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stan's in the West, for ye use of Christes Hospitall by
ye handes of Mr. Wm. Shakeley and Richard Wootten, two
bf ye said Enquest, the somme of Thirteene shillings.
I say, Reed.

p me JOHN BANNISTER, Clericum,
Inpredicti Hospit.

The Wardmote seems to have dispensed but little in the way of charity, as the same persons were also charged to distribute the sums named in the following

receipts:

Jan. the 15th, 1613. Receaued by vs, the Stewarde and poore prisoners in the hole of Wood Street Compter, from the Worp" the Wardmote Inquest of St. Dunstan's in ye West, the some of three shillings for our reliefe, ffor wch wee praise God,

and pray for all our good benefactors.

iijs. HENRY MARKS, Steward.

Received the 15th of January, 1613, by vs the poore prisoners of Ludgate, from the Wardmote Enquest of the parishe of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, by the hands of Mr. William Shackley and Mr. Richard Wootton, the sum of two shillings and eightpence, for which we praise God, and pray for all or benefactors. ijs. viiid.

ALPHONSE IREMONGER. The xvth of January, 1613. Receaued the daie and yeare abour written by vs, the poore prisoners in the hole of the Paltrie Compter, from the Wor" the Warduote Enquest of St. Dunstan's-in-theWest, the some of Three Shillings, by the hands of William Shackley and Richard Wotton.

For wch wee geue God thanks and daiely praie for all of good benefactors. EDMOND CATCHES, Steward.

LETITIA'S CHARMS.

VERSES BY CAROLAN, the Blind Bard.
Translated from the Irish.

WITH pleasure I sing of the maid,
Whose beauty and wit doth excel;
My Letty, the fairest shall lead

From beauties shall bear off the bell.
Her neck to the swan I'll compare,
Her face to the brightness of day,
And is he not bless'd who shall share
In the charms her bosom display.
"Tis thus the fair maid I commend,
Whose words are than music more sweet;
No bliss can on woman attend,

But with thee, dear Letty, we meet.

Your beauties should still be my song,
But my glass is devoted to thee,

Muy the health I wish thee, be long,
And if sick, be love-siek for me.

Carolan died in March, 1738, in his 68th year.

ORIGIN OF JACK THE GIANT KILLER. THE sheet legends and chap books, which formerly was the business of the Company of flying-stationers, to disseminate every where, are now fast disappearing, the old printers of these matters are all gone, and the fashion of modern reading, is to reject them altogether, so that no printer finds it deserving his attention to produce copies which may be sold at the smallest possible prices. When our forefathers, the Saxons, came into this island, they found here monuments of an earlier popusimilar products of immense labour, as well as Roman lation, as cromlechs, vast entrenchments, and other the latter, they were perfectly well acquainted; but they buildings and towns. With the character and uses of looked with much greater reverence on cromlechs, burrows, and indeed on all earthworks, of which the origin had taught them to attribute such structures to the priwas not very apparent, because their own superstitions, meval giants of their mythology, who were objects of dread even to the gods themselves. They believed, that the ground on which they stood was under the immediate protection of beings of a higher order than humanity, who frequented them at the silent hour of night, and whose anger it was perilous to provoke. The Saxons brought with them numberless mythic traditions and stories relating to their gods and heroes, which they had transmitted through ages of which no historical notices remain, and the scene of which, had been successively tlement. Many of their legends and stories had thus placed in every country where they had effected a setbecome located in England, when the introduction of Christianity caused a sudden change in the general belief of the people, and what were merely nothing more than mythic personages, were at length designated as the real heroes of former days, or, as bad spirits were considered as so many devils, or messengers of evil. These mythic traditions still current as romances, continued under altered forms as romances of chivalry, and under various subsequent degradations, were more recently hawked about the towns and villages, through every street, and at every cotter's door, in the degraded category of penny chap-books and nursery tales. Amid these gradations, and in this debased manner, the mighty deeds of the god Thor against the giants of Jotenheim, became transformed into the exploits of Jack the Giant-killer!

