RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS.
Reading edition
THEATRICAL BILL.
At a play acted in 1511, on the Feast of St. Margaret, the following disbursements were made as the charges of the exhibition:—
£. s. d.
To musicians, for which, however, they were bound to perform three nights 0 5 6
For players, in bread and ale 0 3 1
For decorations, dresses, and play-books 1 0 0
To John Hobbard, priest, and author of the piece 0 2 8
For the place in which the representation was held 0 1 0
For furniture 0 1 4
For fish and bread 0 0 4
For painting three phantoms and devils 0 0 6
And for four chickens for the hero 0 0 4
H. B. A.
ROBINSON CRUSOE'S ISLAND.
The United States ship, Vincennes, visited the island of Juan Fernandez, off the coast of Chili, a few months since, and remained there three days. There were two Yankees and six Otaheitans on the island. The former had formed a settlement for the purpose of supplying whale-ships with water, poultry, and vegetables. The soil is said to be astonishingly fertile.
—New York Shipping List, 1366.
THE LETTER H.
From an old History of England.
"Not superstitiously I speak, but H his letter still Hath been observed ominous to England's good or ill." Humber the Hun, with foreign arms, did first the brutes invade; Helen to Rome's imperial throne the British crown convey'd; Hengist and Horsus first did plant the Saxons in this isle; Hungar and Hubba first brought Danes, that sway'd here a long while; At Harold had the Saxon end at Hardy Knute the Dane; Henries the First and Second did restore the English reign; Fourth Henry first for Lancaster did England's crown obtain; Seventh Henry jarring Lancaster and York unites in peace; Henry the Eighth did happily Rome's irreligion cease.
CHURCH OF AUSTIN FRIARS.
The church of Austin Friars is one of the most ancient Gothic remains in the City of London. It belonged to a priory dedicated to St. Augustine, and was founded for the friars Eremites of the order of Hippo, in Africa, by Humphry Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, 1253. A part of this once spacious building was granted by Edward VI. to a congregation of Germans and other strangers, who fled hither from religious persecutions. Several successive princes have confirmed it to the Dutch, by whom it has been used as a place of worship. J.M.C.
DAUPHIN OF FRANCE.
The heir apparent of the crown of France derives his title of Dauphin from the following very singular circumstance. In 1349, Hubert, second Count of Dauphiny, being inconsolable for the loss of his heir and only child, who had leaped from his arms through a window of his palace at Grenoble into the river Isere, entered into a convent of jacobins, and ceded Dauphiny to Philip, a younger son of Philip of Valois (for 120,000 florins of gold each of the value of twenty sols or ten pence English,) on condition that the eldest son of the king of France should be always after styled "the Dauphin," from the name of the province thus ceded. Charles V., grandson to Philip of Valois, was the first who bore the title in 1530.