James I. by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, and what the place has since become, will be of opinion that during his life was called Northampton House. In no difficulties at the outset of colonization are enough to 1642 it came to Algernon, Earl of Northumberland, by deter adventurers from steadily pursuing their object. marriage, and since then has been called Northumber- For the first three years, the inhabitants being wholly land House. dependent upon foreign supplies for the commonest articles of food, were occasionally reduced to great straits; and, accordingly, we hear of eighteen pence per pound having been readily given for kangaroo flesh, and that even sea-weed, or any other vegetable substance that could be eaten, was eagerly sought after. But man is always the better for being thrown upon his own resources. After a time, it was discovered that the colony itself, if the land were cultivated, possessed that which would supersede the necessity of seeking elsewhere for food; and, although the first attempts at husbandry were merely made with the hoe and spade, enough was ascertained by them to bid the colonists go on and prosper." No sheep or cattle were imported till three years after the settlement of the island. For some time after this, indeed, the colony was looked upon merely as a place of punishment for persons convicted of crimes in New South Wales, numbers of whom accordingly continued to be sent to it every year. Governor Collins died in 1810; and in 1813 Lieutenant-Colonel Davey arrived as his The exact spot upon which Charing Cross stood is occupied by an equestrian statue of Charles I. in bronze, executed in 1633 by Le Sœur, for the Earl of Arundel. During the civil wars, it fell into the hands of the Parliament, by whom it was ordered to be sold and broken up. The purchaser, John River, a brazier, produced some pieces of broken brass, in token of his having complied with the conditions of sale; and he sold to the cavaliers the handles of knives and forks as made from the statue : River deceived both the Parliament and the loyalists; for he had buried the statue unmutilated. At the restoration of Charles II. he dug it up, and sold it to the Government; and Grinlin Gibbon executed a stone pedestal, seventeen feet high, upon which it was placed and still remains. It has been customary on the 29th of May, the anniversary of the Restoration, to dress the statue with oaken boughs. VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. We have before us an Almanac for 1831, published in Hobart Town, the capital of Van Diemen's Land. It is a matter of agreeable wonder to find an Almanac published in, and for the use of, a country, which even at so late a date as the beginning of the present century (within thirty years), and indeed for some years afterwards, was inhabited merely by a few thousands of the most ignorant and destitute savages on the face of the earth. And now we find established on those distant shores a community so far advanced in social refinement as to have already an almanac of its own; one, too, in many respects as well executed as any production of the same kind to be found in older countries, and much better than some that still disgrace the most civilized countries. This is an Almanac without Astrology. successor. From about this time the colony began to be considered in a new light. The population consisted no longer merely of the convicts and the garrison; but, besides many persons who, having been originally crown prisoners, had obtained their freedom by servitude or indulgence, embraced a considerable number of settlers who had arrived in successive small parties from the neighbouring colony of New South Wales. Hitherto the only places with which Van Diemen's Land was allowed to hold any communication, had been New South Wales and England: that restriction was now done away with, and the two colonies were placed, in respect to foreign commerce, on precisely the same footi 1816 the numbers of the community and the importance of its affairs had so much increased, that the government thought proper to establish a newspaper, entitled The Hobart Town Gazette, principally for the purpose of promulgating proclamations and other notices. This corn from the island, a considerable quantity having been sent to Port Jackson, and likewise by the commencement of whale-fishing by the colonists, "two of the sinews. says the present writer, " of our prosperity as a colony." Although called an Almanac, this little volume contains a considerable variety of information not usually given in works of that description. The heavy stamp-year also was distinguished by the first exportation of duty in our own country renders it necessary that an Almanac should contain little besides the Calendar, Lists, and useful Tables; and thus the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge