were regaled with a magnificent banquet of fish, it being a fast-day. The repast dispatched, they left, and reached the Caldasits dull, monotonous houses, with their coarse green window blinds and shutters flapping to and fro in the dusty breeze; and its heavy verandas, daubed over with yellow ochre, and striped in places with blue and red, in pat terns not unworthy of Timbuctoo or Ashantee. The Tenth Day.

The tourists left the Caldas; their road

lying between lofty slopes partially covered with bushes of rosemary and lavender in full bloom. As they approached Cadafaiz, they heard the country people, men, women, and children, singing hymns to St. Anthony as they returned home from reaping. The whole country was blazing with fires in honour of the next day's festival, and above 100 were counted shining bright amongst the olive-trees. At length the party reached Cadafaiz, that most comfortable of rustic manorial mansions.

The Eleventh Day,

They made an excursion to a Franciscan convent, where Mr. Beckford fancied himself in Palestine: a plain, perfectly flat and arid presented itself, diversified alone by the low columned arcades and belfries of the convent, resembling in form and tint the views of the semi-Gothic chapels and cells at Jerusalem and Nazareth. Scattered over the level were droves of asses, a few splendidly caparisoned mules, and peasants seated in groups, who joined together, when the bells of the convent tolled, and moved in one vast multitude, 6 or 7,000 at least, to the space before the church. It was the festival of St. Anthony, and the rites were very impressive. At the door of the convent, the party were met by two couriers, with a mandate and invitation to the palace of Queluz. On their return to Cadafaiz, after a repast of delicate dishes and iced sherbets, a comfortable nap, a stroll in the long-bowered alleys of the quinta, the evening perfume of orange-flowers and jasmine, the song of birds, guitar music, and a morisco dance of true oriental fervour,-the party retired to their chambers.

The Twelfth Day.

The Priors set forth for Queluz by themselves, and Mr. Beckford mounted his Arabian. The country was a sad dreary expanse, with now and then a straggling flock, a neglected quinta of orange trees, with its decaying garden-house, or a half-ruined windmill. On arriving at Queluz, Mr. Beckford found that the Priors were closeted with the Prince Regent, and he took refuge in the apartments allotted to the lord in waiting: where he found weather-beaten equerries, superannuated chamberlains, and wizened pages yawning over dusty card-tables. Mr. Beckford had

audiences of the Prince Regent and the Infanta; the court was a sorry scene and was thronged with state duns. At length, our tourist, tired of close conferences in close apartments, longed for the refreshing seabreezes of his quinta on the banks of the Tagus; and, his carriages having arrived from Cadafaiz, Mr. Beckford and his suite gladly left for his beloved home.

[Such is a brief and hasty outline of the Twelve Days of this charming Excursion, with glances at its principal incidents, and abridgments of its happy scenes. It is long

since we have read so felicitously written a volume as that before us: extending little the reader without fatigue. more than 200 pages, its pleasures delight The style is

graceful, and redolent of refined taste; and enchain the attention. every page has some fascinating incident to

BRITTON AND BRAYLEY'S HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE LATE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.

[HALF of this work is now before the public, Part 6 conducting the reader to the building of St. Stephen's Chapel, temp. Edw. III, 1333, 1337. The previous Part contains some interesting details of the repairs of the Palace at Westminster by Edward II., and of that monarch's coronation. In the documents quoted, frequent mention is made of Ryegate stone," which, as many readers may know, was dug near the town of that name, twenty-one miles on the Brighton road. Little of this material is now tained there; though, a few years since, we remember to have seen it employed in cottages in the neighbourhood: it is a poor freestone, with little compactness to fit it for building purposes. Following the above details are some curious instances of infringement on the privileges of the Palace, with the awards made in each case.]

Breaches of Privileges.

ob

In the King's second year, Alice, the daughter of Nicholas le Ken, was summoned to answer the complaint of Walter de Bedewynde, the Remembrancer of the Exchequer, who had accused her of reviling him, by calling him "a thief, seducer, and other opprobrious names," in the great hall at Westminster, and elsewhere within the King's Palace there, and which she denied. A jury of the court, and of persons dwelling near the palace, was consequently impannelled; and having found that the insult was given "upon the King's Bridge of his palace at Westminster," they awarded damages to the amount of forty pounds.

