gave out his text in the following words: "James, first and sixth, in the latter part of the verse, 'He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven by the winds and tossed." " "He is at me already," said the King, much amused. We will add a couple of other instances not adduced by the author. The Rev. Sidney Smith is said to have preached before a corps of sharpshooters, from the words, "I see men as trees, walking.' The best of all, perhaps, is a graver example. When John Sobieski, King of Poland, had delivered Vienna from the Turks, who were besieging it, the Archbishop of Vienna preached from the text, "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John." Old Names with new Faces.-Those who have duly meditated on the Horatian axiom, Multa renascentur, &c., will not be surprised to find the blind Lear an optician in Fetter-lane, while Edgar sells ale in Fenchurch-street; Macbeth and his wife are set up in a fruit-stall in Vinegar-yard, Drury-lane; the melancholy Jacques is established as an apothecary and accoucheur in Warwickstreet, Golden-square; Angelo is celebrated as a fencingmaster in the Albany; Romeo, having been promoted to a captaincy, is beating up for volunteers in the cause of liberty; Paris is in full practice as a popular physician; and Hamlet himself keeps a silversmith's shop at the corner of Sidney's-alley; Otway is a major-general in the Army; Milton breaks in horses in Piccadilly; Rowe and Waller are in partnership as stationers in Fleetstreet, and Isaac Newton flourishing as a linen-draper in Leicester-square. Alexander Pope, made straight and fattened up, acts tragedy at Drury-lane; Addison sells globes in Regent-street; Richardson and Swift keep lottery-offices in the City; Congreve's pieces (which continue to go off remarkably well) are cannon, not comedies; and Farquhar, instead of a poor author, is a rich banker in St. James's-street. Gay, "in wit a man, simplicity a child," makes dolls in Goswell-street; Cowley is a blacksmith; Phillips is poetical only in his prose ; Prior, till very lately, was an ensign in the 12th regiment of foot: Collins, instead of odes, makes glass chandeliers; Butler grinds Greek at Harrow; and Cowper may be seen writing his "task" at the table of the House of Lords any day during the sitting of Parliament. Marquess.-The author of Heraldic Anomalies prefers Marquess to Marquis, as being the more ancient way of writing the word. It corresponds in meaning with the Præses limitaneus of the Romans, and in etymology with Markgraf, Marquis, Marquez, Marchese, and the modern Greek, Maрkeσtos. Among the French, it would seem, from the phrase se marquiser, to have been assumed, like Captain formerly in England, as a travellingname; though the following story shows that this title was not always favourable to travelling, and that a Præses limitum might be cribbed and cabined within the barriers of Paris. At the beginning of the French Revolution, a Marquis being about to quit Paris for a tour, was required at the barriers to give his name. "I am Monsieur le Marquis de Saint Cyr." "Oh, oh, we have no Monsieurs now." "Put me down as the Marquis de Saint Cyr, then.” "All titles of nobility are abolished." "Call me De Saint Cyr only." "No person is allowed to have De before his name in these days of equality." "Write Saint Cyr." "That won't do either, all the Saints are struck out of the calendar." "Then let my name be Cyr." "Sire!! (Cyr is thus pronounced)-that is worse than all; Sires, thank God, are quite done away with." And thus was each glittering particle taken from his title (like the embroidery from Peter's coat, in the Tale of a Tub), and the worthy Marquis detained in Paris for want of a good, homespun, travelling-name. Bishops' signatures.-In several instances the bishops, when signing their names, use the old Latin appellations, or abbreviations of them, for their sees instead of the English ones. Thus, Ebor. stands for York, Cantuar. for Can terbury, Vigorn. for Worcester, and Exon. for Exeter. Some well-meaning people are occasionally much perplexed by these subtleties. Thus, an eminent bookseller having received a letter announcing the writer's intention to publish the life of Pitt, paid no attention to it, till mentioning to a friend that he had received proposals to that effect from a person he knew nothing about, one Mr. George Winton, he was not a little astounded to be told that George Winton was no other than George, Bishop of Winchester. When the Princess Charlotte was labouring under an indisposition, the Bishop of Salisbury sent frequent written inquiries to her Scotch physician, signing himself J. Sarum. The doctor, unversed in these niceties, observed to a friend that he had been much pestered with notes from "ane Jean Saroom, that he kenn'd nothing aboot. I tak nae notice o' the fellow,' said he. O Memory, thou fond deceiver !