prints a Companion to the Almanac, which may be bought with it or not. In addition to a Calendar and the ordinary lists, we have here a body of information respecting the past, and especially the present state of the country, embracing almost every particular with which either a person intending to emigrate, or the general reader, can desire to be acquainted. In 1817 Colonel Davey was succeeded in the government by Colonel Sorell. The first object which engaged the attention of the new Governor was the suppression of an evil under which the colony had for some years been suffering, the ravages of the bush-rangers, as they were called, or prisoners who had made their escape and roamed at large in the woods. The capture and execuVan Diemen's Land was discovered so long ago as the tion of the principal leaders of these marauders in a year 1642, by the Dutch navigator Tasman, who gave it short time put an end, for the present, to their destructhe name which it still bears, in honour of his employer tive inroads. Colonel Sorell then applied himself to the Anthony Van Diemen, the then governor of the Dutch improvement, in various ways, of the internal condition possessions in India. It was not, however, till the year of the colony. Amongst other important public works 1804 that the country was taken possession of by Eng-he formed a road between Hobart Town and Launcesland. In the early part of that year Colonel David Collins, having been appointed Governor of the projected settlement, arrived on the island with about four About 1821 may be said to have begun the emigration hundred prisoners in charge, and a force of fifty marines from England, which has since proceeded almost with under his command. He was accompanied also by uninterrupted steadiness. The immediate consequence several gentlemen, commissioned to fill the various situa- was. " that trade began to assume regularity, distilleries tions in the new government. They fixed their head- and breweries were erected, the Van Diemen's Land quarters on the site of the present capital, to which they Bank established, St. David's church at Hobart Town gave the name of Hobart Town, after Lord Hobart, the finished and opened, and many other steps taken, then Secretary for the Colonies. "The Colony," pro- equally indicative of the progress the colony was ceeds the narrative before us, "being thus founded, con-making." In 1824 a supreme court of judicature was tinued to take root, although at times suffering very great hardships. Indeed those who recollect them, and see ton, another settlement which had been made about a hundred and twenty miles farther north. established in the colony. The same year Colonel Sorell was replaced by Colonel Arthur, the present Governor. It strengtheneth drink and it flavoureth malt; And being well-brewed long kept it will last, And drawing abide, if ye draw not too fast." In the reign of James I. the plant was not sufficiently cultivated in England for the consumption; as there is a statute of 1608 against the importation of spoiled hops. In 1830 there were 46,727 acres occupied in the cultivation of hops in Great Britain. Very soon after Colonel Arthur's arrival, bush-ranging | changed; for privileges were then granted to hop-grounds, again broke out in a more formidable manner than ever; Tusser, in his Five Hundred Points of good Husbandry, but, by the judicious plans which he adopted for its sup- printed in 1557, thus sings the praises of this plant :pression, "in the course of a few months," says the pre- "The hop for his profit I thus do exalt, sent writer, "not only was tranquillity entirely restored, but was placed on so firm a basis, that it is next to impossible ever to be again disturbed by a similar cause." In December, 1825, Van Diemen's Land was declared entirely independent of New South Wales; and an executive and legislative Council were appointed as advisers to the Governor, the members of both being named by the Crown. In 1827 the island was divided into eight police districts, each of which was placed under the charge of a stipendiary magistrate. The colony about this time "began to export considerably, loading several ships each season to England, with wool, bark, and oil." FAIR PLAY. Of barley, there are now above thirty million bushels annually converted into malt in Great Britain; and more than eight million barrels of beer, of which four-fifths are strong beer, are brewed yearly. This is a consumpA new evil, however, now began to assail the colony, tion, by the great body of the people, of a favourite we mean the hostility of the natives. After various beverage, which indicates a distribution of the national attempts had been made in vain to tame them, or to wealth, satisfactory by comparison with the general deter them from continuing outrages against the settlers, poverty of less advanced periods of civilization in our the Governor, at last, in September 1830, deemed it own country, and with that of less industrious nations in necessary to resort to the extreme measure of endeavour-our own day.