The next apartment excited some alarm. We found ourselves amidst 2 or 300 bats, some with large hoods on their long-ears; others we found with their ears sewed up; and some with their eyes carefully picked out of their heads! Our conductor told us, that this great philosopher, to shew that bats could perform their functions in the dark, picked their eyes with a red-hot wire, or scooped out the pupil with a pair of pincers. The philosopher owned the bats seemed to suffer greatly by their cruel operations; the observation evinced great sensibility in the bats, and the philosopher.

A very tedious enquiry whether FISH were deaf and mute! put us out of patience, (cried our conductor). Over a large tub of fish, we were ringing a bell all day, or tapping at its side, and yet the fish seemed to take no notice of the naturalists. One thing we discovered, that whenever they made love they made a noise; but we never could find their ears. Dr. Monro declared that their hearing is diffused over their body; so that by giving them a smart stroke on their back, you make them hear you. Flim Flams, v. 1, p. 182,

"DRY lodgings," written over a cabin, does not signify that the beds are dry, but that you can have no whisky posset there; merely because they have none. My Pocket Book, p. 90.

ONE day the two cardinals Cynthio and Aldo brandini held an assembly of several prelates, to consult among other things, of some method to put a stop to the license of the Pasquinades. One

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proposed that Pasquin's statue should be broken to pieces and cast into the river. But Tasso's opinion being asked, he said, "it would be much more prudent to let it remain where it was; for otherwise from the fragments of the statue would be bred an infinite number of frogs on the banks of the Tyber, that would never cease to croak day and night." The pope, to whom cardinal Aldobrandini related what had passed, interrogated Tasso upon the subject. the subject. "It is true, holy father," (said he) "such was my opinion; and I shall add moreover, that if your holiness would silence Pasquin, the only way is to put such people into employments as may give no occasion to any libels or disaffected discourse."

Hoole's Life of Tasso, p. xlii.

WHILE at Plymouth a short time ago, a noble naval commander, who is a strict disciplinarian, accosted a drunken sailor in the street, with "What ship do you belong to?" Jack, who was a dry fellow, notwithstanding he was drunk, and had a very eccentric countenance, answered with much sang froid, "Don't know." "What's your captain's name?" "Don't know." "Do you know who I am?" "No." "Why, I am commander in chief." "Then," replied he archly, "You have a d-d good birth of it,-that's all I know!"

Edinburgh Budget, p. 157.

FRENCH TEACHERS.-Catharine II. empress of Russia having been informed that there was in her states a great number of French tutors, who

not only did not understand Latin, but were even ignorant of the simplest elements of their own language, issued an order, that all the masters of the French language, and tutors in private families, should present themselves before a commission, which she named for the purpose of examination. Among the thousands of Ignoramuses that appeared before this tribunal, there were two that astonished the commissioners by their gross stupidity. One of these two having been examined on the modes of the verbs, answered that, as he left Paris fifteen. years ago, he could say nothing about the actual modes of his country, where they were changing from day to day. The other was a Livonian, who had never been in France, and for two years had instead of French, taught the gibberish of his country, to the daughters of a nobleman, who lived in a southern province of Russia.

Chantreau's Trav. in Russia, v. 1, p. 264.

WHILE the great Clarendon, after all the miseries and indignities he had experienced in France, lay extended in agony, the French messenger, who had accompanied him to Calais, appeared by his bedside, and informed him that he had received new orders from the king to insist upon his instant departure from France. Clarendon, shocked at the inhumanity of such a message, exclaimed, "You must bring orders from God Almighty as well as from your king, before I can obey. Your king," continued he, " is a very great and powerful prince, yet not so omnipotent as to make a dying man so strong as to undertake a journey."

He then sent for the chief magistrates and the lieutenant governor of the town; who, moved by the strange vicissitudes of his fortune, and blushing for the inhospitable policy of their government, united in a warm remonstrance to the court against the cruelty of his treatment."

Macdiarmid's Lives, p. 572.

CHOOSE a wife from a watering place where the company live under one roof. It is as safe a measure as buying a horse upon trial.

The serpent tempted Eve with fruit that would purchase knowledge. A modern Eve would much rather have had a guinea, to purchase what she liked.

Before the introduction of tea, the ladies spent their afternoons over a cup of good mulled wine, and perhaps it would have been well, if the practice had continued. Hystericks were then little known.

A woman who dances like a cow, had better sit down to cards, although she may play no better than a calf.

Do not brave the opinion of the world. You may as well say, that you care not for the light of sun, because you can find a candle.

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If you are of an indolent temper, breakfast upon cold pig. Dr. Hunter's Men and Manners.

IN October, 1799, during the escort of the treasure which had been taken in the Spanish frigates, Thetis and Santa Brigeda, to the dungeons of the citadel at Plymouth, where it was deposited for

safety, as the procession was passing through the market-place, some interruption occassioned a stoppage of the headmost waggon of the second division. This naturally drew a croud about the waggon; during which, a gentleman pushed forward to see how the dollars were packed, when the honest tar, who carried the British ensign over the Spanish, asked him in a goodnatured way, "if his honour wished to smell at the treasure;' the gentleman said laughingly," he would much rather taste it:" the sailor immediately putting his unemployed fingers into his mouth, pulled out a small Spanish gold coin, and a quid; and putting both into the gentleman's hand, emphatically said, By Jasus, in my country we find tasting better than smelling, and feeling is the naked truth; so your honour's welcome." The gentleman offered him more than the real value; but honest Patrick refused, and said "he had enough and to spare." Naval Anecdotes, p. 282.

Two sisters, one of whom lived at Rotherhithe, and the other at Chelsea, had a present sent them from abroad, of two very fine young parrots. The family of the lady at Chelsea were of a religious turn; and from their conversation and devotional exercises, her parrot soon learned a great variety of pious phrases. The docility of the other bird was exercised in a very different manner at Rotherhithe. .He became a wonderful proficient in the dialect of the watermen, who frequented the house of his mistress. Her sister some time after paid her a visit; and being quite shocked at the profanness of