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the grease of moles, bats, and dormice; together with an intimation of the art used at Bononia to dwarf their dogs, by often washing (from the first day they are whelped) their feet and back bone, thereby drying and hardening those parts, and so hindering their extension.

From a Miscellanea Curiosa Medica Physica, published at Leipsic, 1670; the commencement of an intended series. — Ibid. vol. 1, p. 562.

"Jeremiah Horrox died 1640, in the twenty-second year of his age; born at Toxteth, Lancashire, and began to study astronomy at fourteen. He was the first who predicted or saw Venus in the sun, and made from it many useful observations, though he was not aware of the great use that was to be made of it. And his new theory of lunar motions Newton made the groundwork of all his astronomy relative to the moon.-Ibid. vol. 2, p. 12.

Christian Adolphus Baldiunus, who accidentally discovered phosphorus, thought that it contained the red spark, yea, the most secret soul (secretissima anima) of the fire and light of nature, consequently the innate and invisible fire of philosophers, attracting magnetically the visible fire of the sun, and afterwards emitting and diffusing in the dark the splendour of the same. -Ibid. vol. 2, p. 368.

One Signor Zagonius had a way of making out of the Bologna stone calcined statues and pictures, variously shining in the dark.-Ibid. vol. 2, p. 382.

"IF I keep a passion, I'll never starve it in my service."-Dryden, vol. 2, p. 307. Mock Astrologer.

CONCLUDE instead of finis, with

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Two barbarous words with which the mysteries were closed and the assembly dismissed; "shewing," says Warburton, " the mysteries not to have been originally Greek." -Ibid. vol. 1, p. 204.

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WHEN the king of Fetou was dying of consumption, at Cape Corse, the Fetishers not only made several pellets of clay, which they ranged in order in his room, and sprinkled them with blood; but besides they eat several muttons to his good health.-Phil. Trans. Abr. vol. 4, p. 201.

At Copenhagen, a perspective of the late king of Denmark's family, the queen's face being in the middle, and eight princes and princesses round her, yet all conspire to form the king's face, when seen through the hole of a glass tube.—Ibid. vol. 5, p. 48.

Increase of a turnip from its seed to its full growth.—Ibid. vol. 6, p. 404-5.

AN English gentleman showed me once in Holland, in 1687, a cherrystone, with 124 heads on the outside of it, so that you might distinguish with the naked eye popes, emperors, kings, and cardinals by their crowns and mitres. It was purchased in Prussia, where it was made, for £300 English, and is now in London (1703), there having been a law-suit not long since commenced about it in Chancery.-Phil. Tran. Abr. vol. 5, p. 49.

Dr. William Oliver.

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DERHAM (ibid. p. 394), says that some of his observations on the motion of sound may be useful to the Echometrician. "Several learned men, both ancient and modern, have carefully examined into that ludicrous and agreeable phenomenon of sound called echo. I am persuaded, though any reflecting object were capable of returning all the syllables of the following verse,

Vocali nymphæ, quæ nec reticere loquenti, yet it could not reflect all the syllables of this other, because its pronunciation is a little longer,

Corpus adhuc Echo, non vox erat, et tamen

usum:

and much less repeat all the rough and long syllables of the following verse, though fewer in number,

Arx, tridens, vostris, sphinx, præster, torrida, seps, strix.

"A BARE clinch will serve the turn; a carwichet, a quarterquibble, or a pun."Wild Gallant, Dryden, vol. 1, p. 12.

A COLLECTION of Geometrical Flowers, presented to the Royal Society by Guido Grandi, Abbot of the Cameldales, and Professor of Mathematics at Pisa, 1723.

This handful or bouquet of geometrical roses is a dissertation on certain curves

geometrically described in a circle, of a nature more curious and fanciful than any way useful.—Phil. Trans. Abr. vol. 6, p. 664.

MR. DOWNES has observed in several countries, distinguished by what he calls a local physiognomy, that it is most perceptible in the women.-Letters from the Continent, vol. 1, p. 202.

HALF the diary of Philip the Fair, on waxed wooden tablets, is in the library at Geneva. Queen Christina purchased the other half at Paris, and presented it to the Vatican.-Ibid. p. 248.

A JEW told the Ulm physician (Johan Marius) that by wearing a cap of beaver's fur, anointing the head once a month with oil of castor, and taking two or three ounces

of it in a year, "one's memory will be so strengthened as to remember every thing one reads." The Dr. (Marius) conjectures that this notion might at first have brought the use of the beaver's fur into request for hats.-Phil. Trans. Abr. 7, 642.

