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Killcomfort, and retreat before the advances of General D'Escalade. So shall he never find his drawing

rooms uncarpeted, his dining-tables covered with a cold supper, or his study filled with flirtations.

A

CORSICAN HONOUR.

VARIETIES.

SINGULAR circumstance has lately taken place in the Island of Corsica, which strongly indicates the character of the ruder inhabitants of the island. Two soldiers of a French regiment, stationed at Ajaccio, having deserted, their Colonel, in pursuing the pleasure de la chasse, met with one of the mountain shepherds, who acquainted him with the spot where the two soldiers had sought a retreat. The man was immediately rewarded for this intelligence by a gift of four Louis, and the colonel despatched a party in search of the delinquents, who were apprehended, conducted to headquarters, and tried by a court-martial, and condemned to death. The

relations of the shepherd becoming acquainted with the circumstance, assembled, and pronounced that he had for ever dishonoured his family by receiving the price of blood; they seized and bound him, and, on the day and hour when the unfortunate soldiers were shot at Ajaccio, the same death was inflicted by them on the shepherd. After the execution of the two military offenders, a priest (who had been obliged by the mountaineers to confess and shrive the shepherd, prior to his quitting the world) appeared upon the parade, and returned to the colonel the four Louis, in acquainting him of the mode adopted by those who had employed him to avenge their injured

honour.

THE BLIND BOOKSELLER OF AUGS-
BOURG.

Perhaps one of the greatest curiosities in the city of Augsbourg is a bookseller, of the name of Wimprecht, who had the misfortune to be born blind, but whose enterprising spirit has enabled him to struggle success

fully against the melancholy privations he was doomed to sustain, and to procure, by his industry and intelligence, a respectable and comforta ble support for a large family dependent upon him. His library consists of more than eight thousand volumes, which are, of course, frequently subject to change and renewal; but, as soon as he acquires a new stock, the particulars of each book are read to him by his wife, and his discriminatiou permits him to fix its value; his touch, to recognise it at any period, however distant; and his memory never fails him in regard to its arrangement in his shop. His readiness to oblige, his honesty, and information on books in general, have procured him a large custom; and, under such extraordinary natural disadvantages, he has become a useful, and haply will render himself a wealthy member of the society to which he belongs.

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dice against them. As it is said that anatomists deny the possibility of their deep or dangerous entrance into the ear, it is a pity that this is not generally known, as it might defend the constitutionally timid from unnecessary alarm, and give a more favourable idea of a part of animal creation, which forms a most necessary link in the chain of being.

CAMILLUS AND THE GAULS.

The romantic story of Camillus coming up and defeating the Gauls, as they were receiving the ransom gold of Rome, is now regarded as a tale void of foundation; but more modern times have seen a deed which strongly resembles, and yet exceeds it. About the year 1000, sixty Norman knights were on their return from a pilgrimage to St. Michael of Gargans, and they happened to arrive at Salerno just at the time when that town, closely pressed by an army of Arabs, had purchased their retreat with a sum of money. They found the inhabitants engaged in collecting the price of their ransom, and the army of the Musulmauns devoid of apprehension. This troop of knights, aided by the most courageous of the inhabitants, took advantage of the dark to fall on the camp of the enemy, and put to the route the 15,000 Arabs whom it contained. The Duke of Salerno wished to reward his deliverers, but they, magnanimous as brave, refused all honours and all recompense.

MR. THOMAS PARK.

The death of this African traveller, the son of Mungo Park, having been attributed to poison, administered by the priests, in revenge for his interference with some religious ceremony of the natives-a gentleman of Selkirk (the residence of his family and friends) has addressed a letter to the Edinburgh Journal, in which he rescues the memory of young Park from the imputation of this imprudence, and states that he died on the 31st of October, of the yellow fever, after an illness of nine days,

during which, Akitto, the king of Aquambo, treated him with the greatest kindness. His papers and effects had been sent to Captain Fry, the commandant of Accra, and have arrived in England by the Esk.

