NOTES OF A READER

DUELLING.

Two French officers resident at Kermanshaw, lately quarrelled; a challenge ensued; but a reconciliation was effected; when the incident drew forth the following natural and affecting remark from a native:—“How foolish it is for a man who wishes to kill his enemy, to expose his own life, when he can accomplish his purpose with so much greater safety, by shooting at him from behind a rock.”

SPINNING VIRTUE.

A young preacher, who chose to enlarge to a country congregation on the beauty of virtue, was surprised to be informed of an old woman, who expressed herself highly pleased with his sermon, that her daughter was the most virtuous woman in the parish, for “that week she had spun sax spyndles of yarn.”—Sir W. Scott.

AT LINCOLN

There is a beautiful painted window, which was made by an apprentice, out of the pieces of glass which had been rejected by his master. It is so far superior to every other in the church, that, according to the tradition, the vanquished artist killed himself from mortification.

A great lawyer in the sister kingdom, when asked by the viceroy, what Captain Keppel meant by his “Personal Travels in India, &c.” replied, that lawyers were wont to use this word in contradistinction to “Real.”

It is said that the intestines of the Carolina parrot are an instantaneous poison to cats.

CHINESE DUNNING.

When a debtor refuses payment in China, the creditor, as a last resource, threatens to carry off the door of his house on the first day of the year. This is accounted the greatest misfortune that could happen, as in that case there would be no obstruction to the entrance of evil genii. To avoid this consummation, a debtor not unfrequently sets fire to his house on the last night of the year.

During the times of Catholicism in Scotland, Fishing was prohibited from the Sabbath after vespers, till Monday after sunrise. This was termed Setterday’s Slopp.

THE TOWER OF BABEL,

says a recent traveller in the east, now presents the appearance of a large mound or hill, with a castle on the top, in mounting to which, the traveller now and then discovers, through the light sandy soil, that he is treading on a vast heap of bricks. The total circumference of the ruin is 2,286 feet, though the building itself was only 2,000, allowing 500 to the stadia, which Herodotus assigns as the side of its square. The elevation of the west side is 198 feet. What seems to be a castle at a distance, when examined, proves to be a solid mass of kiln-burnt bricks, 37 feet high, and 28 broad.

SPANISH LITERATURE.

The Spaniards are particularly averse to borrowing from the intellectual treasures of other nations. They glean the field of their own muses to the very last ear, and then commence the same labour over again.

EVERY MAN HIS OWN LAWYER.

Here is a well-turned reply to plaintiff’s counsel, available in all suits and times. It occurred in the trial of Lord Danby, in the time of Charles II. “If the gentleman were as just to produce all he knows for me, as he hath been malicious to show what may be liable to misconstruction against me, no man could vindicate me more than myself.”

In modern education there is a lamentable lack of veneration for the great masters of English literature. Spenser, Milton, and Dryden are altogether less familiar to the present generation than they were to that which preceded it. “We will not say that our Shakspeare is neglected, for his age is ever fresh and green, and he comes reflected back to us from a thousand sources, whether in the tranquillity of home, the turbulent life of capitals, or the solitude of travel through distant lands.”—Edin. Rev.

RISE AND FALL.

What an idea of the dismantling of our nature do the few words which Roper, Sir Thomas More’s son-in-law, relates, convey! He had seen Henry VIII. walking round the chancellor’s garden at Chelsea, with his arm round his neck; he could not help congratulating him on being the object of so much kindness. “I thank our lord, I find his grace my very good lord indeed; and I believe he doth as singularly favour me as any subject in his realm. However, son Roper, I may tell thee, I have no cause to be proud thereof, for if my head would win a castle in France, it would not fail to be struck off.”—Edinburgh Review.

There is not only room, but use, for all that God has made in his wisdom—a use not the less real, because not always tangible, or immediate.—Ibid.

Nicholas Brady, (the coadjutor of Tate, in arranging the New Version of Psalms,) published a translation of the Æneid of Virgil, which (says Johnson,) when dragged into the world, did not live long enough to cry.

Blue appears to be the most important of all colours in the gradations of society. A licensed beggar in Scotland, called a bedesmen, is so privileged on receiving a blue gown. Pliny informs us that blue was the colour in which the Gauls clothed their slaves; and blue coats, for many ages, were the liveries of servants, apprentices, and even of younger brothers, as now of the Blue Coat Boys, and of other Blue Schools in the country. Women used to do penance in blue gowns. Is it not unseemly that blue which has hitherto been the colour of so many unenviable distinctions, should be the adopted emblem of liberty—English True Blue!

SONG.

By JOANNA BAILLIE.