HALL AND KIPPIS.

"The Rev. Robert Hall, on being asked if Dr. Kippis was not a clever man, said, "He might be a very clever man by nature, for aught I know; but he laid so many books upon his head that his brain could not move."

Disgusted, on one occasion, by the egotism and conceit of a preacher, who, with a mixture of self-complacency and impudence, challenged his admiration of a sermon, Mr. Hall, who possessed strong powers of satire, which he early learned to repress, was provoked to say, "Yes, there was one very fine passage in your discourse, sir." "I am reioiced to hear you say so-which was it?" "Why, sir, it was the passage from the pulpit into the vestry."

GEORGE III. AND JOSEPH LANCASTER.

In 1805, Joseph Lancaster, the educationist, was admitted to an interview with George III., at Weymouth. On entering the Royal presence, the King said: "Lancaster, I have sent for you to give me an account of your system of education, which I hear has met with opposition. One master teach five hundred children at the same time! How do you keep them in order, Lancaster?" Lancaster replied, "Please thy Majesty, by the same principle thy Majesty's army is kept in order-by the word of command." His Majesty replied, "Good, good; it, does not require an aged generation to give the command; one of younger years can do it." Lancaster observed that in his schools the teaching branch was performed by youths, who acted as monitors. The King assented, and said "Good." Lancaster then described his system; the King paid great attention, and was highly delighted; and as soon as he had finished, his Majesty said, "Lancaster, I highly approve of your system, and it is my wish that every poor child in my dominions should be taught to read the Bible; I will do anything you wish to promote this object." "Please thy Majesty," said Lancaster, "if the system meets thy Majesty's approbation, I can go through the country and lecture on the system, and have no doubt, but in a few months I shall be able to give thy Majesty an account where ten thousand poor children are being educated, and some of my youths instructing them. His Majesty immediately replied, "Lancaster, I will subscribe £100 annually; and," addressing the Queen, "you shall subscribe £50, Charlotte; and the Princesses, £25 each;" and then added, "Lancaster, you may have the money directly."

Lan

caster observed, "Please thy Majesty, that will be setting thy nobles a good example." The Royal party appeared to smile at this observation; but the Queen observed to his Majesty, "How cruel it is that enemies should be found who endeavour to hinder his progress in so good a work." To which the King replied, Charlotte, a good man seeks his reward in the world to come." Joseph then withdrew.

GAUGING.

On the occasion of Kepler's second marriage, he found it necessary to stock his cellar with a few casks of wine. When the winemerchant came to measure the casks, Kepler objected to his method, as he made no allowance for the different sizes of the bulging parts of the cask. From this accident, Kepler was led to study the subject of gauging, and to write a treatise on it, published at Linz, in 1615, and which contains the earliest specimens of the modern analysis.

PATRONAGE OF AUTHORS.

In the reigns of William III., of Anne, and of George I., even such men as Congreve and Addison would scarcely have been able to live like gentlemen by the mere sale of their writings. But the deficiency of the natural demand for literature was, at the close of the seventeenth, and at the beginning of the eighteenth century, more than made up by artificial encouragement-by a vast system of bounties and premiums. There was, perhaps, never a time at which the rewards of literary merit were so splendid-at which men who could write well, found such easy admittance into the most distinguished society, and to the highest honours of the state. The chiefs of both the great parties into which the kingdom was divided, patronised literature with emulous munificence. Congreve, when he had scarcely attained his majority, was rewarded for his first comedy with places which made him independent for life. Smith, though his "Hippolytus and Phædra" failed, would have been consoled with £300 a year but for his own folly. Rowe was not only poet-laureate, but landsurveyor of the Customs in the port of London, Clerk of the Council to the Prince of Wales, and Secretary of the Presentations to the Lord Chancellor. Hughes was Secretary to the Commissions of the Peace. Ambrose Philips was Judge of the Prerogative Court in Ireland. Locke was Commissioner of Appeals, and of the Board of Trade. Newton was Master of the Mint. Stepney and Prior were employed in embassies of high dignity and importance. Gay, who commenced life as apprentice to a silkmercer, became a Secretary of Legation at five-and-twenty. It was to a poem on the death of Charles II., and to the "City and Country Monse," that Montagne owed his introduction into public life, his Earldom, his Garter, and his Auditorship of the Exchequer. Swift, but for the unconquerable prejudice of the Queen, would have been a bishop. Oxford, with his white staff in his hand, passed through the crowd of his suitors to welcome Parnell, when that ingenious writer deserted the Whigs. Steele was a Commissioner of Stamps and a meinber of Parliament. Arthur Mainwaring was Commissioner of the Customs, and Auditor of the Imprest. Tickell was Secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland. Addison was Secretary of State.

