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1718. A SPEAKING dog exhibited, who was even said to articulate distinctly sentences in German, French, and English.

erected at the Red Lion in Southwark Park, | gentlemen who pleased might let their dogs where crowds went to see it; and when boiled, it was to be conveyed to the Swan Tavern, Fish Street Hill, to the tune of "What lumps of pudding my mother gave me." The place was changed to the Restoration Gardens in St. George's Fields, in consequence of the numerous company expected, and the pudding set out in procession with banners, streamers, drums, &c., but the mob chased it on the way and carried all off.

WHEN the drawbridge on old London bridge was shut up to be repaired in 1722, some tradesmen had a table placed there in the middle of the street, and sat there drinking punch the whole afternoon, that they might do what no other persons ever had done. Some Englishmen did the same on the top of Pompey's pillar.

A MAN wagered that he and another would eat a bushel of turnips and drink four bottles of wine within an hour: the other was a bear, who had the turnips for his share, with three bottles of wine poured into it.

FIRE of London. "This subject," says Mr. Malcolm, "may be allowed to be familiar to me, and I have, perhaps, had more than common means of judging: and I now declare it to be my full and decided opinion that London was burnt by government,' to annihilate the plague; which was grafted in every crevice of the hateful old houses composing it!!!"—Anecdotes of London, vol. ii. p. 16.

1736. An attempt to diminish the excessive use of gin, occasioned cries from the mob of "No gin, no king!"

1715. A LEOPARD baited to death, and

' DRYDEN, who calls the Fire" this chymic flame," gives no authority to this often repeated notion. He says,

"from what source unknown Those seeds of fire their fatal birth disclose." Annus Mirabilis.-J. W. W.

1718. A MAN who called himself the grimace Spaniard, attempted to fight a bull after the Spanish manner, but failed shamefully, and was hooted out of the arena.

1722. “I, ELIZABETH WILKINSON, of Clerkenwell, having had some words with Hannah Hyfield, and requiring satisfaction, do invite her to meet me on the stage, and box with me for three guineas, each woman holding half-a-crown in each hand, and the first woman that drops her money to lose the battle."

"I, Hannah Hyfield, of Newgate market, hearing of the resoluteness of Elizabeth Wilkinson, will not fail, God willing, to give her more blows than words, desiring home blows, and from her no favour."

Hockley-in-the-Hole was the place. They wore close jackets, short petticoats, holland drawers, white stockings and pumps, and fought a long time to the general satisfaction of the spectators.

1725. Ar Figg's Amphitheatre, Oxford Street, Sutton, the champion of Kent, and a Kentish woman, fought Stokes and "his much admired consort" of London: £40 to be given to the male and female who gave most cuts with the sword, and £20 for most blows with a quarter-staff, besides the collection in the box.

IN Islington Road, on Monday, being the 17th of July, 1727, will be performed a trial of skill by the following combatants: “We, Robert Barker, and Mary Welsh, from Ireland, having often contaminated our swords in the abdominous corporations of such antagonists as have had the insolence to dispute our skill, do find ourselves once more necessitated to challenge, defy, and invite

Mr. Stokes and his bold Amazonian virago | Holy Scriptures they renounce chapters, to meet us on the stage, where we hope to verses, and contents, being only done by give a satisfaction to the honourable lord of human wisdom. They renounce the imour nation who has laid a wager of twenty pressions and translation of both the Old guineas on our heads. They that give the and New Testament, and that for additions most cuts to have the whole money, and the put unto them by men and other causes: benefit of the house: and if swords, daggers, as first putting in horrid blasphemy, making quarter staff, fury, rage and resolution will a Tyrant patron of the church; for putting prevail, our friends shall not meet with a in horrid pictures, and for drawing scores disappointment." "We, James and Eliza- betwixt the Books of the Bible. They rebeth Stokes, of the City of London, having nounce all Catechisms, larger and shorter; already gained an universal approbation by the acts of the General Assembly; all the our agility of body, dexterous hands, and Covenants acknowledging sin and engaging courageous hearts, need not preambulate on to duties; and that which they call preachthis occasion, but rather choose to exercise ing books; and all their works, form, manner the sword to their sorrow, and corroborate of worship, doctrine, discipline, government, the general opinion of the town, than to the studying of books, the thing they call follow the custom of our exparte antagonists. preaching, by reason that instead of going This will be the last time of Mrs. Stokes to God for his mind, they go to their books performing on the stage. They will fight in making their books their God and their the same dresses as before." leader. They renounce the limiting the the Lord's mind by glasses,' ordination by men; the Covenant taken at Queen's ferry, called Carghill's Covenant, as also the declarations of Hamilton and Lanrick, as not being strict enough; wherefore it seems good to the Holy Ghost and to them to burn the said Covenants, together with all the former works of the clergy of Scotland. They renounce and decline all authority throughout the world, and all that are in authority, and all their acts and edicts. They renounce the names of months, as January, &c., and of all days, as well the days of the week as holy days. They likewise renounce all chapels, chaplains, feastings, piping, dancing, laughing, monk-land, frier-lands, churches, church-yards, mar

