Fishman. Being a stranger, I expected that the person who was in his own country would address a foreigner.

"The Englishman never opened his lips.

"If he will not speak first, said I to myself, he will at least be glad to fall into conversation with me when I begin. It is a fine day, sir,' said I. He looked at the sky, considered a few seconds, and answered Yes, sir.'

"I sat another ten minutes, hoping the oracle would speak: it was dumb! 'Pray sir,' said I, 'what is it o'clock?' He leisurely pulled out his watch, looked at it, took time to consider if it was right, and answered Past twelve.' Another silence ensued: I was quite vexed, and asked him which way was the wind?'

"He looked for the smoke, and the riding of the clouds; could see neither, and answered I dont know, sir.' And this, said the Frenchman, was the whole of an English conversation of about half an hour's continuance." Holcroft's Travels.

SIR Jno. Haywood wrote the lives of three Norman kings, and also the lives of Henry IV. and Edward VI. Some political reflections in the life of Henry IV. which offended queen Elizabeth, were the occasion of his suffering a long and tedious imprisonment. The queen asked Mr Bacon, (lord Bacon) who was then of her council, learned in the law, if he discovered any treason in that book. He told her najesty that he saw no treason in it, but much felony. The queen bid him explain himself. Upon which he told her, that he

had stolen his political remarks from Tacitus. This discovery is thought to have prevented his being put to the rack.

Granger's History of England, v. 2, p. 28.

A writer observes, much may be learned, as to the dispositions of a people, from the mode of their social addresses. In the southern provinces of China, the common people ask 'Have you eaten your rice?' for in this article consists their principal felicity. The Chinese have visiting cards, the colour and size of which are regulated agreeably to the rank and estimation of the person visited. When our embassy was in China, lord Macartney received from the viceroy of Petchehe a crimson card, large enough to have papered his bed-chamber!

If two Dutchmen meet in the morning, they wish each other a good appetite. In Cairo, the inhabitants ask How do you sweat?' since the want of perspiration is with them symptomatic of an approaching fever. The Italian, or the Spaniard, asks 'How does it stand?' A Frenchman enquires How do you carry yourself?' The German, How do you find yourself? The Englishman, 'How do you do? In the three latter salutations we perceive the characteristic reference to-show, reflection, and activity. Frequently the Hollander asks, How do you fare?"

Universal Magazine, v. 7, p. 416.

WHEN the duke of Nivernois, who was a little thin man, came to London to sign the preliminaries

G

of peace, anno 1762, C. Townshend observed, that they had sent the preliminaries of a man to sign the preliminaries of peace.

Dutens' Memoirs, v. 2, p. 18.

THE Russian nobility always add to their own christian name, the christian name of their father, with the termination ovitch or evitch, which denotes the son, as ovna or evna implies the daughter. By this means, foreigners, on coming into this country, drop the name they have hitherto borne, and are known by another. Thus, a Mr Jennings, if his father's name was John, on his arrival here is Ivan Ivanovitch, and his sister Anne will be Anna Ivanovna.

Life of the Empress Catharine 11. v. 1, p. 73.

THEODORE GAZA, after translating Aristotle upon animals, was presented by Pope Sextus IV. with fifty crowns, as a reward for his labour. The ingenious author in a fit of indignation is said to have cast the money into the Tyber. Gen. Biog.

PERHAPS no chancellor ever gave so many church benefices to poor clergymen of real merit as Thurlow. Among other instances of his eccentric goodness, the following appears to deserve peculiar notice. A curate, who had a numerous family, but no patron among the great, was prompted by his wants and a favorable opportunity which the sudden death of his rector afforded, to make a personal application to Thurlow. The chancellor was struck with his appearance and address, and

after hearing his story, whimsically asked him, "Whom have you to recommend you?"-" Only the Lord of Hosts, my lord"-" Well," replied Thurlow instantly, " as it is the first recommendation I have had from his lordship, be assured that I shall attend to it." The living was given to the meritorious applicant.

Light Reading at Leisure Hours, p. 345.

THE influence which an Irish jig holds over an Irish heart is strongly illustrated in the following singular anecdote, borrowed from the Appendix of Mr Walker's interesting Memoirs of the Irish Bards.

"The farce of the Half-Pay Officer having been brought out at Drury Lane Theatre, the part of an old grandmother was assigned to Mrs Fryer, an Irish woman, who had quitted the stage in the reign of Charles the second, and not appeared on it for 50 years; during the representation she exerted her utmost abilities; when however she was called on to dance a jig at the age of 85, she loitered, and seemed overcome; but as soon as the music struck up the Irish Trot, she footed it as nimbly as any girl of five and twenty.

Miss Owenson's Lay of an Irish Harp, p. 141.

THE detection of the impudent fraud of Damberger's Travels into the interior of Africa was made by major Rennel-One argument which he employed upon this subject is so strictly characteristic of his geographical readiness and and ability that we here quote it. "Mr Damberger arrives at

Kahoratho, and here sees a canal which is conducted from the river Gambia. Now Kahoratho happens to be in longitude 42, and Gambia is in longitude 22; the length therefore of the canal must be twenty degrees, or one thousand four hundred miles. Well said, honest friend!"

Life of Major Rennel, P. Char. p. 517.

SCALIGER and others have considered the artiele, in grammar, as otiosum loquasimæ gentis instrumentum, or at best as a mere avant courier, to announce the coming of its master; whilst the brutish, inarticulate interjection, which has nothing to do with speech, and is the miserable refuge of the speechless, has been permitted, because beautiful and gaudy, to usurp a place among words, and to exclude the article from its well-earned dignity. Horne Tooke.

BISHOPS-Wherever christianity penetrated in its first ages, it was accompanied with episcopal institution and the anomalous existence of a church without a bishop was a phenomenon reserv→ ed for later ages. Lingard's Antiq Saxon Ch.

:

MISSIONARIES.-It may be curious for a protestant to know that the papal clergy, in England, call themselves missionaries. Rome sends her priests to convert the savages of Ethiopia, and the hereticks of Britain. Greg. Ant. Pat.

EVE, say the Rabbins, is derived from a word which signifies to prattle. The first woman took