these things were avoided, but we would begin the prevention of supply with the luxuries of the rich, and not with the necessaries of the poor.

In treating on the evil example of the rich, our monitor is mild and considerate. On publicity he throws the main blame. The abomination of offence is not in the deed it self but in the light that exhibits it-" noctem peccatis"-concealment makes decorum. It is ill to give Sunday dinner-parties, conversaziones, and concerts, because they are made known through the wicked newspapers which delight in publishing the errors of the great, while they leave their pious actions unnoticed. The poor, then, reading of these practices, conceive an opinion that they may dine, sing, and talk together on Sunday evenings, and by such acts bring into jeopardy the class which has the fairest prospect of heaven. It seems to us clear that, according to the medical expression, the rich are given up by the bishop. He views them as incapable caanels, and fixes all his concern on the poor, who are in danger from the examples of the lost wealthy. Yet, in one place, our worthy bishop reprehends the omission of grace before meat at good tables, but probably he has here example only in view.

We deem it most desirable to preserve the Sunday as free from labour as the necessities of our social state will allow. It is a duty of humanity to the poor and industrious, to prevent toil or the avocations of business on the Sunday. With this object in view, we should be glad to see the closing of the shops rigorously compelled, but they should all be closed. We would not put the law on the green-grocers' and grant indulgence to the fruiterer; we would not tolerate the fishmonger and poulterer and interdict the butcher. Were shops closed by authority on Sunday, the present excuse for opening those which supply the poor would cease to exist. Masters would be compelled to pay the workmen earlier on the Saturday, if it were certain that the poor people could not procure the necessaries of life on the Sunday. At present the opening of one shop on Sunday, leads to the opening of others in the same trade and neighbourhood. The more scrupulous dealer will not suffer his neighbour to carry off the monopoly in forbidden employment, and he is, for self-protection, forced into the same system. Against any exercise of industry which may be avoided on Sunday there are urgent objections. Against any innocent recreation there are none. We join with the bishop in aversion to the spectacles of intoxication, but delight in seeing the people pouring out to taste the freshness of a purer air, and the cheerfulness of scenes of harmless enjoyment. These things neither can

nor should be prevented, and the attempt to check them would only lead to a greater amount of mischief. They who work six days will have their recreations on the seventh, and if they do not find them in exercises and amusements they will seek them in gaming or liquor. In restraining labour on the Sabbath, some regard must be had to circumstance, and nothing can be more stupid than the disposition to prohibit baking, by which the industry of two or three people in a district discharges hundreds from employment. In the House of Commons this proposal lately found considerable favour.t

The impolicy of the proposal is obvious, but how odious is the hypocrisy which assumed the show of piety in its support. The Pharisees, who are so scandalized at the idea of the employment of bakers on Sunday, see no evil whatever in the occupation of their own cooks. There is as yet no evidence that cooks have not souls requiring as much care and consideration as the souls of bakers, and before a bill is introduced, prohibiting baking on Sunday, we hope to see a measure proposed, forbidding the employment of cooks in roasting, basting, broiling, frying, stewing, &c. under heavy pains and penalties on the owner of the offending kitchen. Until those who dine well six days forego hot meat on the seventh, from regard to culinary devotion, it were enormous to perplex the dinners of those who dine well only one day in the week.

+ Mr. Hobhouse presented a petition, signed by seven or eight thousand of the journeyman bakers of villages within ten miles of the Royal Exchange, London, Westminster, Southwark, and the towns and praying that the law which now permitted dinners to be baked within certain hours on a Sunday, might be altered; for that, as it now stood, the petitioners were unable to observe the Sabbath with that degree of strictness, which, as Christians, they desired. Sir T. Baring, Mr. Alderman Thompson, and Mr. Alderman Wood, gave their support to the petition. Mr. Slaney wished to ask the honourable members who were pressing these petitions on the house, whether the measure they proposed, of absolutely preventing bakers from baking dinners on a Sunday, would not be more injurious to those who were, by the present custom, enabled to send their humble provisions to be baked on Sundays, than it could be beneficial to the bakers [hear, hear !]. Not only would these poor people be put to much inconvenience, but they would, by being obliged to stay at home to cook their own dinners, be prevented from going to church, as they were now accustomed to do. So that, even if the measure now proposed was meant in favour of religion, it was one of the most shorthear!]. It reminded him of an attempt, made in sighted measures that could have been imagined a similar spirit, to prevent the barbers from shaving on a Sunday morning, by which, if successful, the advantage of hundreds would have been sacrificed for the ease of one [hear, hear!]