MRS. COMELY died in the Fleet, 1797. Her last speculation was to keep asses at Knightsbridge, and open breakfast rooms for those who chose to drink asses' milk.

1700. A GIRL with remarkably fine flaxen hair is said to have sold it in London for £60,-being twenty ounces at £3 an ounce?

WILLIAM III., then Prince of Orange, said to Sir W. Temple of Charles II. "Was ever any thing so hot and so cold as this court of yours! Will the King who is so often at sea never learn the word that I shall never forget, since my last passage; when in a great storm the captain was crying out to the man at the helm all night-ket-crosses, fount-stones, images, all regisSteady-steady-steady!"

1681. SOME poor crazy people at Edinburgh called themselves the Sweet Singers of Israel. They set forth a declaration "that it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to them, to take out of their Bibles the Psalms in metre (being a human addition) and burn them in the prison, and afterwards sweep away the ashes. Likewise, in the

ters of lands and houses, together with all manner of law works, ballads, romances, play books, cards, and dice. They also renounce all the customs and fashions of this

The allusion is to the hour-glass still to be found, or, at least, its iron frame, in many churches. The custom of preaching by the hour-glass commenced about the end of the sixteenth century. An iron frame remains in the church of Ferring, in Sussex,-a few miles from where I write.-J. W. W.

generation, and their way of eating, drink

ing, clothing, and sleeping."

MONTHLY Magazine. January, 1814. Among the deaths. "At Loughborough,

These poor creatures made the amend 81, Thomas Parkinson, tailor, and a prohonourable, and were pardoned.

JULY 21, 1699, Exeter. "The citizens having showed their zeal for the public good in making our river navigable, on Monday last an heroic company of near 200 women (of the parish of Alphington adjoining) appeared all in white, with clean straw hats, armed with mattocks and shovels, with drums beating, and the city music playing before them; two grave matrons, with shovels in their hands leading the van. In the centre upon a pole was carried a garland of flowers, with a globe thereon: the rear was also brought up by one of the most considerable persons with a shovel; in which posture they advanced to the works, the engineer going along with them: and having fixed their standard they fell to their work with courage, and followed the same diligently till evening, when they returned to the Mayor's door, and gave three huzzas, after which they returned to their own parish, about a mile from hence. Yesterday the gardeners and hatters to the number of 300 marched to the works likewise, with laurels in their hats; and this day 300 Grecians1 (?) of the parish of St. Sidwell's, headed by their parson on horseback, as also the best of the parish in front and rear, with eight drums, two trumpets, and other sorts of music."

COURIER. 20 January, 1814. It is remarkable that the new river is not the least frozen by the present inclemency of the weather, and never was known to be so from its source near Ware, in Hertfordshire, to its reservoir at Islington, from its first establishment by Sir H. Middleton.

Southey has put a ?, but no doubt it means jovial fellows," according to the proverb, As merry as a Greek. - See NARES' Gloss. in v. Shakespeare calls them merry Greeks.

J. W. W.

phet."

DR. LAMBE has had more than sixty proselytes for above three years.

MR. THOMAS COLLINSON controverting a scheme of vowels proposed by Dr. Shaw, observes, "that gentlemen as well as himself must be willing to sacrifice on the altar of truth all personal consideration," and that " we must all indeed console ourselves with the reflection that to err is human, but to forgive, divine!"

M. Mag. Jan. 1814, p. 485.

"IN the South-hams of Devonshire on the Eve of the Epiphany, the farmer, attended by his workmen, with a large pitcher of cyder, goes to the orchard, and there, encircling one of the best bearing trees, they drink the following toast, three several times,

"Here's to thee, old apple tree,
Whence thou mayest bud and whence
thou mayest blow,

And whence thou mayest bear apples
enow!

