crew, to about 300 persons. The prince, being detained a little after his father, imprudently ordered three casks of wine to be distributed among the men; and the captain, as well as the sailors, drank, in the joy of his heart, too freely, and promised to overtake every ship that had sailed before them. Accordingly he hoisted all sail, and plied all oars. The evening had closed before they started, but it was bright moonlight; the men exerted themselves under all the excitement of hilarity, and pride, and emulation, dreaming of no danger; the captain and the helmsman, under the same excitement, were unmindful of any; and when the ship was going through the water with all the stress of oars and sails, she struck upon a rock, called the Catte-raze, with such violence, that several planks were started, and she instantly began to fill. A boat was immediately lowered, and the prince was escaping in it,-which he might easily have done, for the shore was at no great distance,—when his sister, whom there had been no time to take off, or who in the horror of the moment had been forgotten, shrieked out to him to save her. It was better to die than turn a deaf ear to that call: he ordered the boat to put back and take her in; but such numbers leapt into it at the same time, that the boat was swamped, and all perished.* The ship also presently went down with all on board: only two persons, the one a young noble, son of Gilbert de Aquila, the other a butcher of Rouen, saved themselves: by climbing the mast, and clinging to the top, they kept their heads above water. Fitzstephens rose after the vessel had sunk, and might have taken the same chance of preser. vation; but calling to mind, after the first instinctive effort, that he had been the unhappy occasion of this great calamity, and dreading the reproaches, and perhaps the punishment that awaited him, he preferred present death as the least evil. The youth became exhausted during the night; and commending his poor companion to God's mercy with his last words, he lost his hold, and sunk. The butcher held on till morning, when he was seen from the shore and saved; and from him, being the only survivor, the circumstances of the tragedy were learnt. The tidings reached England in the course of that day; but no one would communicate it * "Which sudden clap of God's judgment, coming in a calm of glory, when all these bustlings seemed passed over, might make a conscience shrink with terror, to see oppression and supplantation repaid with the extinction of that for which so much had been wrought; and the line masculine of Normandy expired in the third inheritor, as if to begin the fate laid on all the future succession hitherunto, wherein the third heir in a right descent seldom or never enjoyed the crown of England; but that, either by usurpation or extinction of the male blood, it received an alteration: which may teach princes to observe the ways of righteousness, and let men alone with their rights, and God with his providence."-Dan, 65, to the king; no one, not even those who had lost dear connexions of their own by the same awful event, could bear to witness the first emotions of his grief. Three days they persisted in thus concealing it, till the king's anxiety being at length well nigh as painful as the certainty could be, a little boy was then sent in, who weeping bitterly, with no counterfeited passion, fell at his feet, and told him, that the White Ship, with all on board, was lost. The king, strong as he was in body and in mind, and in heart also, fainted at the shock; and though he survived it many years, he was never afterwards seen to smile.f-Southey's Naval History. ANCIENT COUNTRY GENTLEMEN OF ENGLAND. OLD Harry Hastings of Woodlands, whose Lord Shaftesbury, is the most curious specicharacter was drawn so lively by the first men of the life of a country gentleman in Charles the First's time. Harry Fielding is supposed to have given the portrait of one in the reign of George II., in the character of Squire Western, in Tom Jones; but, however amusing, it is an exaggeration, which tends to mislead. It throws ridicule on manners and habits, which were not so ignorant and absurd. We well knew many squires, the vigour of whose life had passed at that time, and we never saw an instance of any such uncouth and rude humours. Harry