LADY HAMILTON AND LORD

NELSON.+

SHORTLY after our arrival at Palermo we

dined with our ambassador. In the evening a stranger was announced as having arrived, bearing a despatch from the Emperor Paul of Russia; the messenger was a Turk. Lady Hamilton, with her usual tact, recommended Lord Nelson, for whom the despatch was destined, to clothe himself in his pelisse and aigrette to receive the Turk; this was done in a moment. The party moved to a salle de réception. The folding-doors were thrown open, and the Mussulman entered. The moment he caught a glance of his lordship's costume, the slave was prostrate on the earth, making the grand salaam. This was the scene her ladyship had anticipated, and it was got up with stage effect. The credentials being delivered were found to contain an autograph letter from Paul, complimenting the hero on the glories he had achieved; and in testimony of his majesty's regard, the Emperor of all the Russias desired his acceptance of a gold snuff-box, on which was the imperial portrait. The letter (in French) was led to the assembly, and the present exhibited. It was superb, of chaste [chased] gold; the portrait was set with large brilliants, a gift worthy of an emperor.

The only memorable event which occurred at the minister's entertainment, was this warrior getting drunk with rum, which does not come under the prohibition of the prophet. The monster, who had the post of honour at her ladyship's side, entertained her through the interpretation of the Greek with an account of his exploits; among others, that of his having lately fallen in with a French transport, conveying invalids and wounded soldiers from Egypt, whom he had brought on board his frigate; but provisions and water having run short, he found it necessary to get rid of his prisoners, and amused himself by putting them to death. "With this weapon," said he, in his vile jargon, and drawing his shabola, "I cut off the heads of twenty French prisoners in one day! Look, there is the blood remaining on it!" The speech being translated, her ladyship's eye beamed with delight, and she said, "Oh let me see the sword that did the glorious deed!" It was presented to her she took it into her fair hand covered with rings, and looking at the encrusted Jacobin's blood, kissed it and handed it to the hero of the Nile! Had I not been an eye-witness to this disgraceful act, I would not have ventured to relate it. Mrs. C-s L-e, the beautiful and amiable wife of our consul

+ From Pryse Lockhart Gordon's Memoirs, &c. -London, 1830.

general, was sitting vis-à-vis to the Turk, and was so horrified at the scene (being near her accouchement), that she fainted, and was taken out of the room. Her ladyship said it was a piece of affectation, and made no efforts to assist her guest; the truth is, she was jealous of her beauty, and insinuated that being a sister of the late Lord E. F., she must, necessarily, be a Jacobin.-N. B. She wore green ribands. The toad-eaters applauded, but many groaned, and cried "shame" loud enough to reach the ears of the admiral, who turned pale, hung his head, and seemed ashamed. Lord M. got up and left the room, and I speedily followed. Poor Nelson: was to be pitied-never was man so mystified and deluded!

VARIETIES.

With

Preservation of Champagne Bottles.-The average loss by the bursting of Champagne bottles is from ten to twenty per cent. With a view to prevent such loss, by discovering means of ascertaining the best form and requisite thickness of bottles, M. Collardeau contrived a machine, which he presented to the Academie des Sciences, for trying the strength of bottles by an arrangement similar to Bramah's hydraulic press. this apparatus he found that the bottles in common use burst with a pressure of from twelve to fifteen atmospheres-a surprising resistance, considering the brittleness of the material. It remains therefore to ascertain the utmost expansive force of the wine, and then, by experiment with M. Collardeau's apparatus, to direct the most advantageous form and necessary thickness of the glass to withstand such pressure.

Camels. In countries where camels are

The

bred in great numbers, land carriage is almost as cheap as that by water. carriage of a camel load of goods, weighing from six to seven hundred pounds, from Bagdad to Aleppo, a distance of six hundred miles, is 47.

