“ Be that as it may, it is quite sufficient versation in the same description, which is that I have played the antic myself for (the first half of it, at least,) the most airy their diversion ; and that, in a state of de- of the two ? They will otherwise think, jection such as they are absolute strangers perhaps, that the observation might as well to, I have sometimes put on an air of cheer- bave been spared entirely; though I should fulness and vivacity, to which I myself am have been sorry if it bad, for when I am in reality a stranger, for the sake of winning jocular I do violence to myself, and am their attention to more uscful matter." therefore pleased with your telling them, in

“ By the way–will it not be proper, as a civil way, that I play the fool to amuse you have taken some notice of the modish them, not because I am one myself, but bedress I wear in Table Talk, to include Con cause I have a foolish world to deal with."

1

VARIETIES.
Original Anecdotes, Literary News, Chit Chat, Incidents, &c.

!

1

1

THE NORTHERN EXPEDITION.

PARISIAN ANECDOTES. The iostruments to be used by Capt. Par.

Paris, Jan. 26, 1824. ry on the new Expecition are ordered to be The suite au Memorial de Sainte shipped by the list of May; so that we Heléne, or critical observations and unmay presume it will sail about the middle published anecdotes, designed as a supof that month.

plement and a corrective to that work, The following anecdote of the sagaci- is already demanded. Though the au

has such a run that the second edition ty of an Ass, and the attachment displayed by the animal to its master,

thor preserves the anonyme, it is evimay help in some degree to redeem dent from his detection of the numerous that ill-used race from a portion of the errors in M. Las Cases' work, and from load of stupidity which is generally as- he relates, that he must have filled

the numerous original anecdotes that signed to them, and which, with so many other loads, they bear with such ex- of the Emperor. The impartiality

some important post near the person emplary patience. Thomas Brown, with which the facts and reflections are residing near Hawick, travels the coumtry as a Iliggler, having an ass the presented, is as honourable to the wripartner of his trade.

From suffering

ter's mind as the composition is to his under a paralytic affection, he is in the

taste-For example: habit of assisting himself on the road by

EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. keeping hold of the crupper of the sad

“Napoleon knew perfectly well the dle, or more frequently the tail of the character of Josephine-nothing could ass. During a recent severe winter,

equal the grace and affability of that whilst on one of his journeys near Rule princess. At her court she had the Water, " the old man and his ass

habit of speaking to a hundred per

were suddenly plunged into a wreath of snow. sons, and always gave an agreeable There they lay long, far from help, and word to each. She was so generous ready to perish,—at length the poor ass, would soon have ruined the treasury,

that she never knew how to refuse, and after a severe struggle, got out, but find- bad it been at her disposal. Not baying his unfortunate master absent, he eyed the wreath for some time, with a

ing it in her power to give, she was wistful look, and at last forced his way profuse in her promises, of which she through it to where his master still lay, was equally forgetful, and which she when, placing his body in such a posi repeated with equal facility. On one tion as to afford a firm grasp of the tail,

occasion there was given a remarkable the honest Higgler was thereby enabled exemplification, of which every one at to take his accustomed hold, and was

court was informed but herself. An actually dragged out by the faithful officer of high rank, who had been acbeast to a place of safety.

quainted with her at Martinique before

her first marriage, and had been intiMr. Prior has in the press, A Memoir of mate with her family, desired, when the Life and Character of the Rt. Hon. Ed. Napoleon was in his glory, to resume nius and Talents, compared with those of bis military employment, and counted his great Contemporaries.

on the influence of Josephine for his

success. He visited her, and was re «Straws laid across my pace retard;
ceived with that kindness and affability The horse-shoes naild cach threshold guard.”
which always appears sincere, but

Country wenches, when they expewhich so often deceives. She expres- rience any peculiar difficulty in making sed the warmest interest in his plans, butter, will sometimes drop into the and requested bim to transmit to her churn a horse-shoe heated, believing his memorial. The officer did not the crean to be spell-bound, and that make his patroness wait long, for the this operation will destroy the charm. Dext day he returned with the petition, I have read in Glanville, or some such which he had already in his side- work, of this experiment being once pocket