With the peasantry, to whom these changes and literary vicissitudes were wholly unknown, the earlier legends continued intimately connected with certain localities, and the names of Woden, Thor, and the rest, were traditionally current, and their stories so frequently handed down, with very slight or little transformation, at periods when they had ceased to be recognised in more cultivated society, or were forgotten amid their refineM.ments. The giant races of the Northern and Teutonic Saxon Eotenas. To them, the early Anglo-Saxon poetry mythology were termed Jotens or Yotens, in Angloattributed operations of immense power or remoteness of antiquity-the mounds and earthworks of ancient times, as well as the weapons and other articles found

JEST.-Whence is this word derived? A. Stephen Weston says, "The English word 'jest' is from in Persian, and not from 'Gesticulor,' in Johnson; or Gesta Romanorum.'”—Persian Recreations, 1812,

P. 97.

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within them. Layamon, who breathes a pure Saxon spirit, describes the giants who (according to the fable) first inhabited Albion, as being Entens; and translates the name chorea gigantum that Geoffrey of Monmouth gives to Stonehenge, by the ring of Eotensa very wonderful thing,

It is called the ring of Eotens or giants. So also the sword which Beowulf found in the den of the Grendel's mother, was thus a weapon of Eotonish make. The antiquaries of a by-gone day affected however to treat contemptuously these local legends connected with the early history and the monuments of our forefathers, and their censurable neglect has occasioned the irretrievable loss of much of the valuable materials which little more than a century since, connected the popular belief of our peasantry, with the mythology of a much earlier period, when it differed, comparatively but little, from the other branches of the same primeval stock, now so widely separated. Leland, in the time of King Henry the Eighth, when by order of that monarch, he made his antiquarian tours, found these local legends very general, and has alluded to several of a highly interesting description. Speaking of Corbridge in Northumberland, Itinerary, vol. V p. 101; he says, "By this broke as emong the ruins of the olde town, is a place called Colecester, where hath been a fortress or castelle. The peple there say that ther dwellid in it one Yoton, whom they fable to have been a gygant." The topographical writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, also make frequent allusions to them but seldom condescend to do more than notice them, in a passing manner; the result is, that during the last century, the popular legends and traditions of the peasantry of these realms has been rapidly disappearing before the march of modern and unhappily sordid money-making utilitarian improvements: so that it behoves every friend to the literature of his country, to secure every vestige of interest of the days that are past, either by becoming members of the Warton and other Societies, whose avowed object is their preservation, or by private reprints, deposited in public and extensively formed Libraries, for the benefit of students of a future day.

LOUIS, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE, 1792. THE Secret Treaty of Paris, in 1814, it is asserted, contained an article to the following effect-That although the Allied sovereigns have no certain evidence of the death of the son of Lonis XVI., the state of Europe and its political interests require that they should place at the head of the government of France, Louis Xavier, Count de Provence, ostensibly with the title of king; but being in fact considered in their Secret Transactions only as REGENT OF THE KINGDOM for the two years next ensuing, reserving to themselves during that period, to obtain every possible certainty concerning a fact, that must ultimately determine who shall be the SOVEREIGN OF FRANCE. A correspondent desires to know whether there is any truth in this statement?

Also, were the eyes of the Dauphin, son of Louis XVI., reputed to have been blue or hazel?

CARDS AND CHESS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. much of his leisure time in card-playing; the following KING Henry the Seventh appears to have diverted are extracts from the household expenses of that monarch, and are highly illustrative of the royal moderation in the stakes at that period.

Jan. 8, 1492. To the King to play at cards, 100s. June 30. Item, to the King, which he lost at cards, 48. Aug 20, 1494. Item, to the King for playing at the Cards, 60s. March 29, 1495. Item, for the King's losse at the Paune play [Chess], 78. 8d. May 24, 1496. Item, to the King's Grace to play at the Cardes, in gold, 201. In grotts, 100s. In grotts, 191. In grotes, 60s. in all 371.

The king's ill success is here apparent, and the accompt is wrong; the nineteen pounds was probably but nine pounds, as otherwise, the above items amount altogether to forty-seven pounds.

Oct. 1, 1497. Item, for the King's losse at Cardes, at Tawnton, 91.

Sept. 23, 1498. Item, to the King's losse at Cardes, at Hegecote, 3s. 4d. Sept. 15, 1502. Item, to Weston, for the King to play at Cleke, at Burton upon Trent, 40s.

66

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WHITTINGTON'S STONE.-The Journals express small surprise has been created by the recent removal of this celebrated stone from its time-honoured site; whether torn or borne away by ruthless hands is not yet known, but an inquiry, it is to be hoped, will be deemed necessary." The moval of the milestone is of little consequence; the story of Whittington and his cat is wholly a fiction, though it has served to amuse children of six feet high; and the City authorities built there the Whittington almshouses in conformity with the tradition, but there is no reality in it, notwithstanding artists have pictorially represented the run-away 'prentice, with his little bundle, handkerchief, and a stick, laid at the base of the stone; while he is perched seated on the top, with folded arms, listening, with elated surprise, to Bow bells' chiming

“Turn again Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London."

