explosion having been in the di- his valets-de-chambre, who wished rection of the chimney. The de- to be revenged upon her for some monstrator escaped without fur- supposed injuries. Perceiving the ther harm than the loss of his wig. husband, whose name was BalA professor of a northern uni-boiarof, sitting in the ante-chamversity, who was as remarkable for her with a sad and pensive countehis felicity in experimenting as nance, the czar inquired the cause Roulle could be for his failures, of his sorrow? "Nothing, sire," was once repeating an experiment answered Balboiarof, "except that with some combustible substances, my wife refused to have a tooth when the mixture exploded, and drawn which gives her the most the phial which he held in his agonizing pain." "Let me speak hand blew into a hundred pieces. to her," replied the czar, "and I "Gentlemen," said the doctor to warrant I'll cure her." his pupils, with the most unaffected gravity, "I have made this experiment often with the very same phial, and never knew it break in my hands before!" The simplicity of this rather superfluous assurance produced a general laugh, in which the learned professor, instantly discerning the cause of it, joined most heartily.

PETER THE GREAT A SURGEON.

He was immediately conducted by the husband to the apartments of the supposed sick person, and made her sit down that he might examine her mouth, although she protested she had not the toothache. "Ah, this is the mischief," said her husband; "she always pretends not to suffer when we wish to give her ease, and renews her lamentations as soon as the surgeon is gone." "Well, well," said the czar, "she shall not suffer

Hearing, a few days after, that this was a trick of the husband to torture his wife, Peter chastised him severely with his own hands.

HUNTER AND CULLEN.

The czar, excited by natural long. Do you hold her head and curiosity, and his love for the sci- arms." Then taking out the inences, took great pleasure in see-strument, he, in spite of her cries, ing dissections and chirurgical ope- extracted the tooth which he suprations. It was Peter who first posed to be the cause of her commade these known in Russia, and plaint, with admirable address. he was so fond of them, that he gave orders to be informed whenever anything of the kind was going on in the hospitals, and he seldom failed to be present. He frequently lent his assistance, and had acquired sufficient skill to dissect according to the rules of art, The celebrated Dr. William Hunto bleed, draw teeth, and perform ter and Dr. Cullen, formed a coother operations, as well as one of partnership of as singular and the faculty. It was an employ- laudable a kind as is to be found ment to which he was very partial, in the annals of science. Being and besides his case of mathemati- natives of the same part of the cal instruments which he always country, and neither of them in carried with him, he had a pouch affluent circumstances, these two well stocked with chirurgical in-young men, stimulated by the impulse of genius, to prosecute their The czar once exercised his dex-medical studies with ardour, but terity as a dentist in a very laugh- thwarted by the narrowness of able manner on the wife of one of their fortunes, entered into part

struments.

testaceous

cained iviar

hile those of the sea chand du Maine, brother of Prosper red as delicacies. Marchand of Amsterdam, said that eat snails? they are he had been a whole winter by the utritious and whole-side of the Duchess du Maine's bed, en sanative in some reading the first ten pages of a book. icures of old praised The moment he began to read she fell asleep, which he not immediately perceiving, proceeded; but the next day she always made him begin again. We are not told the name of this composing book. Its qualities, however, are by no means rare.

LETTER-WRITING.

he richest delicacies, ns still esteem them. is determined that a xperiment should be pense of the snails. re procured, dieted then stewed for the vo philosophers, who ted no guests to their nd none who relished "Sprightliness and wit," says a e pièce de resistance. learned author, "are graceful in of snails was placed letters, just as they are in convertill, philosophers are sation; when they flow easily, and r all; and the sto- without being studied; when emdoctors began to re-ployed so as to season, not to cloy. › experiment. Never-One who, either in conversation looked with disgust or in letters, affects to shine and they retained their sparkle always, will not please long. other, so that each, The style of letters should not be e symptoms of in- too highly polished. All nicety peculiar to himself, about words betrays study, and infinite exertion, to hence, musical periods, and apery small quantities, pearance of number and harmony ich he internally in arrangement, should be carefully avoided in letters."

t length, showed the but in a very delicate

COWPER AND HIS CRITIC.

to sound the opinion Cowper had sent a small poem to e. "Doctor," he said, the publishers, when some friendly and quiet manner-critic took the liberty to alter a line ou not think that they in the poem, to make it smoother, a very little, green?" supposing, of course, he had made en! horribly green! the line much better, because it was hem awa',-tak' them smoother, and that Cowper would erated Dr. Hutton, be grateful for such a favour; but om table, and giving Cowper did not think "oily smoothis feelings of abhor-ness" the only merit of poetry, and ed all hopes of intro- so was quite indignant at the liberty into the modern cui- taken with his poem. s philosophy can no nausea than honour en limb.-(Sir Walter

"I did not write the line," says he, "that has been tampered with, hastily or without due attention to the construction of it; and what

P

appeared to me its only merit is, in its present state, entirely annihilated.