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WILLIAM MANUEL (Mansel ?) a Welsh prodigy, three and a half years' old, reads Welsh and English fluently in the usual, or in an inverted, or thwart position, "but appears to prefer reading upside-down."Manchester Courier, February 15, 1834.

IN an island near Bombay, "a large snake was found dead with a porcupine in its belly. The snake had seized the porcupine by the head, and had so sucked it in. When it was quite in, the quills, which were flatted down while it was going in, rose, ran through the snake's belly and killed it so that there was a monstrous snake dead, with the quills of a porcupine sticking out of it in many places."— Phil. Trans. Abr. 9, p. 102.

PIGEONS for many ages built under the roof of the great church at Pisa; their dung (spontaneously) took fire at last, and the church was consumed.—Ibid. p. 143.

APPLES, as well as pears and coleworts, &c. are affected by their neighbours; so that it may be of importance to the curious in fruits to take care how their trees are sorted, and what company they keep.Ibid. p. 169.

VIVIPAROUS animalculæ, ergo, all animalculæ are not produced from eggs. Ibid. p. 203.

The ergo not conclusive, because, as in the aphis, an impregnation might suffice for many generations.

AN altar to Silvanus, erected by C. Tatius Veturius Micianus, Præf. Alæ Sebosianæ, ob aprum eximiæ formæ captum, quem multi Antecessores ejus prædari non potuerunt. V. S. L. P. i. e. votum solvens lubens posuit. "Silvano morato sacrum" is the first line, and this makes the inscription complete. It was found near Stanhope, in the bishoprick of Durham.-Ibid. p. 470.

THE first anecdote relating to Sir Wil

liam Jones is, that at the age of three years and not quite nine months, he was weighed before the Royal Society against a dwarf, John Coan by name. The dwarf weighed thirty-four pounds, the child thirty-six. The dwarf, with shoes, hat, and wig on, measured thirty-eight five-tenths inches; the child, without any thing on his head, thirty-seven seven-tenths.-Ibid. vol. 10, p. 53.

1753. ALTAR at York discovered, Matribus Africis, Italicis, Germanicis.—Ibid. p. 317.

THE first rope-dancer had once been a monkey; the first who threw a somerset, a tumbler pigeon.

CORNAGE a better tenure for his Crispin than that by which Don Carlos's bootmaker held his office. "Son cordonnier luy avoit fait une paire de bottes très-mal faites: il les fit mettre en petites pieces, et fricasser comme tripes de bœuf, et les luy fit manger toutes devant luy, en sa chambre, de cette façon."-BRANTOME, vol. 5, p. 134.

THE pain which our affections suffer from a solution of continuity.

BREECHING, the apanthroposis of a boy. It was like the change from grub to butterfly, without the intermediate aurelian state of torpidity.

What was the assumption of the toga to this!

TEMPLE of Rediculus near Rome, supposed to have been erected to the God of Return after Hannibal raised the siege of the city.-Downes, vol. 1, p. 407.

THE first indication of Canova's genius was manifested at an inn, where he was observed modelling in butter.-Ibid. p. 500.

See suprà, p. 456. The term has been explained before. See suprà, p. 206.-J. W. W.

THE temple of Vesta, at Tivoli, was purchased many years ago by an English nobleman, who meant to have it removed to his own grounds. The Roman government most properly issued a prohibition.—Ibid. p. 402.

"THE black shining sand which we throw upon writing to prevent blotting is found on the shore of the Canary Islands. It seems to have been thrown out of volcanoes; and is certainly the most perfect iron, for the loadstone will lick up every grain. Experiments have been made without effect to turn this sand into bar iron; yet I am credibly informed that a gentleman in London understands this secret, and has a case of razors made of this same black, shining sand."-GLAS. p. 271.

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similitude which will increase into many applications. It is animal fœcundum, a bird | of a most teeming fertility; whether any that flies doth breed oftener I am not certain, I believe not many. Such fecundity then is always in a lively faith. It hath no gall, or, if Aristotle hath observed it better than others, so small a one that it can scarce be perceived; now the gall is the draught of cholerical matter in man's body, out of which distemper proceed anger, revenge, and malice. Notable, too, is this bird's harmlessness; it hath neither beak nor talons to tyrannize over smaller creatures, sine armis extra, sine felle intus. The smallest flies or gnats may hum about it, and take no harm, for it devours nothing wherein there is life. And it is a cleanly feeder; not pecking like crows and vultures upon carrion, but picking up grains of corn, and the purest fruits of the field. And it is a bird of strong flight.

