_Congreve Rockets_.--When the Congreve rockets were first introduced into
the navy, the admiral on the Brazil station proposed to exhibit to the
king, Don Juan VI., the effect of these formidable projectiles. His
majesty consented, and the whole court were accordingly assembled in the
balconies of the palace, at the Rio, for the purpose of witnessing the
spectacle. By some mishap, of very frequent occurrence in the early
history of these missiles, at the moment of firing the tube veered round,
and the rocket, instead of flying over to Praia Grande, took the opposite
direction, and fell and exploded in the great square, almost beneath the
windows of the palace. The consternation of the king was only equalled by
the mortification of the admiral, who immediately despatched an officer on
shore to explain the cause of the _contretemps_ to his majesty; and
offering to let off another, but the terrified monarch would not hear of
it. "I have a great respect," said he, "for my good allies, the English,
but after dinner they are absolutely fit for nothing;" an observation
which clearly indicated to what cause his majesty attributed the
unfortunate result of the exhibition.--_Monthly Magazine_.
* * * * *
_Prosperity of America_.--The United States of N. America posses an almost
undefinable extent of fertile uncultivated land--a highly industrious and
intelligent population of 13,000,000--the national debt will be paid this
year--and they have a large surplus revenue. That of 1831 was 27,700,000
Spanish dollars; the expenditure for all government purposes 14,700,000.
* * * * *
_War._--Were the disputes between great and rival nations to be settled by
single combat, by those, through whose ambition, pride, or other cause,
they were occasioned, millions of lives might have been saved.
* * * * *
_Curious Custom._--There is held in Italy, a kind of feast, or ceremony,
in the courts of certain princes, on St. Nicholas's Day, in which people
hide presents in the shoes or slippers of those they would do honour to;
in such a manner as to surprise them on the morrow, when they come to
dress. It is done in imitation of the practice of St. Nicholas; who used,
in the night time, to throw purses of money in at the windows, for
portions to poor maidens on their marriage. P.T.W.
* * * * *
_Experience._--It often happens that the more we see into a man, the less
we admire him.--_Pliny._
* * * * *
The Romans were so anxious to encourage marriage, that they punished
unmarried persons by rendering them incapable of receiving any legacy, or
inheritance by will, except from near relatives. And those who were
married, and had not any children, could take no more than half the estate.
* * * * *
_Etruscan Vases._--The art of making earthenware was transported from
Etruria into Greece. The Romans also borrowed this invention from the
Etruscans, to whom also Greece was indebted for many of its ceremonies and
religious institutions, as well as for its mechanics and artificers.
* * * * *
It is customary in the canton Wallis, Switzerland, for those who have
found anything lost, even money, to affix it to a large crucifix in the
churchyard, and there is not an example on record, of any object being
taken away except by the rightful owner. W.G.C.
* * * * *
_Cumberland Titles._--The honorary titles arising from the different
degrees of allowed consequence or property in Cumberland, appear (says
Britton) singular when compared with their usual acceptation in society.
The mistress of the house is a _Dame_; every owner of a little landed
property is a _'Statesman_; his eldest son is the _Laird_; and where there
is no son, the eldest daughter is born to the title of _Leady_. Thus we
may see a '_Statesman_ driving the plough, a _Lord_ attending the market
with vegetables, and a _Leady_ labouring at the churn. P.T.W.
* * * * *
_A string of echo puns_ surpassing all others, may be seen in a scarce
work, published in the reign of James I. A specimen--a divine, willing to
play more with words, than to be serious in the expounding of his text,
spoke thus in one part of the sermon:--"This dyall shewes we must _die
all_; yet, notwithstanding, all howses are turned into _ale-houses_; our
cares are turned into _cates_; our paradise, into, _a pair of dice_; our
marriage, into a _merry age_; our matrimony, into a _matter of money_; our
divines, into _dry vines_. It was not so in the days of Noah,
_Ah no_!"--T.G.
* * * * *
_Advertisement Extraordinary, from a Newspaper of 1796_.--"Whereas the
right hon. William Pitt, Chancellor of his Majesty's Exchequer, did on the
night of Monday last, and on or about the hour of six o'clock, utter in
his place in the House of Commons, certain sentences or phrases,
containing several assurances, denials, promises, retractions, persuasions,
explanations, hints, insinuations, and intimations, and expressing much
hope, fear, joy, sorrow, confidence, and doubt, upon the subject of peace,
then and there recommended by Charles Grey, esq., member of the aforesaid
House of Commons, for the county of Northumberland; and whereas the entire
effectual and certain meaning of the whole of the said sentences, phrases,
denials, promises, retractions, persuasions, explanations, hints,
insinuations, and intimations, has escaped and fled, so that what remains
is to plain understandings incomprehensible, and to many good men is
matter of painful contemplation: now this is to promise to any person who
shall restore the said lost meaning, or shall illustrate, simplify, and
explain the said meaning, the sum of five thousand pounds, to be paid on
the first day of April next, at the office of John Bull, esq., Pay-All and
Fight-All, to the several high contracting powers, engaged in the present
_just_ and _necessary_ war!
"Done at the office of Mr. John Bull's Chief Decypherer, _Turnagain_ Lane,
_Circumbendibus_ Street, _Obscurity_ Square, Feb. 18, 1796."
* * * * *
_Cheap Soup_.--Take ten quarts of water, and stir it with a rush-light
till it boils; season it to your liking, and it is ready for use. N.B. The
wick may be bolted.--_Monthly Mag_.
* * * * *
_Epitaph on the death of Miss Eliza More, aged_ 14.
Here lies who never lied before,
And one who will never lie _More_,
To which there need no _more_ be said
Than _More_ the pity she is dead,
For when alive she charmed us _More_
Than all the _Mores_ just gone before.[6]
[6] Her two sisters dying some months before.
* * * * *
_On Anne Green, a Quakeress_.
Here lies a piece of Christ, a star in dust,
A wedge of gold, a china dish that must
Be used in heaven, when Christ doth feed the just.
* * * * *
_Inscribed on the back door of a Tavern_, which opened into the Parish
Church of St. Michael's, Cambridge, kept by Mr. Burrell, 1639: which door
is now taken down, the tavern having been pulled down, and a new street
built on its site.
Go on by leave, no way here lies:
But way and leave to those
That hast to taste good wine and fine,
And fear not Burrell's foes.
* * * * *
_Copied from the Churchwarden's Book_.
_The Mother Tongue_.--In Mr. Combe's _Illustrations of Phrenology_, a case
is related of a Welsh milkman, in London, who happening to fall down two
pair of stairs, received a severe contusion on the head, and was carried
to St. George's Hospital, where he lay senseless for several days, and
unable to speak. At length he became something better, and began to talk
to the nurses, but in such terms that no one could understand him, till it
was discovered that he had forgotten his English, and was talking Welsh; a
language he had not spoken for eighteen years. Mr. Combe conceives that
the blow having hit the store-house in his head, where the Welsh language
was garnered, his youthful acquisitions were poured out, whilst the
English language, which he had learned much later, was overpowered and
obliterated by the force of his mother tongue. W.G.C.
* * * * *
_Warning to Betrayers_.--St. Bennet's Abbey, in Norfolk, was so well
fortified, that William the Conqueror, in vain besieged it, till a monk,
upon condition of being made abbot, betrayed the place. The king performed
the condition, but hanged the new _abbot_ as a _traitor_. P.T.W.
* * * * *
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