Fielding, with all his wit and cleveronly noble, but of the male line of the impeness, and all his high birth (which was not rial house of Hapsburg), was innately lowlived. Horace Walpole's. See Gray's remarks on him, and While we sincerely praise the country life of the old squire, we have not forgotten the humorous lines of Hall Stevenson, in his Crazy Tales: "A country dog, I think, In short, they never are so entertaining As when they're fast asleep or feigning." The seed-plot of the families of ancient gentry is in Cheshire-perhaps in consequence of its remoteness from the metropolis. Fraser's Magazine. THE SOLAR SYSTEM. THE following is an illustration calculated to convey to the minds of our readers a general impression of the relative magnitudes and distances of the parts of our system. Choose any well levelled field or bowling green. On it place a globe, two feet in diameter; this will represent the Sun; Mercury will be represented by a grain of mustard seed, on the + William of Malmesbury, 518. Holinshed, ii. 70. Lytteltou, Henry II. (8vo.) i. 198. Henry, iii. 49-50, Turner, i. 188-191. circumference of a circle 164 feet in diameter for its orbit; Venus a pea, on a circle 284 feet in diameter; the Earth also a pea, on a circle of 430 feet; Mars a rather large pin's head, on a circle of 654 feet; Juno, Ceres, Vesta, and Pallas, grains of sand, in orbits of from 1000 to 1200 feet; Jupiter a moderate sized orange, in a circle nearly half a mile across; Saturn a small orange, on a circle of four-fifths of a mile; and Uranus a full sized cherry, or small plum, upon the circumference of a circle more than a mile and a half in diameter. As to getting correct notions on this subject by drawing circles on paper, or, still worse, from those very childish toys called orreries, it is out of the question. To imitate the motions of the planets, in the above mentioned orbits, Mercury must describe its own diameter in 41 seconds; Venus, in 4m 14s; the Earth, in 7 minutes; Mars, in 4m 48s; Jupiter, in 2h 56m; Saturn, in 3h 13m; and Uranus, in 2h 16m.-Sir. J. Herschel on Astronomy. LUNAR CLIMATE. THE moon has no clouds, nor any other indications of an atmosphere. Hence its climate must be very extraordinary; the alternation being that of unmitigated and burning sunshine fiercer than an equatorial noon, continued for a whole fortnight, and the keenest severity of frost, far exceeding that of our polar winters, for an equal time. Such a disposition of things must produce a constant transfer of whatever moisture may exist on its surface, from the point beneath the sun to that opposite, by distillation in vacuo after the manner of the little instrument called a cryophorus. The consequence must be absolute aridity below the vertical sun, constant accretion of hoar frost in the opposite region, and, perhaps, a narrower zone of running water at the borders of the enlightened hemisphere. It is possible, then, that evaporation on the one hand, and condensation on the other, may to a certain extent preserve an equilibrium of temperature, and mitigate the extreme severity of both climates.-Ibid. DIMENSIONS OF COMETS. THE calculation of the diameters of their heads, and the lengths and breadths of their tails, offers not the slightest difficulty when once the elements of their orbits are known, for by these we know their real distances from the earth at any time, and the true direction of the tail, which we see only foreshortened. Now calculations instituted on these principles lead to the surprising fact, that the comets are by far the most voluminous bodies in our system. The following are the dimensions of some of those which have been made the subjects of such inquiry. The tail of the great comet of 1680, immediately after its perihelion passage, was found by Newton to have been no less than 20000000 of leagues in length, and to have occupied only two days in its emission from the comet's body! a decisive proof this of its being darted forth by some active force, the origin of which, to judge from the direction of the tail, must be sought in the sun itself. Its greatest length amounted to 41000000 leagues, a length much exceeding the whole interval between the sun and earth. The tail of the comet of 1769 extended 16000000 leagues, and that of the great comet of 1811, 36000000. The portion of the head of this last comprised within the transparent atmospheric envelope which separated it from the tail was 180000 leagues in diameter. It is hardly conceivable that matter once projected to such enormous distances should ever be collected again by the feeble attraction of such a body as a comet-a consideration which accounts for the rapid progressive diminution of the tails of such as have been frequently observed.