King William IV.-King William is (though the fourth King William of England), the first English king of his name. William I. and II. being Normans, and William III. a Dutchman.-His present majesty is at one and the same time King William I. II. III. and IV.! The following explanation will reconcile this apparent contradiction:-As King of Hanover he is William 1.; that country giving only the title of elector to its rulers previous to George III. As King of Ireland William II.; that kingdom was not added to the British crown, until the reign of Henry II., and there were no native

kings of that name. As King of Scotland William III; the only monarch of that name previous to James I. (who united the two kingdoms) being the celebrated William the Lion. And, as King of England, William IV. -Court Journal.

Anecdote of Mr. John Clerk.-Mr. John Clerk, the celebrated Scotch advocate, in pleading before the House of Lords one day, happened to say, in his broad accent, " In plain English, ma Lords." Upon which Lord Eldon jocosely remarked, "In plain Scotch you mean, Mr. Clerk." The prompt advocate instantly rejoined, "Nae matter! In plain common sense, ma lord, and that's the same in a' languages, ye ken." His client lost nothing by the turn.-Spirit of Literature.

Supply of Water in Paris. It has been already stated, that the French government have given permission to a public company to make arrangements for the supply of water in Paris in the same way as in London. This will be one of the greatest improvements of the French capital during the present century; for by the usual mode of supply, which is by water-carriers, the quantity of water furnished per head is only twenty-three quarts; whereas in London it is eighty, at Edinburgh sixty-one, at Manchester forty-four, and at Glasgow one hundred. Liverpool, however, seems to be almost as badly off as Paris; for the supply there is said to be only twenty-eight quarts per head. It is to this deficiency of water, and to the expense of the supply, perhaps, that we are to attribute the comparatively filthy state of Paris-a clean staircase is unknown, the yards are rarely washed, and the windows are generally dirty. It is proposed to have the water supplied by steam-engines from the Seine above La Bièvre, and not from a canal, as was intended by Napoleon, as it is found that the Seine La Bièvre is purer than all others.-Literary Gazette.

Roquefort Cheese. At the Paris Academy of Sciences, a curious paper was read by M. Giron de Buzaraingue, on the manufacture of the celebrated cheese called fromage de Roquefort, which is made from the milk of ewes. The excellence of this cheese is stated to proceed from the peculiar construction of the caves, by which a perpetual freshness of temperature is maintained. It is also stated, that when the sheep have been milked in the regular way, the teat is struck with force, by which means a much larger quantity of milk is obtained; whilst, contrary to what might be imagined, no injury is done to the animal.—Ibid.

Blackguard. The term blackguard is said to be derived from a number of dirty, tattered, and roguish boys, who attended at the Horseguards and parade in St. James's Park, to black the boots and shoes of the soldiers, or to do any other dirty offices.

These, from their constant attendance about the time of guard mounting, were nicknamed the Black Guards.-Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

Thomas Parr-Harvey was employed, by the king's command, in the dissection of that extraordinary instance of longevity, Thomas Parr, who died November 14, 1635, at the age of one hundred and fifty-three. He was a poor countryman, who had been brought up from his native country, Shropshire, by Thomas, Earl of Arundel, and shown as a great curiosity at court. At the age of eighty-eight he had married his first wife; at one hundred and two he had done penance in church, for a breach of the laws provided against incontinency. When he was one hundred and twenty he married again, taking to wife a widow, with whom he is represented to have lived upon the most affectionate terms. At one hundred and thirty he had threshed corn, and done other agricultural work, by which he gained his livelihood. His usual habits of life had been most sparing; his diet consisting of coarse brown bread made of bran; of rancid cheese, and sour whey: but when, on his arrival in London, he became domesticated in the family of the Earl of Arundel, his mode of living was changed, he fed high, drank wine, and soon died. According to Harvey, who opened his body, his death was occasioned by a peripneumony, brought on by the impurity of a London atmosphere and the sudden alteration of his diet. There were adhesions of the lungs to the pleura on the right side; his heart was large, his intestines sound; but the cartilages of his ribs, instead of being ossified, as they generally are in elderly persons, were, on the contrary, soft and flexible in this man, who was more than a century and a half old. His brain was sound; he had been blind for twenty years before his death, but his hearing was distinct: his memory was very bad.-Family Library-Lives of British Physicians.