TRANSFUSION.

Some successful experiments are now making, by a gentleman in Herefordshire, with the view of preserving valuable fruit-trees from decay, by planting young trees in the vicinity, and transfusing the sap of the young plants through the bark of the decaying tree, and thus uniting the circulation of both.

CURE FOR THE SMALLPOX.

At a meeting of the French Royal Academy of Medicine, M. Valpean read an essay to prove that if the pustules in this disease be cauterized within two days after the eruption, they die away entirely, and if even later, their duration is abridged, and no traces of them are left. The caustic which he used, was a solution of nitrate of silver, into which he dipped a probe, with which he pierced the centre of each pustule; this remedy he had tried in numerous cases with a very good effect.

LIVERY SEISIN.

Two men of the village of Burney, in the department of the Loire, had very recently a dispute on their respective rights to a small piece of marshy ground; one claiming a moiety, the other totality. Two experts were summoned, and the litigants argued their respective claims with the utmost energy. He who demanded a half, was a grenadier; while the other was of a middling stature ; but, notwithstanding the latter's disparity in point of size, his tongue was far the more active of the two. The grenadier at last, vexed and wearied with the discussion, exclaimed, taking his opponent in his armis, will have it, take it;" at the same time, putting him in possession, by lodging him up to his neck in the bog, where he left him to speculate

"If you

at his leisure on the nature of his property, and profit by his lesson in this novel practice of the law. Preston surely could not have made a more effectual conveyance of the soil.

LA FAYETTE.

While La Fayette was lying recently on a sick bed, and supposed by his physicians to be asleep, one of the latter observed to a colleague, "that the Parisians were all furnishing themselves with the uniform of the National Guards to attend his funeral." La Fayette was, however, awake, and turning to them, observed, "Au moins l'on ne m'accusera pas d'etre de cette conspiration."

LORD NELSON'S NIGHT-CAP. Dr. Burney, who wrote the celebrated anagram on Lord Nelson, after his victory of the Nile, "Honor est a Nilo," (Horatio Nelson,) was shortly after on a visit to his lordship, at his beautiful villa, at Merton. From his usual absence of mind, he forgot to put a night-cap into his portmanteau, and consequently, borrowed one from his lordship. Previously to his retiring to rest, he sat down to study, as was his common practice, and was shortly after alarmed by finding the cap in flames; he immediately collected the burnt remains, and returned them to his lordship, with the following lines:

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RETURN OF COMETS.

Were the astronomical doctrine of comets correct, we should be no less certain of the return of any particular comet, than of the revolution of any particular planet. The orbits of comets are mathematically calculated, and their returns are confidently

"Take your night-cap again, my good lord, I predicted; yet the fact is certain,

desire,

I would not detain it a minute; What belongs to a Nelson, wherever there's fire,

Is sure to be instantly in it."

BOMBAST: MORE OR LESS.

The French Minister of Marine, M. Hyde de Neuville, presented the other day to the Chamber of Deputies a bill for granting a pension of 607. per annum to Mdlle. Bisson, the sister of Lieutenant Bisson, who blew up his vessel to prevent her be ing taken by the Greek pirates. After a florid, poetical speech, in which he described fifteen Frenchmen combating one hundred and thirty Greeks, he added, "the superiority of num

that out of above 500 comets recorded to have appeared, not more than two or three are supposed to have returned regularly; we say supposed, for, even when a comet has appeared nearly at the time astronomically foretold, it has not been satisfactorily proved, in any case, to be the identical comet expected. Professor Encke, indeed, has determined the orbit of what he designates a comet, which returns in three years, and has already been seen twice, if not three times; but we are inclined to suspect, that Encke's comet has more affinity to the planets Ceres, Juno, Pallas, and Vesta, than to the comets hitherto observed.

LONDON BRIDGE.

