servants, nor one of your wives.' The merchants hearing this ran out all distracted, one weeping for his sister and wife, the other for the daughter of his relation, but when they got about half way home, both parties met on the road, and every oue saw his friend safe, and discovered that the whole was a trick played upon them by the lying valet. What has tempted you,' said his master, 'to this act?' Do you not know,' replied the boy, 'that I was bound to tell you every year a great lie and a little one?' Well, said the merchant, and under what class must I place the present? Is this the large lie or the little one?" "O this is the little lie, replied the boy, the large one you shall have bye and bye!' This little lie,' said the merchant, 'will answer my purpose. I now give you your liberty, so set off, and find some other person of more consequence to practise your large lie upon.'

Learned Women.

One of Daniel De Foe's projects was an academy for the education of women. Of the effects of education on females, and the evils resulting from the want of it, he expresses his opinion in the following

terms:

"A well-bred woman and well tanght, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness and sweet. ness; peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish; and the man that has such a one to his portion has nothing to do but rejoice

in her and be thankful. On the other hand, suppose her to be the same woman, and deprived of the benefit of education, and it follows thus:-If her temper be good, want of education makes her soft and easy; her wit, for want of teaching, renders her impertinent and talkative; her knowledge, for want of judgment and experience, makes her fauciful and whimsical. If her temper be bad, want of breeding makes her worse; and she grows haughty, insolent, and loud. If she be passionate, want of manners makes her a termagant and a scold, which is much as one with a lunatic. If she be proud, want of discretion (which is still ill-breeding) makes her conceited, fantastic, and ridiculous, and from these she degenerates to be turbulent, clamorous, noisy and nasty."

A High House.

A French ambassador, who was a very tall man, received an appointment to the

|

[628

court of James I. After his introduction, the King asked Lord Bacon what he thought of him-"he appears," said the philosopher, "like a very high house, the upper story of which is generally worst fiuished."

Poor Jack.

child of a dissolute and profligate sailor It was at Portsmouth-point that the poor importuned his unhappy father for some bread, when the abandoned wretch, in a fit from him with his foot, and he fell into the of intoxication, it is supposed, spurned him sea, where he disappeared, and was thought to be drowned. The hand of Providence was, however, his protection. By clinging to a raft he floated till he was picked up by a vessel then under weigh. The child could only tell them his name was Jack, but the humanity of the crew led them to take care of him. Poor Jack, as he grew up, was promoted to wait on the officers, received instruction easily, was quick and steady, and served in some actions. In the last year he was appointed to the care of the wounded seamen. Jack had previously also formed an acquaintance truly pious. Ilis notice was therefore nawith some religious sailors, and become turally attracted to a wounded sailor with a Bible under his pillow, and who, approaching his end, presented it to the lad, telling him it was the instrument of his conversion. One thing, however, weighed heavily on his conscience--he had been guilty of the murder of his child. He

then

related the circumstance above referred to, and Jack recognized in the dying sailor his own father. It is needless to attempt, as it is impossible to describe, the scene of mutual joy, affection, and gratitude to heaven, which now took place. After the death of his father Jack returned to land, left the nautical profession, and in the course of years became a dissenting minister.

This story, of course, drew tears of joy and sympathy from all who heard it when first related, which was at a meeting of a Bible Society, in or near London: and the these impressive words" I, Sir, am Poor narrator closed, bowing to the Chair, in

JACK!"

Of the larder of the cottager and the shepherd, and of the hospitality of the farmers, a pretty accurate idea may be acquired from the simple yet beautiful strains of an old pastoral bard of Elizabeth's days, who, describing a nobleman, fatigued by the chase, the heat of the weather, and long fasting, adds that he

Did house him in a peakish graunge,
Within a forest great:

Wheare, knowne, and welcom'd as the place
And persons might afforde,
Browne bread, whig, bacon, curds, and milke,

Were set him on the borde:

A cushion made of lists, a stoole

Half backed with a houpe,
Were brought him, and he sitteth down
Besides a sorry coupe.

The poor old couple wish't their bread
Were wheat, their whig were perry,
Their bacon beefe, their milke and curds,
Weare creame, to make him mery.

First Introduction of Carpets.

So lately as the twelfth century it was deemed an article of great luxury to have the floors covered even with straw, and it is mentioned as an instance of the haughty Becket's splendid style of living, that his sumptuous apartments were every day in the winter, strewed with clean straw or hay, and in summer with green rushes or boughs. There is scarcely an old play, which has not some allusion either to straw or rushes (the latter oftenest) as a covering for floors. The carpet manufacture is said to have been introduced into France from Persia in the reign of Henry the 4th. The art was brought to London in 1750, by two men who quitted France in disgust, and came here to find employment. This they obtained from the late Mr. Moore, who risking a considerable expense, succeeded in establishing this very important and useful manufacture, and by his ingenuity and perseverance, it was brought to a high degree of perfection.

Beautiful Eclipse.

and ended about 4 P. M., it was with us total; the period of greatest darkness was about four minutes, and the middle, as near as I can judge, was 3 h. 14 m. apparent time; during these few minutes only a ring of white light was visible round the edge of the moon, which the naked eye could view without the least inconvenience, and consequently did not arise from any part of the sun's disk, as the instant the least portion of that became visible, it shot out a blaze of light much too brillant for the eye to bear; some of the stars were visible, the bats came out, and the small birds appeared totally at a loss how to conduct themselves. It was a most beautiful sight.