Prison Discipline at Amsterdam.-The principal prison in Amsterdam is the house of correction, called the Rasp House, because the chief employment of its inmates is the cutting and rasping of Brazil wood. In the yard of the prison is one cell, for the treatment of the incorrigibly idle. A stream of water constantly flows into it, which can only be discharged through a pump set up within. The only means, therefore, by which the inmate can avoid being overwhelmed by the ingress of the water, is by working incessantly at the pump; if he persist in his idleness, he is inevitable drowned. It is said it is now never used.— Lardner's Cyclopædia.

AN EXAMPLE FOR A NEW KING.

FRANCIS 1. OF AUSTRIA.

[The following particulars, from the "Court Journal," relative to the public receptions of the Emperor of Austria, cannot fail to be read with deep interest in a country like England, where the name of king is too much associated with notions of seclusion and impenetrability, so far as the general public are concerned. There are two other reigning sovereigns of Europe-the King of the Netherlands, and the King of Wirtemburg who give public audience, on one day in the week, to any of their subjects who may desire to confer with them, without any distinction whatever of rank or station :-]

THE Emperor, Francis I., is rigorous in his exaction of the rules of etiquette from his own courtiers; but for the people at large he lays aside all form, and is accessible to the meanest of his subjects in more ways than one. Any private person may obtain an audience from him, on writing beforehand to solicit one, and stating his object in requesting it; but, as we have before stated, he devotes one morning of every week to receive and listen to any and every one who may choose to present themselves before him. For this purpose a vast hall of the palace is appropriated, where no forms are required to be attended to on entering, nor any particular costume; even the peasant in his wooden shoes, the artisan in his jacket, and the workman in his leather apron, are equally admissible with the best dressed courtier of the day. On the morning of reception, as the persons who wish for an audience arrive, they are ranged in a circular form in the hall above mentioned, and wait the arrival of the emperor. He enters the hall in a plain dress, and attended by a single chamberlain, and proceeds round the circle slowly, addressing to each person, as he approaches them in turn, the words, "What is it you wish of me?"-or others to the same effect. Those who come to see the emperor, merely out of curiosity, reply to his majesty's question by a low bow, and even they are not looked upon as having intruded into the royal presence without cause. Those who have petitions to present advance and place them in his majesty's hand; and they are at liberty to make any remarks they please on the subject of their petitions-to which the emperor always listens attentively. It is in connexion with this class of applicants that the most interesting and affecting scenes often occur. Sometimes the impressive novelty of the position in which parties are placed, prevents them at first from being able to express their views or wishes intelligibly; in which case the emperor always addresses some encouraging words to them. Sometimes complaints are made of arbitrary VOL. V. Q

acts committed by the public authorities; these are always strictly inquired into, and if well-founded, are always redressed. Sometimes officers and other public functionaries present themselves to return thanks for favours conferred; at others, tradesmen or artisans offer some novel invention to the emperor's notice. Each is listened to in his turn, and each retires from the audience gratified with the reception he has met with. Some whose case may seem to require a lengthened attention are referred to a private audience; and even there the same absence of ceremony is observable. The name is inscribed on a list, and the party is conducted to an ante chamber, to wait till his turn for being admitted arrives. Through a door leading from this ante chamber, which is kept by one attendant only, those who are waiting may sometimes hear loud conversation going on; it is, perhaps, a subject discussing in a loud voice with his king, as he would with any private person, his equal, the merits of some invention, or the justice of some requisition which he is making. When your turn comes to enter this private chamber, you perceive that it is occupied by one person alone, who is standing, and whose dress is as simple as the furniture of the chamber itself: it is the emperor. On seeing him no one fears to approach and address him, for his countenance beams with benevolence. If the petitioner who presents himself is old and infirm, the emperor desires him to take a seat; if not, the party stands side by side with the emperor, or walks up and down the room with him, as if it were a client conversing with his counsel.

Such is the Emperor of Austria at his private and public audiences; at the prome nade of the Prater—the general rendezvous of the court and city-or when walking or riding in his own park; in which latter place, the troops of deer are so tame that they come at the call of the spectator; for neither there nor any where else in the imperial domains, does the emperor or any of his family bunt. Such is the sovereign, second only in the extent of his dominions to the great Autocrat of Russia himself-possessing, as he does, all the German states, Hungary, Bohemia, Galicia, Moravia, Transylvania, Silesia, the Barony of Temeswar, the Milanese, and all the Lombar and Venetian territories. May we not add, that it is deeply to be regretted that a people who are blessed with a king such as we have described, should not be governed by institutions of an answerable character.