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IRISH DENIAL.

An Irish boy, who was trying hard to get a place, denied that he was Irish. "I don't know what you mean by not being an Irishman," said the gentleman who was about hiring him; "but this I know, you were born in Ireland." Och, your honour, if that's all," said the boy," small blame to that. Suppose I had been born in a stable, would I have been a horse?"

TRIAL BY BATTLE.

A remarkable instance presented itself in the year 1818, when the law was fully discussed in the Court of King's Bench, in the case of Ashford v. Thornton. Upon that occasion, the defendant had been acquitted upon a prior indictment for the murder of a female. The acquittal of the accused, upon evidence which appeared to many sufficient to establish his guilt, occasioned great dissatisfaction; and the brother and next heir of the deceased was, accordingly, advised to bring the matter again under the consideration of a jury, by the disused practice of an appeal. The defendant waged his battle, and the appellant replied circumstances of such pregnant suspicion as (it was contended) precluded the defendant from asserting his innocence by battle. It was, however, decided by the court that an appeal being, in its origin and nature, a hostile challenge, gave to the appellee a right to insist upon fighting, and that the appellant could not deprive him of that right by a mere allegation of suspicious circumstances. The case had proceeded thus far, when the legal antiquaries were disappointed of the rare spectacle of a judicial duel, by the voluntary abandonment of the prosecution. A writer of the time observed:-"Should the duel take place, it will be indeed a singular sight to behold the present venerable and learned judges of the Court of King's Bench clothed in their full costume, sitting all day long in the open air in Tothill-fields, as the umpires of a match at single-stick. Nor will a less surprising spectacle be furnished by the learned persons who are to appear as the counsel of the combatants, and who, as soon as the ring is formed, will have to accompany their clients within the lists, and to stand, like so many seconds and bottle-holders, beside a pair of bare-legged, bare-armed, and bare-headed cudgellists." The subject, ludicrous as it seemed, was one of considerable seriousness and importance. The reflection that in the nineteenth century a human life might be sacrificed to a practice which might have been conceived too absurd, impious, and cruel, to have outlived the dark ages, could not be entertained without pain. In the following year, however, this barbarous absurdity was nullified by an act (59 Geo. 3, c. 46) abolishing all criminal appeals and trial by battle in all cases, both civil and criminal, and thus purifying the law of England from a blot which time and civilisation had strangely failed to wear away.

THE DESIRED EFFECT.

A young girl from the country being on a visit to a Quaker, was prevailed on to accompany him to meeting. It happened to be a silent one, none of the brethren being moved by the spirit to utter a syllable. When the Quaker left the meeting-house with his young friend, he asked her "How didst thou like the meeting?" to which she pettishly replied, "Like it? why I can see no sense in it-to go and sit for whole hours together without speaking a word; it is enough to kill the devil." "Yea, my dear," rejoined the Quaker," that is just what we want."

TYROLESE BRAVERY.

One of the most memorable exploits of the Tyrolese during the campaign of 1809 took place near the second bridge, called Pontlatzer Brücke. The fate of a division of 10,000 men belonging to the French and Bavarian army, which entered the Upper Indthal, or Valley of the Inn, will explain in part the means by which the victories of the Tyrolese were obtained. The invading troops advanced in a long column up a road bordered on the one side by the river Inn, then a deep and rapid torrent, where cliffs of immense height overhang both road and river. The vanguard was permitted to advance unopposed as far as Prutz, the object of their expedition. The rest of the army were, therefore, induced to trust themselves still deeper in this tremendous pass, where the precipices becoming more and more narrow as they advanced, seemed about to close above their heads. No sound but of the screaming of the eagles disturbed from their eyries and the roar of the river reached the ears of the soldiers; and on the precipices, partly enveloped in a hazy mist, no human forms showed themselves. At length, the voice of a man was heard, calling across the ravine. "Shall we begin?" "No!" was returned in an authoritative tone of voice, by one who, like the first speaker, seemed the inhabitant of some upper region. The Bavarian detachment halted, and sent to the General for orders, when presently was heard the terrible signal, "In the name of the Holy Trinity, cut all loose!" Huge rocks and trunks of trees, long prepared and laid in heaps for the purpose, now began to descend rapidly in every direction; while the deadly fire of the Tyrolese, who never throw away a shot, opened from every bush, crag, or corner of rock, which would afford the shooter cover. As this dreadful attack was made on the whole line at once, two-thirds of the enemy were instantly destroyed; while the Tyrolese, rushing from their shelter, with swords, spears, axes, scythes, clubs, and all other rustic instruments which could be converted into weapons, beat down and routed the shattered remainder. As the vanguard, which had reached Prutz, was obliged to surrender, very few of the ten thousand invaders are computed to have extricated themselves from the fatal pass.

