your excellency might be thrown out of, that so with the fewest bones broken, you might learn to address Rome's master and your own with more respect." "These Spaniards," said he afterwards, 66 come will poison me, I know they will." And so he thought they did at last: but, like Flavius Vespasian, his model in many things, he laboured for Rome's welfare to the very limits of temporal existence; and then calling Castagna, his old friend, close to him, "After pears," says he, chesnuts, you know; and do not, dear Monsignore, keep fretting so about these heretics when you succeed, as I am confident you will, but remember 'tis the conversion, not the death of sinners which God requires." Castagna did succeed Peretti, but lived not to obey him. The Sfonderati Pope, Gregory the Fourteenth, cut from his dying mother, a noble Cremonese, by the Cæsarian operation, survived them not a year. Innocent IX. reigned but seven weeks; and Clement the Eighth's pontificate was left to close the century with a magnificent jublee, caused by the conversion, and adorned by the absolution of Henry IV. The Cabinet of Mirth. "Here let the jest and mirthful tale go round." ANECDOTE OF DR. DODDRIDGE, RELATED BY DR. JOHNSON. DR. R. DODDRIDGE, being mentioned, he observed, that he was the author of one of the finest epigrams in the English language. It is in Orton's Life of him. The subject is his familymotto,--Dum vivimus, vivamus; which, in is primary signification, is, to be sure, not very suit * Peretti means little pears in Italian, and Castagra means chesnuts, able to a christian divine; but he paraphrased it thus: "Live, while you live, the epicure would say, GOLDSMITH. I talked of the officers whom we had left today; how much service they had seen, and how little they had got for it, even of fame.-Johnson. Sir, a soldier gets as little as any man can get." -Boswell. "Goldsmith has acquired more fame than all the officers last war, who were not generals."-Johnson. "Why, sir, you will find ten thousand fit to do what they did, before you find one who does what Goldsmith has done. You must consider, that a thing is valued according to its rarity. A pebble that paves the street is in itself more useful than the diamond upon a lady's finger."-I wish our friend Goldsmith had heard this. He said, he was angry at Thrale, for sitting at General Oglethorp's without speaking. He censured a man for degrading himself to a non-entity. I observed, that Goldsmith was on the other extreme; for he spoke at all adventures.-Johnson. "Yes, Goldsmith, rather than not speak, will talk of what he knows himself to be ignorant, which can only end in exposing him."-" I wonder, said I, if he feels that he exposes himself. If he was with two taylors". "Or with two founders," said Dr. Johnson, (interrupting me,) "he would fall a talking on the method of making cannon, though both of them would soon see that he did not know what metal a cannon is made of." A strange mistake occurred the other day, in the Kent Road :-A man servant who had a complaint in his eye, and had been told that nothing but couching would remove it, reading the word Accoucheur on the glass door of an apothecary, mistook the apothecary for an oculist, and applied to him to perform the operation. When the son of Esculapius told him it was entirely out of his line, the man asked him what he meant by writing on his door that he was a coucher? The following singular advertisement appeared in the Belfast News Letter of the 10th ultimo :By William Miller, Esq. one of his Majesty's justices of the peace for the said county. Co. Antrim, to wit. This day John Wilson, of the town of Antrim, hosier, came before me, and voluntarily made oath on the holy evangelists, that he is promised by mutual consent to Elizabeth Brady, daughter of the late John Brady, of Antrim, to marry her and none other, the 6th day of September, 1799; and she likewise bound herself in the same contract at same time to marry no one but me, and deponent farther sayeth not. JOHN WILSON. Sworn before me this 28th day of Feb. 1801, W. MILLER, ON TRUTH, ADDRESSDD TO THE JUVENILE READERS OF BY HENRY KIRKE WHITE, NOTTINGHAM. THE HE advantages attendant on a rigid observance of truth, are so numerous and obvious, that it creates astonishment in every contemplative mind, that men should so far depart from principles of real interest, as to forsake its precepts: for whatever advantages we may promise ourselves in falshood and dissimulation, they are ever transient, and unsatisfactory; whilst its ill effects are no less numerous than permanent; it brings a man under an indelible stigma, and he invariably finds that all his assertions (even when strengthened by the oaths and imprecations, to which he necessarily has recourse), are received with every symptom of cautious incredulity. Some people will tell ye of innocent lies, which, as they do no harm, cannot be criminal. It would be useless to enter into argument on this subject, let it suffice that they are deceptions, and such as no one of any sense of honour, or regard for his character, as a man of probity, will commit. They consist chiefly in exaggerations, or giving false colourings to the common occurrences of life, without any sinister view, and merely from a habit, which is so silly and despicable, that one would imagine none who are removed a degree from ideotcy, could possibly subscribe to it. Yet such characters are not uncommon, we have Will Marvells* in every rank, who exercise their ingenuity A character in Johnson's Idler, No. 49, in embellishing what would otherwise appear insignificant, and as the ultimate reward of their pains, they have the pleasure of finding themselves treated with the contempt they deserve. Another species of falshood, is that by which a person endeavours to avoid the danger and shame of any thing he has said or done, by dissimulation® or prevarication; and is so infamously base and cowardly, that every one who has the least sense of, honour, must spurn at its very idea. But of all the varieties of this mean vice, none is so dangerous or so criminal, as that which has its foundation in malice. Calumny strikes at the very source of the happiness of society, by effectually subverting that honourable confidence which ought to subsist amongst men; and he, who for the gratification of his individual petty passions, can secretly take from any one, what can never be restored—his reputation-is almost as great an enemy to society, and as base a villain, as the assassin who plunges his dagger into the bosom of his adversary whilst he ̧ sleeps in security. In proportion as a liar is despised and hated, a man of probity and truth is honoured and respected. Of the justice of this assertion, the following anecdotes will afford striking examples Petrarch, the Italian poet, resided in the family of Cardinal Calonna, when a violent quarrel arose, the foundation of which that prelate was anxious to learn: assembling, therefore, all his houshold, he compelled them to take a solemn oath to represent all the circumstances attending it with fairness and impartiality; and even his brother, the Bishop of Lema, was not excepted from making the sacred assertion; but when Petrarch appeared, with an intent of following the bishop's example, the cardinal closed the book, saying, "As to you, Petrarch, your word is sufficient. |