"All the beer brewed in this house is that young lady's brewing." It would have been equally true to say, all the hogs killed in this house were of that young lady's killing, for they brewed no beer. When a member of the Constitutional Society, he would frequently utter sentences, the first part of which would have subjected him to death by the law, but for the salvo that followed; and the more violent they were, thus contrasted and equivocatory, the greater was his triumph.

When Tooke was justifying to the Commissioners his return of income under 60l. a-year, one of those gentlemen, dissatisfied with the explanation, hastily said, "Mr. Tooke, I do not understand you." "Very possibly," replied the sarcastic citizen, "but as you have not half the understanding of other men, you should have double the patience."

Tooke told Mr. Rogers that in his early days a friend kindly gave him a letter of introduction to D'Alembert, at Paris. Dressed à-la-mode, he presented the letter, and was very courteously received by D'Alembert, who talked to him about operas, comedies, suppers, &c. Tooke had expected conversation on very different topics, and was greatly disappointed. When he took leave, he was followed by a gentleman in a plain suit, who had been in the room during his interview with D'Alembert, and who had perceived his chagrin. "D'Alembert," said the gentleman, "supposed from your gay apparel that you were merely a petit maitre." The gentleman was David Hume. On his next visit to D'Alembert, Tooke's dress was altogether different, and so was the conversation.

Tooke's change of name originated as follows. When he was rising into celebrity, the estate of Purley, near Croydon, belonged to Mr. William Tooke, one of four friends who joined in supplying him with an income, when, after quitting the Church, he studied for the Law. One of Tooke's richer neighbours, in wresting from him his manorial rights by a law-suit, had applied to Parliament, and nearly succeeded in effecting his purpose by means of an inclosure bill, which would have greatly depreciated the Purley estate. Tooke despondingly confided his apprehensions to Horne, who resolved at once to avert the blow, which he did in a very bold and very singular manner. The third reading of the Bill was to take place the next day, and Horne immediately wrote a violent libel on the Speaker of the House of

Commons, in reference to it, and obtained its insertion in the Public Advertiser. As might be expected, the first Parliamentary proceeding the next day was the appearance of the adventurous libeller in the custody of the Serjeant-atArms. When called upon for his defence, he delivered a most remarkable speech, in which he pointed out the injustice of the Bill in question with so much success, that it was reconsidered, and the clauses which affected his friend's property expunged. In gratitude for this important service, Mr. Tooke, who had no family, made Horne his heir; and on his death in 1803, the latter became proprietor of Purley: as one of the conditions of inheritance, he added the name of Tooke to his own, and from this time was known as John Horne Tooke.

His residence at Purley has been commemorated in the celebrated philological work which he wrote here, entitled the Diversions of Purley, which has exercised considerable influence upon almost all works in the English language published since its appearance. It is in two large volumes, and the title is said to have so misled an indulgent father as to induce him to order of a bookseller the "Diversions of Purley" as a toy-book for his son, then a boy. The great fault of Tooke's work is the love of hypothesis, and the absence, to a great extent, of that historical mode of investigation without which etymological studies are worse than useless. Its influence has considerably declined of late years in Blackwood's Magazine, No. 514, will be found a searching paper upon the over-rated merits of Tooke's Diversions.

FRENCH REVOLUTIONISTS.

It is renarkable, (says Bulwer,) that most of the principal actors of the French Revolution were singularly hideous in appearance-from the colossal ugliness of Mirabeau and Danton to the villainous ferocity in the countenances of David and Simon, to the filthy squalor of Marat, the sinister and bilious meanness of the Dictator's features. But Robespierre, who was said to resemble a cat, had also a cat's cleanliness: he was prim and dainty in dress, shaven smoothness, and the womanly whiteness of his lean hands. René Dumas, born of reputable parents, and well educated, despite his ferocity, was not without a certain refinement, which,

perhaps, rendered him more acceptable to the precise Robespierre. Dumas was a beau in his way: his gala-dress was a blood-red coat, with the finest ruffles. But Henriot had been a lacquey, a thief, a spy of the police: he had drank the blood of Madame de Lamballe, and rose to his rank for no quality but his ruffianism; and Fouquier Tinville, the son of a provincial agriculturist, and afterwards a clerk at the Bureau of the Police, was little less base in his manners, yet more, from a certain loathsome buffoonery, revolting in his speech; bull-head, with black, sleek hair, with a narrow and livid forehead, and small eyes that twinkled with a sinister malice; strongly and coarsely built, he looked what he was, the audacious bully of a lawless and relentless Bar.

Robespierre was, perhaps, the coolest hand of the set in making out the list of his victims for the guillotine, he wrote down the name of Jean Lambert Tallien, with a slow hand, that shaped each letter with a stern distinctness, saying"That one head is my necessity!"

