quarrelled about the speed of a greyhound, and the decision of a course, and had mutually vowed never to pass each other's door. The sight of his antagonist's card (left in one of Mr Coningsby's absent fits), so mollified the most testy elder of the two, that he forthwith returned the visit, and the opposite party being luckily not at home, a card was left there also; and either individual thinking the concession first made by himself, was emulous in stepping forward with the most cordial hand-shaking when they met casually at dinner at a third place. But Mr Coningsby's visiting blunders were not always so fortunate; where they healed one breach, they made twenty; and once had very nearly occasioned a duel between two youngsters, lords of neighbouring manors, between whose game-keepers there was an outstanding feud. The card left was taken as a cartel-a note of defiance; and, but for the interference of constables, and mayors, and magistrates, and aunts, and sisters, and mammas, and peace-preservers of all ages and sexes, some very hot blood would inevitably have been spilt. As it was, the affair terminated in a grand effusion of ink, the correspondence between the seconds, a delicious specimen of polite and punctilious quarrelling, having been published for the edification of the world, and filling three columns of the county newspapers. It came to no conclusion; for, although the one party conceded that a card had been left, and the other that the person to whom the name belonged did not leave it, yet how the thing did arrive on that hall table remained a mystery. The servant who opened the door happened to be a stranger, and somehow or other nobody ever thought of Mr Coningsby ;-nay, he himself, although taking a great interest in the dispute, and wondering over the puzzle like the rest of the neighbourhood, never once recollected his own goings on that eventful morning, nor dreamt that it could be through his infirmity that Sir James Mordaunt's card was left at Mr Chandler's; to so incredible a point was his forgetfulness carried. If, in so simple a matter as morning visiting, he contrived to produce so much confusion, think how his genius must have expanded when so dangerous a weapon as a pen got into their hands! I question if he ever wrote a letter in his life without some blunder in the date, the address, the signature, or the subject. He would indite an epistle to one person, direct it to another, and send it to a third, who could not conceive from whom it came, because he had forgotten to put his name at the bottom. But of the numerous perplexities to which he was in the habit of giving rise, franks were by very far the most frequent cause. Ticklish things are they, even to the punctual and the careful; and to Mr Coningsby the giving one quite perfectly right seemed an impossibility. There was the date to consider, the month, the day of the month, the year-I have known him to write the wrong century;-then came the name, the place, the street, the number, if in London-if in the country, the town and county;— then, lastly, his own name, which, though so simple an operation as it seems, he would contrive generally to omit, and sometimes to boggle with, now writing only his patronymic, as if he were a peer, now only his Christian name, as if a prince, and now an involution of initials that defied even the accurate eye of the clerks of the Post-Office. Very, very few can have been the franks of his that escaped paying. Of course his friends and acquaintance were forewarned, and escaped the scrape (for it is one) of making their correspondents pay triple postage. Bountiful as he was in his offers of service in this way, (and keeping no account of the numbers, he would just as readily give fifty as one), none incurred the penalty, save strangers and the unwary. I, for my own part, never received but one letter directed by him in my life, and in the address of that, the name, my name, the name of the person to whom the letter was written, was wanting. "Three Mile Cross" held the usual place occupied by "Miss Mitford." "Three Mile Cross→→→→ ran the direction. But as I happened to receive Notes would, in his hands, have been still more dangerous than letters; but from this peril he was generally saved by the caution of the two friends most anxious for his credit, his wife and the old butler, who commonly contrived, the one to write the answers to all invitations and general billets that arrived at the house, the other to watch that none from him should pass without due scrutiny. Once, however, he escaped their surveillance; and the conse quence was an adventure which, though very trifling, A respectable but not wealthy clergyman had been The day on which the dinner was to have been given proved so unfavourable, that our young couple saw good cause to congratulate themselves on their resolution. The little hamlet of East Longford, amongst the prettiest of our North-of-Hampshire villages, so beautiful in the summer, from the irregularities of the ground, the deep woody lanes hollowed like water-courses, the wild commons which must be passed to reach it, and the profound seclusion of the one straggling street of cottages and cottage-like houses, with the vicarage, placed like a bird's-nest on the side of a steep hill, clothed to the very top with beech woods; this pretty hamlet, so charming in its summer verdure, its deep retirement, and its touch of wildness in the midst of civilization, was, from those very circumstances no tempting spot in mid-winter; vast tracts across the commons were then nearly impassable; the lanes were sloughs; and the village itself, rendered insulated and inaccessible by the badness of the roads, conveyed no other feeling than that of weariness and loneliness. Mr and Mrs Ellis, who, although not insensible of the inconveniences of their abode, had made up their minds to bear the evil and enjoy the good of their situation, could not help congratulating themselves, as they sate in their snug dining-parlour, after a five o'clock dinner, on the postponement of their party. The snow is above a foot deep, and the bridge broken, so that neither servants nor horses could have got to the Eight Bells; and where could we have housed them? said the gentleman. And the drawing-room smokes So, in this heavy atmosphere, that we cannot light a fire there, responded the lady; never to be sure was anything so fortunate! And just as the word was spoken, a carriage and four drove up to the door, and exactly at half-past six (the hour named in the invitation), Mr and Mrs Coningsby were ushered into the room. Imagine the feelings of four persons, who had It was a trial of no ordinary nature to the good boy, with the intention of sending it by a groom), was found quietly ensconced in his waistcoat pocket' Mrs Coningsby