he said, was the most perfect of them. He observed, that "it was wonderful that Walton, who was in a very low situation in life, should have been familiarly received by so many great men, and that at a time when the ranks of society were kept more separate than they are now."

comes into company, he grows con- Lives, which was one of his most fused, and unable to talk. Take favourite books. Dr. Donne's Life, him as a poet, his Traveller is a very fine performance; ay, and so is his Deserted Village, were it not sometimes too much the echo of his Traveller. Whether, indeed, we take him as a poet, as a comic writer, or as an historian, he stands in the first class." Boswell: "An historian! my dear sir, you will not surely rank his compilation of the Johnson praised the Spectator, Roman History with the works of particularly the character of Sir other historians of this age?" Roger de Coverley. He said, "Sir Johnson: "Why, who are before Roger did not die a violent death, him?" Boswell: "Hume, Robert- as has generally been fancied: he son, Lord Lyttelton." Johnson was not killed; he died only because (His antipathy to the Scotch begin- others were to die, and because his ning to rise.) "I have not read death afforded an opportunity to Hume; but doubtless, Goldsmith's Addison of some very fine writing. History is better than the verbiage We have the example of Cervantes of Robertson, or the foppery of making Don Quixote die. I never Dalrymple." Boswell: "Will you could see why Sir Roger is reprenot admit the superiority of Robert-sented as a little cracked. It apson, in whose history we find such penetration such painting?" Johnson: "Sir, you must consider how that penetration and that painting are employed; it is not history, it is imagination. He who describes what he never saw, draws from fancy. Robertson paints minds, as Sir Joshua paints faces in a history piece; he imagines an heroic countenance. You must look upon Robertson's work as romance, and try it by that standard: history it is not."

pears to me, that the story of the widow was intended to have something superinduced upon it; but the superstructure did not come."

Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, he said, was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.

Goldsmith, to divert the tedious minutes, while waiting for one of the guests at a dinner-party, strutted about, bragging of his dress, and appeared seriously vain of it (for his mind was wonderfully Johnson praised John Bunyan prone to such expressions): "Come, highly. "His Pilgrim's Progress come," said Garrick, “talk no more has great merit both for invention, of that: you are, perhaps, the worst imagination, and the conduct of the -eh, eh!" Goldsmith was eagerly story; and it has had the best evi- attempting to interrupt him, when dence of its merit, the general and Garrick went on laughing ironicontinued approbation of mankind: cally, "Nay, you will always look few books, I believe, have had a like a gentleman; but I am talking more extensive sale. It is remark- of being well or ill dressed."-"Well, able, that it begins very much like let me tell you," said Goldsmith, the poem of Dante; yet there was "when my tailor brought home my no translation of Dante when Bun-blossom-coloured coat, he said, 'Sir, yan wrote. There is reason to I have a favour to beg of you:think that he had read Spenser." when anybody asks you who made He talked of Izaak Walton's your clothes, be pleased to mention

ROMAN CALENDAR.

wards, however, they were allowed | known parody. He was so avaricious, that though he had an income of 13,000 livres, and more than 240,000 in ready money, he used to wipe his hands on a handful of rushes, in order to save towels.

to return. Several persons of distinguished merit joined these hermits, and from these the Society, which afterwards received the title of Port-Royal, was formed. Among its members were the celebrated His avarice was the cause of his Arnauld, M. de Suylin, M. de Sacy, death; he preferred crossing the Arnaud d'Andilly, de Luzanzy, De street, while inundated with water, Pomponne, De Beaurepaire, Stes to paying a liard for the use of a Marthe, Nicole, and Lancelot, who plank which was laid across. He afterwards turned Benedictine. caught a cold and oppression of breathing, of which he died.—(Charpentier.)

TALMUD.

The Society had no rules, no vows, no constitution, no cells, nor anything of the kind. They employed themselves assiduously in prayer and study, and in the in- The Talmud has been comstruction of youth in the sciences posed by certain Jewish doctors of and the practice of virtue. Racine the kingdom of Pontus, who had was educated there, and requested been summoned for that purpose to be buried in the cemetery of by their own nation, in order that Port-Royal, at the feet of his old master M. Hamon.—(Matanasiana.)

GREGORY VII.

We find, in Machiavel and Cardan, that Pope Gregory VII. caused most of the valuable works of the ancients to be burned. It was this Pope who burned the works of the learned Varro, to prevent St. Augustin from being accused of plagiarism, the saint having stolen from him the greater part of his

Treatise de Civitate Dei.

