accomplished nobleman and great patron of the fine arts, resided here. It afterwards passed into the hands (A.D. 1721) of Lord Lechmere and Worcester; but in 1847, the extensive grounds surrounding the mansion were sold for building purposes, and the house condemned to destruction, from which it was rescued by the present owner, W. F. Wolley, Esq., who has nearly completed its restoration. To enumerate the works of art contained in this mansion would fill a volume. Deserving of especial notice is a fine full-length portrait of Charles the First, painted for that monarch by Myttens, and afterwards presented by him to the Duke of Buckingham-it was cut into four pieces by Cromwell's soldiers, but as been so artistically repaired, that the injury is not perceptible and a portrait of Mary Stuart, from the late King of Holland's collection; and besides a curious series of original portraits of the early kings of England, formerly in the altar

screen of Winchester Cathedral, there is also a collection of paintings, including works of Cemabue, Giotto, Simon Memmi, Taddeo Gaddi, Velletri, Beato Angelico, Vivarini, Holbein, Hemmeling, A. Durer, Lucas Kranach, Wolghemüth, Adel Castogno, Brenghel, Zucchio, Bronzino, Callori, Mabeuse, Vandyke, Velasquez, Sir G. Kneller, Vansomer, Sir J. Thornhill, &c., &c. In the gallery is a silver table (the work of Benvenuto Cellini), and the coronation chair of the Electors of Saxony. The house, as seen on Thursday, the 9th, presented a most splendid coup-d'œil. Cabinets and vases, glittering with precious stones; masses of gorgeous carved work; spacious corridors, filled with rare and costly articles; numberless lights; vases of blooming exotics; and last, though not least, hundreds of pretty women in elegant costume, made us think that we really were-as we heard several ladies exclaim-in a fairy palace.

FIRST COSTUME.-Gown of plaid silk, the corsage open in front, fastened by five bands, decorated with a velvet trimming of round spots, and finishing at the waist by a knot of ribbons with long ends. The corsage has basques. The sleeves are formed of three flounces, each trimmed with the velvet trimming similar to that on the corsage. The skirt is à disposition, with a narrow flounce placed somewhat high, and producing the effect of another basque. Chemisette in embroidered muslin, made up to the throat, with a narrow frill turning over. Pagoda sleeves. Pale lilac gloves. White satin capote bonnet, with a large bouquet of rose-coloured flowers, and velvet foliage: inside is a full trimming of blonde, with rose-coloured flowers and ribbons. A band of rose-coloured ribbon crosses the head. Cloak of light brown plush, lined with rosecoloured satin quilted,

SECOND COSTUME. -Grey taffeta, with five flounces, each trimmed with two rows of satin stripe. Corsage made up to the throat, with basques, Chemisette with a stand-up frill in embroidered muslin. Thick muslin under-sleeves, fastened at the wrist. A violet moire pelisse, trimmed with black plush bands; large bows of black ribbon, with falling ends, above and below the openings for the arms. Violet velvet capote, trimmed outside with frills of black lace, and inside with violet flowers with their foliage. A plait of violet velvet crosses the front of the head. Bright green strings. All the wreaths at present are formed of a large bunch at each side, and a chignon at the back, of flowers: the front is composed of a small cordon of

MARC H.

flowers, or a diadem, which is passed between the double bandeaux.

Many ball-dresses are ornamented with satin berthes with Chantilly lace, guipure, or Spanish lace: the last is in great favour. At one of the last great balls, a toilette which created general admiration was composed of a gown of white gros de Tours, covered with flounces of white and blue gauze, placed alternately découpé, and bordered with two ruches of tulle, gauffered and spotted with plush. The corsage had a point before; and behind it was décolletté with a berthe in zig-zag, half white and half blue, bordered with ruches of tulle. The waist was encircled with a flounce of blue gauze. The skirt had four flounces, alternately blue and white. The head-dress consisted of a wreath of orchidées in blue gauze, spotted with white silk. Nothing can be prettier than guélot flowers, the leaves and blossoms in blue peluchées (as it is called), with white silk.

The fashion for collars, at present, is to have them very large, with raised embroidery openwork, and medallion of thick work, surrounded with narrow rows of Valenciennes.

The gowns are worn very long; for the evening they form a train behind. Stiff petticoats are more worn than ever; not so much in the morning as for evening costume, when they are perfectly absurd if fashion may be called absurd. The hoops of our grandmothers cannot have been much, if at all, wider than the skirts of a fashionable lady of the present day.