It is impossible to teach a dove to sing a cheerful tune, for Nature hath engrafted in it a solemn mourning, gemitus pro cantu. Here the parallel failed in D.'s case.

"SUCH wits as delighted in holy ingenuity have applied the several parts of Christ's merits and sufferance and passion unto us in the notions of physic and chirurgery.-There was no disease of sin whereof we were not sick, there was no kind of cure to be invented which was not practised to restore us." But the conceit is pursued in a manner rather to cause displeasure than edification.-BISHOP HACKET, p. 241.

NONE are said to be sealed of the tribe of Dan. Bishop Hacket (p. 402) approves the interpreter who explains that the reason why Ephraim and Dan are not in the list, was because they were the first, after the death of Moses, who let in idolatry, in the matter of Micah; and therefore their names are not in the blessing of that book of life.

BLOUNT (Philost. N. 134) says, and seems

to believe, that the nightingale often sings till she bursts!1

THIS man says, "Man is nothing but selfinterest incarnate," the philosophy of an infidel.”—Ibid. p. 150. And nowhere is it more broadly stated. What makes the English, he says, enjoy that liberty and property which other neighbouring subjects want, but our own happy ill nature, ibid.; and he proceeds to show (p. 151) that might is right, and nothing can be unjust! See p. 221, ibid. for more of this philosophy!

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the King was to pass his hands over them, or into them, and say a prayer; they were to be sprinkled with holy water.

"THAT Paradise Lost of Milton's," says RYMER," which some are pleased to call a poem!"

QUARLES.

"Small store of manners when the King says come

And feast at court, to say I've meat at home."

Not if the King has dirty cooks, who spoil good meat. It is better then to take of one's own cold fragments at home, or even to dine with the Duke.

ALL persons after sixty ought to wear a wig, says SIR JOHN SINCLAIR, Code of Health, p. 455.

WEARING a wig is an excellent practice for the old, the tender, and the studious. Ibid. p. 460.

tection." SIR EGERTON BRYDGES, Autob. vol. 2, p. 13.

"KENT's style of architecture predomi.nated during his life, and his oracle was so much consulted by all who affected taste, that nothing was thought complete without his assistance. He was not only consulted for furniture, as frames of pictures, glasses, chairs, &c. but for plate, for a barge, and even for a cradle. And so impetuous was fashion, that two great ladies prevailed on him to make designs for their birthday The one he dressed in a petticoat gowns. decorated with columns of five orders; the other like bronze, in copper-coloured satin, with ornaments of gold. He was not more happy in other works to which he applied his genius."-Biographical Sketches of Eminent Artists.

WHAT a physician ought and ought not to be in appearance and manners.-RABELAIS, vol. 8, p. 428-9.

PHALLAS, the horse which Heraclius rode in his great victory, the battle of Nineveh, and who, though wounded in the thigh,

“THE abilities and the eloquence of that branch of the Pitt family who were created "carried his master safe and victorious Earls of Chatham and Lords Camelford was through the triple phalanx of the barbaowing to a fortunate connection they maderians."-GIBBON, vol. 8, p. 249. with a Miss Innes of Redhall, in the Highlands of Scotland. And the talents of the family of Dundas of Arniston have also been attributed to the marriage of one of their ancestors with a Miss Sinclair, of the family of Stevenson, in East Lothian."Ibid. Appendix, p. 11.

This is given in proof that "the talents and structure of the mind are derived from the mother, and that the abilities of many families may be traced to one distinguished female who introduced talent into it, or, according to a common expression, mother wit."-Ibid. p. 11.

"I BELIEVE they call a provincial horse, not known on the great arena of Newmarket, a blind horse, whose pedigree and history may be falsified, without easy de

HALL, p. 582.-Horses in a pageant ill named.

"Ano. You gave those ships most strange, most dreadful, and

Unfortunate names; I never look'd they'd

prosper.

Rom. Is there any ill omen in giving

names to ships?

Ano. Did you not call one The Storm's
Defiance?

Another The Scourge of the Sea ? and the
third

The Great Leviathan?
Rom.
Very right, sir.
Ano. Very devilish names,
All three of them; and surely I think they

were

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