could hardly regret the termination of her present adventure, although fully resolved never again to incur a similar danger. Of his mishaps when attending his duty in Parliament, and left in some measure to his own guidance (for, having no house in town, his family only go for about three months in the season) there is no end. Some are serious, and some are very much the reverse. Take a specimen of his London scrapes. Our excellent friend wears a wig made to imitate a natural head of hair, which it is to be presumed that at the very best of times, it does not very closely resemble, and which, after a week of Mr Coningsby's wearing, put on with the characteristic negligence of his habits, sometimes on one end, sometimes on the other, always awry, and sometimes hind side before, assumes such a demeanour as never was equalled by Christian peruke at any time or in any country. One day last winter, being in London without a servant, he, by some extraordinary chance, happened to look in the glass when he was dressing, and became aware of the evil state of his caxon,-a piece of information for which he had generally been indebted to one of his two guardians, Mrs Coningsby or the old butler,--and, recollecting that he was engaged to a great dinner party the ensuing evening, stepped into the first hair-dresser's shop that he passed to bespeak himself a wig; where, being a man of exceedingly pleasant and jocular manners (your oddities, with the exception of the peculiar oddity, are commonly agreeable persons), he passed himself off for a bachelor to the artificer, and declared that his reason for desiring a wig of peculiar beauty and becomingness was, that he was engaged to great party the next day, at which he expected to meet the lady of his heart, and that his fate and fortune depended on the set of his curls. This he impressed very strongly on the mind of the perruquier; who, an enthusiast in his art, as a great artist should be, saw nothing extraordinary in the fact of a man's happiness hanging on the cut of his wig, and gravely promised that no exertion should be wanting on his part to contribute to the felicity of his customer, and that the article in question, as perfect as hands could make it, should be at his lodgings the next evening at seven. Punctual to the hour arrived the maker of perukes; and, finding Mr Coningsby not yet returned to dress, went to attend another appointment, promising to come back in half an hour. In half an hour, accordingly, the man of curls re-appeared, just in time to see a cabriolet driving rapidly from the door, at which a maid servant stood tittering. Where is Mr Coningsby? inquired the perruquier. Just gone out to dinner, replied the girl; and a queer figure he is, sure enough. He looks for all the world like an owl in an ivy-bush. To be sure he has not got his new wig on!-my wig! returned the alarmed artist; he can never be such a fool as that! He's fool enough for anything in the way of forgetting or not attending, responded our friend Sally; and he has got a mop of hair on his head, whoever made it, that would have served for half-a-dozen wigs. The article was sent home untrimmed, just as it was woven, replied the unfortunate fabricator, in increasing consternation; and a capital article it is. I came by his own direction to cut and curl it, according to the shape of his face; the gentleman being particular about the set of it, because he's going a-courting. Going a-courting! exclaimed Sally, amazed in her turn; the Lord ha' mercy upon the poor wretch! If he has not clean forgot that he's married, and is going to commit-I don't know what you call it-to have two wives at once! and then he'll be hanged. Going a-courting! What'll Madam say! Going acourting! He'll come to be hanged, sure enough. Married already! quoth the perruquier, with a knowing whistle, and a countenance that spoke BeneWhen ! dick the married man in every feature. One wife at a time's enough for most people. But he'll not be hanged. The fact of his wearing my wig with the hair six inches long will save him. He must be non compos. And you that stand tittering there can be little better, to let him go out in such a plight. Why didn't you stop him? Stop him! ejaculated the damsel; stop Mr Coningsby! I should like to know how! Why by telling him what he was about, to be sure; and getting him to look in the glass. Nobody with eyes in his head could have gone out such a figure. Talk to him! quoth Sally; but how was I to get him to listen? And, as to looking in a glass, I question if ever he did such a thing in his life. You don't know our Mr Coningsby, that's clear enough. I only wish he had never come in my way, that I never had had the ill luck to have known him, rejoined the discomfited artist, if he should happen to mention my name as his wig-maker, whilst he has that peruke on his head, I am ruined—my reputation for ever! gone is No fear of that, replied Sally, in a comforting tone, struck with compassion at the genuine alarm of the unlucky man of wig. There's not the slightest danger of his mentioning your name, because you may be certain sure that he does not remember it. Lord love you, he very often forgets his own! Don't you be frightened about that! repeated the damsel, Soothingly, as she shut the door, whilst the discomfited perruquier returned to his shop, and Mr Coningsby, never guessing how intirely in outward semblance he resembled the wild man of the woods, proceeded to his dinner-party, where his coiffure was, as the hairdresser had predicted, the theme of universal astonishment and admiration. This, however, was one of the least of his scrapes. He has gone to Court without a sword; he has worn coloured clothes to a funeral, and black to a wedding. There is scarcely any conventional law of society which, in some way or other, he hath not contrived to break; and, in two or three slight instances, he has approached more nearly than beseems a magistrate and a senator to a démêlé with the laws of the land. He hath quietly knocked down a great fellow, for instance, whom he caught beating a little one, and hath once or twice been so blind or so absent, as to suffer a petty culprit to run away, when brought up for examination in virtue of his own warrant. But it is remarkable that he never, in his most oblivious moods, is betrayed into an unkind word or an ungenerous action. There is a moral instinct about him which preserves him, in the midst of his oddities, pure and unsullied in thought and deed. With all his "distractions," he never lost a friend or made an enemy. His opponents at an election are pozed when they get up a handbill against him; and for that great test of amiableness, the love of his family, his household, his relations, servants, and neighbours, I would match my worthy friend, George Coningsby, against any man in the county. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. RALEIGH'S ACCOUNT OF THE SCENERY OF CANARI, WHEN we ascended, says he, to the tops of the first * I never, he continues, saw a more beautiful country, nor more lively prospects; hills so raised here and there over the vallies; the river winding into divers branches; the plains adjoining without bush or stubble; all fair green grass; the ground of hard sand, weary to march on either for horse or foot; the deer crossing in every path; the birds towards evening singing on every tree with a thousand several tunes; cranes and herons, of white, crimson, and carnation, perching on the river's side; the air fresh, with a gentle easterly wind; and every stone that we stopped to take up promising either gold or silver by its complexion.* As Raleigh lay at St Michael's, waiting the arrival of the commander-in-chief, who was again running after some fruitless enterprise, a carrack, of eighteen hundred tons, loaded with treasure, bore in with all sail amongst his ships, mistaking them for Spaniards, at which sight he gave orders to haul down every flag, and that no one should, at the highest peril, either fire a gun or put off a boat. All lay quietly at anchor, eyeing their golden victim, which, without suspicion, was proudly advancing, and, in a few minutes retreat would have been impossible, when a loggerhead Hollander, either neglecting or mistaking the signals, discharged a shot at the stranger, who, perceiving her error, changed her course as nimbly as a frightened dove; but at the same moment the wind chopped about, and she ran aground under the town and fort. Here the rear-admiral followed in his barges, with the design of boarding; upon which, finding the danger inevitable, the Spaniards, after having set fire to her in many places at once, betook themselves to the boats that came to their assistance from the shore. Still, says Gorges, in his ani mated description of this incident, Raleigh and his men pursued to board and prevent loss, though not without great danger to his row-barge where he was, the surge being very outrageous. But before he • Discovery of Guiana. Works, Vol. viii. p. 442. could get up to her, she was all over thunder and Lasting Traces of a Great Man.-It is a remarkable What river. "I remember well his study," says this amusing and garrulous author, "it was a little turret that looked into and over the Thames, and had a prospect as pleasant, perhaps, as many in the world, not only refreshing the eyesight but cheering the spirits." In his best time there was an air of dignity and command about him, an "awfulness and ascendency," as it is well expressed by Aubrey, "above other mortals," which was displeasing to many, and particularly to the King; yet by his sailors and ships' crews, as we learn from Cecil, he was wonderfully beloved. The interior of his palace was magnificent, his taste in furniture being marked by the same love of splendour which appeared in his dress. He delighted in richly carved panels, in antique chimney pieces, in decorating the walls and ceilings of his apartments with his armorial bearings, in beds with green silk hangings, and legs like dolphins, overlaid with gold. His splendid dress, his shoes and doublet studded with precious stones, have been already described. Perhaps he indulged in it to a weakness; but it was an age of magnificence, and it is to be remembered that this wealth in jewels was in Raleigh the result not of extravagance, but of the rich prizes which he had taken from the Spaniards. He glittered with the spoils of the New World; but his jewels were the insignia of his skill and bravery, the fruits not of purchase, but of honourable conquest. Portrait of Raleigh.-Although his person was gala days, but had collected a fine armoury. In architec- POLYSYLLABIC RHYMES. WE have but few rhymes of four syllables, and Why did old Euclis take his only child, But the verses of Swift, upon the ancient dramatic authors, exhibit the most extraordinary specimen of the sort of rhymes we are now considering, that the English language contains. He had superior abilities in rhyming, and he appears to have set himself down to this piece merely for the purpose of exerting them. The following lines are an extract;— I went in vain to look for Eupolis Down in the Strand, just where the new pole is; you may see, dear friend, ex pede hence, Thy judgment of the old comedians. Proceed to tragics; first, Euripides For aught he knows, as bad as Thespis 's; S Crowe, on English Versification. TO CORRESPONDENTS. THE gentleman through whose friendly letter from Scotland we had the first information of Mr Simpson's permission to make use of his book, was requested to accept our acknowledgments in a paragraph which was left for insertion last week, but which the press of matter kept out. We learn, for the first time, that the Bradford We need not say Observer is an old friend of ours. how valuable is the repetition of its approbation after "a lapse of six months." An accident compels us to postpone further notices to correspondents till next week, when arrears will be duly discharged. LONDON: Published by H. HOOPER, 13, Pall Mall East. From the Steam-Press of C. & W. REYNELL, Little Pulteney-street. LONDON JOURNAL. TO ASSIST THE INQUIRING, ANIMATE THE struggling, AND SYMPATHIZE WITH ALL. WEDNESDAY, DEC. 10, 1834. one. PUT UP A PICTURE IN YOUR ROOM. They MAY we exhort such of our readers as have no pictures hanging in their room to put one up immediately? we mean in their principal sitting-room;-in all their rooms, if possible, but, at all events, in that No matter how costly, or the reverse, provided they see something in it, and it gives them a profitable or pleasant thought. Some may allege that they have "no taste for pictures;" but they have a taste for objects to be found in pictures,—for trees, for landscapes, for human beauty, for scenes of life; or, if not for all these, yet surely for some one of them; and it is highly useful for the human mind to give itself helps towards taking an interest in things apart from its immediate cares or desires. serve to refresh us for their better conquest or endurance; to render sorrow unselfish; to remind us that we ourselves, or our own personal wishes, are not the only objects in the world; to instruct and elevate us, and put us in a fairer way of realizing the good opinions which we would all fain entertain of ourselves, and in some measure do; to make us compare notes with other individuals, and with nature at large, and correct our infirmities at their mirror by modesty and reflection; in short, even the admiration of a picture is a kind of religion, or additional tie on our consciences, and rebinding of us (for such is the meaning of the word religion) to the greatness and