. It so happened that the tailor tried by a weary churner, when immehad clapped bis bill into the same diately an old hag, a reputed witch, pocket, and Mr. - mistaking the who lived close by, shrieked violently, one for the other, most unfortunately and exclaimed that she was scorched. presented the account of Snip to the Upon examining her body, the mark Empress, who received it most grace of a horse-shoe was found distinctly fully, and, without perusing it, assured branded on her flesh !!! Passing unthe delighted officer that it should be der the arcade of the Royal Exchange immediately presented to the Emperor, a day or two since, I observed a horseand that he might depend on a favoura- shoe nailed to one of the benches beble result. Enchanted, the son of Mars longing to the ticket-porters, so that the returned home; bat scarcely had he superstition it seems is not yet extinct arrived, when he discovered his mis- even in London. fortune-it must be repaired-he set off for the palace of Josephine, and the

CHRONOMETRY. first word she utters, is an assurance Observing upon a notice in the daily that her husband had read his memoir, papers that an American experimentaland had promised her that her protegé ist, of the name of H. G. Dyar, has should be immediately placed. As she “ invented a clock, the principles and was surrounded by crowds, she turned movements of which are different from to promise and assure others; she was those of chronometers now in use, and then lost to the officer, and he had not are not to be found in any treatise on any opportunity of saying a word. mechanics extant; that the pendulum Several times he returned and endea- moves in cycloidal arcs, and performs voured to obtain the fatal bill, and re- long and short vibrations in equal time, place it by a courtly memorial, but he while that of our common clocks swings conld never succeed. He disappeared in the arc of a circle, and makes unefrom the brilliant circle, told his story qual vibrations in equal time" to his friends, and was the first to laugh Messrs. Parkinson and Frodsham at his own bad luck."

(to whom science is already largely inHORSE-SHOES.

debted) state to us, that having devoted The custom of nailing horse-shoes much time to the observations on the on the masts of ships, lintels or threshpendulum, and in endeavouring to reolds of doors, &c. is very ancient, and duce its theory to practice, they have originated in a superstitious belief that at length so far succeeded as to discover no witch can injure the inmates of a a simple contrivance applicable to any bouse or vessel so protected. Aubrey, description of clock,which will cause the in bis Miscellanies, says, “ It is a thing pendulum to vibrate in cycloidal arcs, very common to pail borse-shoes on the and performs all its vibrations, however thresholds of doors, which is to hinder long or short, in the same time. “ It the power of witches that enter into the has now (they add) been for a consihouse. Most houses of the West end derable time sufficiently and accurateof London, have the horse-shoe on the ly proved ; and it is our intention to threshold.' It should be a horse-shoe submit the discovery to one of our that one finds.” Again, in Gay's fa- learned and scientific Institutions, as ble of the “Old Woman and her we feel assured its simplicity will insure Cats,” the supposed witch says: its general adoption in all machines

where the accurate mensuration of time second time, and sunk in a pit at least is required. Our intention in thus ad- three feet deep, in a snug corner of the dressing you, is to preserve to the ar- tulip-bed, it being judiciously considertists of this country the priority of ed that his remains, in their decomtheir claim to the merit of the discov- posed state might add to the freshness ery."

and variety of the colours next year. A Moonlight Apparition.- When

One of my school-fellows, as merI was a schoolboy, there dwelt in the ry a little wag as ever drew breath, neighbourhood a gentleman who had a

lived next door, and was at home for strong touch of the tulipæmania. His the holidays. Having scrupulously parterre displayed the gayest speci- watched all that had passed," he bor. mens, the produce of bulbs imported rowed a ladder of the glazier over the from Holland, whose illustrious names way, and, as soon as the families were might have vied with any of those that retired to rest, scaled the wall, dug up would be found, if one could only get Grimalkin, and, proceeding to the a sight of it, in the late Sir Joseph Street, planted him erect on the sill of Banks' vocabulary of Butterflies. But

his neighbour's bed-room window. an evil-minded cat often disturbed

Descending a few steps of the ladder, his tulip-bed, and laid prostrate many the tulip-fancier, and drawing aside the

he mewed most piteously. Up started a darling flower of exquisite beauty curtain, saw with horror and dismay, Early one morning he caught my gen. by broad moonlight, his old enemy the tleman in the fact, and, laying violent hands on him, not only broke every full in the face.