In the sixth of Edward II., a court of the palace for pleas of the Crown-" Placita aulæ domini Regis de Corona ”—was held at Westminster, before Hugh de Audley,

steward and marshal of the king's household, when John de Redinges was arraigned for counterfeiting the king's privy seal; but he alleged that he had purchased it of Edmund de Malo Lacu, the former steward, (who was also before the court,) for forty talents of gold, and judgment was in consequence given against the latter.*

On the eve of Ascension day, in the 8th of Edward II. (anno 1315), Thomas de Gerdestan, Archdeacon of Norfolk, and one of his officers, were impleaded before the king and his council, then sitting in parliament at Westminster, for that they, on the eighth of March preceding, the king being then in his palace and holding his parliament, did cite Joan de Barr, Countess of Warenne, she being then in attendance on the queen consort in the chapel of the said palace, to appear in the church of St. Nicholas of Braheden, to make answer to Maud de Nerford, in a cause of divorce between her and John Earl of Warenne. The fact having been proved, the archdeacon and his officer were. committed to the Tower.†

In the same year, on the 14th of May, a writ was addressed to William de Leyre and Richard Abbot, stating that the pavement between Temple Bar and the gate of the king's palace at Westminster, was so broken and injured, that it was a great nuisance to those frequenting the court, and very perilous both for horsemen and foot passengers; and that a petition had been preferred to the king and council, praying them to provide a remedy for the same. The said William and Richard were, consequently, commanded to cause the said pavement to be repaired, and to distrain for the expense "pro rata," upon all persons having houses adjacent to it, be

tween the said Bar and the Palace.

Famine in 1314.

A direful famine, bringing disease and pestilence in its train, swelled the calamities of the nation to the utmost degree of horror. The most loathsome reptiles were used for food, man preyed upon man, and instances are recorded of parents assuaging their hunger on the dead bodies of their own children! In the hope of arresting the scourge, a maximum on the price of provisions was fixed by the parliament, which met at Westminster on the 20th of January, 1314-15; but this • Vide " Additional Manuscripts" in the British Museum, Ayscough's Catalogue, No. 4,486, fo. 52. +Vide Ryley's" Placita Parliamentaria," p. 543; and "Cal. Rot. Patentium," p. 75, 6: edit. 1802.

From various writs "de Expensis" (tested at Westminster, which are still extant,) it appears that the "knights of the shire" in this parliament were each allowed four shillings per diem, together with their respective charges in coming and returning. The prices fixed on the various articles of provision were as follow:-For the best ox not fed with grain, 16s. and no more; but if fed on corn and made fat, 24s.: the best live fat cow, 12s.: a fat hog, of two

restriction only increased the scarcity, and the statute was repealed in another parlia ment that assembled at Lincoln at the beginning of the following year. The price of every article of subsistence rose enormously; and the king, at the suggestion of the citizens of London, suspended the breweries, as a measure "without which, not only the indigent but the middle classes must inevitably have perished through want of food." At times it became difficult to procure bread even for the royal household.

[From the coronation rolls of Edward III. are some curious items, by which it appears that the cloths and tapestry for the occasion cost 1,056. 19s. 3d., and the king's coronation gloves, 3s. In the accounts of the works at St. Stephen's, of this date, “Reygate stone" occurs more frequently than any other material.

The plates in the present Parts are equal to their predecessors. Among them, we may particularize St. Stephen's (east), decreed, we fear, to be taken down; a fine buttress on the east side of Westminster Hall; and the Star-chamber, a beautifully drawn interior: there are likewise three plates of ground and sectional plans.

Upon the wrapper of Part 6 are three pages of sensible observations, by the Editors, upon the projected New Houses of Parlia ment; in which the ill-informed 26th resolution of the "Rebuilding Committee," is deservedly objected to. It prescribes the style of the buildings to be either Gothic or Elizabethan.