goodness of nature. Mr Hazlitt has said somewhere, of the portrait of a beautiful female with a noble countenance, that it seems as if an unhandsome action would be impossible in its presence. It is not so much for restraint's sake, as for the sake of diffusiveness of heart, or the going out of ourselves, that we would recommend pictures; but, among other advantages, this also, of reminding us of our duties, would doubtless be one; and if reminded with charity, the effect, though perhaps small in most instances, would still be something. We have read of a Catholic money-lender, who, when he was going to cheat a customer, always drew a veil over the portrait of his favourite Saint. Here was a favourite vice, far more influential than the favourite Saint; and yet we are of opinion that the money-lender was better for the Saint than he would have been without him. It left him faith in something; he was better for it in the intervals; he would have treated his daughter the better for it, or his servant, or his dog. There was a bit of heaven in his room,—a sun-beam to shine into a corner of his heart, however he may have shut the window against it, when heaven was not to look on. The companionship of anything greater or better than ourselves, must do us good, unless we are destitute of all modesty or patience. And a picture is a companion, and the next thing to the presence of what it represents. We may live in the thick of a city, for instance, and can seldom go out, and "feed" ourselves With pleasure of the breathing fields; but we can put up a picture of the fields before us, and, as we get used to it, we shall find it the next [From the Steam-Press of C. & W. REYNELL, Little Pulteney-street.] No. 37. For every thing to seeing the fields at a distance. such thoughts at all. And it is so easy to square the picture to one's aspirations, or professions, or the powers of one's pocket. For, as to resolving to have no picture at all in one's room, unless we could have it costly, and finely painted, and finely framed, that would be a mistake so vulgar, that we trust no reader of the 'London Journal' could fall into it. The greatest knave or simpleton in England, provided he is rich, can procure one of the finest paintings in the world tomorrow, and know nothing about it when he has got it; but to feel the beauties of a work of art, or to be capable of being led to feel them, is a gift which often falls to the lot of the poorest; and this is what Raphael or Titian desired in those who looked at their pictures. All the rest is taking the clothes for the man. Now it so happens, that the cheapest engravings, though they cannot come up to the merits of the originals, often contain no mean portion or shadow of them; and when we speak of putting pictures up in a room, we use the word "picture" in the child's sense, meaning any kind of graphic representation, oil, water-colour, copper-plate, drawing, or wood-cut. And any one of these is worth putting up in your room, provided you have mind enough to get a pleasure from it. Even a frame is not necessary, if you engraving, than none at all,—or pin, or stick up, any cannot afford it. Better put up a rough, varnished engraving whatsoever, at the hazard of its growing and for as long a time; and as for the rest, it is better never so dirty. You will keep it as clean as you can, to have a good memorandum before you, and get a fresh one when you are able, than to have none at all, or even to keep it clean in a portfolio. How should you like to keep your own heart in a portfolio, or lock your friend up in another room? We are no friends to portfolios, except where they contain more prints than can be hung up. The more, in that case, the better. Our readers have seen in all parts of the country, over the doors of public-houses, "Perkins and Co.'s Entire." This Perkins, who died wealthy, a few years ago, was not a mere brewer or rich man. He had been head-clerk to Thrale, the friend of Dr Johnson; and, during his clerkship, the Doctor happening to go into his counting-house, saw a portrait of himself (Johnson) hanging up in it. "How is this, sir?" inquired Johnson. "Sir," said Perkins, "I was resolved that my room should have had one great man in it." "A very pretty compliment," returned the gratified moralist, "and I believe you mean it sincerely." Mr Perkins did not thrive the worse for having the portrait of Johnson in his counting-house. People are in general quite enough inclined to look after the PRICE THREE HALFPence. interests of "number one;" but they make a poor business of it, rich as they may become, unless they include a power of forgetting it in behalf of number two; that is to say, of some one person, or thing, besides themselves, able to divert them from mere self-seeking. It is not uncommon to see one solitary portrait in a lawyer's office, and that portrait, a lawyers, generally some judge. It is better than none. Anything is better than the poor, small unit of a man's selfish self, even if it be but the next thing to it. And there is the cost of the engraving and frame. Sometimes there is more; for these professional prints, especially when alone, are meant to imply, that the possessor is a shrewd, industrious, proper lawyer, who sticks to his calling, and wastes his time in "no nonsense;" and this ostentation of business is in some instances a cover for idleness or disgust, or a blind for a father or rich uncle. Now it would be better, we think, to have two pictures instead of one,-the judge's by all means, for the professional part of the gentleman's soul,—and some one other picture, to show his client that he is a man as well as a lawyer, and has an eye to the world out side of him, as well as to his own; for as men come from that world to consult him, and generally think their cases just in the eyes of common sense as well as law, they like to see that he has some sympathies as well as cunning. Upon these grounds, it would be well for men of other callings, if they acted in a similar way. The young merchant should reasonably have a portrait of some eminent merchant before his syes, with some other, not far off, to hinder him from acknowledging no merit but in riches. Or he might select a merchant of such a character as could serve both uses,— Sir Thomas Gresham, for instance, who encouraged knowledge as well as money-getting,—or Lorenzo de Medici, the princely merchant of Italy. So with regard to clergymen, to professions of all sorts, and to trade. The hosier, in honour of his calling, might set up Defoe, who was one of that trade, as well as author of Robinson Crusoe; the bookseller, may the footman, Dodsley, who was at one time a footman as well as a bookseller and author, and behaved excellently under all characters; and the tailor might baulk petty animadversions on his trade, by