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_Oriental Apologue_.--A blind man having contracted a violent passion
for a certain female, married her, contrary to the advice of all his
friends, who told him that she was exceedingly ugly. A celebrated
physician at length undertook to restore him to sight. The blind man,
however, refused his assistance. "If I should recover my sight," said
he, "I should be deprived of the love I have for my wife, which alone
renders me happy." "Man of God," replied the physician, "tell me
which is of most consequence to a rational being, the attainment of
happiness or the attainment of truth?" S.H.
_Honour_.--William the Third having insisted on Lord H----n's giving
him his _honour_ not to fight a man who had given him a box on the
ear, his lordship was obliged seemingly to comply; but as soon us he
was out of the king's presence he fought the man. The king was, at
first, highly incensed at his breaking his word with him, and asked
him how he came to do so, when he had just given him his honour.
"Sire," replied his lordship, "you were in the wrong to take such a
pledge, for at the time I gave it you, I had no honour to give." S.H.
_Doll's Eyes_.--Insignificant as may appear this petty article of
commerce, it is well known to keep in employ several thousand hands,
and goes to show the vast importance of trifles to a country of
decided commercialists. Mr. Osler, an intelligent manufacturer of
Birmingham, gave the following statement before the Committee of the
House of Commons, in 1824. "Eighteen years ago, on my first journey
to London, a respectable looking man in the city asked me if I could
supply him with doll's eyes, and I was foolish enough to feel half
offended; I thought it derogatory to my new dignity as a manufacturer,
to make doll's eyes. He took me into a room quite as wide, and twice
the length of this, (one of the large rooms for Committees in the
House of Commons,) and we had just room to walk between the stacks,
from the floor to the ceiling, of parts of dolls. He said these are
only the legs and arms, the trunks are below, but I saw enough to
convince me that he wanted a great many eyes; and as the article
appeared quite in my own line of business, I said I would take an
order by way of experiment, and he showed me several specimens. I
copied the order, and on returning to the Tavistock Hotel I found it
amounted to upwards of five hundred pounds.'" SWAINE.
_Eggs_.--The duty paid on eggs imported at Ramsgate within the last
three months, exceeds the sum of 2,000l.--_(Morning Herald.)_ The
rate of duty is, as stated in our last, 10d. on every 120 eggs.
_The Druids and the Mistletoe_--Pliny, in his _Natural History_, tells
us, "The Druids held nothing so sacred as the mistletoe of the oak,
as this is very scarce and rarely to be found, when any of it is
discovered, they go with great pomp and ceremony on a certain day to
gather it. When they have got everything in readiness under the oak,
both for the sacrifice and the banquet, which they make on this great
festival, they begin by tying two white bulls to it by the horns, then
one of the Druids, clothed in white, mounts the tree, and with a knife
of gold, cuts the mistletoe, which is received in a white sagum; this
done, they proceed to their sacrifices and feastings." This festival
is said to have been kept as near as the age of the moon permitted
to the 10th of March, which was their New Year's Day. The common
mistletoe was the golden bough of Virgil, and was Aenea's passport to
the infernal regions. P.T.W.
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