tom-cat, with saucer eyes, staring him bone in his skin, but, as in his wrathful mood he was led to fancy, beat out It is reported at Brussells, that the Me. his brains. The gardener buried him moirs left by Carnot, embracing the period in a pit a foot deep, carefully treading after the battle of Waterloo, are likely to

from 1789 to the second fall of Buonaparte, down the earth. Grimalkin was not

be published in London. so dead, however, but that he was seen derstand, however, that they are yet in the the next morning crawling from his possession of any of our booksellers. hiding-place. He was now slain a

We do not up

ORIGINAL POETRY.

(Mon. Mag.)

IS THERE A GOD ?
Answered by an Appeal to Morning, Noon, and Night.
Now breathes the ruddy Morn around

I read a record of his love,
His health-restoring gale,

Ilis wisdom and his power,
And from the chambers of the East

Inscrib'd on all created things,
A flood of light prevails.

Man, beast, and herb, and flower-
Is there a God? Yon rising sun

The sultry sun has left the skies,
An answer meet supplies ;

And day's delights are flown;
Writes it in flame upon the earth,

The owlet screams amid the sbade,
Proclaims it round the skies.

And Night resumes the throne.
The pendant clouds that curtain round

Is there a God? With sacred fear
This sublunary ball,

I upward turn mine eyes ;
And firmament on higb, reveal

There is! each glittering lamp of lightA God that governs all.

There is ! my soul-replies. The warbling lark, in realms of air,

If such convictions to my mind Has thrill'd her matin lay;

llis works aloud impart; The balmy breeze of morn is fled,

O let the wisdom of his Word It is the Noon of day. .

Inscribe them on my heart : Is there a God? Hark! from on high

That while I ponder on his deeds, His thunder shakes the poles:

And read his truth divine, I hear his voice in every wind,

Nature may point me to a God, In every ware tbat rolls.

And grace may make him mine!

SONNET TO A CLUSTER OF SNOW-DROPS IN FEBRUARY.

FIRST in the virgin coronet of Spring,

Meek modest flowers ! your stainless buds I hail;
O now, ere Zephyr breathes kind welcoming,

Or your light sister Primrose decks the vale
With bright-hue'd yellow bloomings,--silently

Under this old worn copse, unfenc'd from cold,
While vegetation yet doth torpid lie,

Your little trembling bells I pleas'd behold,
Spangling the earth with lustre. O ye look,

Snowdrops ! so fair, so purified, so bland,
Ye lovely cheerers in this little nook,

Ye seem to have dropp'd from some bright angels' band,
Forming his couch to rest on: then be ye,
Sweet flowers ! the type of Heaven's purity.

February 1824

INSCRIPTION FOR PICTON'S CENOTAPH AT WATERLOO.

(Extracted from Blackwood's Magazine.) 4 Dart

Where thy pestilential plain, Orbe quietez, seculo pacem suo.

Were piled with proud decayHæc summa virtus, petitur hac cælem via."

Uncbeck'd by pain, untired by toil, WEEP not, though the bero's sleep He led the lions to the spoil, Oa chis spot was dark and deep ;

Through desert and through flood; And beside him lay

Til, ye eternal Pyrenees ! Hearts that hever felt a fear

Ye heard the thunder on the breeze, la the rushing of the spear,

Whose fearful rain was blood. Silent, glorious clay!

Where the final battle roar'd, What is life, to death like theirs ?

Mightiest harvest of the sword, Heartless wishes, -weary years,

Immortal Waterloo ! Follies fond and vain !