having a portrait, or one of the many admirable works, of the great Annibal Caracci, who was a tailor's son. It would be advisable, in general, to add a landscape, if possible, for reasons already intimated; but a picture of some sort we hold to be almost indispensably necessary towards doing justice to the habitation of every one who is capable of reflection and improveThe print-shops, the book-stalls, the portfolios containing etchings and engravings at a penny or twopence a-piece (often superior to plates charged twenty times as much), and lastly, the engravings that make their way into the shop-windows, out of the Annuals of the past season, and that are to be had for almost as little, will furnish the ingenuous reader of this article with an infinite store to choose from; and if he is as good-natured as he is sensible, we will venture to whisper into his ear, that we should take it as a personal kindness of him, and hope he would consider us as a friend assisting him in putting it up. ment. THE CELEBRATED CASE OF MARY SQUIRES AND ELIZA BETH CANNING. MARY SQUIRES, an itinerant pedlar, gipsy, and smuggler, who might have lived unnoticed, and died without remembrance, had not a prosecution for robbery, by which she was condemned to die, suddenly fixed the public eye upon her; and as prejudice or party operated, alternately rendered her a general object of detestation, pity or contempt. Persisting with the most solemn asseveration, that she was in a distant part of the kingdom on the very day she was accused of having committed the crime, and naming a variety of persons who could prove it, the compassion of Sir Crisp Gascoyne, at that time Lord Mayor of London, was excited; by his example, several well-meaning individuals were induced to join him in examining a most perplexed and intricate business, and she was ultimately recommended as an object of mercy to the crown. It appeared, by the declaration on oath of Elizabeth Canning, a young woman about nineteen years of age, that, in the beginning of the year 1755, having procured leave from a person with whom she lived as servant, to pass a day with her uncle at Saltpetre bank, she remained with him from eleven in the morning till nine at night; that, on her return, two lusty men in great coats met her near Bethlem Wall, Moorfields, violently assaulted, robbed her of a gown, apron, hat, and half-a-guinea in money, tied her hands behind her, and, on her struggling, gave her a violent blow on the temple, accompanied with oaths and execrations. They then laid hands on her, one on each side, and dragged her with violence and abuse for some hours, I part of which time, from fits, she was not sensible, till they arrived at the house of Susannah Wells, which she afterwards found was situated at Enfield Wash. On being forced by the two ruffians into the house, she was accosted by Mary Squires, who asked her, as if she would go their way? and if she would, that she should have fine clothes; words of which, at that time, she did not understand the import, though she replied No; but she afterwards conceived that it was nothing less than for her to submit to the odious life of a prostitute. Elizabeth Canning further deposed, that, on her answering No, Mary Squires, with a long knife ripped up the lace of her stays, which she took from her, and, after many intimidating threats, pushed her into a back room, or hayloft, where she was confined for twenty-seven days, with no other sustenance than a slender pittance of bread, some water in a broken pitcher, and a small minced-pie which she accidently had in her pocket. During the whole of the time, she declared that no human creature visited her; that, the bread and water being exhausted, she broke down a board, nailed on the inside of the window, through which she crept on a sort of pent-house, and then jumped on the ground, which, from her description, was nine or ten feet from the window. Having quitted the house, she walked home as fast as her weak condition permitted; after so long an absence, it was natural to expect that her mother should be alarmed, by the squalid and diseased appearance of her daughter; and by her distressing account of the injurious treatment she had experi enced. A circumstance of this kind naturally excited the sympathy and resentment of the public, ever compassionately attentive to female injuries; a subscription was set on foot in favour of the young woman; Squires and Wells were taken into custody, under the most violent impressions of popular prejudice and indignation, tried at the Old Bailey, and sentence of death passed on the former. But Sir Crisp Gascoyne perceived much contradiction in the evidence, and considered the description given by Canning of the room which she said was the place of her confinement, to be very different from the actual state and dimensions of the hayloft, in Wells's House; he was also startled by a principal witness in Canning's favour, Virtue Hall, wholly retracting her evidence, though she had positively sworn to the seeing Canning at Enfield Wash, and to a good part of the conversation said to have passed between that young woman and Squires, particularly to her ripping off the stays. For these, and other reasons, this worthy, but at that time unpopular magistrate, presented a memorial to the king, mentioning the presumptive circumstances in favour of the old woman's innocence. In consequence of this application, Mary Squires was respited for six weeks; the consideration of the matter was referred to the attorney and solicitorgenerals, who reported, that the weight of evidence was in the convict's favour, and she ultimately received a free pardon. If Squires was not guilty, it was impossible Canning could be innocent; her conduct, considering her years, must have been cruel and atrocious in the highest degree; combining at once the crimes of For these, and other reasons, it was judged proper It was observed, in Canning's defence, that her not flying from justice, during the long interval that elapsed between the trials, was a strong presumption of her innocence, since neither herself nor friends were bound by any recognizance. To this it was answered, that one who had been able, for so long a time, by an artful story, to prejudice so many in her favour, and to receive such ample countenance and pecuniary support, and every prospect of evading justice by well dressed evidence, and the strong force of popular opinion; in which case, her triumph over truth would have been complete, her reputation as a species of martyr established, and her reward, in all probability, would have been splendid. The previous and accurate description of a broken pitcher which was discovered in the room; and the hay-loft which, in some particulars, tallied with her account, though in many circumstances