the 16th power; give the square root of 106,929 : give the cube root of 268,336,125; how many seconds are there in 48 years? The answers were always given in a very few minutes-sometimes in a few seconds. He was ignorant of the ordinary rules of arithmetic, and did not know how or why particular modes of process came into his mind. On one occasion, the Duke of Gloucester asked him to multiply 21,734 by 543; something in the boy's manner induced the duke to ask how he did it, from which it appeared that the boy arrived at the result by multiplying 65,202 by 181, an equivalent process; but why he made this change in the factors, neither he nor any one else could tell. Zerah Colburn was unlike other boys also in this, that he had more than the usual number of toes and fingers; a peculiarity observable also in his father and in some of his brothers. An exceptional instance is presented in the case of Mr Bidder, of this faculty being cultivated to a highly useful purpose. George Parker Bidder, when six years old, used to amuse himself by counting up to 100, then to 1000, then to 1,000,000; by degrees he accustomed himself to contemplate the relations of high numbers, and used to build up peas, marbles, and shot, into squares, cubes, and other regular figures, He invented processes of his own, distinct from those given in books on arithmetic, and could solve all the usual questions mentally more rapidly than other boys with the aid of pen and paper. When he became eminent as a civil engineer, he was wont to embarrass and THOMAS JEFFERSON. Born.-Christian Gellert, German poet and fabulist, 1715, Chemnitz, Saxony. Died.-Lord Saye and Seal, beheaded, 1450, London; William Birde, English composer of sacred music, 1623; Meric Casaubon, learned and controversial writer, 1671, bur. Canterbury Cathedral; Henry Bentinck, second Duke of Portland, 1726, Jamaica; Samuel Richardson, novelist, 1761; Fisher Ames, American statesman, President of Harvard College, 1804, Boston, U. S.; Richard Watson, bishop of Llandaff, 1816; John Adams, second president of the United States, 1825; Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, 1825; Rev. William Kirby, naturalist, 1850, Barham, Suffolk; Richard Grainger, the re-edifier of Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1861, Newcastle. THOMAS JEFFERSON. The celebrated author of the American Declaration of Independence, entered life as a Virginian barrister, and, while still a young man, was elected a member of the House of Burgesses for his state. When the disputes between the colonies and mother-country began, he took an active part in the measures for the resistance of taxation, and for diffusing the same spirit through the other provinces. Elected in 1775 to the Continental Congress, he zealously promoted the movement for a complete separation from England, and in the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted on the 4th of July 1776, he laid down the propositions, since so often quoted, that 'all men are created equal,' with 'an inalienable right' to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' and that ball the parliamentary counsel on contested rail-governments derive their just powers from the way bills, by confuting their statements of figures almost before the words were out of their mouths. In Pad, he gave to the Institution of Civil Engineers an interesting account of this singular arithmetical faculty so far, at least, as to show that memory has lost to do with it than is generally supposed, the processes are actually worked out wrintim, but with a rapidity almost inconceivable. JULY 4. ME Pintar, aldot. No Bolean, abbot. Miny, anchored in Reypt, about 499, St St Sisoes or alhess of Blangy, in Actuis, about 795. St Ulric, bishop of Amustang confromm, PA St Odo, archbishop of Candorlatty, pontommor, 10th century. @malation of St Martin. Plod for Clutch of Rome should not only celoIn die this day of 84 Martin's death (November ID, fout of Hout of the transference of his remains From Hole original humble resting place to the pal Trafoffomehow.com lusively the veneration In while this muddier mint was held oo under Provender # The day continues to have a place Hi Ho Clube of Fig-bund onlendar. Fo 12 of bund, this wed to be called St Martin of Bulleac Day, mind the weather which prevailed I was supposed to love prophetic character. proovile, that if the deer reso dry and lie ro Bullion's Day, it wous a sign there it pedal jest lorevest on being a term Tateriel od summer; he non se harvest It was believed generally Hed odu on this day butokened wet wondy cung daya He consent of the governed.' When the cause of independence became triumphant, Mr Jefferson naturally took a high place in the administration of the new government. He successively filled the posts of governor of Virginia, secretary of state under the presidency of Washington, and vicepresident under that of John Adams; finally, in 1801, attaining to the presidency, which he held for two terms or eight years. While Washington and Adams aimed at a strong, an aristocratic, and a centralising government, Jefferson stood up as the advocate of popular rights and measures. headed the Liberal Republican, or, as it was afterwards called, the Democratic party. He laboured for civil and religious liberty