Bow bell simply told the hour, and had no chime; and although the Romans had their milliarium, which indicated distances; the English roadways had not, in Henry IV.'s time, milestones to tell the wayfarer how far he was from his desired home. Again, the newspapers, in 1754 or 1755, stated, that a heavily-laden waggon coming down the hill ran against Whittington stone, and it was then laying in the roadway, broken into many fragments.

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WILLIAM PICKERING,

THE late bookseller and publisher, was born April 2, 1796, and apprenticed in 1810, to the late John and Arthur Arch, book sellers and publishers, at the western corner of Cornhill and Bishopsgate Street. They were Quakers; and during his apprenticeship Pickering attended the Quakers' chapel in Gracechurch Street. He left Messrs. Arch early in 1818, and was for some short time at Messrs. Longman's: he left them in June, and went to the well-known John Cuthell, of No. 4, Middle Row, Holborn.

In 1820 he was in business on his own account in Lincoln's Inn Fields, at the north-east corner, now known as 29; and here he commenced publishing several minute classical volumes, printed in a very superior manner, by the late Charles Corrall. The Horace and the Virgil were pre-eminently successful, and the commendations they elicited, induced him to adopt the device formerly borne by the Aldine family in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, attaching the words, ALDI DISCIP. ANGLVS.

In 1823 he moved to 57, Chancery Lane, and continued his publications on a more extensive scale, in carefully selected reprints of the British Poets; Bacon's Works, edited by Basil Montague, and in compliment to whom he named his only son, Basil; the Bridgewater Treatises, with great success; Walton's Angler, edited by Sir N. H. Nicolas, and with numerous illustrations from paintings and drawings by Stothard, Inskipp, and others; and associated with Talboys, produced what were termed the Oxford Classics; the reprints of Hume and Smollett, Gibbon, Robertson, and Johnson.

To him, about 1825, may be placed the introduction of dyed cotton cloth as applied to boarded books. He found the red paper then used for boarded books was of a very inferior quality; in fact, had no strength in it. Passing down Holborn, some red glazed cotton cloth exposed at a draper's shop attracted his attention; the application of the cloth instead of the ordinary paper occurred to him, and the experiment led to its general adoption throughout the book selling trade.

In March, 1842, still hoping for a wider field for his exertions, he removed to No. 177, Piccadilly, opposite Burlington House, formerly occupied by the well known Debrett, the publisher of the Peerage that bears his name. Hence he disseminated a printed announcement to his friends and the public, decorated with a richly coloured gothic initial; and after thanking them for the support with which he had been honoured for the previous twenty years, intimated,

"From the opinions of persons of taste in Literature, and of the Press, he has reason to believe that his original publications in Divinity, History, Science, and Antiquities, are considered valuable additions to Standard Literature; while his reprints of Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, the old Dramatists, Walton's Angler, and of the British Poets, are, he trusts, for editorial care, decoration, and accuracy, worthy of the name of Aldine,' and destined

to enjoy as lasting a reputation as their celebrated prototypes."

The correctness of his discrimination and taste in the production of his publications was as unquestioned as his knowledge of rare and curious books, a skill in which he stood eminent as a leading bibliopolist of the metropolis. He became, however, of late years, involved in a litigation, which ultimately caused his failure. Mental anxiety brought on a decline of health, and gradually sinking he died on Thursday, April 27, about half-past 11 o'clock, a.m., having completed his 58th year, and still bearing the respect and regret of many who knew him long and intimately. His death took place at No. 5, Wellington Place, Turnham Green: he was buried in the Kensal Green Cemetery on Wednesday, May 3, his last resting place, being by the side of the recently interred Mrs. Whittingham, the wife of his printer, Mr. Charles Whittingham, of Chiswick, at whose hospitable table Mr. Pickering was frequently for many years a most welcome guest.

Much has been said of the hopes of the produce of the stock to discharge all claims; it is impossible, there are many charges against it of which the public know nothing. In the meantime his son Basil and three daughters are totally unprovided for; it is true a subscription has been considerably advanced; but those who think kindly of their late father, and esteem his labours, are implored to aid them in their need.

ST. PATRICK'S HALF-PENCE.

