; yet, to second the same with. some act, in the morning he went to see the place, and found a huge rock there fixed, whose greatness argued its being in that place to be only the work of God; which not only bred admiration, but incited him to set forwards so charitable a work. Upon this encouragement, he eftsoons