SIR ASTLEY COOPER.

It has often been remarked that some circumstance, apparently accidental, has tended to influence the future career of those concerned; and an anecdote is told of Sir Astley, which, if true, seems to bear ont this idea. It is said that, when a boy, he saw a lad fall from a cart, and tear his thigh in such a manner as to wound the femoral artery. Our young hero immediately took his handkerchief, applied it round the thigh, and twisted it so tightly as to control the bleeding till further assistance could be procured.

Sir Astley received some very large fees, among which, not the least remarkable was that of a thousand guineas thrown at him in his night-cap, by a patient whom he had cut for the stone: an anecdote which he told with no small degree of animation, on retiring from a patient upon whom he had just performed the same operation, and who had likewise, in his agony, flung his cap at the surgeon, but without its containing, on this occasion, the cheque which gave so much force to the original incident. In 1815, when at the height of his reputation, he removed to Spring-gardens; and he was one of the few with whom the migration from the City to the West-end proved fully successful. A few years afterwards, he was employed professionally by George IV. to remove a smail tumor from the scalp: an operation which he performed with all his wonted coolness and dexterity. Probably, no surgeon of ancient or modern times enjoyed a greater share of reputation during his life than fell to the lot of Sir Astley. The Old and New World has alike rung with his fame; and we cannot give a better example of this than the fact of his signature being received as a passport among the mountains of Biscay by the wild followers of Don Carlos. A young English surgeon, seeking for employment, was carried as a prisoner before Zumalacarrequi, who demanded what testimonials be had of his calling or his qualifications? Our countrymen presented his diploma of the College of Surgeons; and the name of Astley Paston Cooper, which was attached to it, no sooner struck the eye of the Carlist leader, than he at once received his prisoner with friendship, and appointed him a surgeon in his army. Sir Astley long enjoyed a large share of public patronage; but we believe the actual amount of his fortune, when stated at half a million, is considerably over-rated. His personal expenses were not great; but he was very liberal to his relations, on whom, we have heard, on what we believe to be good authority, that he bestowed between two and three thousand pounds annually. He is also said to have spent £20,000 in bringing his brother into Parliament. Nor was his liberality confined to his own family. When Dr. Baillie and some others made up a purse for Dr. Pemberton, in the difficulties brought upon him by his ill-health, Sir Astley contributed the munificent sum of £500.

BISHOP WATSON.

The Rev. Robert Hall once observed of Bishop Watson, that "he married public virtue in his early days, but seemed for ever afterwards to be quarrelling with his wife.”

AN EMPEROR SAVED.

The Martinswand, in the Tyrol, owes its chief celebrity to an adventure of the Emperor Maximilian. That enthusiastic sportsman, led away, on one occasion, in pursuit of a chamois among the rocks above, by illluck missed his footing, and, rolling headlong to the verge of the precipice, was just able to arrest himself, when on the brink of destruction, by clinging with his head downwards to a ledge of rock, in a spot where he could move neither up nor down, and where, to all appearance, no one could approach him. He was perceived from below in this perilous position; and, as his death was deemed inevitable, prayers were offered up at the foot of the rock by the Abbot of Wilten, as though for a person in articulo mortis. The Emperor, finding his strength failing him, had given himself up for lost, and recommended his soul to heaven, when a loud halloo near at hand arrested his attention. A bold and intrepid hunter, named Zips, who had been driven to the mountains to avoid imprisonment for poaching, had, without knowing what had happened, also been drawn to the spot, in clambering after a chamois. Surprised to find a human being thus suspended between earth and sky, he uttered the cry which attracted Maximilian's attention. Finding the perilous nature_of_the case, he was in a few minutes at the Emperor's side, and binding on his feet his own crampons, and extending to him his sinewy arm, he succeeded, with difficulty, in guiding him up the face of the precipice along ledges where, to appearance, even the chamois could not have found footing; and thus rescued him from a situation of such hopeless peril, that the common people even now attribute his escape to the miraculous interposition of an angel. The spot where this occurred, now hollowed out into a cave in the face of the rock, is marked by a crucifix, which, though eighteen feet high, is so far above the post road, that it is barely visible from thence. It is now rendered accessible by a steep and rather difficult path, and may be reached in about half an hour's walk from Zirl. The cave is 750 feet above the river, and the precipice is so vertical that a plumb-line might be dropped from it into the high-road below. It is traditionally stated that Maximilian rewarded the huntsman with the title of Count Hollauer von Hohenfelsen, in token of his gratitude, and in reference to the exclamation uttered by him which had sounded so welcome to the Emperor's ears by announcing that relief was at hand. From the Emperor's pension list, still in existence, it appears that a sum of sixteen florins was annually paid to one Zips of Zirl.