—The following story is abridged from Clarendon. Sir Julius Cæsar, Master of the Rolls, having, by the interference of the court, been prevented from giving to his own son an appointment he had designed for him, the Earl of Tullibardine, a near relation of Mr. Cæsar, endeavoured to procure for the latter a promise of a reversion of a six-clerks' place in case his father should die before another occasion of serving him should offer. Lord Treasurer Weston, Earl of Portland, was the person to whom he principally applied, but he, being an absent careless man, forgot to do what Lord Tullibardine had desired; namely, to get the King's sign-manual for the appointment. To assist his bad memory, he requested Lord T. to give him a note in writing, which he accordingly did; only putting upon a small piece of paper the two words, "Remember Cæsar." Many days passed, but, Cæsar was never thought of. At length, when he changed his clothes, and his servant as usual had brought to him all the notes and papers found in those he had left off, he discovered the little billet inscribed "Remember Cæsar," and was exceedingly confounded, and knew not what to think of it. He sent for his bosom friends; communicated to them his appre hensions that it could only signify some conspiracy against his life; and that in the case of Cæsar himself, the neglect of such notice had terminated, as they all knew, in his assassination. On their advice, therefore, he feigned indisposition, confined himself to the house, had the gates shut, with orders to the porter to open them to nobody whatsoever, and a guard of many servants placed there to resist violence. This continued for some time, till the Earl of Tullibardine having obtained an interview, and asking him with some earnestness whether he had remembered Cæsar, at once opened his eyes to the real cause of all his perturbation and trouble; and, as he could not forbear imparting it to his friends, the whole jest thus came to be discovered. Puns on Names.-A person, whose name was Gun, complaining to a friend that his attorney in his bill had not let him off easily; "That is no wonder," he replied, "as he charged you too high.' A Mr. Alexander Gun, belonging to the Customs at Edinburgh, having been dismissed for improper conduct, the entry of the fact in the books stood thus: "A Gun, discharged for making a false report." The Cavaliers, during the Protectorate, were accustomed in their libations to put a crumb of bread into a glass of wine, and, before they drank it, say, "God send this Crumb-well down." During the wars of the French Revolution, one Rapinat, who was sent into Switzerland to raise money, pillaged the country so unmercifully, as to compel the government to recall him; upon which the following epigram appeared at Paris :— QUESTION D'ETYMOLOGIE. Un bon Suisse que l'on ruine, Precedence among small Folk.-The observation of the Spectator (No. 119), that, generally speaking, "there is infinitely more to do about place and precedence in a meeting of justices' wives, than in an assembly of duchesses," is an obvious truism, Duchesses can have no disputes. Their rank is known to every one with whom they are likely to associate, and they are exempt from the confusion and perplexities of a promiscuous drawing-room. "I have known my friend Sir Roger de Coverley's dinner almost cold," adds the Spectator, "before the company could adjust the ceremonials of precedence, and be prevailed upon to sit down to table." In the "Right of Precedence," attributed to Swift, a very pleasant expedient is proposed to the lovers of precedence. "I would farther observe," says he, “for . the use of those who love place without a title to it either by law or heraldry; as some have a strange oiliness of spirit which carries them upwards, and mounts them to the top of all companies (company being often like bottled liquors, where the light and windy parts hurry to the head, and fix in froth),—I would observe, I say, that there is a secret way of taking place without sensible precedence, and consequently, without offence. This is an useful secret, and I will publish it here, from my own practice, for the benefit of my countrymen, and the universal improvement of man and womankind. "It is this: I generally fix a sort of first meridian in my thoughts before I sit down, and instead of observing privately, as the way is, whom in company I may sit above in point of birth, age, fortune, or station, I consider only the situation of the table by the points in the compass, and the nearer I can get to the East (which is a point of honour for many reasons,-porrecta majestas ad ortum solis), I am so much the higher; and my good fortune is, to sit sometimes, or for the most part, due East, sometimes E. by N. seldom with greater variation; and then I do myself honour, and am blessed with invisible precedency, mystical to others; and the joke is, that by this means I take place (for place is but fancy) of many that sit above me; and while most people in company look upon me as a modest man, I know myself to be a very assuming fellow, and do often look down L* |