— Ibid. ENORMOUS DISTANCES OF THE STARS. In the proportion of 200000 to 1, at least must the distance of the nearest fixed star from the sun exceed that of the sun from the earth. The latter distance, exceeds the earth's radius in the proportion of 24000 to 1; and, lastly, to descend to ordinary standards, the earth's radius is 4000 of our miles. The distance of the nearest star, then, cannot be so small as 4800000000 radii of the earth, or 19,200,000, 000,000 miles! How much larger it may be, we know not. The only mode we have of conceiving such intervals at all is by the time which it would require for light to traverse them. Now light, as we know, travels at the rate of 192000 miles per second. It would, therefore, occupy 100000000 seconds, or upwards of three years, in such a journey, at the very lowest estimate. What, then, are we to allow for the distance of those innumerable stars of the smaller magnitudes, which the telescope discloses to us! If we admit the light of a star of each magnitude to be half that of the magnitude next above it, it will follow that a star of the first magnitude will require to be removed to 362 times its distance to appear no larger than one of the sixteenth. It follows, therefore, that among the countless multitude of such stars, visible in telescopes, there must be many whose light has taken at least a thousand years to reach us; and that when we observe their places, and note their changes, we are, in fact, reading only their history of a thousand years' date, thus wonderfully recorded.-Ibid. The Gatherer. The late Mr. Kean.-In the second year of his London triumph, an elderly lady, whose sympathy had been excited by his forlorn condition in boyhood, but who had lost sight of him in his wanderings till his sudden starting into fame astonished the world, was induced, on renewing their acquaintance, to pay a visit of some days to him and Mrs. Kean, at their residence in Clarges-street. She made no secret of her intention to evince the interest she felt in his welfare, by a considerable bequest in her will; but, on accompanying Mrs. K. to the theatre to see him perform Luke, she was so appalled by the cold-blooded villany of the character, that, attributing the skill of the actor to the inherent possession of the fiendlike attributes he so consummately embodied, her regard was turned into suspicion and distrust. She left London the next day, and dying soon afterwards, it appeared that she had even altered the testamentary disposition of her property, which had once been made in his favour, and bequeathed the sum originally destined for him to a distant relative, of whom she knew nothing but by name. Fraser's Magazine. Qld and Modern England. There is nothing now to keep alive the energies of the people it is all hopeless and unbroken poverty. The splendour of the rich is only for themselves: there are no halls of hospitality, no feasts for the poor, no common dancing and music, no songs and minstrels, no Christmas carols, no pomp of arms, and banners, and tilts, and tournaments; much luxury, but no plenty; much pomp, but no solidity.-Fraser's Magazine. Epigrams from the Greek. A fool one night Being bit by many fleas, "For now," says he, "You won't see me, And I shall sleep at ease." Phidon, the miser, weeps,-for why? 'Tis not because he soon will die But that his coffin, horrid thought! For twice two minæ he has bought. You dye your locks, Nicyllas, some do cry, I know 'tis false, for them I saw you buy. Homer so well does Troy's sad fate relate, That other cities envy the same fate.-S. W. A. The Lion.