chamber, without having the least suspicion of the trick which his cousin Shandy had played upon him.

69.

BOILEAU used to say of La Fontaine, that he

had a good deal of wit, but of one sort only; and that his shrewd yet simple mode of expressing himself was not original, but borrowed from Marot and Rabelais, &c.; that a cautious use of his style was commendable, since Racine had employed it judiciously in some epigrams composed by him. "La Fontaine," added Boileau," in many passages surpasses his masters; and in his tales and odes he is incomparable: and even in places where modesty condemns the sentiments, impartial criticism must allow that his diction retains inimitable delicacy."

70.

DDISON lent Sir Richard Steele a few hun

A1

dreds. Perceiving that he was blazing away in careless profusion that led to ruin, he remonstrated upon the infatuation; and finding him incorrigible, and with a view to stop a career so dangerous, arrested Sir Richard. It answered the

end. The startling prospect of a prison, for he was wholly unable to discharge the demand, awakened him from his dream of dissipation; and Addison withdrew his claim, upon his friend lesşening the establishment of his household; and their amity, much to the honour of each, remained undissolved.

71.

A CERTAIN knight of Spain, as high in birth

as a king, as catholic as the Pope, and equal to Job in poverty, arriving one night at an inn in France, knocked a long time at the gate, till he had alarmed the landlord. "Who is there?" said the

host, looking out of the window. "Don Juan Pedro," replied the Spaniard, "Hernandez, Rodriguez de Villanova, Count of Malafra, Knight Santiago and Alcantara." "I am very sorry," replied the landlord, shutting the window, "but I have not rooms enough in my house for all those gentlemen you have mentioned."

72.

IT always appeared to me an absurd circumstance

that in the "Treatise on Divination," which consists of a dialogue between Cicero and his brother Quintus, the latter should repeat to Cicero the orator's own dream.-Carpenteriana.

ΟΝ

73.

N the 14th April 1801, the King handed over the Great Seal to Lord Eldon. "I do not know," he says, referring to this circumstance, "what made George III. so fond of me, but he was fond of me. When I went to him for the seals, he had his coat buttoned at the lower part, and, putting his right hand within, he drew them out from the left side, saying, 'I give them to you from my heart." "

74.

SWIFT,

WIFT, once stopping at an inn at Dundalk, sent for a barber to shave him; who performed his office very dexterously, and, being a prating fellow, amused the Dean during the operation with a variety of chat. The Dean inquired of him who was the minister of the parish, and whether he had one farthing to rub upon another? The barber answered, that though the benefice was but small, the incumbent was very rich. "How the plague can that be?” "Why, please your reverence, he buys up friezes, flannels, stockings, shoes, brogues, and other things, when cheap, and sells them at an advanced price to the parishioners, and so picks up a penny."

The Dean was curious to see this vicar, and, dismissing the barber with a shilling, desired the landlord to go in his name, and ask that gentleman to eat a mutton-chop with him, for he had bespoke a yard of mutton-the name he usually gave to the neck for dinner. Word was brought back that he had ridden abroad to visit some sick parishioners. "Why then," said the Dean, "invite that prating barber, that I may not dine alone." The barber was rejoiced at this unexpected honour, and, being dressed out in his best apparel, came to the inn, first inquiring of the groom what the clergyman's name was who had so kindly invited him. "What the vengeance," said the servant,

"don't you

know

Dean Swift?" At which the barber turned pale,

said his babbling tongue had ruined him : then ran into the house, fell upon his knees, and entreated the Dean not to put him in print; for that he was a poor barber, had a large family to maintain, and if his reverence should put him into black and white, he should lose all his customers.

Swift laughed heartily at the poor fellow's simplicity, bade him sit down and eat his dinner in peace, for he assured him he would neither put him, or his wife, or the vicar in print. After dinner, having got out of him the history of the whole parish, he dismissed him with half-a-crown, highly delighted with the adventures of the day.

IT

age.

75.

T was a saying of Charles the First, that Parliaments were like cats: they grew curst with The attack of Lord Tenterden on the first Reform Bill, when it was sent back again from the Commons, was the last speech he ever delivered in Parliament. "This measure," he concluded, "my Lords, leaves nothing untouched in the existing state of the elective franchise. It goes to vest all the functions of government in the other House of Parliament; and if it were to pass, there would be nothing left for this House, or for the Crown, but to obey the mandate of the Commons. Never, never, my Lords, shall I enter the doors of this House after it has become the phantom of its departed greatness." He kept his word.

A

76.

COLLECTION of the popular songs of the times constitutes a very useful and necessary part of an honest and faithful history. In ancient Rome, when a triumph was decreed to a general, the soldiers in their march used the liberty of singing ballads, which openly related or plainly alluded to the actions or character of their victorious commander. Livy, in several passages of his history, mentions these military songs, and describes them as abounding in ribaldry and licentiousness, but has given no specimen of any one. Such quotations would not have accorded with the grave and majestic tone of his narration.

Suetonius, and

subsequent historians of a less severe character, particularly memorialists, have not rejected these ludicrous but edifying parts of their relations. It requires judgment indeed to select those songs only which shall not weary the reader by their length, or disgust by excess of ribaldry. The knowledge of ballads is useful to the narrator, when he confines their insertion to those solely which are applicable to the point he is then employed upon; as from these he may frequently make a discovery of some more important fact.-Menagiana.

77.

HANDEL'S father, who professed medicine,

terrified by the propensity which enabled

his son to play beautiful voluntaries at five years old, without knowing a note of music, forcibly ex