Hats full! caps full !
Bushel-bushel-sacks full,

And my pockets full too! Huzza! This done they return to the house, the doors of which they are sure to find bolted by the females, who, be the weather what it may, are inexorable to all intreaties to open them till some one has guessed at what is on the spit, which is generally some nice little thing, difficult to be hit on, and is the reward of him who first names it. The doors are then thrown open, and the lucky clod-pole receives the tit bit as his recompence. Some are so superstitious as to believe that if they neglect this custom, the trees will bear no apples that year.

They have likewise a custom in Devonshire on the Eve of Twelfth-day, of going

"after supper into the orchard, with a large milk pan full of cider, having roasted apples prest into it. Out of this each person in company takes a clayen cup (an earthen ware cup) full of liquor, and standing under each of the more fruitful apple trees, passing by those that are not good bearers, he addresses it in these words:

"Health to thee, good apple tree;
Well to bear pocket-fulls, hat-fulls,
Peck-fulls, bushel-bag fulls.

And then drinking up part of the contents, he throws the rest with the fragments of the roasted apples at the trees. At each cup the company set up a shout.”— Forsan the remains of some sacrifice to Pomona.

COURIER, January 22, 1814. "Died suddenly, on Thursday morning, at his lodgings in Castle-street, Oxford Road, in the sixty-third year of his age, Mr. William Hughes, formerly faro dealer at the Lady's Banks. This person never had a day's illness, and never went to bed sober for the last thirty years; and drank on an average a quart of gin every day during that period, making in the whole 2,732 gallons.

BARRUEL asserts that there was a Mardans les provinces, surtout dans Avignon, tinist Lodge at Avignon.-" Dans Paris et chef lieu des Martinistes, il étoit de ces sortes d'écoles secrètes destinées à l'explication du code mystérieux; j'ai connu, et

Herrick says among the Christmas Eve je connois des hommes appelés, introduits ceremonies,

Wassaile the trees, that they may bear You many a plum, and many a pear': For more or less fruits they will bring, As you do give them wassailing.1

Brand 1. 28.

These lines of Herrick probably allude to another custom, called in Essex the Howling of the Apples, of which the REV. GILES MOORE makes mention when he writes in his Journal:

"26th Dec. I gave the Howling Boys vid." The note following is from the Sussex Archaol. Coll. vol. 1, p. 110, on the above:

"On New Year's Eve it was, and it still continues to be the custom, to wassail the orchards. At Horsted Keynes, and elsewhere, the cere mony retains the name of " APPLE HOWLING." A troop of boys visit the different orchards, and encircling the apple trees, they repeat the following words:

'Stand fast root; bear well top;
Pray God send us a good howling-crop ;
Every twig, apples big,
Every bow, apples enow;
Hats full, caps full,

Full quarts, sacks full.'

"Then they spout in chorus, one of the boys accompanying them on the cow's horn. During this ceremony, they rap the trees with their sticks. This custom is alluded to in HERRICK'S Hesperides." The lines are then quoted, and it is added, "This practice is not confined to Sussex; it prevails in Devonshire and Herefordshire."-J. W. W.

à ces écoles. Elles disposoient à l'initiation; on y apprenoit de plus l'art de tromper les simples par ces apparitions factices, qui ont fini par rendre la secte ridicule; l'art d'évoquer les morts; l'art de faire parler des hommes absens. De voir ce qu'ils faisoient à mille lieues de nous. Enfin ce que les charlatans de tous les âges étudioient pour faire illusion à la populace, et gagner son argent, les Martinistes l'étudioient pour faire des impies et renverser les trônes." T. 2. p. 386.

SWEDENBORG. "Son Dieu, chaleur et lumière, ou son Dieu feu et soliel spirituel, et son double monde, et son double homme, ne sont évidemment encore que de bien légères modifications du Dieu lumière, et du double principe de Manes. Les RoseCroix antiques devoient donc retrouver dans Swedenborg ce que leur rendoit les enfans de Manes si précieux. Leur science magique, et celle des évocations, et celle des Eons de toute la cabale, se montroient encore tout entières dans ses esprits mâles et ses esprits femelles. Enfin cette Nouvelle Jerusalem, cette révolution ramenant toute la prétendue égalité et liberté des premiers hommes. Combien d'adeptes ne devoientelles pas trouver dans les arrière-loges, tout disposés à les accueillir? Ce fut là en

res.