-Vegetable Substances used for Food. ing to drive them into one corner of the island, with the intention of there enclosing them for the future. For this purpose the whole of the inhabitants were called upon to arm themselves, and to lend their aid to the military. The result had not been completely successful at the time when the latest accounts left the country. In the course of the year 1828 the colony, and Hobart Town in particular, made a decided step in advance. In 1829 a new Act of Parliament was passed for the government of the colony, the most important provisions of which were, the transference of the power of levying taxes from the Governor to the Legislative Council, and the extension of the authority of all the laws of England to Van Diemen's Land, as far as the circumstances of the colony permitted. Such is a brief sketch of the origin and progress hitherto of this young, but advanced and flourishing colony. Our next week's publication will contain an account of its present state. ANTIQUITY OF BEER. THE general drinks of the Anglo-Saxons were ale and mead: wine was a luxury for the great. In the Saxon Dialogues preserved in the Cotton Library in the British Museum, a boy, who is questioned upon his habits and the uses of things, says, in answer to the inquiry what he drank-" Ale if I have it, or water if I have it not." He adds, that wine is the drink "of the elders and the wise." Ale was sold to the people, as at this day, in houses of entertainment; "for a priest was forbidden by a law to eat or drink at ceapealethetum, literally, places where ale was sold." After the Norman conquest, wine became more commonly used; and the vine was extensively cultivated in England. The people, however, held to the beverage of their forefathers with great pertinacity; and neither the juice of the grape nor of the apple were ever general favourites. Of a favourite wassail or drinking-song of the fifteenth century, the burden was— "Bring us home good ale." "The old ale knights of England," as Camden calls the sturdy yeomen of this period, knew not, however, the ale to which hops in the next century gave both flavour and preservation. Hops appear to have been used in the breweries of the Netherlands in the beginning of the fourteenth century. In England they were not used in the composition of beer till nearly two centuries afterwards. It has been affirmed that the planting of hops was forbidden in the reign of Henry VI.; and it is certain that Henry VIII. forbade brewers to put hops and sulphur into ale. In the fifth year of Edward VI., the royal and national taste appears to have A NOBLEMAN resident at a castle in Italy was about to celebrate his marriage feast. All the elements were propitious except the ocean, which had been so boisterous as to deny the very necessary appendage of fish. On the very morning of the feast, however, a poor fisherman made his appearance, with a turbot so large, that it seemed to have been created for the occasion. Joy pervaded the castle, and the fishernobleman, in the presence of his visitors, requested him to man was ushered with his prize into the saloon, where the put what price he thought proper on the fish, and it should be instantly paid him. One hundred lashes, said the fisherman, on my bare back, is the price of my fish, and I will not bate one strand of whip-cord on the bargain. The nobleman and his guests were not a little astonished, but our chapman was resolute, and remonstrance was in vain. At humourist, and the fish we must have, but lay on lightly, length the nobleman exclaimed, Well, well, the fellow is a and let the price be paid in our presence. After fifty lashes had been administered, Hold, hold, exclaimed the fisherman, I have a partner in this business, and it is fitting that he should receive his share. What, are there two such madcaps in the world? exclaimed the nobleman; name him, and he shall be sent for instantly. You need not go far for him, said the fisherman, you will find him at your gate, in the shape of your own porter, who would not let me in until I promised that he should have the half of whatever I received turbot. Oh, oh, said the nobleman, bring him up instantly, he shall receive his stipulated moiety with the strictest justice. This ceremony being finished, he discharged the porter, and amply rewarded the fisherman. for my Changes of Manners.-John Locke, the celebrated writer on the Human Mind and on Government, mentions in his Journal, in the year 1679, the following as the amusements of London to be seen by a stranger:-" At Marebone and Putney he may see several persons of quality bowling two or Inn Field every evening all the summer; bear and bull three times a week all the summer; wrestling, in Lincoln's baiting, and sometimes prizes at the Bear-Garden; shooting in the long-bow and stob-ball, in Tothill-fields." Animal Sagacity.