Another, more in the tone and measure of the original. From Memory's seat to chase a guest Which charms the partial heart, In vain through life with fond regret, Mindful an object to forget, That object still intrudes. LEVITY. FOR THE PORT FOLIO. Modern Casars-During the disturbances in Ireland in the year 1798, Mr. Beresford commanded a corps of volunteers entirely composed of revenue officers, of whose discipline he was very proud. Boasting one day of the excellence of his regiment, a wag observed, that he did not doubt it, as they were, to a man, all Casars [Seizers.] EPIGRAM ON EMPLOYING HORSES ON THE STAGE. No wonder that nightly such companies press, That a horse will draw more than a man. An enthusiastic musician took lodgings, a few days ago, at a respectable silversmith's, at the west end of the town, but perceiving a notification exhibited at the window as follows-" Ears bored here," he thought it a reflection on his calling, and threatened to leave the house if it was not removed! A poet asking a gentleman how he approved of his last production, "An Ode to Sleep," the latter replied, "You have one such justice to the subject, that it is impossible to read it without feeling its full weight." A person who had been publicly horsewhipped, being asked by a friend how he could suffer himself to be treated so like a cypher? “A cypher!” replied the former, with composed gravity, "did you ever see one with so many strokes in it.” At one of the masquerades lately given at the Margate Thea tre, a gentleman, who appeared in the character of a Jew, came up to an officer, and asked to purchase his sword. The officer indignantly replied--" Be careful, sir, that sword will fight of itself." The humourous Israelite rejoined-" That is the sword that just suits you." The establishment of a new country bank was lately announced by posting bills, to the following effect:-" A new bank will be opened in a few days. Some wags were at the pains of altering the words, "in" to "for." The projectors taking the hint, the bank was not opened. An Active School Master-According to the German Pædogogic Magazine (vol. iii. p. 407.) died lately, in Suabia, a schoolmaster, who for fifty-one years had superintended a large institution with old-fashioned severity. From an average inferred by means of recorded observations, one of the ushers has calculated, that in the course of his exertions, he had given 911,500 canings, 124,000 floggings, 209,000 custodes, 136,000 tips with the ruler, and 22,700 tasks to get by heart. It was further calculated that he had made 700 boys stand on peas, 600 kneel on a sharp edge of wood, 5000 wear the fool's-cap, and 1700 hold the rod. How vast the quantity of human misery inflicted by a single perverse educator! But we are growing more humane, as Martial says Ferule tristes, sceptra padogogorum, cessant! ,Cross Readings.-The principal partner in a great porter brewery-was sworn, and took his seat as member for Alesbury. A small whale was lately picked up off the coast of Scotland -the coroner's jury returned a verdict of "found drowned.” A new bank was lately opened at- No money to be returned. The speaker's public dinners will commence next weekadmittance three shillings while the animals are feeding. It is said that Mr. Cobbett wishes- to retire immediately to his seat in the country. The late love-feasts at the tabernacle were numerously attended several members paired off early in the evening. In the present scarcity of labourers to get in the harvest J. L. corn-cutter and tooth-drawer offers his services. Notwithstanding the assertions of the opposition prints, the Jate majorities in the house of commons prove, beyond a doubt, tha all orders are executed for ready money only. EPIGRAM. Mr. Cubierès Palmezeaux having published in his works some reflections on M. Rétif de la Bretonne after his death, his daughter talked of prosecuting him. A wag gave her the following advice, in the form of a CONSULTATION. Vous vous plaignez que Palmezeaux Cubières Dans un écrit a consigné des faits Qui sont honteux pour Rétif, votre pere; Et vous voulez lui faire un bon proces? Les faits sont vrais ils sont dans un ouvrage An epitaph written by Deacon Hezekiah C........, on the tombstone of Dia dema, his departed wife, in Connecticut, A. D. 1750. "Here lies Diadema." "Dark clouds upon her brows were hung, MR. OLDSCHOOL, ORIGIN OF APRIL FOOLS. April 1st, 1813. HAVING been made an April fool this morning, by one of my young neighbours, my curiosity was excited to inquire into the origin of this whimsical custom. But after turning over a whole library in vain, I could find nothing more satisfactory than the following, in "Brady's Clavis Calendaria," published in 1812, which I send for the amusement of your readers. J. T. Our almanacs generally, until about a century since, and many of them to a much later period, used to distinguish the first of April by the appellation of "all fools day." Our present almanacs have discontinued that notice of the day, but the custom which gave rise to it, however absurd, still remains in force; and it will therefore be expected that it should not pass wholly disregarded. In England, the joke of the day is to deceive persons by sending them upon frivolous and nonsensical errands, to pretend that they are wanted when they are not; or, in fact, any ways to betray them into some supposed ludicrous situation, so as to ena ble you to call them "an April fool," a term considered as carrying with it an apology for the freedom of its use, and by no means conveying any offence, as would naturally be the case, were the name of the month omitted when the joke was passed. In some of our northern counties, and in Scotland, the practice is generally the same as in the south, though sometimes instead of being denominated "an April fool," the person whose good nature or simplicity puts him, momentarily, in the power of his facetious neighbour, is called a gowk; and the sending upon nonsensical errands, "hunting the gowk," or, in other words, metaphorically, a "fool," and "hunting the fool;" gowk being a common northern expression for a cuckoo, which is reckoned one of the most silly of the feathered tribe. In France, the person made the butt upon these occasions, is styled "un poisson d'Avril," that is, an April fish; or, in other words, by implication, an "April fool:" poisson d'Avril being also applied by that nation to the mackarel, a fish easily caught by deception, singly, as well as in great shoals, at this season of the year. Some persons, therefore, consider our April fool te be nothing more than an easy substitution of that opprobrious term for fish, and that our ancestors who borrowed the custom of the day from France, must have considered poisson to have meant fool, although allegorically expressed a fish. This explanation, however, appears more founded in ingenuity than in fact, and besides, as the French had formerly fools of other seasons, and indeed for almost all great festivals, it is hardly to be credited that our forefathers would be satisfied with copying them in only one of their absurdities, while so many of the like nature, and abounding with equal pleasantry, courted their attention. Coriat, in his Crudities, published in 1607, gives the following account of the Whitsun fool: "About two miles this side of Montrel there was a Whitsuntide fool, disguised like a foole, wearing a long coate, wherein there were many several pieces of cloth of divers colours, at the corners whereof there hanged the tails of squirrels; he bestowed a little piece of plate, wherein was expressed the effigies of the Virgin Mary, upon every one that gave him money, for he begged money of all travellers, for the benefit of the parish church." Even a similar day of foolery is kept among the Hindoos, attended with the like silly species of witticism practised here on the 1st of April. In this country we read that fools were considered as necessary personages, not only at court, but in most families of consequence. These fools, or appendages to grandeur, have been long, discontinued, but they were actually retained for ages, and it is not improbable that as such authorized wits had the licence of passing their jokes without offence at all times, the people might also consider themselves free to exercise their jocular faculties upon one another, without exciting anger, and thence to have established an "all fools day," or a day upon which every one had equal liberty to exert his powers of mockery, deception and every species of waggish drollery; be that as it may, from time immemorial April the first stands mark'd by custom's rules A day of being, and of making, fools. The most generally received origin of this custom of "all fools day," now" April fool's day," is, that the "all" is a corruption of auld, or old, thereby making it "old fools day;" in confirma |