One of the most extraordinary signs of these revolutionary times was the avidity with which the French people rushed to the theatres at night, as a relief to the bloody excesses of the day. "Night after night to the eighty theatres flocked the children of the Revolution, to laugh at the quips of comedy, and weep gentle tears over imaginary woes !"

However, the above strange taste is not exclusively characteristic of France. George Colman the elder relates that during the Riots in London, in 1780, on the 7th of June, when, day and night, desolation had attained its climax, and the metropolis was seen blazing in thirty-six different places, the receipts of the Haymarket Theatre exceeded twenty pounds! How, instead of twenty pounds' worth of spectators, twenty persons, or one person, could have calmly paid money to witness, in the midst of this general dismay, a theatrical entertainment, appears astonishing.

A TOUCH OF THE SUBLIME.

During the French Revolution, Jean Bon St. André, the Vendean leader, said to a peasant, "I will have all your steeples pulled down, that you may no longer have any objects by which you may be reminded of your old superstitions." "You cannot help leaving us the stars," replied the peasant, "and we can see them further off than our steeples."

LAST MOMENTS OF THE CONDEMNED.

Strange things have been said and done by the condemned, in their last moments. During the Reign of Terror, at Paris, in the same prison with Josephine Beauharnais was one of the daughters of Madame Coquet. When she too well surmised that her last hour was approaching, she borrowed a pair of scissors to cut off her hair, saying "the scoundrel executioner, at all events, shall not have that honour."

The executioner generally cut the hair of the condemned close off, it being his perquisite. Samson, one of this class possessed a cupboard at one time filled with the hair of the individuals, male and female, whom he had cropped before their execution-treasured, no doubt, for sale to hairdressers ! The object of this operation was to prevent the edge of the axe, as it fell, from meeting with any resistance at the nape of the neck. The hair coming between the knife and the integument might deaden the edge. What an idea of ladies wearing false hair, supplied from the scissors of the executioner! Yet the fact cannot be doubted.

M. Brogle, only two hours before the fatal knife fell upon him, expecting the cart to take him to execution every moment, listened while M. Vigée, an author and fellowprisoner, read to him one of his works, during which he took out his watch, and said: "My hour approaches; I do not know whether I shall have time enough left me to hear you out. No matter; go on till they send for me."

WAS BONAPARTE EVER IN LONDON?

This has been denied; but a letter appeared in the Birmingham Journal of April 21, 1855, affirming the fact, on the authority of one James Colman, then in his 106th year, and was living, in 1850, in the back parlour of No. 58, Castle-street, Leicester-square. Colman stated that he perfectly well knew N. Bonaparte, who resided in London for five weeks, in 1791 or 1792; he lodged at a house in Georgestreet, Adelphi, and he passed much of his time in walking through the streets of the metropolis. Hence his marvellous knowledge of London, which used to astonish many English

men.

The writer of the letter adds: “I have also heard

Mr. Mathews, the grandfather of the celebrated comedian, and a bookseller at No..-, Strand; Mr. Graves, Mr. Drury, and my father, all of whom were tradesmen in the Strand, in the immediate vicinity of George-street, speak of Bonaparte's visit. He occasionally took his cup of chocolate at the Northumberland Coffee-house, (opposite Northumberland House,) occupying himself in reading, and preserving a provoking taciturnity to the gentlemen in the room; though his manner was stern, his deportment was that of a gentleman." [This is a very circumstantial story; but we must add, that, in two or three conversations we had with old Mr. Colman, in 1850, he did not mention his knowledge of Bonaparte, though he related several recollections of his long life: as, his birth in Church-court, Strand; his witnessing the funeral procession of George the Second; and his partaking of the Sacrament at the age of 100.]

BONAPARTE AN ANTI-REVOLUTIONIST.

It has repeatedly been observed from what little causes have sprung great tumults and revolutions which proper energy, at the right moment, might have nipped in the bud. A remarkable instance was noted by Bonaparte, in 1792, when he was at Paris, and there met his old friend, Bourrienne, with whom he renewed his intimacy. He appears to have been then unemployed, probably unattached, while the army was undergoing a new organization. Napoleon and Bourrienne happened to be, on the 20th of June, 1792, at a café in the Rue St. Honoré, when the mob from the Fauxbourg, (a motley crowd, armed with pikes, sticks, axes, &c.) were proceeding to the Tuilleries. "Let us follow this canaille," whispered Napoleon to his friend. They went accordingly, and saw the mob break into the palace without any opposition, and the king afterwards appeared at one of the windows with the red cap on his head. "It is all over henceforth with that man; "exclaimed Napoleon: and returning with his friend to the café to dinner, he explained to Bourrienne all the consequences he foresaw from the degra dation of the monarchy on that fatal day, now and then exclaiming indignantly: "How could they allow those despicable wretches to enter the palace? why a few discharges of grape-shot amongst them would have made them all take to