opportunity of showing how your predecessors conquered at Maida :-you have not degenerated. Assaye was not won by a more silent, compact, and resolute charge than was the village near Jausemow on the 16th instant.-W. Brook.

74. Death of Sir John MOORE.

They carried him to his lodgings, and laid him down upon a couch. The pain of his wound increased. He spoke with difficulty and at intervals. He was firm and composed to the last; once only, speaking of his mother, he showed great emotion. 'You know,' said he to his old friend, Colonel Anderson, 'that I always wished to die thus. . . . . . I hope,' he exclaimed, 'the people of England will be satisfied! I hope my country will do me justice!'. . . . . These precious sentences were among the last he uttered: his sufferings were not long : he expired with the hand of Colonel Anderson pressed firmly in his own.

Soon after nightfall the remains of Sir John Moore were quietly interred in the citadel of Corunna. Soldiers dug his grave; soldiers laid him in the earth. He was buried in his military cloak, and was left asleep and alone upon a bastion— a bed of honour well chosen for a hero's resting-place.Military Memoirs of the Duke of Wellington, by Major Moyle Sherer.

PART II.

75. EXTRACTS FROM BEETON'S BOOK OF ANECDOTES.

Two men of fashion meeting a beautiful lady in a narrow street in Glasgow, her ear caught the following observations : 'I protest, Jack, this place is as narrow as Balaam's passage' (the lane so called in Glasgow). 'Yes,' said his companion, 'and like Balaam I'm stopped by an angel' 'And I,' retorted the • lady, ‘by the ass!’

To all letters soliciting his 'subscription' to anything, Lord Erskine had a regular form of reply, namely: 'Sir, I feel much honoured by your application to me, and beg to subscribe (here the reader had to turn over leaf) myself, your very obedient servant,' &c.

A polemical writer asked a friend's opinion of a pamphlet which he had just published. 'It has only one fault,' replied his friend, 'it is much too large.' 'That is easily accounted for,' rejoined the author; 'I had not time to make it shorter.'

*

A clergyman at Cambridge preached a sermon, which one of his auditors commended. 'Yes,' said the gentleman to whom it was mentioned, 'it was a good sermon, but he stole it.' This was repeated to the preacher. He resented it, and called on the gentleman to retract. 'I am not,' replied the aggressor, 'very apt to retract my words; but in this instance I will. I said you had stolen the sermon. I find I was wrong, for on returning home and referring to the book whence I thought it was taken, I found it there!

*

When the battle of the Boyne was lost, the French alone retreated in good order. James the Second's precautions for escape were perfectly successful; he went off under the protec

tion of General Saarsfield's regiment of cavalry, and swept along as fast as fear could carry him to Dublin. Meanly enough he endeavoured to throw the blame of the defeat on the brave Irish. As he reached the Castle of Dublin, and Lady Tyrconnell advanced to meet him, he said to her, 'Your countrymen, the Irish, madam, can run very quick.' The stinging answer was, 'Your majesty excels them in this as in everything else, for YOU have won the race!'

*

Dr. Henniker being in conversation with the Earl of Chatham, his lordship asked him for a definition of wit. 'Wit,' replied the doctor, 'is what a pension given by your lordship to your humble servant would be, a good thing well applied.

*

Mr. Nicholls relates that he happened to be with Johnson, in Bolt Court, on the day that Henderson, the celebrated actor, was introduced to him. The conversation turning on dramatic subjects, Henderson asked the doctor's opinion of 'Dido,' and of Joseph Reed, its author. Sir,' said Johnson, 'I never did the man an injury, yet he would read his tragedy to me!}

*

Cumberland being asked his opinion of Sheridan's 'School for Scandal,' replied: 'I'm astonished that the town can be so duped! I went to see his comedy, and never laughed once from beginning to end.' This observation being repeated to Sheridan, ‘That's ungrateful of him,' cried he, 'for I went to see his tragedy the other night, and did nothing but laugh from beginning to end.'