and education. He secured the prohibition of the slave trade, and of slavery over a vast territory, and was in favour of universal emancipation. In Virginia, he secured the abolition of a religious establishment, and of entails, and the equal rights of both sexes to inheritance. The most important measure of his administration was the acquisition of Louisiana, including the whole territory west of the Mississippi, which was purchased of France for 15,000,000 dollars. His administration was singularly free from political favouritism. It is remembered as one of his savings, that he could always find better men for every place than his own connections,' After retiring from the presidency, he founded the university of Virginia, carried on an extensive correspondence, entertained visitors from all parts of the world, and enjoyed his literary and philoso phical pursuits. He was married early in life, and had one daughter, whose numerous children were the solace of his old age. At the age of eighty, he wrote to John Adams, with whom, in spite of political differences, he maintained a warm personal friendship: I have ever dreaded a doting age; and my health has been generally so good, and is now so good, that I dread it still. The rapid decline of my strength, during the last winter, has made me hope sometimes that I see land. During summer I enjoy its temperature; but I shudder at the approach of winter, and wish I could sleep through it with the dormouse, and only wake with him in the spring, if ever. They say that Stark could walk about his room. I am told you walk well and firmly. I can only reach my garden, and that with sensible fatigue. I ride, however, daily, but reading is my delight.-God bless you, and give you health, strength, good spirits, and as much life as you think worth having?' The death of Jefferson, at the age of eighty-three, was remarkable. Both he and his friend John Adams, the one the author and the other the chief advocate of the Declaration of Independence each having filled the highest offices in the Republic they founded-died on the 4th of July 1826, giving a singular solemnity to its fiftieth anniversary. On the tomb of Jefferson, at Monticello, he is described as the author of the Declaration of Independence, the founder of religious freedom in Virginia, and of the university of Virginia; but there is a significant omission of the fact, that he was twice president of the United States. 'THE FOURTH OF JULY.' Where a country or a government has been baffled in its efforts to attain or preserve a hated rule over another people, it must be content to see its failure made the subject of never-ending triumph and exultation. The joy attached to the sense of escape or emancipation tends to perpetuate itself by periodical celebrations, in which it is not likely that the motives of the other party, or the general justice of the case, will be very carefully considered or allowed for. We may doubt if it be morally expedient thus to keep alive the memory of facts which as certainly infer mortification to one party as they do glorification to another: but we must all admit that it is only natural, and in a measure to be expected. The anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, has ever since been celebrated as a great national festival throughout the United States, and wherever Americans are assembled over the world. From Maine to Oregon, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, in every town and village, this birthday of the Republic has always hitherto been ushered in with the ringing of bells, the firing of cannon, the display of the national flag, and other evidences of public rejoicing. A national salute is fired at sunrise, noon, and at sunset, from every fort and man of war. The army, militia, and volunteer troops parade, with bands of music, and join with the citizens in patriotic processions. The famous Declaration is solemnly read, and orators, appointed for the occasion, deliver what are termed Fourth of July Orations, in which the history of the country is reviewed, and its past and coming glories proclaimed. The virtues of the Pilgrim Fathers, the General Stark, 'the victor of Bennington,' had just died at the age of ninety-three. THE FAIRLOP OAK FESTIVAL. heroic exertions and sufferings of the soldiers of the Revolution, the growth and power of the Republic, and the great future which expands before her, are the staple ideas of these orations. Dinners, toasts, and speeches follow, and at night the whole country blazes with bonfires, rockets, Roman candles, and fireworks of every description. In a great city like New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, the day, and even the night previous, is insufferably noisy with the constant rattle of Chinese-crackers and firearms. In the evening, the displays of fireworks in the public squares, provided by the authorities, are often magnificent. John Adams, second president of the United States, and one of the most distinguished signers of the Declaration of Independence, in a letter written at the time, predicted the manner in which it would be celebrated, and his prediction has doubtless done something to insure its own fulfilment. Adams and Jefferson, two of the signers, both in turn presidents, by a most remarkable