AN ARACHNOID GARMENT.

they might have something to oppose to the Christians. These doctors were descendants of the ten tribes of Israel, who were carried into captivity from Samaria by King Psalmanazar, the father of Sennacherib, in the time of Hosea. The "Talmud" was valued at 100 livres during the time of Joseph Scaliger. This book is a mixture of Syriac, Hebrew, and the Vulgar Hebrew, which was the language of the school of the Rabbis, and

which differs as much from the other as the Latin of Bartolus from that of Cicero.

OTHERS.

Gassendi was accustomed to read, throughout the greater part of the night, by the lamp in the parish church, his parents being too poor to supply him with candles.

Chapelain, the author of the Pucelle, was called by the academicians GASSENDI, SIR MATTHEW HALE, AND the Knight of the Order of the Spider, because he wore a coat so patched and pieced, that the stitches exhibited no bad resemblance of the fibres produced by that insect. Being one day present at a large party given by the great Condé, a spider of uncommon size fell from the ceiling upon the floor. The company thought it could not have come from the roof, and all the ladies at once agreed that it must have William Prynne was exceedingly proceeded from Chapelain's wig; diligent; he read or wrote about the wig so celebrated by the well-sixteen hours in the day. To pre

Sir Matthew Hale relates, with regard to himself, that he laboured for sixteen hours in the day during the first two years that he spent in the Inns of Court.

Q

vent loss of time, he caused his
food to be laid on a table in his
study; and when he was hungry,
he made a scanty meal.
Descartes frequently studied fif-
teen hours in the day.

M. de Buffon studied twelve or fourteen hours.

pot." "Ish understand risht," said the maid, in her Coblentz patois. "It's a thing to eat," said her mistress, "for dinner-for deenerwith sauce, soace-sowose. What on earth am I to do?" exclaimed the lady in despair, but still making another attempt. "It's a little Joseph Scaliger was so exceed-creature-a bird-a bard-a beard ingly fond of intellectual engage- --a hen-a hone-a fowl-a fool; ments, that he would sometimes it's all covered with feathers-faremain in his study for two or thers-feeders!" "Ha, ha!" cried three days without food. the delighted German, at last getting hold of a catchword, "Ja, ja! fedders-ja woh!" and away went Grettel, and in half an hour returned triumphantly, with a bundle of stationers' quills.

John Knox evinced a high opinion of the value of learning, when he said to Queen Mary of Scotland, in his blunt phraseology, "I am here now; yet I cannot tell what other men shall judge of me, that, at this time of day, I am absent from my book, and waiting at court."

Carneades was so enamoured with the pursuits of knowledge, that he scarcely allowed himself time to pare his nails or comb his hair.

Budæus and Turnebus spent their wedding-days in the study.

THE DUTCH.

The Dutch may be compared to their own turf, which kindles and burns slowly, but which, when once kindled, retains its fire to the last.

ENGLISH AND GERMAN.

An Englishman talking with a German friend, a man of a remarkably philosophical cast of mind, and fond of clothing his sentiments in the graces of classical allusion, the discourse happened to turn upon the mortifications to which those subject themselves who seek after the vanities of this world. friend was for a stoical independence, and had Diogenes in his eye. "For mine self," he exclaimed, with rising enthusiasm, "I should be quite contentment for to live all my days in a dub, eating nothing else but unicorns!" (acorns.)

MENAGE.

Our

The Queen of Sweden (Christina) said of him, after he published his work on the Origin of the French Language, "Menage is undoubtedly a very learned and excellent person, but he is very unaccommodating; he will never allow a word to pass without its passport: he must always know whence it comes, and where it is going."

An English lady resident at Coblentz, one day wishing to order of her German servant (who did not understand English) à boiled fowl for dinner, Grettel was summoned, and the experiment began. It was one of the lady's fancies, that the less her words resembled her native tongue, the more they must be like German. So her first attempt was to tell the maid that she wanted a cheeking, or keeking. The maid Shutting one's self up in a conopened her eyes and mouth, and vent, marrying, and throwing one's shook her head. "It's to cook," self over a precipice, are three said the mistress, "to cook, to put things which must be done without in an iron thing, in a pit-pat-thinking too much about them.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE AT ONCE.