PIGTAILS AND POWDER.-The Romans began to cut their hair about A.U.C. 454 (300 years before Christ), when Ticinius Maenas introduced barbers from Sicily. Then they cut, curled, and perfumed it. At night they covered the hair with a bladder, as is done now with a net or cap. Eminent hairdressers were as much resorted to by ladies as in the present day. A writer in the Quarterly Review gives us the history of the pig-tail. The natural hair, powdered and gathered in a queue, at first long, then short, and tied with ribbon, became the mode-to rout which it required a revolution; in 1793 it fell-together with the monarchy of France. In the world of fashion here the system stood out somewhat later; but our Gallomaniac Whigs were early deserters; and Pitt's tax on hair-powder, in 1795, gave a grand advantage to the innovating party. Pigtails continued, however, to be worn by the army, and those of a considerable length, until 1804, when they were, by order, reduced to seven inches; and at last, in 1808, another order commanded them to be cut off altogether. There had, however, been a keen qualm in the "parting spirit" of protection. The very next day brought a counter-order; but, to the great joy of the rank and file, at least, it was too late-already the pigtails were all gone. The trouble given to the military by the old mode of powdering the hair, and dressing the tail, was immense, and it often led to the most ludicrous scenes. The author of the "Costume of the British Soldier," relates that on one occasion, in a glorious dependency of ours, a field-day being ordered, and there not being sufficient barbers in the garrison to attend all the officers in the morning, the juniors must needs have their heads dressed over-night; and to preserve their artistic arrangement, pomatumed, powdered, curled, and clubbed, these poor wretches were forced to sleep, as well as they could, on their faces! Who shall presume to laugh, after this, at the Feejee dandy, who sleeps with a wooden pillow under his neck, to preserve the perfect symmetry of his elaborately frizzed head. Such was the rigidity with which certain modes were enforced in the army about this period, that there was kept in the adjutant's office of each regiment a pattern of the correct curls, to which the barber could refer. Even at the present day, certain naval and military orders are extant, regulating the trim of the hair, whiskers, &c., and defining what regiments may and may not wear the moustache. A naval commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean gave written orders for unseemly tufts of hair worn by his officers to be discontinued.-Rowland on the Hair.

WIDOWS.-They are the very-deuce. I've heard the heathen called benighted; but they have sense enough to burn widows when their husbands die, and that's a step further in civilization than we have taken. There's nothing like 'em. If they make up their minds to marry, it's done. I know one that was terribly afraid of thunder and lightning, and every time a storm came on she would run into Mr. Smith's house (he was a widower), and clasp her little hands, and fly around, till the man was half-distracted for fear she would be killed; the consequence was, she was Mrs. John Smith before three thunderstorms rattled over her head! Wasn't that diplomatic?-American Paper.

THE OAK.-It is a curious circumstance in connection with the after history of this tree, that the

oak, even in the days of Jacob, appears to have been regarded with peculiar veneration, when in his terror at the probable consequences of his son's vengeance on the Canaanites he fled to Bethel, purging his household of the strange gods that were amongst them, and the ear-rings which, like the sous of Ishmael, they wore; he hid them with the images under the oak that was by Sechem-the very tree where afterwards Joshua set up a pillar under its shadow on the plain. There was the "oak of weeping," also, where Deborah Rebekah's nurse, was buried, and the angel which Gideon saw sat beneath an oak which was in Ophrah. Whether the sacred groves of the heathens consisted of this tree we know not; but it is certain that in after-years the ancient Gauls worshipped Jupiter under its form. The Druidical superstitions with regard to the oak are too familiar to require mention; but it may not be so generally known that, till comparatively modern times, it was accounted unlucky to fell them; and in the "Magna Britannia," it is observed, that at Norwood-which is said to have consisted wholly of them-there was one which bare mistletoe, which some persons were so hardy as to cut for gain, selling it to the apothecaries of London, leaving one branch to sprout out. But they, it continues, proved unfortunate after it, for one of them fell lame, and the others lost an eye: notwithstanding which, in the year 1678, a certain man, though he was warned against it upon account of what the others had suffered, adventured to cut the tree down, and he soon after broke his leg. "To fell oaks," it adds, "hath long been accounted fatal; and such as believe it produce the instance of the Earl of Winchelsea, who, having cut down a grove of oak, soon after found his countess dead in her bed suddenly; and his eldest son, the Lord Maidstone, was killed at sea by a cannon-ball." In these expressions, we can fancy a trace not only of the Druidical superstition relative to the sacredness of the oak, but a mingling of the Grecian fable of the Hamadryades-nymphs which were said to people them-and to be born with and die with those trees. -Mrs. C. White.

EVERYBODY.-Everybody is a dreadful person; but who is he, I wonder? Is he at all public places, observing where one sits, and spying at the panels of one's carriage to ascertain whether it is one's own or a remise? And what does he do if he discovers that we ride in a fiacre and take tickets at nine francs instead of twenty? I should like to have this question answered; because, as he is in the habit of putting people to considerable expenses, which seem otherwise needless, I should be glad to learn what would be the consequence of slighting his opinion. If any one will tell me, I shall be much obliged to them, because it is as well to know the worst; and besides, the nature of the penalty once ascertained, as also who are the parties that have the authority to inflict it, means might be possibly found of evading, if not defying, a tyranny so fraught with mischief. For my own part, I shall be exceedingly happy to join in a conspiracy against this despotic meddler in other people's affairs, having at various times been put to serious expenses by his interference in my family arrangements; whilst in the course of my life I have seen many worthy people ruined, and actually reduced from affluence to want, by his absurd and unfeeling 'exigence.-Catherine Crowe.