coincidence died on the fiftieth anniversary of Independence, in the midst of the national celebration, which, being semi-centennial, was one of extraordinary splendour. THE FAIRLOP OAK FESTIVAL. The first Friday in July used to be marked by a local festival in Essex, arising through a simple yet curious chain of circumstances. In Hainault Forest, in Essex, there formerly was an oak of prodigious size, known far and wide as the Fairlop Oak. It came to be a ruin about the beginning of the present century, and in June 1805 was in great part destroyed by an accidental fire. When entire though the statement seems hardly credible-it is said to have had a girth of thirty-six feet, and to have had seventeen branches, each as large as an ordinary tree of its species. A vegetable prodigy of such a character could not fail to become a most notable and venerated object in the district where it grew. Far back in the last century, there lived an Pedlars' stalls with glitt'ring toys are laid, Here the tight lass, knives, combs, and scissors spies, And looks on thimbles with desiring eyes. The mountebank now treads the stage, and sells His pills, his balsams, and his ague-spells: Now o'er and o'er the nimble tumbler springs, And on the rope the vent'rous maiden swings; Jack Pudding, in his party-coloured jacket, Tosses the glove, and jokes at ev'ry packet: Here raree-shows are seen, and Punch's feats, And pockets picked in crowds and various cheats. Mr Day had thus the satisfaction of introducing the appearances of civilisation in a district which THE FAIRLOP OAK FESTIVAL had heretofore been chiefly noted as a haunt of banditti. Fun of this kind, like fame, naturally gathers force as it goes along. We learn that for some years before the death of Mr Day, which took place in 1767, the pump-and-block-makers of Wapping, to the amount of thirty or forty, used to come each first Friday of July to the Fairlop beans-and-bacon feast, seated in a boat formed of a single piece of wood, and mounted upon wheels, covered with an awning, and drawn by six horses. As they went accompanied by a band of musicians, it may be readily supposed how the country-people would flock round, attend, and stare at their anomalous vehicle, as it hurled madly along the way to the forest. A local poet, who had been one of the company, gives us just a faint hint of the feelings connected with this journey: 'O'er land our vessel bent its course, Guarded by troops of foot and horse; Our anchors they were all a-peak, Our crew were baling from each leak, On Stratford bridge it made me quiver, Lest they should spill us in the river.' The founder of the Fairlop Festival was remarkable for benevolence and a few innocent eccentricities. He was never married, but bestowed as much kindness upon the children of a sister as he could have spent upon his own. He had a female servant, a widow, who had been eight-and-twenty years with him. As she had in life loved two things in especial, her wedding-ring and her tea, he caused her to be buried with the former on her find a pound of tea in each hand-the latter circumstance being the more remarkable, as he himself disliked tea, and made no use of it. He had a number of little aversions, but no resentments. It changed the usual composed and amiable expression of his countenance to hear of any one going to law. He literally every day relieved the poor at his gate. He often lent sums of money to deserving persons, charging no interest for it. When he had attained a considerable age, the Fairlop Oak lest one of its branches. Accepting the fact as an omen of his own approaching end, he caused the detached limb of the tree to be fashioned into a coffin for himself, and this convenience he took care to try, lest it should prove too short. By his request, his body was borne in its coffin to Barking churchyard by water, in a boat, the worthy old gentleman having contracted a prejudice against all land vehicles, the living horse included, in consequence of being- so often thrown from them in his various journeys. Fairlop and its Founder, printed at Totham, 1847. WILLIAM HUTTON'S 'STRONG WOMAN.' JULY 5. JOHN BROUGHTON. WILLIAM HUTTON'S 'STRONG WOMAN.' William Hutton, the quaint but sensible Birmingham manufacturer, was accustomed to take a month's tour every summer, and to note down his observations on places and people. Some of the results appeared in distinct books, some in his autobiography, and some in the Gentleman's Magazine, towards the close of the last century and the beginning of the present. One year he would be accompanied by his father, a tough old man, who was not frightened at a twenty-mile walk; another year he would go alone; while on one occasion his daughter went with him, she riding on horseback, and he trudging on foot by her side. Various parts of England and Wales were thus visited, at a time when tourists' facilities were slender indeed. It appears from his lists of distances that he could do' fifteen or twenty miles a day for weeks together; although his mode of examining places led to a much slower rate of progress. One of the odd characters which he met with at Matlock, in Derbyshire, in July 1801, is worth describing in his own words. After noticing the rocks and caves at that town, he said: 'The greatest wonder I