There his banner, like a star, Theirs a gasp of gallant breath

Blazing o'er the clouds of war, On the wave, or on the heath

To death and glory flew. Momeotary pain!

Weep not, though his spirit past Not opon the sick’ning bed

In the spirit's fiery blast;
Has the wasting spirit fled

Th' unconquerable Will,
From their hallow'd mould ;-

The living Mind, shall hover o'er
In the soldier's hour of pride,

The warriors that he led before,
In the triumph, Picton died !

And love and lead them still!
The boldest of the bold.

Bold companions of his grave,
Where the famine, where the fight;

England's richest wreath shall waye Bloody day, and deadlier night,

In sorrow o'er your tomb ;
Wore host by host away ;.

And the sad infant on the knee
Where thy wild Sierra, Spain,

Shall lisp the dear-bought victory,

Io ages yet to come! 7 ATHENEUM Vol. 1. 2d series.

(Blackwood's Mag.) PANACEAS FOR POVERTY.

“I like not the humour of bread and cheese."--Shakspeare. FROM "ROM the days of Job, down- watering-pots in the world. He would

wards, COMFORTERS(to me) have tell those who asked for work, that always seemed to be the most imperti- « idleness was the root of all evil;" nent set of people upon earth. For prove to people “ that a penny was you may see, nine times in ten, that the seed of a guinea,” who were withthey actually gratify themselves in out a farthing in the world; and argue what they call “consoling” their neigh- all day, with a man who had nothing, bours; and go away in an improved to show that “out of a little, a little satisfaction with their own condition, might be put by.” after philosophizing for an hour and a Fourthly, and in the rear, march half upon the disadvantages of yours. those most provoking fuffians of all,

There are several different families who uphold the prudence of always of these benevolent characters abroad; “ putting the best face” (as they term and each set rubs sore places in a man- it) upon an affair. And these will ner peculiar to itself.

cure your broken leg by setting it off First and foremost, there are those against somebody else's hump back, who go,

in detail, through the history and so soundly demonstrate that you of your calamity, showing (as the case have nothing to complain of; or admit, may be) either how completely you perhaps, (for the sake of variety) the have been outwitted, or how exceed- fact that you are naked; and proceed ingly ill or absurdly you have con- to devise stratagems how you shall be ducted yourself—and so leave you with contented to remain so. “ their good wishes,” and an invita And it is amazing what a number of tion to come and dine, when your (mad upon that particular point, but troubles are over."

otherwise) reasonable and respectable Next, there are those, a set, I think, persons, have amused themselves by still more intolerable, who press the proving, that The Poor have an envianecessity of your resolving iminediate- ble condition. The poor “ Poor !" something;"

;" and forthwith They seem really to have been set up declare in favour of that particular as a sort of target for ingenuity to try its measure, which, of all the pis allers of hand upon; and, from Papin, the your estate, is the most perfectly de- Bone Digester, down to Cobbett, the testable.

Bone Grubber,-from Wesley, who Thirdly come the whoreson cater- made cheap physic, and added to evepillars," who are what people call ry prescription " a quart of cold wa“ well to do” in the world ; and es- ter," to Hunt who sells roasted wheat pecially those who have become so (as (vice coffee) five hundred per cent they believe) by their own good con- above its cost-an absolute arıny of duct. These are very particularly vile projectors and old women has, from dogs indeed! I recollect one such time to time, been popping at them. (he was an opulent cheese-monger,) High among these philosophers, indeed who had been porter in the same shop I might almost say at the head of them, which he afterwards kept, and had stands the author of a tract called, “A come to town, as he used to boast, Way to save Wealth;" which was without cash enough to buy a night's published (I think) about the year lodging on his arrival.

1840, to show how a man might thrive This man had neither love nor pity upon an allowance of TWOPENCE per for any human being. He met every day. complaint of distress with a history of The observations prefatory to the his own fortunes. No living creature, promulgation of this inestimable seas he took it, could reasonably be poor, cret, are worthy of everybody's-that so long as there were birch brooms or is every poor body's attention.

ly upon