THE GATHERER.
Reading edition
A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.—SHAKSPEARE.
ORIGIN OF THE WORD WORSTED.
Worsted, in the county of Norfolk, though formerly a town of considerable trade, and much celebrity, is now reduced to a village, and the manufactures, which obtained a name from the place, are removed to Norwich and its vicinity.
Shakspeare has not been very courteous towards the worsted gentry; had he lived in our times, they might have worsted him for a libel: he says in King Lear, "A base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three suited, hundred pound, filthy, worsted stocking knave."
P.T.W.
I asked a poor man, how he did? He said, he was like a washball, always in decay.—Swift.
CAT-FANCIER.
Lady Morgan gives the following anecdote in her Book of the Boudoir. "The first day we had the honour of dining at the palace of the Archbishop of Taranto, at Naples, he said to me, you must pardon my passion for cats, (la mia passione gattesca) but I never exclude them from my dining-room, and you will find they make excellent company." Between the first and second course the door opened, and several enormously large and beautiful Angola cats were introduced by the names of Pantalone, Desdemona, Otello, &c. They took their places on chairs near the table, and were as silent, as quiet, as motionless, and as well behaved, as the most bon ton table in London could require. On the bishop requesting one of the chaplains to help the Signora Desdemona, the butler stepped up to his lordship, and observed, "My Lord, La Signora Desdemona will prefer waiting for the roast."
ANCIENT FAMILY.
There was much sound truth in the speech of a country lad to an idler, who boasted his ancient family: "So much the worse for you," said the peasant, as we ploughmen say, "the older the seed the worse the crop."
At North Ferryby, in Yorkshire, the following very instructive lines, are inscribed on a handsome tablet to the memory of Sir T. Etherington, an Alderman of Hull, and late a resident in the above place:—
"Taught of God we should view losses, sickness, pain, and death, but as the several trying stages by which a good man, like Joseph, is conducted from a tent to a court; sin his disease, Christ his physician, pain his medicine, the Bible his support, the grave his rest, and death itself an angel expressly sent to relieve the worn out labourer, or crown the faithful soldier!"
Louis XIV. was presented with an epitaph by an indifferent poet, on the celebrated Moliere. "I would to God," said he, "that Moliere had brought me yours."
ON MEMORY.
What an unknown and unspeakable happiness would it be to a man of judgment, and who is engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, if he had but a power of stamping all his own best sentiments upon his memory in some indelible characters; and if he could but imprint every valuable paragraph and sentiment of the most excellent authors he has read, upon his mind, with the same speed and facility with which he read them?—Watts.
Upon a stone in St. Margaret's churchyard, at Lynn, in Norfolk, is the following inscription to the memory of William Scrivenor, Cook to the Corporation, who died in the year 1684:—
Alas! alas! Will Scrivenor's dead, who by his art, Could make death's skeleton edible in each part, Mourn, squeamish stomachs, and ye curious palates, You've lost your dainty dishes and your salades; Mourn for yourselves, but not for him i'th' least He's gone to taste of a more heav'nly feast.
At Whitchingham Magna, in the same county, is the following epitaph to Thomas Alleyne, gent. who died Feb. 3, 1650, and his two wives:—
Death here advantage hath of life I spye, One husband with two wives at once may lye.
A recent American newspaper has the following notice to its readers:—"The editor, printer, publisher, foreman, and oldest apprentice (two in all,) are confined by sickness, and the whole establishment is left in the care of the devil."
LIMBIRD'S EDITION OF THE
Following Novels is already Published:
s. d.
Mackenzie's Man of Feeling 0 6
Paul and Virginia 0 6
The Castle of Otranto 0 6
Almoran and Hamet 0 6
Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia 0 6
The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne 0 6
Rasselas 0 8
The Old English Baron 0 9
Nature and Art 0 8
Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield 0 10
Sicilian Romance 1 0
The Man of the World 1 0
A Simple Story 1 4
Joseph Andrews 1 6
Humphry Clinker 1 8
The Romance of the Forest 1 8
The Italian 2 0
Zeluco, by Dr. Moore 2 6
Edward, by Dr. Moore 2 6
Roderick Random 2 6
The Mysteries of Udolpho 3 6
Peregrine Pickle 4 6
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