saw was Miss Phoebe Bown, in person five feet six, about thirty, well-proportioned, roundfaced and ruddy; a dark penetrating eye, which, the moment it fixes upon your face, stamps your character, and that with precision. Her step (pardon the Irishism) is more manly than a man's, and can easily cover forty miles a day. Her common dress is a man's hat, coat, with a spencer above it, and men's shoes; I believe she is a stranger to breeches. She can lift one hundredweight with each hand, and carry fourteen score. Can sew, knit, cook, and spin, but hates them all, and every accompaniment to the female character, except that of modesty. A gentleman at the New Bath recently treated her so rudely, that she had a good mind to have knocked him down." She positively assured me she did not know what fear is. She never gives an affront, but will offer to fight any one who gives her one. If she has not fought, perhaps it is owing to the insulter being a coward, for none else would give an affront [to a woman]. She has strong sense, an excellent judgment, says smart things, and supports an easy freedom in all companies. Her voice is more than masculine, it is deep toned; the wind in her face, she can send it a mile; has no beard; accepts any kind of manual labour, as holding the plough, driving the team, thatching the ricks, &c. But her chief avocation is breaking-in horses, at a guinea a week; always rides without a saddle; and is supposed the best judge of a horse, cow, &c., in the country; and is frequently requested to purchase for others at the neighbouring fairs. She is fond of Milton, Pope, Shakspeare, also of music; is self-taught; performs on several instruments, as the flute, violin, harpsichord, and supports the bass-viol in Matlock church. She is an excellent markswoman, and, like her brother-sportsmen, carries her gun upon her shoulder. She eats no beef or pork, and but little mutton; her chief food is milk, and also her drink-discarding wine, ale, and spirits. BISHOP WATSON. Richard Watson was eminent as a prelate, politician, natural philosopher, and controversial theologian; but his popular fame may be said to depend solely on one little book, his Apology for the Bible, written as a reply to Paine's Age of Reason. A curious error has been, more than once, lately promulgated respecting this prelate. At a telegraphic soiree, held in the Free-trade Hall, Manchester, during the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at that city, in 1861, it was confidently asserted that Bishop Watson had given the first idea of the electric telegraph. The only probable method of accounting for so egregious an error, is that Bishop Watson had been confounded with Sir William Watson, who, when an apothecary in London, conducted some electrical experiments in 1747, and succeeded in sending the electric current from a Leyden-jar through a considerable range of earth, or water, and along wires suspended in the open air on sticks. But, even he never had the slightest idea of applying his experiments to telegraphic purposes. In his own account of these experiments, he says: "If it should be asked to what useful purposes the effects of electricity can be applied, it may be answered that we are not yet so far advanced in these discoveries as to render them conducive to the service of mankind.' Bishop Watson was elected professor of chemistry at the university of Cambridge in 1769; and he gives us the following statement on the subject: At the time this honour was conferred upon me, I knew nothing at all of chemistry, had never read a syllable on the subject, nor seen a single experiment in it!' A very fair specimen of the consideration in which physical science was held at the English universities, during the dark ages of the last century. After studying chemistry for fourteen months, Watson commenced his lectures; but in all his printed works on chemistry, and other subjects, the word electricity is never once mentioned ! JULY 5. St Modwena, virgin, of Ireland, 9th century. St Edana or Edæne, virgin, of same country. St Peter of Luxemburg, confessor, cardinal, and bishop of Metz, 1387. Born.-John Broughton, noted pugilist, 1704, London; Mrs Sarah Siddons (née Kemble), tragic actress, 1755; C. A. Stothard, antiquarian draughtsman, 1786, London. Died.-Queen Magdalen of Scotland, 1537; Cardinal Passioney, librarian of the Vatican, 1761; Sir Robert Strange, the 'prince of British line-engravers,' 1792, London; Mrs Dorothea Jordan (née Bland), comic actress, 1816, St Cloud. JOHN BROUGHTON. That regulated system of combat with the closed fists, which bears the name of Boxing, and which may be said to be peculiar to England, dates only from the earlier half of the eighteenth century. wing those Lotable ones regarding TVAnda, and the interval of half a minute between Bun, which give such a marked character to the pawn of humanity relieving its harbarism -vue de provision of John Broughton, who X-% % wch for the exhibition of boxing in Stenham Court Road; they are dated the on of Ag 1743. It seems to have been on the decline of sword-combat exhibitions in heria of George I, that the comparatively Int of boxing arose. There apan to be no such thing known at an earlier Broughton was the first who stood in the position of Campion-a ol tinction