"Now the word Gothic," observe the authors," has no fixed nor determinate meaning: it has been, and is frequently applied by the authors of popular works on architecture to the Norman, or semi-circular arched-to the first pointed or lancet-and to all the other varieties of the ecclesiastical buildings of the middle ages; and, therefore, it ought not to be employed on such an occasion as the present. It is calculated to mislead and confound both the student and the veteran architect. Nor is the word style strictly proper. That the 'Elizabethan style' should be prescribed for Houses of Parliament can only be accounted for, by supposing that the writers of this report referred to the Domestic Architecture of the Tudor age. Surely, it would not be advisable to recommend an imitation of that part of Windsor Castle built by Queen Elizabeth, or of Holland House, Kensington, or of Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, or, indeed, any other existing work of the Elizabethan age. Every transition, or intermediate link between two classes or fashions

years old, 3s. 4d.: a fat sheep, unshorn, 20d.:"but if shorn, 14d.: a fat goose, 3d.: three pigeons, ld. : twenty eggs, ld. Those persons who refused to sell these things at the above prices, were to forfeit them to the king.-Vide "Foedera," vol. ii. p. 203: edit. 1818.

of architecture is commonly defective; and it may be safely affirmed that the mongrel buildings of the maiden queen's' reign are among the blemishes rather than the beauties of art." Although the authors disapprove of the phraseology of the resolution, they acknowledge that in sentiment and principle it is right. They are pleased to know that the Committee recommend a design for the New Houses of Parliament to harmonize and to assimilate with the old buildings at Westminster, i. e. the Abbey Church and its splendid Tudor Chapel, the vast Hall, &c.]

COLERIDGE'S TABLE-TALK.

(Continued from page 30.)

LORD ELDON'S doctrine, that grammar schools, in the sense of the reign of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth, must necessarily mean schools for teaching Latin and Greek, is, I think, founded on an insufficient knowledge of the history and literature of the sixteenth century. Ben Jonson uses the term "grammar" without any reference to the learned languages.

There is a great difference between bitters and tonics. Where weakness proceeds from excess of irritability, there bitters act bene ficially; because all bitters are poisons, and operate by stilling, and depressing, and lethargizing the irritability.. But where weakness proceeds from the opposite cause of relaxation, there tonics are good; because they brace up and tighten the loosened string. Bracing is a correct metaphor. Bark goes near to be a combination of a bitter and a tonic; but no perfect medical combination of the two properties is yet known.

The Pilgrim's Progress is composed in the lowest style of English, without slang or false grammar. If you were to polish it, you would at once destroy the reality of the vision. For works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary to be plain.

it is

This wonderful work is one of the few books which may be read over repeatedly at different times, and each time with a new and a different pleasure. I read it once as a theologian-and let me assure you, that there is great theological acumen in the work-once with devotional feelings-and once as a poet. I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colours.*

• I find written ou a blank leaf of my copy of this

edition of the P.'s P. the following note by Mr. C.:"I know of no book, the Bible excepted as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim's Progress. It is, in my conviction, incomparably the

Truth is a good dog; but beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

John Thelwall had something very good about him. We were once sitting in a beautiful recess in the Quantocks, when I said to him, "Citizen John, this is a fine place to talk treason in !"-" Nay! Citizen Samuel," replied he, "it is rather a place to make a man forget that there is any necessity for treason!"

Thelwall thought it very unfair to influence a child's mind by inculcating any opinions before it should have come to years of dis cretion, and be able to choose for itself. I showed him my garden, and told him it was my botanical garden. "How so ?" said he, "it is covered with weeds."-"Oh," I re plied, "that is only because it has not yet come to its age of discretion and choice. The weeds, you see, have taken the liberty to grow, and I thought it unfair in me to pre judice the soil towards roses and strawberries."

Really the metre of some of the modern poems I have read, bears about the same relation to metre properly understood, that dumb bells do to music; both are for, exer, cise, and pretty severe too, I think.

The object of rhetoric is persuasion,-of logic, conviction, of grammar, significarcy, A fourth term is wanting, the rhematic, or logic of sentences.