-In the immense forests of North America, the moose-deer is hunted by the Indians with such relentless perseverance, that all the instincts of the quadruped are called forth for the preservation of its existence. Tanner, a white man who lived thirty years in the woods, thus describes the extraordinary extent of the moose's vigilance "In the most violent storm, when the wind, and the thunder, and the falling timber, are making the loudest and most incessant roar, if a man, either with his foot or his hand, breaks the smallest dry limb in the forest, the moose will hear it; and though he does not always run, he ceases eating, and rouses his attention to all sounds. If in the course of an hour, or thereabouts, the man neither moves, nor makes the least noise, the animal may begin to feed again, but does not forget what he has heard, and is for many hours more vigilant than before." THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. THE greater number of our readers must have heard of the Zoological Gardens, in the Regent's Park, at London, which have been established about four years, and which. now comprise the finest menagerie in the world, if we regard the number and variety of the animals. The expense of this establishment, which amounts to many thousand pounds a year, is maintained by the annual subscriptions of the Fellows of the Zoological Society, and the payment (a shilling) by each person who is recommended by the ticket of a proprietor. It is not our intention to give a description of all the various animals there; but we shall from time to time notice any remarkable circumstance that occurs, as illustrative of their habits; or we shall mention any new curiosity which is purchased by the Society, or presented to it. The Wapiti, in the Zoological Gardens, shed his immense horns on the 6th of February last. Their weight was twenty-one pounds five ounces. In 1831 he shed them on the 1st of February, when their weight was twenty-three pounds two ounces. In captivity, therefore, the Wapiti shows no deviation from the law of nature, which he exhibits in his own American forests,-that he should shed his horns, or bony excrescences, every year. All the deer tribe are subject to this law. Already the new horns of the Wapiti are beginning rapidly to growat first looking like a soft velvety substance, and gradually getting harder and more branching, till they become the gigantic antlers, which within a year will drop off, again to be renewed. It is generally considered that the horns of the deer tribe increase in size as the animal advances in age; but in the individual instance of the Wapiti of the Zoological Gardens, the horns of 1832 weigh less, by one pound thirteen ounces, than those of 1831. [Horns of the Wapiti.] A very large bear, of the species called the Grizzly, has been recently brought to the Zoological Gardens. This is the largest and most ferocious of the bear tribe-the most terrible quadruped of North America, whom even the Indians, accustomed as they are to every danger, fly from and fear. He is exceedingly tenacious of life, and thus, if he encounters a single Indian, there is little chance of destroying him with the generally fatal rifle. Lewis and Clark, two enterprising travellers in the wildest regions of North America, describe an encounter with a bear of this species. Six hunters went to attack him four fired, and each wounded him. The two who had reserved their fire, hit him when he sprang forward. Before they could again load, the fearful animal was upon them. They fled to a river: four were able again to fire, concealed behind a tree, and again hit him. He turned upon them, and they were obliged to throw themselves into the water, from a bank twenty feet high. He took also to the water in chase of his hunters; and had not one of the two men who remained on shore shot him through the head, the hindmost swimmer would at least have rued the perilous adventure. The Brown Bear of the northern parts of Europe is so ferocious as the Grizzly Bear, but of prodigious THE WEEK. APRIL 1.