were abroad at the time were completely panic-struck. The sky, instead of being muddy with vapour, as is customary at this season, and at this time of the morning, was clear and cloudless, and the air remarkably serene and tranquil. Between five and six o'clock, however, an unusual number of falling stars were observed in various parts of the hea

vens.

A SAGO TREE.-The age of a sago tree at its best time is ten years, but the fruit is collected from the age of eight years to thirty-two or thirty-five, at which period it is perfectly hollow, and rots away from the top downwards. A sago tree of ten years old will be about twenty-seven feet high, and from five to eight feet girth at the bottom, and is continually yielding its crop. When the substance of the edible sago is three or five inches thick, they cut it, and this will be in two or three months, according to the quality of the ground. The oftener it is cut the faster it grows, which is proved by those trees that are neglected, as in many of them that have not been cut for six months the fruit will not be more than six or seven inches thick, whilst another tree, within thirty yards, cut every two months, will have four inches. There are several kinds of sago trees, some of which do not produce fruit for the first sixteen years.

POPULATION OF PARIS.-The Annuary of the Bureau des Longitudes, for the year 1832, gives the progress of the population of Paris during the year 1830. Births, 28,587, of which 14,488 were boys, and 14,099 girls. The number of infants born in wedlock, as well at the houses of the 'parents as in the hospitals, was 18,580, of which 9,392 were boys, and 9,188 girls. The number of infants born out of wedlock, as well in private houses as in the hospitals, was 10,007-of which 5,096 were boys, and 4,911 girls-of these 10,007 natural children, 2,258 were adopted by the parents, and 7,749 were abandoned. The number of deaths in that year was 27,466: 15,664 occurred at private houses; 10,754 at civil hospitals; 606 at mi litary hospitals; 67 in prisons; and 375 were deposited at the Morgue.

MONEY.-Money makes a man laugh. A blind fiddler playing to a company, and playing but scurvily, the company laughed at him. His boy that led him, perceiving it cried, "Father, let us be gone, they do nothing but laugh at

you." "Hold thy peace boy," said the fiddler, "we shall have their money presently, and then we will laugh at them."

EUCLID.-Euclid was beaten in Boccaline, for teaching his scholars a mathematical figure in his school, whereby he showed, that all the lives, both of princes and private men, tended to one centre, con gentilezza, handsomely to get money out of other men's pockets, and it into their own. T. O.

In all times, the princes in England have done something illegal to get money, but then came a parliment and all was well, the people and the prince kissed, and were friends, and so things were quiet for a while; afterwards there was another trick found out to get money, and after they had got it, another parliment was called to set all right, &c. But now, they have so outrun the constable*****

JESTS FROM THE ANTIQUE.

Apophthegms of Aristippus.-Being asked why philosophers frequented the rich, he replied, "They know their necessities better than the others do."

A rich man came to offer his son as a pupil; Aristippus demanded five hundred drachms: "Why," said the parent, "I could purchase a slave for that sum."-" Do so," replied Aristippus, "and then you will have two."

When asked by Dionysius, why he left Athens to visit Syracuse, he replied, "When I wanted wisdom I went to Socrates; now I want money, and come to thee."

Apophthegms of Stratonicus.-The musician Stratonicus adorned his school with statues of the Muses and Apollo; being asked how many pupils he had, he replied, "Twelve, with the aid of the gods!" He had really but two.

A friend asked him, whether long or round vessels were the safer; he answered, "The safest vessel is she that has gained her port."

King Ptolemy having spoken more wisely than warmly to Stratonicus, on the subject of music, he replied, "Sire, the management of the sceptre is different from that of the plectre."*

Stratonicus was once listening to a bad harper, who sung as wretchedly as he played: turning to a friend, he quoted from Homer

One thing the Gods have given, and one denied. Being asked to explain, he answered, "The Gods have given him the art of

The plectre was the quill with which the harp was played.

playing badly, and denied that of singing well."

He said that the mother of Satyrus was the most wonderful being in creation, for she bore the scoundrel nine months, and no other place or person could bear him nine days.

He said that cold weather prevailed at Enos nine months of the year, and winter the other three.

Customs of Carious Countries.

POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS.-At Rome, on the eve of an election, tents were pitched without the city, at which he who presided sat gravely with the augur, to observe the omens; there they watched carefully the appearance of the heavens, and the singing and flight of birds, and if the magistrate happened to hear thunder, or to observe any unpropitious omen, as he well might do when his own party were not on the ground in sufficient force, the auspices were unfavourable, and the election was forth with adjourned to another day. Even if it appeared, six months afterwards, that there was some mistake about the omens, the election was set aside. We have sometimes wished that this practice had never been exploded. So when a ship was crowned with garlands, and the trumpet had sounded for its departure, the alight ing of a swallow on the rigging, or an unhappy sneeze upon the left, outweighed all the favourable indications of the wind and tide. Drawing of lots was an authentic mode of ascertaining one's destiny. The Eternal City was overspread with gloom, when the appetite of the sacred chickens appeared less vigorous than usual; and, on the contrary, nothing could exceed the public satisfaction, when they ate as if consuming a corporation dinner. There is no end to the devices, by which the Romans endeavoured to read the book of fate; most of them were abandoned as the world grew older; but there was one which descended to them from the earliest antiquity, and was preserved until a comparatively recent time. This was astrology, founded on the notion, that the star which was rising at the hour of one's birth, ever afterwards influenced, or at least foreboded his destiny; a persuasion, supposed to be derived from those who watched the stars from the plains of Chaldea. It is worthy of remark, that in Rome, as in modern Europe, the great could not

descend to travel the same path to futurity with the vulgar; the rich applied to the astrologers, who carried a mysterious ephemeris, the prototype of our modern almanac, in which the rising and setting, the conjunction, and other appearances of the stars, were set down; while the poor were fain to have recourse to the threadbare fortune-teller, of what Horace calls the deceitful Circus Maximus, who gave them a destiny brilliant in proportion to their ability to pay. In the sixteenth century and later, the heavenly bodies in the same manner, were supposed to indicate the fortunes of the great, as well as the vicissitudes of nations; while the inspection of the face or hand was sufficient to prognosticate the destiny of the poor. This most singular of fancies, that the movement of worlds was regulated with a view to the destiny of an inhabitant of one of the smallest of the whole, pervaded the loftiest intellects of the time; even the miraculous discernment of Bacon was not insensible to its influence; and Scott has given some striking illustrations in Kenilworth and Quentin Durward, of its power over nobles and kings. Every one remembers Napoleon pointing to the sun of Austerlitz, and watching, from the forsaken halls of the Kremlin, his waning star, which soon went down in blood. The astrologer was once invested with every honour, which gratified pride and ostentation could bestow; his predictions were generally as mysterious as the response of the Delphic oracle to Pyrrhus; but woe to the prophet, when the horoscope proved false. Mr. Partridge is the last of these worthies on record; he fell on evil days, when the artillery of the Royal Society had battered down all the pretensions of his art; and his most unlucky star was in the ascendant, when he encountered the fatal ridicule of Swift. The vulgar mystery of fortunetelling, has escaped the same fate with astrology, because it wisely avoided the attempt to soar so high; it has been kept in tolerable preservation by the gypsies, and there is scarely a village so poor as to be without its wise-woman, who reads one's fortune in the lines of the hand or the grounds of an exhausted tea-cup.

North Amer Rev.

Anecdotiana.

HONOURS.-Honours, like diamonds, are the more valuable the scarcer they

are they should come like "angel's visits, few and far between." So thought the politic Queen Elizabeth; for so sparingly did she bestow them, that the order of the garter was considered by her as a sufficient recompense to Sir Philip Sidney for refusing the crown of Poland, which, from his high reputation throughout Europe, had been offered him. Sir Francis Drake, also, for his voyage round the world, and glorious successes over the Spaniards, was simply knighted by the queen, and an additional bearing to his coat of arms granted him. By conferring such simple favours as these, Elizabeth esteemed herself bounteous, and was applauded for extraordinary munificence. ANCIENT CUSTOMS.-When, during the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, a Duke de Vendome was appointed governor of Provence, the deputies, as was their usual custom, presented him with a purse containing 20,000 livres. Highly delighted with the gift, he drop ped it into a strong box that was in the room, when one of the deputies, with a very grave face, told him, That though by an old custom they presented the purse full, his ancestors, the former Dukes de Vendome, who had from time immemorial enjoyed the place, always returned the money, and retained only the purse. "The conduct of the Dukes de Vendome who were my ancestors,"replied the new-made governor, "was inimitable!"

