paid, I reckon we were about an hundred and seventy-five pounds out of pocket. Now, my lord, I leave you to judge whether the parish money was not likely to be worse employed while I was churchwarden, than ever I knew it before." Dibdin's Musical Tour, p. 240. BATCHELORS are best friends, best masters, and best servants also, but not always best subjects; for they are light to run away, and in truth almost all fugitives are of that description. Lord Bacon. DEAN Aldrich's reasons for drinking. "Si bene quid memini, præsens situs, atque futura, aut quidlibet altera causa." If right I think, we're urged to drink To treat a friend, thirst off to send, By wine that's worth applause, THE following proof of the simplicity of madame Bonaparté forms a striking contrast to the character of her husband. When in the autumn of 1797, the directory negociated a loan, and Bonaparté gave England as security for its acquittal, madame Grand wrote to Talleyrand, expressing her uneasiness an account of her jewels and valuables deposited in the Bank of England, and begging him to inform Bonaparté of it. In return she was answered, "that having always her interest at heart more than his own, he had obtained from the directory a separate decree, which exempted her property in England from being included in Bonaparte's pledge, and that it therefore was safe." She was simple enough to shew Talleyrand's answer to several persons, to the great amusement of the fashionable wits. Even Talleyrand himself was entertained by her simplicity. Memoirs of Talleyrand, v. 2, p. 32. "IF," says Lorenzo de Medicis, Lorenzo de Medicis, "we esteem those who contribute to the prosperity of the state, we ought to place in the first rank the tutors of our children, whose labours influence posterity, and on whose precepts and exertions the precepts of our family and our country in a great measure depend." LORD Herbert says: curiosity rather than ambition brought me to court; and as it was the manner of those times for all men to kneel down before the great queen Elizabeth, who then reigned, I was likewise upon my knees in the Presence Chamber,* when she passed by to the chappel at Whitehall. As soon as she saw me she stopt, and swearing her usual oath demanded who is this? Every body there looked upon me, but no man knew me, 'till sir James Croft, a pensioner, finding the queen stayed, returned back and told who I was, and that I had married sir William Herbert of St. Gillian's daughter: the queen hereupon looked attentively upon me, and swearing again her ordinary oath, said it was a pity he was married* so young, and thereupon gave her hand to kiss twice, both times gently clapping me on the cheek. Lord Herbert's Life of Himself. WHEN some there were who much praised unto Alexander the Great the plainnesse and homely simplicitie of Antipater, saying that he lived an austere and hard life, without all superfluities and delicious pleasures whatsoever: Well (quoth he) Antipater weares in outward shew his apparell with a plain white welt or guard, but he is within all purple (I warrant you) and as read as scarlet. Holland's Plut. Mor. 412. MR FELL, in his tour through the Batavian Republic, notices the following singular custom with regard to lying-in-women ;-" I must not," says he," omit to mention a practice, which, I believe, is peculiar to Holland. When a woman is brought to bed, a bulletin is daily fixed to her house for a fortnight, or longer, if she continues so ill as to ex He was then "betwixt 18 and 19 years." And at the " age of fifteen" he married Mary the daughter of Sir William Herbert of St. Gillian's, and " at the age of one and twenty" he had "divers children" His Life, written by Himself. The Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, written by himself, and published by Horace Walpole, is one of the finest and most interesting memoirs in the English language. cite the solicitude of her friends, which contains a statement of the health of the mother and the child. This bulletin is fastened to a board ornamented with lace, according to the circumstances of the person lying-in, and serves to answer the enquiries of her friends, and to prevent any unnecessary noise being made near the door of the indisposed person. In the reign of Peter I. king of Portugal, called the just, a priest having killed a layman was suspended from his office, which coming to the ears of the king, he ordered the man's son, who was a mason, to put the priest to death. He accordingly obeyed his majesty's commands, was seized and brought before him to receive his sentence, when the king turning to his ministers and courtiers said, the ecclesiastical judges suspended the priest from his office, I therefore suspend this mason from his work. So much was this king beloved by his people, that at his death every one exclaimed, that either he should never have been born, or never have died. Faria y Sousa's Hist. of Portugal. GRIMANI, after he had been in England about a month, happened as he was strolling about-to find himself near Billingsgate-Seeing him a foreigner, he was presently hustled about; and in short, the fish-women and watermen determined to give him what they called a complete blackguarding.-Grimani-who scarcely understood a * It was not uncommon in that age for to suspend a priest from performing his ecclesiastical functions for one year, as a sufficient punishment for such a crime. word of English-hearing the word damn frequently used-was struck as quick as lightning with an idea that he should conquer them with their own weapons. He thought he had nothing to do but think of a number of names unknown to the mob-and therefore began-damn Cicero-damn Plutarch-damn Aristotle-damn Demosthenes -damn Plato-damn Anaxagoras-damn Scipio -damn Hannibal-damn, damn Agamemnondamn, damn Achilles-and thus he went on with extreme volubility, throwing his muscles-which was a pretty easy thing to do-into the most frightful contortions, till at length one of the mob cried out damme, come along Jack, we have no chance with this fellow, he blackguards ten times better than any one of us.' Dibdin's Musical Tour, p. 141. Such IT was feared, at the court of London, that the king of Spain would join France. I found means to learn, at that time, (October, 1760,) part of a dispatch from the Spanish court, in which M. de Squillaci said, that the king his master would not long remain a quiet spectator of the war; and I communicated this information to my court. a disposition, so well ascertained, induced Mr Pitt to propose in the cabinet, that Great Britain should anticipate the measures of the court of Madrid, and cominence hostilities. The court of London did not think proper to adopt this advice: he persisted in offering it; but being out-voted in the cabinet, he chose rather to resign his office, than to render himself responsible for the errors of which, C |