SCRAPIANA.

M. CHAPELAIN.

M. CHAPELAIN was very severe on the female character. He used to say, that the most ingenious women were but half ra tional. He did right in not marrying; or perhaps he would have met with a woman, who would have possessed wit sufficient to have found employment for his temper. He was very avaricious towards the end of his life, and always a good œco. nomist. In his last illness his pleasure was to arrange his mo ney in sacks round his bed, and continually look in them to see that the money did not mould. M. D, who attended him in his last moments, met me in his

way from his deceased friend's lodgings: "Poor M. C. has just expired, like a miller among his sacks."

REFORMATION.

The following verses were written on M. des B-—, who in his old age affected to boast of his reformation from his former debaucheries :

Des Barreaux ce vieux débauché,

Affecte une réforme austère :

Il n'est pourtant retranché,

Que ce qu'il ne sauroit plus faire.

IMITATED.

Des Barreaux impotent and old,
Assumes a very solemn brow;

The man is alter'd we are told,

How much reform'd we cannot know.

When reformation thus begins,

With legs so weak, and eyes so dim:

Tis doubtful if he quits his sins,

Or if his sins have quitted him.

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GALILEO.

Galileo Galilei died at Florence, January 7, 1642, new style, at the age of eighty. He was a great mathematician, and supported the doctrine of Copernicus, that the sun stood still, and the earth moved. The Inquisition at Rome made him recant this opinion; though the most learned men still re. tain it.

FRACASTORIUS

Was born without a mouth. There was only a small cleft, which was enlarged by a chirurgical operation. One day, whilst his mother was carrying him in her arms, and walking in the garden, she was scorched by lightning, and the child received no harm. His poem called Syphilis is well known, and of high repute. In his latter days he wrote a poem on the Adventures of the Patriarch Joseph: but his poetic fire seems then to have left him; and the saint was celebrated with less éclat than the disorder.

HOAXING.*

MR. EDITOR,

IN a late number of your very entertaining magazine, you gave an account of a curious HOAX on Mr. Griffiths of Bed ford-street. Now, sir, another hoax has been played off on Mr. Gustard, a woollen-draper, next door to Mr. Griffiths, whose shop was broke open last night, and robbed of £.1400 worth of cloth, and as it is strongly suspected that the same. persons who were guilty of the hoax, committed the above robbery, have you any objection to inform me who they were?

Your obedient servant,

Bedford-Street, Jan. 6.

JOHN GUSTARD.

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* See Vol. VI. Our correspondent, ††† is requested to give the information required. ·

SKETCH OF DRESDEN AND ITS ENVIRONS.

DRESDEN has at all times commanded a large share of the public attention. In times of peace, the charms with which it has been so abundantly gifted by nature, the pageantry of a court, and I will add also, the tone of hospitality which reigns throughout every circle, have rendered it a favourite resort of strangers. But, in times of war, this city has become an ob ject of more peculiar interest; for nature, as well as art, have made it a most important focus in the operations of continental warfare. As the bulwark of his own dominions, a key to those of his opponents, and a point, whence he could command the fertile resources of Saxony, Frederick of Prussia struck the first blow by making it his own at the dawn of the seven years' war; and I need not recall to the reader's recollection, how fiercely its possession was alternately contended for, during the whole of that war, by the Austrian and Prussian courts.

Nor has less importance been attached to it in the momentous struggle, which at the present hour involves the future destinies of Europe: twice has it been captured by the Austrian, and as often recaptured by the French and Saxon forces. It has been seized as eagerly by the former to cover their flank, as it has been retaken and maintained by the latter, to protect their rear, and, in the event of future operations, to assail their adversary on the side of Bohemia.

These considerations have emboldened me to trespass the observations of a short residence in Dresden on your indulgence, and on that of your readers, who may as well look for the eloquence of a Burke in the boisterousness of a F―r, as for the sprightly elegance of a Montague, the warm pencilling of a Radcliffe, or the manly vigour of a Coxe, in the crude sketch now before them. With this warning, I shall now sit down more comfortably to my task, and I trust, the reader also, more indulgently to his.

B-VOL. VII.*

The tumult of Leipzig's Michaelmas fair still dinning in my ears, and its motley scenes still impressing on my mind's eye, the eager rush of Jew, Turk, Christian, and Heaven knows whom from every clime in Europe, to the shrine of Plutus; I committed myself to the slothful guidance of a Saxon postillion, who brought me one sultry evening, at an easy pace of four miles an hour!, to Meissen. Hence, after I had paid a visit to the castle, and its far-famed manufactory of porcelain, I set out for Dresden, and crossed the Elbe, over a highly sonorous wooden bridge. How our feelings vary with time, circum stance, and place! A few short hours before, I as much abominated, as I was now disposed to bless, the dog-trot of a Saxon post-horse; for it afforded my sight leisure to feast itself on scenes, superior in picturesque, if inferior in romantic beauties to those, which rise on the majestic banks of the Rhine.

I had heard and read much of the delightful region between Meissen and Dresden: my expectations were spanned to their acmé: yet, so far from the reality falling short of its conception, I confess for the first time in my life it equalled my warmest imaginations. I had conceived two chains of mountains, running parallel to the proud Elbe, the one on my right, covered with clustered vineyards, and the other on my left, with thick, impervious woods, whilst a fertile valley on either bank filled up the intermediate space:-the scene itself here smiled before and round me. But when I had compassed half the distance between Meissen and the Saxon capital, not all the boasted, glowing imagery of the East, can paint the fairy land, that revealed its beauties to my sight. The same woods and vineyards, the same proud Elbe still composed the scene: but here the eye lost itself in a more circling range of enchantment : now it rested on the thickly scattered villas, which art and nature seemed exhausted in adorning; and now it roamed to where, embosomed in luxurious glades,

The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

As you approach nearer to Dresden, the country loses its variety: but still it has always some point worthy of contemplation.

The character of those who inhabit this Eden, partakes in no small degree of the harmony, which nature has here so largely diffused throughout her works. There was such a kind-heartedness and a willingness to oblige, smiling on the ruddy face, and flowing from the lips of its rustics, as few per ambulators in the streets of London or Paris ever meet with. Whenever I was at a loss in my rambles at Dresden, or in its neighbourhood, I needed but to accost a fellow-passenger, and the very porter in the streets has put down his load, made himself my conductor, and quitted my side only, when he found there was no danger of my going astray a second time. "Well, good Mr. Traveller," the reader will say, " what wonder is there in this: I suppose the man pulled off his hat, and hoped I would not forget him "Good Mr. or Mrs. Reader, I assure you he did no such thing: he neither attempted to charm me into generosity, by a look, a word, or a gesture!

I have permitted myself this digression, as it strongly marks the lower classes in and about Dresden: that of the higher orders of society is tinctured with a similar cast of bonne homie and hospitality.

[To be continued.]

HISTORIANS.

No. III.

LORD TOWNSHEND.

He was a most ungraceful and confused speaker in the House

of Lords, inelegant in his language, &c.

His manners were coarse, rustic, and seemingly brutal, &c.

Chesterfield