WAGGERIES OF ABERDEEN.+

WITHIN the last twenty years, there have been three distinct histories of the city of Aberdeen, and one of them is both physically and metaphysically, a very ponderous tome -a fair load for a body of ordinary strength, and more than enough for most minds. The author of that book is one of the dons of the city; and if not the very brightest of wits in himself, has yet been made not a little conspicuous by those spirits, of whom there is a pretty regular succession in Aberdeen, and who carry their practical waggeries farther than would be either safe or seemly in most other places.

The personage in question is a very respectable member, I believe Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, that is of attorneys, practising before all the courts in the place; but he has some peculiarities. In matters of profane learning, he is a Binitarian; and the two idols of his adoration are blackletter and his own understanding, and the cause is probably the same as to both. The wags used to be aware of this amiable weakness, and play him tricks.

Once when the assize was at Aberdeen, Jeffrey, the late editor of the "Edinburgh Review," attended professionally. He and some of the Aberdonian wags, when taking their wine after the labours of the day, got a piece of old parchment, which they greased and smoked, to make it look still older; while it was hot, they scrawled it over with a burnt stick, in marks as little like any known characters as could be, and having dried and folded it, and rubbed the folds upon the hearth, till it was worn through in some places, they gave it another smoking, and wrapping it up with the greatest care, sent it to the blackletter-man, with a long eulogium on his powers, an intimation that it had foiled all the antiquaries in the south, and that he alone could prevent the precious relic from being lost to the world. As this came with the compliments of the editor of the "Edinburgh Review," an answer was immediately sent back, full of gratitude for the honour, and of assurances that that very night the labour of deciphering it should be begun. To work he set, and spent the whole night without being able to decipher one word; so he wrote in the morning, returning the relic, and adding, that though the interpretation was beyond his powers, it was invaluable-certainly of a date anterior to any of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The messenger carried it back to him, with a polite note, stating, that as he knew more about it than any one else, no one could be

+ Abridged from the New Monthly and London Magazine.-No. CXV.

so worthy of the possession-it was therefore his, to have and to hold in all time coming. Never was man more delighted: the donor, the gift, the circumstances under which he had possessed it-all were rather too much for mortal man. The house could not contain him, and he sallied out proclaiming his great fame and fortune. But though the propagation was speedy, and the congratulations warm, the period of both was brief; for his tormentors were on the watch, and followed him so closely, that before he had carried the tidings to the last friend, all the others were in possession of the real case.

The shore immediately to the south of Aberdeen is wild and precipitous, advantageous for fishing, and the high rocks thronged with sea-fowl, though the land is barren in the extreme. Shooting these fowl is an amusement with the Aberdonians, who, upon those occasions, usually have a fish dinner at the village of Skaterow, a place almost destitute of vegetation. Two of the wags, after a suitable eulogium on the sporting powers of the historian, prevailed on him to accompany them there. One rode a fine spirited horse, and the other went into a post-chaise with the historian, whose vanity he worked about the shooting, and also the figure that he would make on the horse, which the owner kept caracoling before the post-chaise. They reached the place, and with some difficulty got, at lowwater, to a spot where they said the sport would be most successful. To the historian it was remarkably so; for though he was so near-sighted that he could hardly have seen an elephant at the top of the rock, every time that he fired the birds fell around him like thunder, and splashed him with their fall; so that for one that the others got, he had at least fifty. The fact was, that they had employed two men for a week, and had at least a cart-load of dead birds on the top of the rock, of which a man threw down an armful every time that the historian fired. He was delighted, and kept firing away, hardly perceiving that the point on which he stood was completely surrounded, and beginning to be covered by the tide, and his associates were shouting from the beach that the horn had blown twice, and the dinner would be spoiled; at the same time, a big stone had been put into the boat, which had filled, and was under water. The historian now shouted for deliverance; and a stout fisherman and boy were instantly in the water. The latter took the fowlingpiece, and was soon on terra-firma, but the other had to hoist the sportsman on his shoulder. When they came to the deepest place, the fisherman roared that his leg had been bitten by a shark, plunged his charge into the water, completely to the bottom,