-The anniversary of the birth of the celebrated philosopher, René Des Cartes, who was born at La Haye, in Touraine, in 1596. When a child he was so remarkable for the anxiety he showed to know the cause of every thing, that his father used to call him his young philosopher. He entered the army when very young; and continued to serve for some years, but zealously pursued his mathematical and other studies all the time. An anecdote, illustrative of the ex tent of his acquirements under apparently unfavourable circumstances, is given in The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties." "He happened to be in garrison with his regiment at the town of Breda, in the Netherlands, when, walking out one morning, he observed a crowd of people assembled around a placard or advertisement which was stuck up on the wall. Finding that it was written in the Dutch language, which he did not understand (for he was a native of Touraine, in France), he inquired of a person whom he saw reading it what it meant. The individual to whom he addressed his inquiries happened to be the Principal of the University of Dort, a man of distinguished mathematical attainments; and it was with something of a sneer that he informed the young officer, in reply to his question, that the paper contained the announcement of a difficult geometrical problem, of which the proposer challenged the most able men of the city to attempt the solution. Not repulsed, however, by the tone and manner of the learned Professor, Des Cartes requested to be favoured with a translation of the placard, which he had no sooner received than he calmly remarked that he thought he should be able to answer the challenge. Accordingly next day he presented himself again before Beckman (that was the name of the Professor) with a complete solution of the problem, greatly to the astonishment of that distinguished person.' At last Des Cartes left the army, and travelled through a great part of Europe, visiting England among other countries. He then fixed his residence in Holland, where he wrote the greater number of his works. They relate to metaphysics, geometry, and various departments of natural philosophy. He is now principally remembered for the impulse which his works gave to the study of metaphysics in Germany, and for his ideas being now, in a great degree, the foundation of what is called the Ideal School of Philosophy, as opposed to the Sensual, or Material. His celebrated axiom was "Cogito, ergo sum," (I think, therefore, I exist). His astronomical speculations were very singular and extravagant. He explained the constitution of the heavens by means of a multitude of vortices, or elementary whirlpools, of which the sun and 'every other fixed star, according to him, had one, forming as it were its system, and supporting and keeping in motion the other lighter bodies that circle round it. Notwithstanding these fancies, Des Cartes was a most profound and ingenious mathematician; and the science of optics is also greatly indebted to him. Having been invited by Christina, Queen of Sweden, to take up his residence in Stockholm, he repaired to that capital in 1648; but died there of an inflammation of the lungs on the 11th of February, 1650, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. pro April 1.-All-Fools'-Day, like many other days that were once observed by most people, has no honours now but in the gaiety of school-boys. The old custom of sending individuals on this day on a fool's errand is not peculiar to England. Scotland has her April gowk, and France her Poisson d'Avril (April fish). It is bable that the custom is a relic of a high and general Pagan festival, in which the wildest spirit of frolic expressed the universal gladness. It is to be remembered that the year anciently began about the time of the vernal equinox, when the awakening of all the powers of nature from their wintry sleep-the leafing of trees, the budding of flowers, and the singing of birds-made men look forward with joy to a season of long days and sunny skies. In simple ages rough jokes, given and taken without feelings of unkindness, form one of the most usual expressions of hilarity. There is a festival amongst the Hindoos, called the Huli, which is held in March, in honour of the new year, in the observance of which the practice of sending persons on errands which are to end in disappointment, forms a prominent feature. This circumstance would show that the custom, which still remains with us, is one which has its origin in remote ages, and is derived from a common source, accessible alike to the Hindoo and the Briton. April 2.--On this day, in the year 1578, was born at Folkstone, in Kent, Dr. William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. Harvey published this important discovery in 1620. Before this time it was universally believed that the arteries, or vessels through which the blood flows from the heart, did not contain blood at all, but only air; and, indeed, the word artery was originally used to signify the windpipe, and an airtube. The body, it was thought, was fed with blood entirely through the veins, which carried it at last to the heart, where it was in some way or other absorbed or drunk up. Thus, one of our old poets, Phineas Fletcher, in a curious allegorical poem, descriptive of the body and mind of man, which he entitles The | Purple Island,' written (although not published) before Harvey announced his discovery, gives the following account of the manner in which the body is watered and fertilized by the different channels