DANGEROUS FOOLS.

SYDNEY SMITH writes:-If men are to be fools, it were better that they were fools in little matters than in great; dulness, turned up with temerity, is a livery all the worse for the facings; and the most tremendous of all things is a magnanimous dunce.

BULWER'S POMPEIAN DRAWING-ROOM.

IN 1841, the author of Pelham lived in Charles-street, Berkeley-square, in a small house, which he fitted up after his own taste; and an odd melée of the classic and the baronial certain of the rooms presented. One of the drawing-rooms, we remember, was in the Elizabethan style, with an imitative oak ceiling, bristled with pendents; and this room opened into another apartment, a fac-simile of a chamber which Bulwer had visited at Pompeii, with vases, candelabra, and other furniture to correspond.

James Smith has left a few notes of his visit here: "Our host," he says, "lighted a perfumed pastile, modelled from Vesuvius. As soon as the cone of the mountain began to blaze, I found myself an inhabitant of the devoted city; and, as Pliny the elder, thus addressed Bulwer, my supposed nephew:-'Our fate is accomplished, nephew! Hand me yonder volume! I shall die as a student in my vocation. Do thou hasten to take refuge on board the fleet at MiseYonder cloud of hot ashes chides thy longer delay. Feel no alarm for me; I shall live in

num.

story. The author of Pelham will rescue my name from oblivion.' Pliny the younger made me a low bow, &c." We strongly suspect James of quizzing

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our host." He noted, by the way, in the chamber were the busts of Hebe, Laura, Petrarch, Dante, and other worthies; Laura like our Queen.

STERNE'S SERMONS.

STERNE'S sermons are, in general, very short, which circumstance gave rise to the following joke at Bull's Library, at Bath :-A footman had been sent by his lady to purchase one of Smallridge's sermons, when, by mistake, he asked for a small religious sermon. The bookseller being puzzled how to reply to his request, a gentleman present suggested, "Give him one of Sterne's."

It has been observed, that if Sterne had never written one line more than his picture of the mournful cottage, towards the conclusion of his fifth sermon, we might cheerfully indulge the devout hope that the recording angel, whom he once invoked, will have blotted out many of his imperfections.

"TOM HILL."

A FEW days before the close of 1840, London lost one of its choicest spirits, and humanity one of her kindest-hearted sons, in the death of Thomas Hill, Esq. -"Tom Hill," as he was called by all who loved and

FOOTE'S WOODEN LEG.

GEORGE COLMAN, the younger, notes:— "There is no

This prop to his person I bedside, ready dressed in a

Shakspeare or Roscius upon record who, like Foote, supported a theatre for a series of years by his own acting, in his own writings; and for ten years of the time, upon a wooden leg! once saw standing by his handsome silk stocking, with a polished shoe and gold buckle, awaiting the owner's getting up: it had a kind of tragic, comical appearance, and I leave to inveterate wags the ingenuity of punning upon a Foote in bed, and a leg out of it. The proxy for a limb thus decorated, though ludicrous, is too strong a reminder of amputation to be very laughable. His undressed supporter was the common wooden stick, which was not a little injurious to a well-kept pleasureground. I remember following him after a shower of rain, upon a nicely rolled terrace, in which he stumped a deep round hole at every other step he took, till it appeared as if the gardener had been there with his dibble, preparing, against all horticultural practice, to plant a long row of cabbages in a gravel walk.”

more."

RIVAL REMEMBRANCE.

Mr. Gifford to Mr. Hazlitt.

"What we read from your pen, we remember no Mr. Hazlitt to Mr. Gifford.

"What we read from your pen, we remember before."

garden at New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon; this produced forty guineas. A small vase and pedestal, carved from the same mulberry-tree, and presented to Garrick, was sold with a coloured drawing of it, for ten guineas. And a block of wood, cut from the celebrated willow planted by Pope, at his villa at Twickenham, brought one guinea.

TYCHO BRAHE'S NOSE.

SIR DAVID BREWSTER relates that in the year 1566, an accident occurred to Tycho Brahe, at Wittenberg, which had nearly deprived him of his life. On the 10th of December, Tycho had a quarrel with a noble countryman, Manderupius Rasbergius, and they parted ill friends. On the 27th of the same month, they met again; and having renewed their quarrel, they agreed to settle their differences by the sword. They accordingly met at seven o'clock in the evening of the 29th, and fought in total darkness. In this blind combat, Manderupius cut off the whole of the front of Tycho's nose, and it was fortunate for astronomy that his more valuable organs were defended by so faithful an outpost. The quarrel, which is said to have originated in a difference of opinion respecting their mathematical attainments, terminated here; and Tycho repaired his loss by cementing upon his face a nose of gold and silver, which is said to have formed a good imitation of the original. Thus, Tycho was, indeed, a "Martyr of Science."

Glover, the poet of Leonidas; and this improbable idea was followed by another, assigning the authorship of the Letters to the Duke of Portland, in 1816. In the same year appeared "Arguments and Facts," to show that John Louis de Lolme, author of the famous Essay on the Constitution of England, was the writer of these anonymous epistles. In 1816, too, appeared Mr. John Taylor's "Junius Identified," advocating the claims of Sir Philip Francis so successfully that the question was generally considered to be settled. Mr. Taylor's opinion is supported by Edward Dubois, Esq., formerly the confidential friend and private secretary of Sir Philip, who, in common with Lady Francis, still entertains the conviction that his deceased patron was identical with Junius.

In 1817, George Chalmers, F.S.A., advocated the pretensions of Hugh Macaulay Boyd to the authorship of Junius. In 1825, Mr. George Coventry maintained with great ability that Lord George Sackville was Junius; and two writers in America adopted this theory.

Thus was the whole question re-opened; and, in 1828, Mr. E. H. Barker, of Thetford, refuted the claims of Lord George Sackville and Sir Philip Francis, and advocated those of Charles Lloyd, private secretary to the Hon. George Grenville.*

In 1841, Mr. N. W. Simons, of the British Museum, refuted the supposition that Sir Philip Francis was

* Supported by the following note, written by Dr. Parr, in his copy of" The Letters of Junius: "-" The writer of Junius' was Mr. Lloyd, secretary to George Grenville, and brother to Philip Lloyd, Dean of Norwich. This will one day or other

be generally acknowledged.-S. P."