was the inquiry made of the narrator, who replied, "Ou, he didna sweer at onything parteecular, but juist stude in ta middle of ta road and swoor at lairge." "Sweering at lairge," however, even in former days, was more the tendency of the upper classes than of the Scottish peasantry, one of whom thus rebuked the late Lord Rutherford on his exclaiming gruffly at the Scottish climate, "What a dmist!" The shepherd, a tall, grim figure, turned sharp round upon him. "What ails you at the mist, sir? It wats the grass and slockens the ewes;" adding, with much solemnity, "It's God's wull," and thereupon he turned from his Lordship with lofty indig

nation.

MATTER-OF-FACT-MEN.

"You must beware," says Charles Lamb, "of indirect expressions before a Caledonian. Clap an extinguisher on your irony, if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it. Remember, you are upon your oath. I have a print, a graceful female, after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing off to Mr. After he had examined

it minutely, I asked him how he liked "my beauty" (a foolish name it goes by among my friends), when he very gravely assured me that he had very considerable respect for my character and talents'-so he was pleased to say- but had not given himself much thought for the degree of my personal pretensions.'

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Lamb was present at a party of North Britons, where a son of Burns was expected, and happened to drop a silly expression in his South British way, that he wished it were the father instead of the son, when four of them started up at once, that it was impossible, because he (the father) was dead.

MARVELLOUS OYSTER-EATING.

"While I was at Versailles," narrates the author of the Physiologie du Goût, "I came freqently in contact with M. Laperte, who was voraciously fond of oysters, of which he complained he could never get his bellyful. This pleasure I resolved to give him, and for that purpose invited him to dine with me. He came. I kept company with him to the third dozen of oysters, and then allowed him to go on alone. He swallowed on steadily to the thirty-second dozen-that is to say, during more than an hour-when I stopped my guest just as he remarked, that he was beginning to enjoy his treat. "Alas!" I exclaimed, "it is quite clear that you are not to have your bellyful of oysters to-day. Let us begin dinner." We dined, and Laperte acquitted himself with the vigour and appetite of a man who had been suffering from a long fast."

THE MARQUIS OF HERTFORD.

One day, when the noble marquis was going alone from Aldborough to Sudborne, on the road he met a cart with one horse, deeply laden with coals, which, from the badness of the road, and the deepness of the ruts, was in great danger of being overturned; the marquis endeavoured to pass it, when the carter, not knowing who the stranger was, said to his lordship, "Come, ya' a might tie your horse to a tree, and come and help me." At this request the marquis instantly stopped and dismounted, asking the carter what he should do to help him? "Why, lay hold here and shove hard," was the ready reply, which, being complied with, they together soon got the cart out of the difficulty: the marquis then asked if there was anything more to do. "Why, no," said the carter, feeling his pocket; "if I had sixpence I would give it thee, but if you wool go down to the Crown with me, you shall take part of a pot of beer." The marquis declined the offer and mounted; the countryman, however, observed, "Why, you ride a very good horse; perhaps we shall see one another again." "That may be," was the reply; "but it is not very likely, and here is a half-crown for you to drink the Marquis of Hertford's health," and then rode on, leaving the poor fellow in fear and astonishment, at the event that had passed.

It will be recollected by some readers that the former church of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet-street, within memory possessed one of London's wonders: it had a large gilt dial overhanging the street, and above it two figures of savages, life-size, carved in wood, and standing beneath a pediment, each having in his right hand a club, with which he struck the quarters upon a suspended bell, moving his head at the same time. To see the men strike was considered very attractive; and opposite St. Dunstan's was a famous field for pickpockets, who took advantage of the gaping crowd. Among those who were struck by the oddity of the figures was the Marquis of Hertford, who, when a child, and a good child, was taken by his nurse to see the giants of St. Dunstan's as a reward; and he used to say, when he grew to be a man he would buy those giants. Many a child of rich parents may have said the same; but, in the present case, the Marquis kept his word. When the old church of St. Dunstan was taken down, in 1830, Lord Hertford attended the second sale of the materials, and purchased the clock, bells, and figures for 2007.; and he had them placed at the entrance to the grounds of his villa in the Regent's-park, thence called "St. Dunstan's Villa;" and here the figures do duty to the present day.

"ARMS FOUND."

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Mrs. Butler, in her entertaining Journal, relates this droll story:A gentleman of New York sent a die of his crest to a manufacturer, to have it put upon his gig-harness. The man sent home the harness when it was finished, but without the die after sending for it several times, the owner called, when the reply was, Oh, why, I I didn't know you wanted it." "I tell you I wish to have it back." "Oh, pooh, pooh! you can't want it much now, do you?" "I tell you, sir, I desire to have the die back immediately." "Ah, well, come now, what'll you take for it?" "D'ye think I mean to sell my crest? Why you might as well ask me to sell my name." "Why, you see a good many folks have seen it, and want to have it on their harness, as it's a pretty-looking concern enough."

MATHEMATICS AT FAULT.

An English nobleman in Paris proposed to run his horse against time, at a rate which appeared to be impossible. He found plenty of persons to take bets, and he staked an immense sum on the event. Some friendly savans tried in vain to dissuade him from abiding the event for they assured him that besides losing his fortune he would kill his horse. Nay, they proved it mathematically. They reckoned the volume of air the horse would displace at each bound, multiplied the weight of this by the necessary velocity, ascertained the strength of the horse by a dynamometer; and putting W for the weight, V for the velocity, and P for the power, proved, without running far into the calculus, that the achievement was impossible. The sporting man thanked his scientific friends, testified to the wonders of mathematics, ran his horse-and won!