The five finest things in Scotland are-1. Edinburgh; 2. The antechamber of the Fall of Foyers; 3. The view of Loch Lomond from Inch Tavannach, the highest of the islands; 4. The Trosachs; 5. The view of the Hebrides from a point, the name of which I forget. But the intervals between the fine things in Scotland are very dreary; -whereas in Cumberland and Westmorland there is a cabinet of beauties, each thing being beautiful in itself, and the very passage from one lake, mountain, or valley, to another, is itself a beautiful thing again. The Scotch lakes are so like one another, from their great size, that in a picture you are obliged to read their names; but the English lakes, especially Derwent Water, or rather the whole vale of Keswick, is so rememberable, that, after having been once seen, no one ever requires to be told what it is when drawn. This vale is about as large a basin as Loch Lomond; the latter is covered with water; but in the former instance, we have two lakes with a charming river to connect them, and lovely villages at the foot of the mountain, and other habitations, which give an air of life and cheerfulness to the whole place.

best summa theologia evangelica ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired." June 14, 1830.ED.

+We feel it a pleasurable duty to subscribe our humble testimony to this remark of Coleridge.-Ed. MIRROR.

Spirit of Discovery.

THE APPROACHING COMET.

[IN the Foreign Quarterly Review, (just published,) are noticed three recent German works, furnishing some important particulars respecting the Comet which is to make its appearance towards the end of the present year. The Reviewer has with considerable pains compressed these particulars into as small a compass as possible, nearly as follows. After explaining the origin of this being called Halley's Comet, he proceeds :

Two French mathematicians, Pontécoulant and Damoiseau, have distinguished themselves by their calculations of the next appearance of Halley's comet. Pontécoulant has gone through this labour several times, and fixes the 31st of October, 1835, for the day of its nearest transit through the point of the perihelion (Théorie Analytique du Système du Monde, tom. ii. 147), but afterwards (p. 500 of the same volume of his work) the 2nd of November, and finally, in the "Connaissance des Tems" for 1833, (p. 112,) the 7th of November. Damoiseau, on the other hand, in the "Connaissance des Tems" for 1832, (p. 33,) fixes the 4th of November as the day. The differences are small: they arise chiefly from the difficulty of taking into the strictest account the earth's power of attraction on the comet approaching it within twenty-four millions of miles; on which subject, Pontécoulant, in the passage already quoted, remarks "que cette détermination est fort delicate et que l'on doit s'attendre à plusieurs jours d'incertitude." We have thought it right to insist with such emphasis on this circumstance that, in case the comet should not appear punctually at the specified time, our readers may of themselves be able to account for the deviation, and not conceive a distrust of the most sublime of sciences, Astronomy.

In August, 1835, the comet will advance towards us from about 230 to 130 millions of miles, and during the latter half of that month it will rise about midnight in the north-east, and be visible till the dawn of morning in the eastern quarter of the heavens. In September it will proceed with augmented velocity towards the well-known constellation, the Great Bear. Its apparent magnitude will increase considerably, in proportion as it approaches nearer to us; and towards the end of the month, it will be but about 28 millions of miles distant from us. It will rise earlier every evening and more northwardly; and, towards the end of the month, it will be so near to the north pole that it will cease to set, and of course be visible the whole night in the vicinity of the Great Bear. During the first days of October, the comet

will approach nearest to us in its present revolution; it will then be no more than 23 million miles distant from us. If the weather should be favourable, its appearance will then be the most brilliant: it will still be in the northern heavens, but at no great height above the horizon, and of course it will not set. It will then recede rapidly to the south, and towards the conclusion of the month, it will be visible only in the south-west, where it will set earlier every succeeding evening.

In the month of November, at the beginning of which the comet, as we have already mentioned, approaches nearest to the sun, it will cease to be visible, being concealed from our view by the sun's rays.

In the last days of December, however, about six in the morning, it will again be discernible in the eastern horizon. Its distance from us then will be nearly 190 millions of miles.

In January, 1836, it will again approach us and be visible, after three in the morning, in the southern sky. It will rise earlier and earlier, and, in February, soon after midnight. In March it will again be visible all night in the southern heavens; it will then rapidly recede from us, and in April we shall lose sight of it entirely.