IN Current Notes, vol. iii. p. 3, is a representation of a copper piece, QUIESCAT PLEBS; rev. FLOREAT REX, known to Numismatists as a St. Patrick's Halfpenny. This, and another type, ECCE GREX, rev. FLOREAT REX, have recently excited some discussion in Ireland as to their real meaning and time of issue. Dr. Cane in supposing them to have been coined abroad, and brought to Ireland by the Nuncio Rinuccini, is clearly in a mist, while Dr. Aquilla Smith, in controverting Dr. Cane's arguments and opinions, appears to concur with Evelyn in placing them to the reign of King Charles the Second.

No one knows better than Dr. Smith, the intimate friend and associate of the late highly venerated Dean of St. Patrick's, how to negative the absurd notions which appear to be entertained of those specimens found in certain cabinets, struck in silver, being supposed to be shillings and sixpences. They are Proofs or Trial pieces, in the same way as there are also proofs in gold and in silver of the brass gun-money, struck in Ireland during the pressing necessities of the partisans of the abdicated King James the Second, from June 1689 to October 1690, and not even medals as Evelyn conjectured.

No reliable particulars have transpired respecting these copper pieces; and the device of the obverse St.

Patrick preaching to the varmint,' when, according to TURNER AND THE APPRECIATION OF MODERN ART.

an Irish rhymester,

The toads went pop, the frogs went hop

Slap dash into the water;

And the snakes committed suicide,

To save themselves from slaughter.

AN extraordinary value appears of late to be placed on the productions of this Modern English Artist, and there seems to be an increasing anxiety among collectors to possess one or more of his paintings. Turner painted for Mr. John Broadhurst, now of Campden Hill, Ken

Confirming, too, by the view in the back ground the sington, the three well known pictures, Sheerness, or fact, that

He built a church in Dublin town,
And on it put a steeple ;

is also found on a Dublin trader's token-Richard Greenwood, Merchant, High Street, Dublin; engraved in Snelling's second additional plate to Simon, fig. 7. This unlucky contre-tems seems to place it before 1679, the latest date that Dr. Smith has noticed on any other Dublin token; otherwise the probability would be, the now named St. Patrick's pence and halfpence were struck during the seige of Limerick, at the Mint then controlled by Walter Plunkett, with the re-struck gunmoney sixpences, designated Hibernias, 1691. On the ECCE GREX pieces, the shield bearing three castles or towers, has induced the presumption they were struck at Dublin, but the same device, the three castles, is upon several of the Limerick trading tokens, of which none are dated later than 1679.

Mr. Lindsay, in his View of the Coinage of Ireland, has placed these pieces to the reign of Charles the First; this the writer imagines has arisen from the deficiency of a due consideration of the general appearance of the coins; it is true, the brass introduced on the copper blank is found on the farthings of that King,. and again on the pewter Irish money of James the Second, 1890, but as no record is extant directing the addition of the brass on any intermediate pieces, the finding it on all the St. Patrick's halfpence, seems to appropriate them to the period of the fallen monarch.

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as it is otherwise named, the Guardship at the Nore; the Harbour of Dieppe in 1826; and the Cologne, with boats full of figures, on the Rhine, the tower of St. For the first, Turner is said to have received three Martin's Church seen above the City-walls, in 1827. hundred guineas; and for each of the latter, four hundred guineas.

him to send them for sale in July, 1828, to Mr. Phillips, Some distaste on the part of Mr. Broadhurst, induced in Bond Street, at whose rooms they were bought in for seven hundred pounds. The proprietor not caring about their retention, was disposed to let them go at that sum, and directed his agents, Messrs. Harris, Pearce and Biggs, No. 31, Conduit Street, to_effect the sale; advertisements appeared, and while Lord Wharncliffe was hesitating, Mr. Wadmore, then of Chapel Street, Edgeware Road, became the purchaser on August 2nd in that year, of the three pictures for 7007. Sixteen years since Mr. Wadmore was desirous of disposing of the Dieppe and the Cologne for eight hundred guineas, giving as a reason his wish to occupy their space with smaller pictures, the proffer was not acof pictures by old Masters and modern English artists cepted; and since his decease, Mr. Wadmore's collection 6th inst. The Cologne produced two thousand guineas, was sold by Messrs. Christie and Manson on the 5th and and the Dieppe, 1850 guineas; both bought for Mr. best picture of the three, 1530 guineas, bought for Mr. Naylor of Liverpool; and the Sheerness, possibly the Foster of Birmingham.