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Again, while the Great Western steam-ship was on the stocks at Bristol, one of the philosophers at the meeting of the British Association, which was held at the time in that city, calculated away the possibility of the steamer ever crossing the Atlantic. He computed that, for each horse-power of steam, one ton of coals would be required for every 1425 miles. Taking this as a basis of the calculation," he said, "and allowing one-fourth of a ton of coals per horse-power as spare fuel, the tonnage necessary for the fuel and machinery, on a voyage from England to New York, would be 370 tons per horse-power, which, for a vessel with engines of 400 horsepower, would be 1480 tons." Now, as the tonnage of the Great Western was only 1340 tons, with engines of 450 horse-power, for her to cross the Atlantic was, according to the theorist, utterly impossible. The "impossibility" was, however, performed, some twelve times per year, from the launch of the ship in 1838.

COMMERCIAL PEERAGES.

Among recent creations it may be mentioned that the title of Lord Belper, in 1856, was chosen by Mr. Strutt, on account of his family connexion with that place, to the manufacturing prosperity of which his uncle, the late Mr. Jedediah Strutt, contributed so largely. In the retiring address which he issued to his constituents on accepting the Chiltern Hundreds, prior to his elevation to the peerage, Lord Belper alluded to his own position as being still a manufacturer, thus identifying himself still with the order from which he is sprung. "The name, style, and title" which his Lordship chose, is almost better known upon the Continent than in this country, for there is scarcely a woman who plies her knitting-needle in the towns and villages of Germany but makes use of materials on the wrapper of which the name of Belper is printed in large characters. It may be of interest to remark here that Lord Belper is by no means the first person of commercial antecedents and connexions who has been raised to the peerage. Though George III. was very averse to the elevation of any one except members of the old county families, he created the London banker, Mr. Robert Smith, Lord Carrington, and conferred the Rendlesham peerage on the Thellussons. William IV. revived the barony of Ashburton in the person of Mr. Alexander Baring, who was many years head of the great commercial house which bears his name; and since the accession of her Majesty, Mr. Poulett-Thompson, of Manchester, and Mr. Jones Loyd, of Lothbury, have been respectively gazetted as Lord Sydenham and Lord Overstone. The case of Lord Belper, however, differs in one respect from that of the above noblemen, inasmuch as it is understood that his elevation to the peerage does not imply that he has withdrawn from his manufacturing engagements.

A RICHMOND HOAX.

One of the best practical jokes in Theodore Hook's clever Gilbert Gurney is Daly's hoax upon the lady who had never been at Richmond before, or, at least, knew none of the peculiarities of the place. Daly desired the waiter, after dinner, to bring some "maids of honour"-those cheesecakese for which the place has time out of mind been celebrated. The lady stared, then laughed, and asked, "What do you mean by 'maids of honour?" "Dear me !" said Daly, "don't you know that this is so courtly a place, and so completely under the influence of state etiquette, that everything in Richmond is called after the functionaries of the palace? What are called cheesecakes elsewhere, are here called maids of honour;

a capon is called a lord chamberlain; a goose is a lord steward; a roast pig is a master of the horse; a pair of ducks, grooms of the bedchamber; a gooseberry tart, a gentleman usher of the black rod; and so on." The unsophisticated lady was taken in, when she actually saw the maids of honour make their appearance in the shape of cheesecakes; she convulsed the whole party by turning to the waiter, and desiring him, in a sweet, but decided tone, to bring her a gentleman usher of the black rod, if they had one in the house quite cold!

SCOTTISH SERVANTS.

Dean Ramsay, in his very characteristic Reminiscences, illustrating the habits of old Scottish domestic servants, relates several amusing traits of their eccentricity, telling of simpler times than the present.

An instance of fixedness is afforded by an old coachman long in the service of a noble lady, and who gave all the trouble and annoyance which he conceived were the privileges of his position in the family. At last, the lady fairly gave him notice to quit, and told him he must go. The only satisfaction she got was the quiet answer, "Na, na, my lady; I druve ye to your marriage, and I shall stay to drive ye to your burial."

A gentlewoman's praise of English mutton was a great annoyance to the Scottish prejudices of Sandy, who had been fifty years domesticated in the family. One day, however, he had a real triumph upon the subject. The smell of the joint roasting had become very offensive through the house. The lady called out to Sandy to have the doors closed, adding, "That must be some horrid Scotch mutton you have got.' To his delight, this was a leg of English mutton his mistress had expressly chosen. She significantly told a friend, Sandy never let that down upon me.

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Boaty, who long acted as Charon of the Dee at Banchory, was a first-rate salmon-fisher, and was much sought for by amateurs. One day he was in attendance with his boat on a sportsman, who caught salmon after salmon, and between each fish-catching took a pull at his flask, without offering Boaty any participation in the refreshment. Boaty got annoyed, and seeing no prospect of amendment, deliberately pulled the boat to shore, shouldered the oars, rods, landing-nets, and fishing apparatus, which he had provided, and set off homeward. His companion, keen for more sport, was amazed, and peremptorily ordered him to come back. But all the answer made by the offended Boaty was, "No, no; them 'at drink by themsells may just fish by themsells.".

At a large dinner-party, one of the family noticed that a guestMrs. Murray-was looking for the proper spoon to help herself with