which he held for It gives a curious idea of the tota of the English of his day, that his mest notable patron was the king's second son, the Das of Camberiand, so noted for his butcheries after the battle of Culloden. The duke probay attended Broghton's boxing-booth within a work of his going forth upon that famous expedition, in which the fate of a dynasty was dodded; probably, it Was one of the first prates of amusement he went to after his tramphant return. He once took Broughton with him on a journey to the continent, and on shewing him the grenadier guards at Berlin, asked the pigilist what he thought of any of those fellows for a set-to;' to which Broughton is aid to have answered, that he would have no objection to take up the whole regiment, if he were only allowed a breakfast between each two battles. Broughton was admitted to have a constant originality, as well as great power, in his style of boxing, and he seems to have been a man of sense and ability, apart from his profession. He was at the very acme of his reputation, when he was so unfortunate as to fall into a quarrel with a butcher named Slack, who consequently challenged him. The champion himself, and the whole circle of his friends and admirers, regarded the challenger with contempt, and when the combat commenced, the betting was ten to one in Broughton's favour. But Slack contrived, at an early period of the contest, to hit Broughton between the eyes, and blinded him. The poor man had undiminished strength, but he was not able to see his antagonist. His royal patron, with characteristic brutality, called out to him: Why, Broughton, you can't fight-you are beat!' [Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain.'] It was too true. The fight closed in fourteen minutes, with the defeat of the hitherto unmatched hero. The faces in the amphitheatre,' Bays the historian of the day, were of all manner of colours and lengths.' The duke was understood to have lost thousands on the ocension. Slack, by his adroit blow, gained six hundred pounds. Broughton survived in obscurity, but in comparative affluence, for thirty-nine years, dying on the 8th of January 1789, at a very advanced The father, as he may well be called, of this truly English art,' lies buried in Lambeth churchyard. age. QUEEN MAGDALEN. QUEEN MAGDALEN. The death of the French princess, Magdalen, consort of James V. of Scotland, is a very affecting incident. The young Scottish monarch had verazed to France in the summer of 1536, to see the daughter of the Duc de Vendome, with a view to inarriage; but, not affecting her on intimate acquaintance, he turned his thoughts to the royal family as likely to furnish him a better bride. The king, Francis L, received him with great kindness at a place to the south of Lyon, and thence conducted him to a castle where his family was residing. He found the Princess Magdalen unable to ride on horseback, as her mother and other ladies did, but obliged by weakness of health to be carried in a chariot. Yet, notwithstanding her sickness'—so the contemporary Scottish historian Lindsay informs us—fra the time she saw the king of Scotland, and spak with him, she became so enamoured of him, and loved him so weel, that she wold have no man alive to her husband, but he allenarly [only]' Sage counsellors of both countries discommended the union; but the young princess easily induced her father to consent, and the consent of the king of Scotland followed. On the 1st of January, the pair were united in the church of Notre Dame, in the presence of seven cardinals and a great assemblage of the French nobility, amidst circumstances of great pomp and popular joy. Through all France that day, there was jousting and running of horse proclaimed, with all other manly exercise; as also skirmishing of ships through all the coasts; so that in towns, lands, seas, firths, castles, and towers, there was no man that might have heard for the raird [uproar] and noise of cannons, nor scarcely have seen for the vapours thereof. There was also within the town of Paris, cunning carvers and profound necromancers, who by their art caused things appear whilk wes not, as follows: fowls flying in the air spouting fire on others, rivers of water running through the town and ships fechtand therupon.' With his young bride, and a hundred thousand crowns by way of dowry, gifted moreover with twenty war-horses, as many suits of elegant mail, two great war-ships, and a vast quantity of jewels and other minor articles, the young Scottish monarch set sail for his own country. Landing at Leith on Whit Sunday, the young queen, full of love for her husband and his country, knelt on the shore, took up a handful of sand, and kissed it, invoking God's blessing upon Scotland, She was received in Edinburgh with triumphs and shows of unexampled grandeur, with, what was far better, the affectionate reverence of the entire people. But the doom had already been passed upon her. She withered like an uprooted flower, and only forty days from her arrival, lay a corpse in her husband's palace. The death of this beautiful young creature in such interesting circumstances, made a deep impression on the national heart, and it is understood to have been the first occasion of a general mourning being assumed in Scotland. |