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In the same sale were three pictures by Thomas Webster, R.A., all painted within the last twenty years; the Il Penseroso, a man seated in the stocks; the Dirty Boy,' a beautiful composition of four figures; and the third, Sketching from Nature,' painted in 1837. The last represented the artist seated, sketching the portrait of a peasant, in a red cap, an old woman at a fireplace, and three peasants near a window, the scene in reality representing the artist's home, and being the portraits of himself, his father, mother, and sister. The first sold for 250 guineas; the second, for 330 guineas; and the third, for 340 guineas; yet Mr. Wadmore obtained them from the now duly appreciated Royal Academician at thirty guineas each. Such is the result of a just discrimination, and an opportune patronage of the painters of our day.

ERRATA.-Page 26, col. 2, line 5, for Edinburgh Review, read Blackwood's Magazine. Page 29, for cotters, read collers.

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WILLIS'S CURRENT NOTES.

No. XLII.]

"Takes note of what is done-
By note, to give and to receive."-SHAKESPEARE.

ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. FAMIANUS STRADA, in his Prolusiones Academicæ, a series of poetical pieces, written in the names and styles of several of the more eminent Latin poets, printed at Cologne in 1625, refers to an incident so remarkable, that Addison, in the 119th number of the Guardian, 1713, makes it a subject of particular notice. The passage is in these words:

Strada, in the person of Lucretius, gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends, by the help of a certain loadstone; which had such virtue in it, that if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other, though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time and in the same manner. He tells us, that the two friends, being each of them possessed of one of these needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing it with the four-and-twenty letters, in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed one of the needles on each of these plates, in such a manner that it could move round without impediment, so as to touch any of the four-and-twenty letters. Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this their invention. Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write any thing to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words which he had occasion for, making a little pause at the end of every word or sentence to avoid confusion. The friend in the meanwhile saw his own sympathetic needle moving of itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By this means they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant over cities or mountains, seas or deserts.

Substituting a set of connecting wires for the stone" of the above paragraph, you have here the whole working of the electric telegraph as realised in modern times, shadowed forth in the fancies of a poet, more than two hundred years ago; thus confirming the saying of the wise man, "there is no new thing under the sun."

Brechin.

[JUNE, 1854.

FIRST ENGLISH VISIT TO HERACLEA, THE following letter, as it affords much interesting detail relative to the condition of Heraclea, or Herculaneum, is also evidence of the earliest date when any of our countrymen ventured within its ruins.

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"Naples, May 12, 1730.

The same day I accompanied my friend to a village called Resina, about six miles from this city, and three miles from the foot of Mount Vesuvius. The occasion was this: Dr. Hay, an elderly gentleman, who had several times made the tour of Italy, and who had resided here, from London, nine years, told us one evening in conversation, that in this village called Resina, within a court-yard, was a well nearly one hundred feet deep, and that just at the surface of the water was an entrance into a city, or large town, where we might see streets, palaces, and part of an amphitheatre. You may imagine how this was received by us, who had never heard the least mention of such a discovery, and how improbable to us it must have appeared. Dr. Hay, however, insisted on the truth of it, and informed us, that about fifteen years since, happening to lodge at Portici, near, or within half a mile of the said village, and being curious in searching after antiquities, he found workmen employed by the Duke de Boufflers, who had accidentally made this discovery, and that everything at that time being made commodious, he, Dr. Hay, had the curiosity to descend by a ladder of ropes, but did not venture himself among the ruins.*

"In our way thither we called at the house of an English gentleman, who accompanied us, but being somewhat late, and the seeming impossibility of the

The city of Heraclea, that was founded sixty years before the siege of Troy, after enduring for 1420 years, was destroyed by an earthquake and an eruption from "load-Mount Vesuvius, in the first year of the Emperor Titus, on August 24th, A.D. 79. Partial discoveries of stone, some short time before 1684, induced other researches, which led to further results in 1689; but the discovery referred to, by Dr. Hay, was in 1711, by the Prince D'Elbœuf, not the Duke de Boufflers; and most interesting particulars are embodied in the Marquis de Venuti's account of the discovery by him of the ancient theatre at Heraclea in 1738. This account notices facts quite confirmatory of the letter; nothing, however, is known to the Editor, of T. E., whose initials are attached to the original. Of Venuti's volume, dated Brixiæ, die xvi. Martii 1748, there win, jun., at the Rose, in Paternoster Row, 1750, 8vo., but is a translation by Wickes Skurray, printed for R. Bald

N.

WORLIDGE.-The Gems from the Antique, which bear the name of Thomas Worlidge, were principally etched by George Powle, then an apprentice to that artist.

VOL. IV.

is now excessively difficult to procure.

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