it failed, as she did not mention a jack-line and pulley, a broken casement over the chimney, and a chest of drawers, all of which were proved, by an accumulation of dust and cobwebs, to have been very long residents. Yet, as the pitcher, and the description of the room and its contents, though not correct, prove some previous acquaintance with the loft, a reference to the evidence of one of Canning's witnessses (Robert Scarratt) helped to clear the mystery. Incited by curiosity, and, according to his own account, unsolicited, Mr Scarratt had, though a perfect stranger, called at her mother's house soon after her return, and, in the course of his evidence, acknowledged having often, on former occasions, been at the house of Susanah Wells, a place not of the most creditable description, at Enfield Wash. If we can suppose, for a moment, an iniquitous communication to have taken place between Elizabeth Canning and Robert Scarratt, whose evidence was by no means satisfactory, this difficulty vanishes, and the appearance of truth given to certain parts of the impostor's story, may be accounted for. It was submitted to the court, that even if Squires could prove, by positive and circumstantial evidence, that she was in a distant part of the kingdom at the time laid in the indictment, it did not follow that Canning had maliciously perjured herself, it being as possible for a person to be deceived by a similitude of deformity, as well as of beauty; though the old gipsy, when the constable went with the warrant to apprehend her, said to Canning, on being charged with robbing her of her stays,-" Do you say I robbed you? Pray look at this face; if you have once seen it, it must be remembered, for I think God Almighty never made such another." When this part of the evidence was related, the eyes of every one present were earnestly fixed on Mary Squires, whose countenance exhibited an assemblage of features uncommon, and diabolically hideous; her portrait, as a curiosity, is preserved by some of the collectors. The sufferings of Canning, and the evidently re- The man that hangs, or beats out brains, if any person in their senses would bring themselves The counsel in [behalf of Canning strongly dwelt justice, and would at last intimidate individuals from [This doctrine was acknowledged by the court to On this occasion it was observed, that things seemingly impossible for human power to have performed, have been proved true, though no credit was allowed to them when first asserted; and declarations have been proved false, which had every appearance of credit and authenticity, and which at the time were thought the most unlikely to be attested, if not really true. An improbable and unparalled ride from London to York, in one day, on the same horse, prevented the conviction of a prisoner for a highway robbery, though he confessed himself guilty of it immediately after his acquittal. William Harrison, a steward in the Gainsborough family, was also mentioned, who suddenly dissappeared with a considerable sum of money in his charge, of which he was supposed to have been robbed and then murdered. The family were terrified and alarmed, and, after a certain time, as he said, by remorse, Edward Perry, a man residing near Cambden, accused himself, the wife and sister of the absent man, of having murdered him; he added, that they had thrown the body into a certain pit in the neighbourhood, which was searched, but no body could be found; yet, as he persisted in his accusation, they were all three indicted, tried, and hanged. Harrison a few months afterwards returned, giving a particular and satisfactory account of his absence, equally shocked and perplexed by a sanguinary, but unaccountable depravity, which had thus exterminated his family. The contradictory accounts of Canning were explained by her friends, as amounting to no more than this, that a general fact, compounded of a variety of things done and said at various places, when related on particular occasions, and at different times, had not always been told minutely and exactly the same way, a defect to which every long and compli cated story must in some degree be liable. Some allowance, they said, ought to be made for the aggravated feelings and expressions of a parent, who believed her daughter to have been treated in the manner described; and some to an injured female, under the impressions of fear, famine, an emaciated body and an agitated mind. Several witnesses proved their having seen Mary Squires on or about the 16th, 17th, and 23rd of December, at Enfield Wash. She was observed, according to the evidence of one man, telling a person's fortune; another swore to her applying to him for leave to sleep in his barn; and a third, to her inquiring of him about a horse she had lost. A physician and an apothecary proved the languid and reduced state of Elizabeth Canning, on her return to her mother's, and that she appeared like one who had suffered extreme hunger, thirst and cold; but they acknowledged, that a person might be as she was from other causes. An attendant at the Stamford Hill turnpike, swore, that about the fore-end of January, but could not speak positively as to the day, he saw a girl, in company with two men, pass the gate, sobbing and crying; that they jostled her along, and used abusive language. He described her as having a light coloured gown and apron, and that it was about eleven o'clock at night. On this evidence it was observed that Canning could not be the woman who passed the turnpike, for she had sworn that her gown and apron were taken from her in Moorfields;-add to this, that the turnpike gate is four miles from Moorfields, and seven from Wells's House, and she swore, that she was brought to Wells's about four in the morning. Thomas Bennett saw a miserable, poor wretch, in a ragged dirty condition, on the 29th of January, near Enfield Wash, on her way to London, and deposed, that she asked him the road. Two other witnesses swore to their meeting a girl, whom they verily believe to have been Elizabeth Canning, on the road between Enfield Wash and London, but described her as looking pale, though her hands and face were said, by herself and others, to be black and blue. On the part of Mary Squires upwards of forty persons were called, to prove that she was upwards of 130 miles from Enfield Wash, in company with her son George, and her daughter Lucy, at the time she was accused of having committed the robbery. On the 29th of December, according to the evidence of Mrs Hopkins, the landlady of a public house at South Perrott, in Dorsetshire, they all three lodged with her; and on the 30th they called at Winyard's Gap, an ale-house about a mile further, to take refreshment. At this last house, the frightful countenance of Squires, so remarkably attracted the notice