Long before Prince Regent James had arisen, or that the publication of Jack Sheppard had made the little grave-yard of Willesden Church a place of pilgrimage for errant cockneys, as eager in their search after the resting-place of the robber as if his memory were a saintly thing; and who (we had it from the sexton himself), not content with visiting the spot in which London's great novelist has laid him, surreptitiously conveyed away, morsel by morsel, and bit by bit, the gray and lichen-covered rail that marked the daisied grave of old John Smith; till, to save the thing from utter annihilation, our friend of the spade and mattock hid it, with other charnel wares, in a lumber-room in the church, and all because popular enthusiasm had discovered in the rudely-carved J. S., that since the painted name had been erased by time had striven to piece out the memory of an old parishioner with his initials, those of the naughtily-renowned Jack Sheppard-long before these kings of romance had made the coinage of their brains current in the humble homes of the land, the name of Anne Maria Jones was familiar in them. Well do we remember when the thin old man, bending under the weight of his leathern wallet (who represented the row in what was then our village), made his hebdomadal call at our father's door, and handed out the magazine or copy of "Chambers" which constituted our personal interest in his pack. Well do we remember his oral advertisement of the last number of the last novel by Anne Maria Jones! Sometimes they were fearfully and wonderfully illustrated with wood-cuts in the Catnach school of art; but what of that? When the old man passed away with his lightened wallet, we knew that in the twilight of the summer evening, or round the wood-fires on the cottage-hearths, the pages of the "Cottage on the Cliff," the "Farmer of Inglewood Forest," the "Gipsy Mother," or some equally euphoniously-named story, was stirring the dead-locked, matter-offact stolidity and supineness of the bucolic brain with a ray of fancy and romance. Yes, the name of Anne Maria Jones was-for the grave has closed upon her sadly, with such augmentations to the bitterness of death as abject poverty and desolation can inflict-closely allied with the popular literature of the country. Her works are to be found upon the shelves of every circulating library, as well as in the homes of the million. If the scenes and characters she portrayed were wild and overdrawn, we must remember that the class for whom she principally wrote require a good deal to move them. The sympathies of the reader too were sometimes biassed to the side of the erring as well as the unfortunate, which we know is too near an approach to Heaven's mercy to be permitted on earth; but on the other hand, justice never failed to overtake the guilty; and thus a balance was struck. But

with all the faults of her writings, we must allow that the head and hand now mouldering in a pauper's grave led the way, in thousands of instances, to the appreciation of a higher and better style of literature.

Another melancholy event of the past month is the death, by his own hand, of Dr. Howard, the author of "Adam: a Mystery," some poems, and several works on the supposed deleterious effects of salt on the human frame. On the success of these volumes he had staked his all; and poverty, superadded to disappointment, in all probability led to the unhappy sequel. To those of our readers who are interested in pulmonary complaints, it may be of consequence to mention, that Dr. Thompson, physician to the Hospital for Consumption, in his recentlypublished lectures on these diseases, has diligently investigated the efficacious element in cod-liver oil, and its substitutes; and of the latter gives the superiority to neat's-foot oil, and the oil of the cocoa-nut, both of which are more agreeable to the palate, more easily obtained in a state of purity, and often less offensive to the digestive organs than the fish oils.

An excellent article has recently appeared in the Mark Lane Express, upon the subject of domestic cookery, and the effects of its present degraded state in the majority of English homes. It suggests what has long been wanted-the teaching young girls of the humbler classes how properly to cook potatoes and a mutton chop; and assuredly, if Dr. Lardner's assertion is to be taken at its full extent, and that " perfection in the art of cookery, and the observance of its principles at table, is the surest mark of a nation's attainment of the highest state of civilization," we are a long way from the culminating point of our national greatness. Such teaching would be a great improvement on the instructions in crochet and ornamental knitting going on in our charity and national schools, and might help to send out practical housewives and useful servants, instead of the helpless beings ignorant of everything that is of service to their employers, or that can assist in making comfortable and happy their own hum ble homes; courses of cookery, economy, and cleanliness, would be invaluable additions to the present system of town and country parish education; nor is the influence of these arts in the middle-class homes to be lost sight of.

A sadder social evil, spreading wide and deep its moral canker, has recently been painfully brought before us in the pages of the Times and other papers-an evil that may comehome to every man's door, and leave it sin-smerched and desolate; an evil in the destruction of which women have as great an influence as interest, if they could but be brought to see it for themselves. A letter from a country magistrate, which ap peared in the leading journal of the day (a few