that pervade it :"Nor is there any part in all this land, But is a little isle; for thousand brooks In azure channels glide on silver sand; Their serpent windings and deceiving crooks, Circling about and watering all the plain, Empty themselves into the all-drinking main, And creeping forward slide, but ne'er return again." Nobody imagined that there was any circulation of the blood, till Harvey demonstrated that the same blood which the veins brought to the heart the arteries immediately carried away again from it. Harvey lived for many years to enjoy the glory of this discovery; dying at Hampstead, in Essex, on the 3d of June, 1658, in the eighty-first year of his age. EXCELLENCE NOT LIMITED BY STATION. THERE is not a more common error of self-deception than a habit of considering our stations in life so illsuited to our powers, as to be unworthy of calling out a full and proper exercise of our virtues and talents. As society is constituted, there cannot be many employments which demand very brilliant talents, or great delicacy of taste, for their proper discharge. The great bulk of society is composed of plain, plodding men, who move "right onwards" to the sober duties of their calling. At the same time the universal good demands that those whom nature has greatly endowed should be called from the ordinary track to take up higher and more ennobling duties. England, happily for us, is full of bright exPurples of the greatest men raised from the meanest situations; and the education which England is now beginning to bestow upon her children will multiply these examples. But a partial and incomplete diffusion of knowledge will also multiply the victims of that evil principle which postpones the discharge of present and immediate duties, for the anticipations of some destiny above the labours of a handicraftsman, or the calculations of a shopkeeper. Years and experience, which afford us the opportunity of comparing our own powers with those of others, will, it is true, correct the inconsistent expectations which arise from a want of capacity to set the right value on ourselves. But the wisdom thus gained may come too late. The object of desire may be found decidedly unattainable, and existence is then wasted in a sluggish contempt of present duties; the spirit is broken; the temper is soured; habits of misanthropy and personal neglect creep on; and life eventually becomes a tedious and miserable pilgrimage of never-satisfied desires. Youth, however, is happily not without its guide, if it will take a warning from example. Of the highlygifted men whose abandonment of their humble calling has been the apparent beginning of a distinguished career, we do not recollect an instance of one who did not pursue that humble calling with credit and success until the occasion presented itself for exhibiting those superior powers which nature occasionally bestows. Benjamin Franklin was as valuable to his master, as a printer's apprentice, as he was to his country as a statesman and a negotiator, or to the world as a philosopher. Had he not been so, indeed, it may be doubted whether he ever would have taken his rank among the first statesmen and philosophers of his time. One of the great secrets of advancing in life is to be ready to take advantage of those opportunities which, if a man really possesses superior abilities, are sure to present themselves some time or other. As the poet expresses it, " There is a tide in the affairs of men,' -an ebbing and flowing of the unstable element on which they are borne, and if this be only "taken at the flood," the full sea" is gained on which "the voyage of their life" may be made with ease and the prospect of a happy issue. But we should remember, that for those who are not ready to embark at the moment when their tide is at its flood, that tide may never serve again; and nothing is more likely to be a hindrance at such a moment than the distress which is certain to follow a neglect of our ordinary business. ISAAC ASHFORD. [From Crabbe's Parish Register.] ONE of the most eminent of our modern poets died a few weeks ago, the Reverend George Crabbe. Mr. Crabbe was born in 1754, at Aldborough in Suffolk, and, consequently, at the time of his death, had reached the advanced age of seventy-eight. Although his last work, his Tales of the Hall, in two volumes, was published so lately as 1819, he had been for many years by far the oldest of our living poets; for his first production, The Library, was published so long ago as the year 1781. His poetical career, therefore, reckoning from this commencement to his death, had extended over more than the long space of half a century. A second poem, entitled The Village, however, which quickly followed the Library, was the only additional work which he produced during the first half of this period. It was not till 1807 that he again came before the world