!

of Martyrs. Bunyan's own copy of this work is in existence, and valued, of course, as such a relic of "I know that the ears of modern such a man ought to be. It was verse-makers are delicate to an ex-purchased, in the year 1780, by Mr. cess, and their readers are troubled Wantner, of the Minories; from with the same squeamishness as him it descended to his daughter, themselves; so that if a line does Mrs. Parnell, of Botolph Lane; and not run as smooth as quicksilver, it was afterwards purchased by subthey are offended. A critic of the scription for the Bedfordshire Gepresent day serves a poem as a cook neral Library. serves a dead turkey, when she fastens the legs of it to a post, and draws out all its sinews. For this we may thank Pope; but give me a manly, rough line, with a deal of meaning in it, rather than a whole poem of music periods, that have nothing but their oily smoothness to recommend them.

This edition of the Acts and Monuments is of the date 1641, three volumes folio, the last of those in the black letter, and probably the latest when it came into Bunyan's hands. In each volume he has written his name beneath the titlepage, in a large and stout printhand. Under some of the woodcuts he has inserted a few rhymes, which are undoubtedly his own composition; and which, though

that were printed under the illustrations of his own Pilgrim's Progress, are very much worse than even the worst of these. Indeed, it would not be possible to find specimens of more miserable doggerel.

"In a much longer poem which I have just finished, there are many lines which an ear so nice as the gentleman's who made the above-much in the manner of the verses mentioned alteration would undoubtedly condemn; and yet (if I may be allowed the expression) they cannot be made smoother without being made the worse for it. There is a roughness on a plum which nobody that understands Here is one of the Tinker's tetrafruit would rub off, though the plum stichs, penned in the margin, bewould be much more polished with-side the account of Gardiner's out it. But lest I tire you, I will death :— only add, that I wish you to guard me for the future from all such meddling, assuring you that I always write as smoothly as I can, but that I never did, never will, sacrifice the spirit or sense of a passage to the sound of it.'

BUNYAN AND THE BOOK OF MARTYRS. There is no book, except the Bible, which Bunyan is known to have perused so intently as the Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, the martyrologist, one of the best of men; a work more hastily than judiciously compiled, but invaluable for that greater and far more important portion which has obtained for it its popular name of the Book

"The blood, the blood that he did shed
Is falling one his one head;
And dreadfull it is for to see
The beginers of his misere."

One of the signatures bears the date of 1662; but the verses must undoubtedly have been some years earlier, before the publication of his first tract. These curious inscriptions must have been Bunyan's first attempts in verse. He had, no doubt, found difficulty enough in tinkering them to make him proud of his work when it was done, otherwise he would not have written them in a book which was the most valuable of all his goods and chattels. In later days, he seems to have taken this book for

CHRISTIANITY.

his art of poetry. His verses are something below the pitch of Sternhold and Hopkins. But if he learnt there to make bad verses, he entered fully into the spirit of its better parts, and received that spirit into as resolute a heart as ever beat in a martyr's bosom.-(Southey.)

EDWARD IRVING.

Mr. P. invited a party to supper. Some of his guests had three miles to walk home after the meal. But before its commencement, Mr. P. requested Irving, who was one of the party, to read the Bible and expound. He began and continued a discourse which manifested not even a tendency towards termination until midnight. The supper was, of course, either burnt up or grown cold. When the clock struck twelve, Mr. P. tremblingly and gently suggested to him that it might be desirable to draw to a close. "Who art thou," he replied with prophetic energy, "who darest to interrupt the man of God in the midst of his administrations?" He pursued his commentary for some time longer, then closed the book, and waving his long arm over the head of his host, uttered an audible and deliberate prayer that his offence might be forgiven.

WRITING HISTORY.

When Leti, the historian, was one day attending the levee of Charles the Second, he said to him, "Leti, I hear that you are writing the History of the Court of England.

227

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH'S HUMOUR.

Sir James Mackintosh had a great deal of humour; and, among many other examples of it, he kept a dinner-party at his own house for two or three hours in a roar of laughter, playing upon the simplicity of a Scotch cousin, who had mistaken the Rev. Sidney Smith for his gallant synonym, the hero of Acre.

HISTORICAL OMISSIONS.

In Goldsmith's History of England no mention is made of the great plague or the great fire of London.

BERZELIUS THE CHEMIST.

This devoted chemist continued to labour in the cause of science when the lower part of his body was paralyzed, and he was dying by inches. His death took place in 1848, in the 69th year of his age.

CRITICIZED POET.

An indifferent poet, who had been severely handled by the critics, yet continued to go on publishing his crudities, said one day to an acquaintance, that he had found out a way to be revenged of his reviewers, and that was by laughing at them. "Do you so?" said the other; "then let me tell you, you lead the merriest life of any man in Christendom."

CHRISTIANITY.

Sir Humphry Davy observes"Sir, I have been for some time "Of all the religions which have preparing materials for such a his-operated upon the human mind, tory." Take care that your work give no offence," said the prince. Leti replied, "Sir, I will do what I can; but if a man were as wise as Solomon, he would scarcely be able to avoid giving offence." "Why, then," rejoined the king, "be as wise as Solomon; write proverbs, not histories."

Christianity alone has the consistent character of perfect truth; all its parts are arranged with the most beautiful symmetry; and its grand effects have been constantly connected with virtuous gratification, with moral and intellectual improvement, with the present and future happiness."