of the daughter of the woman of the house, that she compared her to a picture of Mother Shipton, hanging in the room. Their appearance on the same day at Lytton, a village nine miles further on the road, was also proved by several witnesses; by James Hawkins, at whose house they slept two nights; by her son's being shaved there by Francis Gladman, and by their dining on a couple of boiled fowls; Mr Moreton observing, that this was a remarkable dinner for gipsies, George answered, that fowls at sixpence a-piece were cheaper than butcher's meat. At Abbotsbury, a small parish three miles from Lytton, they remained till Tuesday the 9th of January; were recognized by many persons, and had a dance at the house of John Gibbons, the sign of the Ship, at Abbotsbury, where William Clarke, a shoemaker, and the sweetheart of Lucy Squires, was her partner, and Melchisedech Arnold, a blacksmith, played the fiddle. John Ford, a carpenter, of Abbotsbury, saw them also on the 1st of January, shook hands with the old woman, kissed her daughter, and drank a pint of beer with George. From Abbotsbury, they were regularly traced through Portersham and Ridgway (where cash being scarce, they left a piece of nankin as a pledge for the reckoning) to Dorchester; at this place, in consequence of the excessive rains, the Fordington water was so high as to cover the causeway; the old woman and George were obliged to wade through it, but Lucy prevailed an a miller's boy to carry her behind him on horseback; to the repeated entreaties of Mary Squires that he should also take her on horseback, the little varlet replied that he "would have nothing to say or to do with such an ugly old b-h.” By a chain of credible and circumstantial evi dence, they were proved to have passed through Chettle, Coombe, and Basingstoke, where Lucy, not being able to write, begged the landlady to send Clarke a few lines according to promise. The letter with the post-mark was produced in court. From Basingstoke they went to Bagshot, Brentford, Page'sgreen, Tottenham, and on the 24th of January took lodgings at Susannah Wells's, in Enfield Wash. On the 1st of February they were apprehended, and it was remarked that Canning immediately in coming into the room, exclaimed, pointing to Mary Squires, "That is the woman who robbed me of my stays," when it was impossible for her to see the old woman's face, from the peculiar position in which she sat. Canning had described the place of her confinement as square, dark, and little; but, on surveying the room, it measured 35 feet 3 inches by 9 feet 8; and it was far from dark, as well from the two windows, as from the light admitted between the pantiles. She also said at first that she dropped from the window by a pent-house, when, on inspection, there was not a pent-house on the premises. A poor man, named Fortune Natus, proved that he and his wife slept in the room in which Canning swore she was confined, during the whole of that month, and for five or six weeks before. This part of the evidence was strongly corroborated by Ezra Whiffin, a neighbour of Susannah Wells, who, being in want of part of the work of a signboard, and hearing that she had a old one to dispose of, called to see it, and accompanied Wells into the very room in question to seek for it. They at last found it under some hay, which made part of the bed on which the wife of Natus was actually lying at the time Whiffin called, on the 18th of January. John Larney, Edward Allen, and Giles I look back with horror on the evidence you get the trial of Mary Squires, whom you know to be destitute and friendless, and therefore you fixed upon her as a proper object to make a sacrifice of, at the expence of a false oath: this you preferred to the making a plain discovery to those who had the right to know where you really were those twentyeight days of your pretended confinement in the house of Susannah Wells. "In this imposture you were encouraged to persist by misapplied charity, and by the advice of your mistaken friends, whom you had deluded and deceived into a belief of the truth of what you had falsely sworn. "This audacious attempt, and the calm deliberate assurance with which you formed a scheme to take away the life of one, though the most abject of the human species, together with your youth and the character you then had, as well as your seeming inexperience, imposed upon many, and gained you a credit which must have exceeded your highest expectation. "Thus encouraged, you not only wickedly persevered, but even triumphed over those who would not imposition; but when people had a little recovered suffer their judgments to be misled by so gross an their senses, and this miraculous tale of yours came to be temperately canvassed, when your own original information was compared with the evidence you gave at the trial, and was found to vary in many material circumstances, a necessary inquiry was set on foot by a worthy magistrate, who presided in this court, which saved the life of Squires. These proceedings gave rise to the prosecution which has exposed the guilty, and ought to convince the doubtful; I hope this iniquitous conduct of yours will induce mankind not to suffer their conduct to get the better of their reason. "It is not my wish to aggravate your guilt, or to increase that affliction which I hope you feel, but, as I attended both the trials, it may be expected that I should declare my opinion; I, therefore, in the most solemn manner affirm that I always thought your evidence false, and your witnesses grossly mistaken. "The policy of foreign countries punishes this offence with death; but it is your happiness to have been born in a country whose code of laws are neither severe nor sanguinary; and the sentence I now pronounce is in no degree adequate to the nature of your offence. You shall be imprisoned in the jail of Newgate for one month; you shall then be transported to America for the term of seven years, and if in that period you return, or are found in any of his Majesty's dominions of Great Britain or Ireland, you shall suffer death." Notwithstanding this decision, many people still insisted on the innocence of Canning; the newspapers and periodicals of that day are full of the sub THERE is an every-day common-place, which is very apt to jar upon the mind of a sensible person, and which is not leavened with even an atom of romance. It is the remark which in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred follows our very expressive salutation of "How d'ye do?"