ST. JAMES'S PALACE.-This palace was built by Henry, in 1532. (It had been an hospital for fourteen leprous maidens); he added to it the remains of York Palace, Whitehall, and inclosed the whole, (now St. James's Park) with a wall. The same Henry, in 1535, made his courtiers cut their hair short, and did so himself. He also brought into fashion the wearing of beards, and the knotting, (probably curling them.)

SAYINGS OF ROBERT HALL, THE DISSENTER. Upon this great preacher's going for the first time into York Minster, with a party of friends, he was asked what he thought of its sublime architecture. "Sir," said he, "it would awe a bacchanal!"

When shewn the monument of Robinson, in which that celebrated pastor is sculptured erect, as if in the act of receiving the bible from the hands of Christ; instead of applauding, as had been expected, the skill of the artist, he exclaimed, energetically, "The man, Sir, ought to have been prostrate at the feet of his Maker."

Being asked by an Ultra-Calvinist if he thought he should see John Wesley in heaven, he replied, "I fear not; for he will be so near the throne of God, and I so distant from it, that I shall scarcely be able to obtain a glimpse of him." He said, on another occasion, "Whoever gets to heaven, will there find more women than men."

Being asked if Cambridgeshire were, in his opinion, so devoid of the picturesque as it had been described; he replied, "Yes, sir; it is, indeed, to the eye dreary: it is naked, without foliage, without trees,-except that, here and there, a stunted willow astonishes the traveller, as though nature were putting up signals of distress."

It would appear from the following anecdote, that as a tea-drinker Johnson scarcely excelled him: — Returning from a party, at rather a late hour, weary and unwell, the lady, at whose house he was residing, proposed to get him a cup of tea: he gladly availed himself of her offer; and she, with great kindness, after he had emptied the kettle, asked if she should order it to be filled again. "Why, no, madam," replied he, "I ought, perhaps, to be ashamed for having taken so much: and yet, on consideration, I need not; for it has brought two fine qualities into exercise; great patience, madam, on your part, and perseverance on mine."

JOHNSON AND ROUBILIAC.-The following story received by Northcote from Sir Joshua Reynolds, is no doubt true, and so characteristic, that it is worthy of being put on record. Roubiliac, the celebrated sculptor, desired Reynolds to introduce him to Dr. Johnson, in order to procure of him an epitaph for a monument, on which he was then engaged. Johnson received them very civilly, and took them into a garret, which he called his library, in which, beside his books covered with dust, were a crazy table and an old chair with but three legs. In this, Johnson seated himself, contriving to support its lame side against the wall of the room. He then requested to know what they desired him to write. Roubiliac, who was a true Frenchman, immediately began a high-flown harangue, directing the Doctor what sentiments to express; but Johnson quickly interrupted hm, saying, "Come, Sir, let us have no more of this ridiculous rhodomontade, but let me know in simple language, the name, character, and quality of the person, whose epitaph I am to write."

Ellustrated Article.

MARY FENWICK.

DURING a short journey in the north, my attention had been much excited by the modest demeanour of an interesting young woman, accompanied by a venerable-looking old man, who, on the arrival of the coach at Berwickupon-Tweed, took leave of her with an almost filial farewell, saying, "God bless and reward you.' She then drew a black veil over her face, and sat down opposite to me. I never felt more inclined, and at the same time at a loss, to open a conversation. To intrude on female sorrow is unjustifiable; to treat it with indifference, impossible. I, at length, summoned up courage, and observed to her, that I supposed, like myself, she was not going far. She answered, that she was on her way to London. Perceiving a tear trickle down her pale cheek, and imagining that further conversation VOL. IX.

must be fraught with more of pain than pleasure, I, therefore, suppressed my curiosity, and we remained silent until the arrival of the coach at my friend's gate, with whom I intended to sojourn a few hours. Now that all idea of intrusion was at an end, I could venture upon kindness; I observed to her that the idea of her going such a journey by herself grieved me, and asked her if I could be of any service in recommending her to the protection of the guard. She thanked me a thousand times, and I think if we had been destined to go another stage, I should have known her history. Time, however, on all occasions despotic, is inexorable when armed with a mail coach horn, and I had only time to shake hands with the gentle being, slip a crown into the guard's palm to look well after her, ere the coach started, bearing her from my view for ever.I passed an agreeable few hours with my friend, enjoying his old claret and older stories, and then started to fulfil

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