as an author, by the publication of two volumes of Poems, comprising the Parish Register and other pieces. This publication was followed by another poem, entitled The Borough, in 1810; by two volumes of Tales, in 1812; and, as already mentioned, by his 'Tales of the Hall,' the last work which he gave to the press, in 1819. Mr. Crabbe had been Rector of Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, for eighteen years before his death. Notwithstanding considerable peculiarities, and some obvious faults of manner, it is impossible to peruse any of Crabbe's productions without feeling yourself to be in the hands of a writer of great power, and a true poet. In some of his pieces he has displayed both a soaring imagination and a delicate sense of beauty; but he is most popularly known as the poet of poverty and wretchedness, the stern explorer and describer of the deepest and darkest recesses of human suffering and crime. Perhaps he has occasionally painted the gloom of the regions in which he was thus accustomed to wander with somewhat of exaggeration; but it would be easy to select abundant proof from his writings, that if he delineated with an unsparing pencil both the miseries and the vices of the poor, he could also sympathize with their enjoyments and estimate their virtues as cordially as any man that ever lived. The following passage from the Third Part of his Parish Register, that in which he reviews the list of burials, is an admirably drawn picture of a lofty character in humble life. The writer, it will be observed, speaks in the character of the clergyman of the parish. He has related the lives and deaths of two of his female parishioners, after which he proceeds thus:Next to these ladies, but in nought allied, A noble peasant, Isaac Ashford, died; Noble he was, contemning all things mean, His truth unquestioned, and his soul serene. Of no man's presence Isaac felt afraid; At no man's question Isaac looked dismayed: Shame knew him not, he dreaded no disgrace; Truth, simple truth, was written in his face; Yet while the serious thought his soul approved, Cheerful he seemed, and gentleness he loved. To bliss domestic he his heart resigned, And with the firmest, had the fondest mind: Were others joyful, he looked smiling on, And gave allowance where he needed none; Good he refused with future ill to buy, Nor knew a joy that caused reflection's sigh; A friend to virtue, his unclouded breast No envy stung, no jealousy distressed; Yet far was he from stoic pride removed, He felt humanely, and he warmly loved. I marked his action when his infant died, And his old neighbour for offence was tried; The still tears, stealing down that furrowed cheek, He had no party's rage, no sectary's whim; In times severe, when many a sturdy swain At length, he found, when seventy years were run, His strength departed, and his labour done; When, save his honest fame, he kept no more, But lost his wife, and saw his children poor; 'Twas then a spark of—say not discontentStruck on his mind, and thus he gave it vent: 'Kind are your laws ('tis not to be denied) 'That in yon house for ruined age provide; And they are just;-when young, we give you all And then for comforts in our weakness call. Why then this proud reluctance to be fed, To join your Poor and eat the Parish bread? 'But yet I linger, loathe with him to feed, 'Who gains his plenty by the sons of need; He who, by contract, all your Paupers took, And gauges stomachs with an anxious look! 'On some old master I could well depend, 'See him with joy, and thank him as a friend; 'But ill on him, who doles the day's supply, And counts our chances, who at night may die ; Yet help me, Heaven! and let me not complain 'Of what befalls me, but the fate sustain.' Such were his thoughts, and so resigned he grew, I feel his absence in the hours of prayer, A QUAINT SERMON. MR. DODD was a minister who lived many years ago a few miles from Cambridge; and having several times been preaching against drunkenness, some of the Cambridge scholars (conscience, which is sharper than ten thousand witnesses, being their monitor) were very much offended, and thought he made reflections on them. Some little time after, Mr. Dodd was walking towards Cambridge, and met some of the gownsmen, who, as soon as they saw him at a distance, resolved to make some ridicule of him. As soon as he came up, they accosted him with "Your servant, sir!" He replied, "Your servant, gentlemen." They asked him if he had not been preaching very much against drunkenness of late? He answered in the affirmative. They then told him they had a favour to beg of him, and it was that he would preach a sermon to them there, from a text they should choose. He argued that it was an imposition, for a man ought to have some consideration before preaching. They said they would not put up with a denial and insisted upon his preaching immediately |