—and comes immediately in the rear of " Very well I thank 'e"-I mean the exclusive and important news which one party tells to another as to the state of the weather. The conversation which takes place between two acquaintances upon a casual encounter in the streets, or even in a house, is really one of the most intellectual, instructive, comprehensive, and sensible that can be imagined-" How d'ye do?" says A. There is chemistry in this very exclamative question-Nay, start not, reader, I do not intend to drag you into the region of the acids and the alkalis, the metals and the gases. But verily there is chemistry in the salutation—inasmuch as it is a meaning clouded and hidden under a dark mode of expression- Chemio, the verb, to hide, is the supposed root of the word. The question is generally understood to refer to health, if it be in a good, or in a bad state. This is gathered from the answer, for Beither says, 66 Very well, I thank ye," or "Rather poorly,” or “ Tol-lol,” or "So-so," or " Very unwell," or " Very ill." All these evidently refer to the health. "Rather poorly," has no reference to a poverty of worldly chattels or cash. "Tol-lol," does not mean that he is glorious or uproarious. And "So-so," has no reference to the Schneider's trade. But, says Con, It is as reasonable to ask after a man's worldly affairs as his health. "How d'ye do?" is a very inclusive salutation, and is as perfectly applicable to health as to wealth. It means, how do your physical functions act, perform, or do, their office? How do your spirits agree with your animal state? and so on. How do you do? is applicable to all the circumstances of a man's lifehis health and his wealth, his family and his friends -it is as comprehensive an expression as could be devised by any Solomon. Says Pro, I acknowledge that all that may be very fair, and very properly in Knight, labourers, swore that they lopped several ject: Henry Fielding exercised his pen in favour of, cluded, and taken into account by such a penetrating trees that grew near the window of the workshop or hayloft in question, on the 8th of January; and that, while they were employed in it, two women, Virtue Hall and Sarah Howick, appeared at the window and conversed with them for more than half an hour. Had Canning been in the room she must have been seen, or might have called for help. She had sworn that no person of any description entered the garret or loft, during the whole of her confinement. It was also remarked, that a night-gown and handkerchief, which she said she took to cover herself with, out of the room at Wells's, she claimed as her mother's before the Lord Mayor, and wished to take them, as well as the pitcher, into her possession. To the information before Mr Fielding she set her mark, as if unable to write her name, but afterwards wrote a fair legible hand. After an examination of more than a hundred and twenty witnesses, the jury retired for fifteen minutes, and brought in a verdict-guilty of perjury, but not wilful and corrupt. This the recorder told them he could not receive, as they must either find her guilty of the whole indictment, or acquit her. After half an hour's consultation, they brought in a verdict guilty of wilful and corrupt perjury. In May, 1754, being called up to receive sentence, she addressed the court in the following words: "I hope your lordships will be favourable to me, for I had no intention of swearing the gipsy's life away; I am an unfortunate woman, and what I did was only in my own defence." The recorder (Mr Moreton) then addressed her in the following words : "Elizabeth Canning,-You stand convicted on the clearest proof of wilful and corrupt perjury, a crime attended with the most fatal and dangerous consequences to the community, though as yet it is not punished with death. "Your trial has taken up a great deal of time, and the several witnesses have undergone the strictest examination: I think I may venture to affirm, that there is not one unprejudiced person of the great numbers who have attended it, but must be convinced of the justice and impartiality of the verdict. and Sir John Hill against the female impostor. In This article ought not to conclude without paying - Linnæus's theory of medicine is amusing, if not instructive. He supposes the human body to consist of a cerebroso-medullary (brain-marrowy) part, of which the nerves are processes; and a cortical (bark) part, including the vascular system and its fluids. The nervous system, which is the animated part, derives its nourishment from the finer fluids of the vascular system, and its energy from an electrical principle inhaled by the lungs. The circulating fluids are capable of being vitiated by acescent putrid ferments, the former acting on the serum, and causing critical fevers; the latter or the crassamentum, and exciting phlogistic diseases. Eruptic ailments are excited by external causes, which he supposes to be animalculæ. The cortical or vascular system, undergoing continual waste, requires continual reparation, which is effected by means of suitable diet. Its diseases arise from improper food, and are to be remedied by sapid (palatable) medicines; while those of the medullary system are cured by olid (nauseous) substances.-Lives of the Zoologists. mind as yours; but, with every-day folk, the salutation has no more meaning than a sentence. And as to the Double-Dutch sentence that usually follows, telling a body what everybody in his senses is fully aware of the state of the weather-I cannot ima gine any defence for that. Were you addressing a hermit residing in a cave in a rock, to which light never penetrated, or a prisoner in a Bastile dungeon, it would be all very well, and very proper, and very novel, and very interesting to such an exclusive. But to tell a person what his sight, feeling, and perception must make him sensible of, evinces a degree of folly, which seems altogether out of character with the present advanced state of intellect. Suppose you meet a friend muffled up in a thick Brighton beaver over-all, buttoned up to the chin as if be were afraid to lose a single particle of his natural caloric, or inspire a mouthful of the cold atmosphere, a boa round his neck, or handkerchief round his throat drawn up over his mouth, as if he feared inhaling a pestilential breeze; mayhap over his nose; or should that be left exposed, it looks for all the world as red as a Christmas holly-berry; his hands encased in thick fur gloves lined with lamb's-wool, the upper joint of his arms forming an angle of about thirty degrees from his side, and from thence let fall a perpendicular for the lower joints of his arms. He walks with his body and knees bent, as if he were carrying a heavy load-a chilly mortal-and a sudden severe frost has just set in; the very sun itself, the fountain of light and heat, is nipped with the cold till red in the face. Suppose you meet such a one, on such a day, trudging between a walk and a run to his domicile. You salute him (yourself being a hearty dread-no-weather, fig-for-the-cold kind of a fellow, that never touched flannel nor wore |