A gigantic puppet was requisite for Hercules: every thing was well executed. The entertainment was productive of much pleasure; and I could lay a bet, that I am the only person who ever thought of executing the Bambocciata of Martelli.—Memoirs of Goldoni translated by John Black; vol. i. ch. 6. EPITAPHIANA. The following epitaph is copied from Lavenham Church, Norfolk: JOHN WELES, Ob. 1694. Quod fuit esse, quod est Quod non fuit esse, quod esse, Quod est, non est, erit, esse. The word est has evidently been omitted in the third line; with this restored, the lines will read as a couple of hexameters : Quod fuet esse, quod est ; quod non fuit esse, quod esse; Esse quod (est), non esse; quod est, non est, erit, esse. And the literal meaning will be, "What was existence, is that which lies here; that which was not existence, is that which is existence; to be what is now, is not to be; that which is now, is not existence, but will be hereafter." This, perhaps, is as enigmatical as the original; but the following lines will render the meaning plainer, though it is difficult to preserve the brevity of the Latin in an English version:All that I really was lies here in dust; That which was death before is life, I trust. To be what is, is not, I ween, to be; Is not, but will be in eternity. The Latin inscription has been thus paraphrased :— What we have been, and what we are, The present and the time that's past, We cannot properly compare With what we are to be at last. Tho' we ourselves have fancied Forms, And Beings that have never been; Which we have not conceived or seen. There is a similar epitaph in another churchyard, which may serve to elucidate its meaning: That which a Being was, what is it? show: To be what 'tis is not to be, you see; That which now is not shall a Being be. In one of Dr. Byrom's Common-place Books now in the possession of his respected descendant, Miss Atherton, of Kersal Cell, is the following arrangement and translation of this enig matical inscription, probably made by the Doctor himself: Quod fuit esse quod est quod non fuit esse quod esse Quod fuit esse quod, Est quod non fuit esse quod, Esse esse quod est, Non esse quod est non est Erit esse. What was John Wiles is what John Wiles was not, The mortal Being has immortal got. The Wiles that was but a non Ens is gone, And now remains the true eternal John. THE REMAINS OF JAMES THE SECOND. The following curious account was given to the writer in 1840 by Mr. Fitzsimmons, an Irish gentleman upwards of eighty years, who taught French and English at Toulouse. He stated that he had been a runaway monk: I was a prisoner in Paris, in the convent of the English Benedictines in the Rue St. Jaques, during part of the revolution. In the year 1793 or 1794, the body of King James II. of England was in one of the chapels there, where it had been deposited some time, under the expectation that it would one day be sent to England for interment in Westminster Abbey. It had never been buried. The body was in a wooden coffin, inclosed in a leaden one; and that again inclosed in a second wooden one, covered with black velvet. That while I was so a prisoner, the sans-culottes broke open the coffins to get at the lead to cast into bullets. The body lay exposed nearly a whole day. It was swaddled like a mummy, bound tight with garters. The sans-culottes took out the body, which had been embalmed. There was a strong smell of vinegar and camphor. The corpse was beautiful and perfect. The hands and nails were very fine. I moved and bent every finger. I never saw so fine a set of teeth in my life. A young lady, a fellow prisoner, wished much to have a tooth; I tried to get one out for her, but could not, they were so firmly fixed. The feet also were very beautiful. The face and cheeks were just as if he were alive. I rolled his eyes: the eye-balls were perfectly firm under my finger. The French and English prisoners gave money to the sans-culottes for showing the body. They said he was a good sans-culotte, and they were going to put him into a hole in the public churchyard like other sans-culottes ; and he was carried away, but where the body was thrown I never heard. King George IV. tried all in his power to get tidings of the body, but could not. Around the chapel were several wax moulds of the face hung up, made probably at the time of the king's death, and the corpse was very like them. The body had been originally kept at the palace of St. Germain, from whence it was brought to the convent of the Benedictines. Mr. Porter, the prior, was a prisoner at the time in his own convent. BURKE AND WARREN HASTINGS. The following epigram was thrown to Burke while he was making his celebrated speech against Warren Hastings :— Oft have we wondered that on Irish ground These lines have been always erroneously attributed to Mr. Law (Lord Ellenborough), but the real author was Hastings himself; his private secretary (Mr. Evans) sat by his side during the trial, and saw him write the above. Our authority is a niece of Mr. Evans, who formed one of her uncle's family at the period of the trial. A WHALE IN THE THAMES. In the British Museum library is a tract of four leaves only, with the following title: London's Wonder. Being a most true and positive relation of the taking and killing of a great Whale neer to Greenwich; the said Whale being fiftyeight foot in length, twelve foot high, fourteen foot broad, and two foot between the eyes. At whose death was used Harping-irons, Spits, Swords, Guns, Bills, Axes, and Hatchets, and all kind of sharp Instruments to kill her and at last two Anchors being struck fast into her body, she could not remoove them, but the blood gush'd out of her body, as the water does out of a pump. The report of which Whale hath caused many hundred of people both by land and water to go and see her: the said Whale being slaine hard by Greenwich upon the third day of June this present yere 1658, which is largely exprest in this following discourse.-London, printed for Francis Grove, neere the Sarazen's head on Snowhill, 1658. Evelyn, who lived near Greenwich, and was most probably one of the wonder-struck spectators of the huge monster of the deep which had been so rash as to visit our shores, notes in his Diary under the above-mentioned date A large whale was taken betwixt my land butting on the Thames and Greenwich, which drew an infinite concourse to see it by water, horse, coach, and on foote, from London and all parts. It appear'd first below Greenwich at low water, for at high water it would have destroyed all ye boates; but lying now in shallow water encompass'd with boates, after a long conflict it was kill'd with a harping yron, struck in ye head, out of which spouted blood and water by two tunnells, and after an horrid grone it ran quite on shore and died. Its length was 58 foote, height 16; black-skin'd like coach leather, very small eyes, greate tail, only 2 small finns, a picked snout, and a mouth so wide that divers men might haue stood upright in it: no teeth, but suck'd the slime onely as thro' a grate of that bone which we call whale-bone; the throate yet so narrow as would not have admitted the least of fishes. The extreames of the cetaceous bones hang downewards from the upper jaw, and was hairy towards the ends and bottom within side: all of it prodigious, but in nothing more wonderfull then that an animal of so greate a bulk should be nourished onely by slime thro' those grates. WATER CURE. A noble lord distinguished for a total neglect of religion, and who, boasting the superior excellence of some water-works which he had invented and constructed, added, that after having been so useful to mankind, he expected to be very comfortable in the next world, notwithstanding his ridicule and disbelief of religion. "Ah," replied the clergyman, "if you mean to be comfortable there, you must take your water-works along with you."-Daniel's Sports, Supplement, p. 305. THE BIRDS' CARE FOR THE DEAD. It is not uncommon to find in poets of all ages some allusion to the pious care of particular birds for the bodies of the dead. Is there any truth in the idea? for certainly the old ballad of "The Children in the Wood" has made many a kind friend for the Robin Redbreast by the affecting lines: No burial this pretty pair Of any man receives, Did cover them with leaves. Herrick also alludes to the same tradition in his verses "upon Mrs. Elizabeth Wheeler, under the name of Amarillis: "— Sweet Amarillis, by a spring's Soft and soule-melting murmurings, Brought leaves and moss to cover her; |