-A Hottentot perceiving that he was followed by a lion, and concluding that the animal only waited the approach of night to make him his prey, began to consider of the best method to provide for his safety, which he at length effected in the following singular manner: observing a piece of broken ground, with a precipitate descent on one side, he sat down by the edge of it, and found to his great joy, that the lion also made a halt, and kept at the same distance as before. As soon as it grew dark, himself down a little below the edge of the the Hottentot, sliding gently forward, let hill, and held up his cloak and hat upon a stick, making at the same time a gentle motion with it; the lion, in the meanwhile, and mistaking the skin cloak for the man came creeping softly towards him, like a cat ; himself, made a spring and fell headlong down the precipice-Wood's Zoography. Dutch Parsimony.- A German clergyman, who lately travelled in Holland and England for the purpose of raising contributions for the support of his impoverished church, relates the following characteristic anecdote: a Dutch merchant very readily presented him with fifty florins; but, perceiving that he at the same time cast a rueful glance at the canvass bag which contained the money, the clergyman said, “I shall send you the bag back again." "I. thank you sincerely," said the Hollander, with a smile of satisfaction; "do so, if you please; bags are very scarce." FERNANDO. Epitaphs-from an ancient manuscript in the British Museum. "IN the Cathedrall Churche of St. Paule, in London, a stone is inscribed thus, without a Non nominem aspiciam ultra OBLIVIO. name THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD. VOL. XXI. of THE MIRROR, with a Steel-plate Portrait of the ETTRICK SHEPHERD, and a Biographical Sketch of his Life; upwards of Ninety Engravings, and 450 closely-printed pages; is now publishing, price 5s. 6d. boards. PARTS 138 and 139, price 8d. each, are also ready. Portrait, Memoir, and Title-page, Index, &c, to Vol. The Supplementary Number, containing the above XXI., price 2d., will be published in the ensuing week. Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House, London; sold by G. G. BENNIS, 55, Rue Neuve, St. Augustin, Paris; CHARLES JUGEL, Francfort; and by all Newsmen and Booksellers. GENERAL INDEX. ANECDOTE GALLERY, 167-190-197-254-294-342-382-421 CONTEMPORARY TRAVELLER, 155–165 CORRESPONDENCE, in each Number. DOMESTIC HINTS, 105 EMBELLISHED ARTICLES, in each Number. FINE ARTS, 111-164-182-200-222-296-335-395 GATHERER, in each Number. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS, 23-35-58--100-130-147-255-358-393 21-43-56-92128-136-153–173–183-218-248-264-280–303 -313-328-361-376-408-421 NEW BOOKS, 4-29-36-54-73-89-108-123-139-148-174-185-202-230— 232-301-312-370-384-405 NOTES OF A READER, 12-31-76-121-219-282-295-310-332-365-392-414- NOVELIST, 354-378-390-410 OLD POETS, 253 PUBLIC JOURNALS, 9-26-40-60-75—94–106–116–131–157-170-180-205-214 -234-250-265-277-296-313-329-346-363-396-425 RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS, 20-46-52-69-86-120-142-152-193-238-269- SELECT BIOGRAPHY, 82-102-263-286-325 Beards, lawyers', 288 Beds, damp, 109 Bee Farm in Poland, 365 Begum Somroo, memoir of, 372 Beulah Spa, Norwood, 229 Bird of Washington, 280 Birmingham, former prosperity of, 288 Birthday, King's, at Antwerp, 217 Blackbeard, the pirate, 310 Bluebeard and Othello, a parallel, 107 Boats, bridge of over the Menai, 220 Books curious facts relating to, 420 Arcana of Science for 1833, 201 Archer's Tours in India, 372 Byron's Works, 139 Cabinet Annual Register for 1833, Cabinet Cyclopædia, 13-29-30- Carlos's Crosby Hall, 14 Companion to the Almanac, 121 Polish Tales, 310 Puritan's Grave, 312-354-378— 410 Sandys's Carols, 12 Six Weeks on the Loire, 155 Slade's Travels in Turkey, Greece, &c., Southey's Naval History, 168 Stuart's Three Years in North Ame- Walpole's Sketches of the Court of Wife, a tale of Mantua, 282-295 Wondrous Tale of Alroy, 174–185 Bosphorus, fish in the, 38 Boston described, 141 Boyhood, retrospection of, 282 Breakfast, luxuries of, 334 Bridge, flying in Ireland, 360 Brighton Fashion, 285 Britain, early inhabitants of, 100 British Artists, Exhibition of, 200-222 British Institution, exhibition at, 164 British Museum, 166 British Navy, the, 285 Bromley mineral Water, 228 Brougham, Lord, 37 taste, 180 Cabbages, history of, 130 Cabinet Councils, Privy, 121 Cæsar, his presence of mind, 368 Mr., and Swift, 160 Cannon, large Turkish, 89 Canvassing a Burrow, 8 Capitan Pasha on his Quarter-deck, 54 Carausius and Arthur's Oven, 169 Carriages, improvements in, 9-31 |