The following is an account of the number of vehicles which passed over London bridge on the days specified :

On Friday, May 16th, 1828. From the Borough to the City.

* Carts and wagons t Coaches, &c.

COFFEE.

It was owing in some measure to a distinguished French botanist, that we are so abundantly furnished with the coffee berry. Two plants were, under his care, taken to the West Indies, from the botanic gardens at Paris, but on the voyage the supply 2,260 of water became nearly exhausted; 826 this person was so anxious to preserve the plants that he deprived himself of his allowance in order to water the coffee-plants. From these 2,407 two, all the coffee grown in the West 897 Indies has sprung. Formerly, coffee could only be got at a great expense from Mocha in Arabia.

3,086

From the City to the Borough.

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3,304

Total

3,086

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A German lord left orders in his will not to be interred, but that he might be enclosed upright in a pillar, which he had ordered to be hollowed and fastened to a post in the parish, in order to prevent any peasant or slave from walking over his body.

NEW WORKS.

The Puffiad; a Satire, by Robert Montgomery, author of the Omnipresence of the Deity, is just published.

Notions of the Americans, by Mr. Cooper, the admired novelist, will appear immediately. In this work, a genuine picture of American life and manners will be given, which, it is supposed, will have the effect of counteracting some of the superficial and erroneous accounts of recent English travellers.

The Bride, a Tragedy, from the pen of Joanna Baillie, the celebrated dramatic poetess, will speedily be published.

Mr. Aglio, who has travelled over the greater parts of Europe, for the purpose of collecting the manuscripts of ancient Mexico, is on the eve of publishing the fruits of his research. es.

The work will be illustrated by a copious text, and by several lithographic drawings of various Mexican

monuments.

* Including vans and other vehicles for merchandise, drawn by horses.
Including chaises, stage-coaches, and other vehicles for passengers.

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to man.

"O what a miracle to man is man!

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august!
A worm, a God."

SU URELY in the whole compass of creation there are no two things so like or so unlike as man is Similar wants and infirmities, similar hopes and prospects, a common origin and a common end, would seem to imply a similarity in the feelings and desires of our minds, while our having, in most instances, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth furnished with four parallel upper foreteeth, our walking erect on our hinder paws, and being unprovided with a tail, would appear to constitute strong personal resemblance. Yet extrinsic and accidental circumstances operate so powerfully upon both our bodies and our minds, that an elephant and a humming-bird, an ostrich and a cuttle-fish, are scarcely more different in their appearance, their haunts, tastes, and employments, than thousands of the human race are to each other. We generalize too much in our language, we call any thing a nose which is set in the middle of the face, and has two apertures in it, without considering that a little, almost invisible dot of flesh, and a symmetrical arch rising high and conspicuous, are very different things; and if we contend for similarity of name on account of similarity of use, we ought to remember that some noses cannot distinguish hyacinths from asafoetida, while others are affected agreeably by the 46 ATHENEUM, VOL. 9, 2d serics.

breezes that have passed over a distant tuft of violets, and instantly detect the existence of the slightest particle of offensive matter; that some nasal organs, again, receive daily with snuffling eagerness and delight ounces of Irish Blackguard or Harding's thirty-seven, while the passage of an open tabatiere, along the opposite side of a table, will set others in an agony of sternutation. It is the same with our other features, the same with the sums total of our frames, it is education and habit, not reason and observation, which persuade us to call every one we meet by the same specific appellation; the noble faculty of comparing and judging, if properly used, would lead to very different results; and if our zoologists had not been blinded by early prejudices, they would have divided the human race into as many genera as are attributed to birds and fish, and not applied the sweeping term Homo alike to the sparrows and eagles, the salmon and flounders of our kind.

Walking a few evenings since through one of the most eastern streets of the western world, in my progress towards the regions of trade, riches, and vulgarity, an equipage distinguished by splendid trappings and smart attendants, and by the leafy symbol of high nobility placed above most illustrious arms, rattled

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