A loquacious lady, ill of a complaint of forty years' standing, applied to Mr. Abernethy for advice, and had begun to describe its progress from the first, when Mr. A. interrupted her, saying he wanted to go into the next street, to see a patient; he begged the lady to inform him how long it would take her to tell her story. The answer was, twenty minutes. He asked her to proceed, and hoped she would endeavour to finish by the time he returned.

PROPHECY OF SPECTRES.

The tragedian John Palmer died on the stage at Liverpool. At the same hour and minute, a shopman in London, sleeping under a counter, saw distinctly his shade glide through the shop, open the door, and pop into the street. This, an hour or two after, he mentioned very coolly, as if Mr. Palmer himself had been there.

Cardan saw, on the ring finger of his right hand, the mark of a bloody sword, and heard at the same time a voice which bade him go directly to Milan. The redness progressively increased until midnight: the mark then faded gradually and disappeared. At that midnight hour his son was beheaded at Milan.

It was told by Knowles, the tutor of Lord Roscommon, when a boy, that young Wentworth Dillon was one day seized with a mood of the wildest eccentricity, contrary to his usual disposition. On a sudden he exclaimed, "My father is dead!" And soon after missives came from Ireland to announce the fact.

The father of Dr. Blomberg, Clerk of the Closet to George the Fourth, was captain in an army serving in America. We are told by Doctor Rudge, that six officers, three hundred miles from his position, were visited after dinner by this modern Banquo, who sat down in a vacant chair. One said to him, "Blomberg, are you mad?" He rose in silence, and slowly glided out of the door. He was slain on that day and hour.

In the "Diary of a Physician" (an embellished record of facts), we read the story of the spectre-smitten Mr. M, whose leisure hours were passed in the perusal of legends of diablerie and witchcraft. One evening, when his brain was excited by champagne, he returned to his rooms, and saw a dear friend in his chair; and this friend had died suddenly, and was at that moment laid out in his chamber; a combination of horrors 80 unexpected and intense, that monomania was the result.

FIGHTING BY MEASURE.

The usual place of resort for Dublin duellists is called the Fifteen Acres. An attorney of that city, in penning a challenge, thought most likely he was drawing a lease, and invited his antagonist to meet him at "the place called Fifteen Acres-be the same more or less.""

NICKNAMES.

John Magee, formerly the printer of the Dublin Evening Post, was full of shrewdness and eccentricity. Several prosecutions were instituted against him by the Government, and many "keen encounters of the tongue" took place on these occasions between him and John Scott, Lord Clonmel, who was at that period Chief Justice of the King's Bench. In addressing the Court in his own defence, Magee had occasion to allude to some public character, who was better known by a familiar designation. The official gravity of Clonmel was disturbed; and he, with bilious asperity, reproved the printer, by saying, Mr. Magee, we allow no nicknames in this court." "Very well, John Scott," was the reply.

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SIEGE OF ACRE, IN 1840.

Memorable as is Acre for the sieges it has undergone, there is none more remarkable than that of Nov. 3, 1840, when the place was stormed by the British fleet, under Sir Robert Stopford, and taken after a bombardment of a few hours; the Egyptians losing upwards of 2000 in killed and wounded, and 3000 prisoners; while the British had but 12 killed and 42 wounded.

In the session of Parliament, 1841, the Duke of Wellington remarked, in the House of Lords, that he had no recollection, in all his experience, except the recent instance on the coast of Syria, of any fort being taken by ships; excepting two or three years ago, when the fort of St. Jean d'Ulloa was captured by the French fleet. That was, he added, the single instance that he recollected; though he believed that something of the sort had occurred at the siege of Havannah, in 1763. The above achievement he considered one of the greatest deeds of modern times. It was altogether a most skilful proceeding. On inquiring how it happened that so small a number of men were lost on board the fleet, he discovered that it was because the vessels were moored within one-third of the ordinary distance. The guns of the fortress were intended to strike objects at a greater distance; and the consequence was, that the shot went over the ships that were anchored at one-third of the usual distance. By that means, they sustained not more than one-tenth of the loss which they would otherwise have experienced. Not less than 500 pieces of ordnance were directed against the walls; and the precision with which the fire was kept up, the position of the vessels, and, lastly, the blowing up of the large maga. zine, all aided in achieving this great victory in so short a time.

I

ASSASSINATION OF WALLENSTEIN.