effet que les mystères de Swedenborg vin- | rent se mêler à tous ceux des anciens frèLes nouveaux adeptes se donnèrent le nom d'Illuminés; malgré tout l'athéisme et le matérialisme de leur maître, ils parloient comme lui de Dieu et des esprits: ils affectoient d'en conserver le nom; on imagina qu'ils croyoient à la chose, et on les appella Illuminés Theosophes. Leur histoire se perd dans un dédale d'impiété et de charlatanisme, tout comme les écrits de leur maître, à l'époque où nous en sommes il suffit de savoir que leur chef-lieu étoit dans Avignon, qu'ils avoient encore à Lyon une fameuse loge; qu'ils se répandoient plus spécialement en Suède, et faisoient des progrès en Allemagne. Leurs mystères dès-lors s'étoient mêlés à ceux des Martinistes: ou pour mieux dire, les mystères des Martinistes n'étoient guère qu' une nouvelle forme donnée à ceux de Swedenborg."

Note. "Dans un ouvrage ayant pour titre La Loge rouge dévoilée aux Souverains, on lit "que le rit de ces Illuminés Theosophes paroit avoir pris naissance à Edinbourg, où s'est formée la Loge rouge, séparée de la Blanc; que cette Loge rouge des Illuminés Theosophes s'est fait d'abord une affiliée à Avignon." P. 9 and 10. J'aurois voulu trouver les preuves de cette origine. L'auteur ne donne que son assertion. Quoi qu'il en soit, les Illuminés d'Avignon sont assez connus en France. Depuis 1783 leur loge fut toujours regardée comme la mère de toutes celles qui se répandirent en France avec tous leurs mystères."-BARruel. vol. 4, p. 162.

"DES Antres moins connus, mais plus rédoutables encore étoient ceux où les frères d'Avignon, élèves de Swedenborg et de St. Martin, mêloient leurs mystères à ceux des anciens Rose-Croix, des Maçons ordinaires et des Maçons sophistes. Au-dehors, sous le masque de charlatans, de visionnaires, ces nouveaux adeptes ne parloient que de leur puissance d'évoquer les esprits, d'interroger les morts, de les faire appa

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roitre, et d'opérer cent prodiges de cette espèce. Dans le fond de leurs Loges, ces nouveaux thaumaturges nourrissoient des complots semblables à ceux de Weishaupt, mais plus atroces dans leurs formes.”—Ibid. vol. 5, p. 75.

"ROME est depuis long-temps, l'objet commune de tous les complots, et le rendezvous des adeptes de toutes les espèces. Malgré ses anathèmes, les élèves de Cagliostro y ont rouvert leurs Loges maçonniques. Les Illuminés de Suède, d'Avignon, de Lyon, s'y sont formé le plus secret, le plus monstrueux des collèges, et le tribunal le plus terrible aux rois. Celui qui avertit que leur tour est venu, qui nomme les bourreaux, et qui fait parvenir les poignards, ou les poisons."

Note. "Si ce tribunal n'est pas assez constaté par ce que nous en dit l'historien de l'assassinat de Gustave (sect. 4.) au moins est-il bien sûr que ces Illuminés avoient à Rome des frères très-puissans: car le Nonce d'Avignon ayant ordonné à l'Illuminé Pernetti et à ses adeptes, d'évacuer le Comtat dans un mois, ceux de Rome eurent, ou le crédit d'obtenir, ou peut-être l'art de forger et de faire arriver à temps un contreordre. Cette affaire fut suivie à Rome de l'arrestation d'un adepte dont le procès jeta les frères d'Avignon dans des inquiétudes, dont ils ne furent délivrés que par les progrès de la révolution."—Ibid. vol. 5, p. 229.

“Oui, la secte a franchi cet Océan qui sépare la Grande Bretagne du reste de l'univers. Les adeptes n'ont point oublié la patrie de leurs ancêtres, les Puritains, les Anabaptistes, et les Indépendans. Ils les ont retrouvés dans le fond de ces mêmes antres, où Cromwell avoit su les reléguer, après avoir par eux détrôné, décapité son roi, dessous le parlement, et comme nos Pentarques, mis la nation, séduite sous le joug. Les frères d'Avignon ont revu leurs ainés dans les Illuminés de Swedenborg; ils se sont souvenus des ambassades de la Loge d'Hamp

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