THE BOA CONSTRICTOR.

The following interesting fact in Natural History, respecting this immense creature, we extract from Mr. M'Leod's very excellent “Narrative of a Voyage to the Yellow Sea, and along the Coast of Corea." Mr. M'L. was surgeon of H. M. late ship Alceste, which conveyed the late Embassy to China.

Notwithstanding the crowded state of the Cæsar, two passengers of rather a singular nature, were put on board at Batavia, for a passage to England: the one a snake of that species called Boa Constrictor; the other, an Ourang Outang. The former (which only we shall notice) was somewhat small of his kind, being only about sixteen feet long, and of about eighteen inches in circumference; but his sto mach was rather disproportionate to his size, as will presently appear. He was a native of Borneo, and was the property of a gentleman (now in England), who had two of the same sort; but, in their passage up to Batavia, one of them broke loose from his coufinement, and very soon cleared the decks, as every body very civilly made way for him. Not being used to a ship, however, or taking, perhaps, the sea for a green field, he sprawled overboard, and was drowned. He is said not to have sunk immediately, but to have reared his head several times, and with it a considerable portion of his body, out of the sea. His companion, lately our shipmate, brought safely on shore, and lodged in the court yard of Mr. Davidson's house at Ryswick, where he remained for some mouths, waiting for an opportunity of being conveyed home in some commodious ship sailing directly for England, and where he was likely to be carefully attended to. This opportunity offered in the Cæsar, and he was accordingly embarked board of that ship with the rest of her numerous passengers.

was

on

During his stay at Ryswick he is said to have been usually entertained with a goat for dinner once in every three or four weeks, with occasionally a duck or a fowl, by way of a desert. He was brought on board shut up in a wooden crib or cage, the bars of which were sufficiently close to prevent his escape; and it had a sliding door, for the purpose of admitting the ar ticles on which he was to subsist; the dimensions of the crib were about four feet high, and about five feet square; a space sufficiently large to allow him to coil himself round with ease. The live stock for his use during the passage, consisting of six goats of the ordinary size, were sent with him on board, five being considered as a fair allowance for as many months. At an early period of the voyage we had an exhibition of his talent in the way of eating, which was publicly performed on the quarter-deck, upon which he was brought. The sliding door being opened, one of the goats was thrust in, and the door of the cage shut. The poor goat, as if instantly aware of all the horrors of its perilous situation, immediately began to utter the most piercing and distressing cries, butting instinctively, at the same time, with its head towards the serpent, in self-defence.

The snake, which at first appeared scarcely to notice the poor animal, soon began to stir a little, and, turning his head in the direction of the goat, it at length fixed a deadly and malignant eye on the trembling victim, whose agony and terror seemed to increase; for, previous to the snake seizing its prey, it shook in every limb, but still continuing its unavailing show of attack, by butting at the serpent, who now became sufficiently animated to prepare for the banquet. The first operation was that of darting out his forked tongue, and at the same time rearing a little his head; then suddenly seizing the goat by the fore leg with his mouth, and throwing him down, he was encircled in an instant in his horrid folds. So quick, indeed, and so instantaneous was the act, that it was inapossible for the eye to follow the rapid convolution of his elongated body. It was not a regular screw-like turn that was formed, but resembling rather a knot, one part of the body overlaying the other, as if to add weight to the muscular pressure, the more effectually to crush his object. During this time he continued to grasp with his mouth, though it appeared an unnecessary precaution, that part of the animal which he had first seized. The poor goat, in the mean time, continued its feeble and half-stifled cries for some minutes, but they soon became

more and more faint, and at last it expired. The snake, however, retained it for a considerable time in its grasp, after it was apparently motionless. He then began slowly and cautiously to unfold himself, till the goat fell dead from his monstrous embrace, when he began to prepare himself for the feast. Placing his mouth in front of the head of the dead animal, he commenced by lubricating with his saliva that part of the goat; and then taking its muz zle into his mouth, which had, and indeed always has, the appearance of a raw lacerated wound, he sucked it in, as far as the horns would allow. These protuberances opposed some little difficulty, not so much from their extent as from their points; however, they also in a very short time disappeared; that is to say, externally, but their progress was still to be traced very distinctly on the outside, threatening every moment to protrude through the skin. The victim had now descended as far as the shoulders, and it was an astonishing sight to observe the extraordinary action of the snake's muscles when stretched to such an unnatural extent--an exteut which must have utterly destroyed all muscular power in any animal that was not, like itself, endowed with very peculiar faculties of expansion and action at the same time. When his head and neck had no other appearance than that of a serpent's skin, stuffed almost to bursting, still the workings of the mus cles were evident; and his power of suction, as it is erroneously called, unabated; it was, in fact the effect of a contracule muscular power, assisted by two rows of strong hooked teeth. With all this he must be so formed as to be able to suspend, for a time, his respiration, for it is impossible to conceive that the process of breathing could be carried on while the mouth and throat were so completely stuffed and expanded by the body of the goat, and the lungs themselves (admitting the trachea to be ever so hard) compressed, as they must have been, by its passage down

wards.

The whole operation of completely gorging the goat occupied about two hours and twenty minutes: at the end of which time, the tumefaction was confined to the middle part of the body, or stomach, the superior parts, which had been so mach distended, having resumed their natural dimensions. He now coiled himself up again, and laid quietly in his usual torpid state for about three weeks or a month, when, his last meal appearing to be completely digested and dissolved, he was presented with another goat, which he devoured with equal facility. It would appear