At the east end of the market-place of Eger, in Bohemia, is the Burgomaster's house, in which Wallenstein was assassinated, in 1634. It is now, as it was then, the residence of the chief magistrate of the town, who permits his bed-room, the scene of the murder, to be shown to strangers. It is the apartment over the entrance, and it has been somewhat modernised; but the door at the back of the house, by which the assassins, Butler, Devereux, and six dragoons, entered, the wooden stair by which they mounted, the gallery along which they crept, and the low door of his bed-room, which they burst open, after murdering his attendant, are still pointed out. Wallenstein had just retired to bed, after dismissing his astrologer, who, it is said, had warned him that his stars at that moment boded untoward fortune. Awakened by a noise on the outside, he arose from his couch in his shirt, just as Devereux burst open the door, exclaiming "Thou must die." At these words, Wallenstein calmly, and without a groan or any sign of fear, opened his arms and received a blow of the halbert, which, in an instant, stretched him lifeless on the floor. Very little doubt is now entertained that Wallenstein was guiltless of the treason attributed to him, and that he had entered into no agreement with France or Sweden at the time when his death was decided on by the Emperor. No proofs of the existence of a conspiracy or of his guilt were elicited from the numerous persons implicated with him. His accusers were the persons who profited by his downfal, and inherited his estates; and the master whom he had twice saved from the brink of ruin was privy to his murder, and vainly attempted to ease a troubled conscience by ordering three thousand masses to be said for his soul!

In the hall of the Imperial Castle, now reduced to bare walls, the four friends of Wallenstein, who accompanied him to Eger, were murdered previous to the attack made upon him. Here they were invited to sup with Gordon, a Scotchman, the governor of the castle, who, with Butler, the commander of Wallenstein's escort, Leslie, and some others, exclusively Irish and Scotch, had previously sworn on their drawn swords to put them to death. It was agreed that cold steel alone should be employed, lest the report of fire-arms should alarm Wallenstein and the people in the town. As soon as the good cheer and full goblets began to tell upon the unsuspecting guests, Leslie, having previously ordered the drawbridge to be raised, and having received into his custody all the keys, gave the preconcerted signal, and the room was filled with armed men. The doomed victims started up from the table, perceiving the treachery; two of them, Kinsky and Illo, were quickly cut down; Terska seized his sword and made a desperate resistance; the fourth escaped into the kitchen, but was there butchered, after a struggle.

After this bloody deed, the actors received absolution in the chapel. In consequence of the perpetration of this crime within its walls, the castle gained the reputation of being haunted, and for this cause was allowed to fall into decay, and never after inhabited.

LEGAL ADULTERATION.

Several publicans being assembled at Malton, in Yorkshire, in order to renew their licenses to retail beer, the worthy magistrate addressed one of them (an old woman), and said he trusted she did not put any pernicious ingredients into the liquor; to which she immediately replied: "I'll assure your worship there's nought pernicious put into our barrels that I know of, but th' exciseman's stick."

WHO'S THE FOOL?

Some merchants went to an Eastern Sovereign, and exhibited for sale several very fine horses. The King admired them, and bought them; he, moreover, gave the merchants a lac of rupees to purchase more horses for him. The King one day, in a sportive humour, ordered the vizier to make out a list of all the fools in his dominions. He did so, and put his Majesty's name at the head of them. The King asked why. He replied, "Because you entrusted a lac of rupees to men you don't know, and who will never come back." Ay, but suppose they should come back?" "Then I shall erase your name and insert theirs."

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MERMAID OF 1822.

This impudent hoax upon the good people of London was the work of a Japanese fisherman, who seems to have displayed ingenuity for the mere purpose of making money by his countrymen's passion for everything odd and strange. He contrived to unite the upper half of a monkey to the lower half of a fish so neatly as to defy ordinary inspection. He then gave out that he had caught the creature alive in his net, but that it had died shortly after being taken out of the water; and he derived considerable pecuniary profit from his cunning in more ways than one. The exhibition of the sea-monster to Japanese curiosity paid well; but yet more productive was the assertion that the halfhuman fish, having spoken during the few minutes it existed out of its native element, had predicted a certain number of years of wonderful fertility, and a fatal epidemic,, the only remedy for which would be possession of the marine prophet's likeness. The sale of these pictured mermaids was immense. Either the composite animal, or another, the offspring of the success of the first, was sold to the Dutch factory, and transmitted to Batavia, where it fell into the hands of a speculating American, who brought it to Europe, and here, in the years 1822-23, exhibited his purchase as a real mermaid at every capital, to the admiration of the ignorant, the perplexity of the learned, and the filling of his own purse.