*

A gentleman waited on Douglas Jerrold to ask his aid in behalf of a mutual friend in distress. It was not the first time such an appeal had been made to him for the same person. On this occasion, therefore, the agent was received in any other but a complying humour. 'Well,' said Jerrold, 'how much does owe this time?' 'Why, just a four and two noughts will, I think,' replied the petitioner, 'put him straight.' 'Well, then, put me down for one of the noughts,' said Jerrold.

*

The Duke of Buckingham once said to Sir Robert Viner, 'I am absolutely afraid that I shall die a beggar.' 'At the

rate you go on,' replied Sir Robert, 'I am afraid you will live One.'

A coxcomb, teasing Dr. Parr with an account of his petty ailments, complained that he could never go out without catching cold in his head. 'No wonder,' returned the doctor; 'you always go out without anything in it.'

*

Lord North was accustomed to sleep during the parliamentary harangues of his adversaries, leaving Sir Grey Cooper to note down anything remarkable. During a debate on shipbuilding a tedious speaker treated the subject historically, commencing with a description of Noah's ark, tracing the progress of the art regularly downwards. When he came to the Spanish Armada, Sir Grey inadvertently awoke the slumbering premier, who inquired at what era the honourable gentleman had arrived. Being answered, 'We are now in the reign of Queen Elizabeth,'' Sir Grey,' said he, 'why did you not let me sleep a century or two more?'

The satirical epitaph written upon King Charles the Second at his own request by his witty favourite, the Earl of Rochester, was not more severe than just :

'Here lies our sovereign lord the King,⚫

Whose word no man relies on ;

Who never said a foolish thing,

And never did a wise one!'

'This,' observed the merry monarch, when he first read this epitaph, 'is easily accounted for my discourse is my own, my actions are the ministry's.'

Beaumarchais, the author of 'The Marriage of Figaro,' was the son of a Paris watchmaker, but raised himself to fame, wealth, and rank by the force of his talents. An insolent young nobleman undertook to wound his pride by an allusion to his humble origin; and, handing him his watch, said, 'Examine it, sir; it does not keep time well. Pray ascertain the cause.' Beaumarchais extended his hand awkwardly, as if to receive the watch, but contrived to let it fall on the pavement. 'You see, my dear sir,' replied he, 'you have applied to the wrong person;

my father always declared that I was too awkward to be a watchmaker.'

One of the curiosities some time since shown at a public exhibition professed to be a skull of Oliver Cromwell. A gentleman present observed that it could not be Cromwell's, as he had a very large head, and this was a small skull. 'Oh, I know all that, said the exhibitor, undisturbed, 'but, you see, this was his skull when he was a boy.'

*

Lalande was once placed at dinner between Madame de Staël and Madame Récamier. 'How lucky I am,' exclaimed Lalande, 'here I am seated between wit and beautywithout possessing either the one or the other,' added

Madame de Staël.

*

'And

James, Duke of York, visiting Milton, said to him, 'Do you not think your blindness is a judgment upon you, for having written in defence of my father's murder?' 'Sire,' replied the poet, it is true I have lost my eyes; but if all calamitous providences are to be considered as judgments, you should remember that your father lost his head.

*

The two Sheridans, father and son, were supping with Michael Kelly one night, at a period when young Tom expected to get into Parliament. I think, father (said he), that many men who are called great patriots in the Commons are great humbugs. For my own part, I will pledge myself to no party, but write upon my forehead, in legible characters, "To be let!" 'And under that, Tom,' replied the father, 'write unfurnished I'

76. THE FAIR SEX.

If you, ladies, are much handsomer than we, it is but just you should acknowledge that we have helped you, by voluntarily making ourselves ugly. Your superiority in beauty is made up of two things: first, the care which you take to increase your charms; secondly, the zeal which we have shown to heighten them by the contrast of our finished ugliness—the shadow which we supply to your sunshine.

Your long, pliant, wavy tresses are all the more beautiful, because we cut our hair short; your hands are all the whiter,

D