Its nearest approach to the earth, therefore, as it takes place in October, will precede the transit through the point of the perihelion, which, as we have seen, will not occur till the beginning of November-a circumstance that is to be regretted, because it is not till after the latter that comets assume their most brilliant appearance, and that phenomenon therefore will not be coincident with its greatest proximity to us. Had these two circumstances occurred together-that is to say, had the comet after acquiring its greatest brilliancy approached us within 23 millions of miles, as it will do in October, we should probably have enjoyed a more magnificent spectacle than will now be presented. In December, on the other hand, when the comet, after acquiring its greatest brilliancy, will again become visible, it will unluckily be 190 millions of miles distant from us, as we have already observed.

Dr. Fischer, (the author of the third work,) next presents us with the substance of all the recorded observations of this comet since the year 1005, and a statement of the weather which attended each of its appearances an interesting analysis, the results of which we shall subjoin as briefly as possible. In 1005, the appearance of this comet was attended by a great famine; in 1080, by an earthquake; in 1155, by a cold winter and failure of crops; in 1230, by rains and inundations (part of Friesland was overwhelmed, with 100,000 inhabitants); in 1304 by great drought, and intense cold in the following winter, succeeded by a pestilence; in 1380,

by a still more destructive contagion; in 1456 by wet weather, inundations, and earthquakes; again, in 1531, by great floods; in 1607, by extreme drought, followed by a most severe winter; in 1682, by floods and earthquakes; in 1759, by some wet, and slight earthquakes. Hence it appears that this comet has brought with it sometimes heat and drought, at others wet and cold, but the latter oftener than the former: if, however, these meteorological phenomena were not wholly independent of its appearance.

The author concludes with some particulars respecting its next appearance, which differ, more especially in regard to distances, from those given in the preceding part of this article. His report of its course and motions is as follows:

"Towards the end of August, 1835, the comet will make its first appearance in the eastern quarter of the heavens, in the sign Taurus. Its light will then be very faint, partly on account of the length of the days, and partly on account of its distance at this time from the earth, amounting to 190 millions of miles.

"As the motion of the comet will be at first directed towards the earth, its position in the heavens will not be much changed till the middle of September, though its light will rapidly increase in intensity. On the 13th of September its distance from the earth will be 95 millions of miles; from this time its

magnificent tail will increase in magnitude and brilliancy; the comet will rise gradually earlier; and its motion will appear to be more and more rapid. In the latter half of September it will enter the sign Gemini.

"On the 1st of October the comet will be only 27 million miles distant from the earth, and it will then enter the fore-foot of the Great Bear, in which it will cease to set, so that about this time it will have attained its highest degree of brilliancy and its greatest apparent magnitude. On the 6th of October its distance from the earth will be only about 164 millions of miles, being the nearest point to which it approaches. Its magnificent tail will now extend from the hair of Berenice to the principal stars in the constellation of the Great Bear. The head of the comet will set about nine in the evening, whilst the inner visible tail will be visible the whole night in the northern heavens, till the head re-appears in the morning red. From this period it will continue to approach perceptibly nearer to the sun, setting earlier in the evening, and at the same time receding from the earth.

"On the 17th of November the comet will be in its perihelion, consequently it will be no longer visible to us, either during the rest of that month or in December.

"In the beginning of January, 1836, it will issue from the sun's rays, again become visible, and be 190 millions of miles distaut

from the earth, as it was at the end of August. Meanwhile it will approach the earth a second time, and remain visible to us during the month of February.

"On the 1st of March it will be about 120 millions of miles distant, and will be visible to us in the morning in the constellations of Corvus and Crater. Thence it will continue

to recede more and more from the earth and the sun, attain its greatest distance from the latter in 1873, and again arrive at its perihelion in 1912."

Epitaphs.-Upon one Brawne, an Irishman, but a Cornish beggar:

Here Brawne, the quondam beggar lies,
Who counted by his tale,

Some six score winters and above:

Such virtue is in ale.

Ale was his meate, his driuke, his cloth,
Ale did his death reprieve;

And could he still have drunk his ale,
He had been still alive.

Petrarch had no better than the following epitaph on his tombstone, at Arqua, in Italy :

This stone doth cover the cold bones of Franc

Petrarch: