explanation came about, the ridiculous character of which it is easier to conceive than to describe.-Lord Cloncurry's Life and Times.

USE AND ORNAMENT.

When Sir John Carr was in Glasgow, about the year 1807, he was asked by the magistrates to give his advice concerning the inscription to be placed on the Nelson monument, then just completed. Sir John recommended this brief record: "Juist so," said one of the billies ; "and as the town o' Nelson's close at hand, might we no juist say-Glasgow to Nelson, sax miles,' an' so it might serve for a monument an' a milestone too."

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Glasgow to Nelson."

MADAME DE STAEL'S FENCING.

When Madame de Stael was in London Mrs. Richard Trench seems frequently to have been in her company, and she observes that the envy excited in her own sex was painfully disclosed by their continual remarks on the foreigner's total want of grace and beauty. Mrs. Trench was disposed to defend her on this score, but a Mrs. Jones, a lively friend, put an end to the discussion in these words,-" In short, she is most consolingly ugly ;" thus, says the writer, "by one happy phrase criticising the critics with a light yet sharp touch." These critics, she adds, would have inveighed with far more justice against the tiresome uses De Stael often made of her powers, for she "turned (it is said) a drawingroom into a fencing school." Certainly her fencing reached a high pitch of gladiatorial art when she praised Sheridan for his morality while he was extolling her beauty, as happened on one occasion when Mrs. Trench saw them in company together.

LADY HESTER STANHOPE'S EXTRAVAGANCES.

Lady Hester Stanhope delighted in anecdotes that went to show how much and how justly we may be biassed in our opinions by the shape of any particular part of a person's body independent of the face. She used to tell a story of

who fell in love with a lady on a glimpse of those charms which gave such renown to the Onidian Venus. This lady, luckily or unluckily, happened to tumble from her

horse, and by that singular accident fixed the gazer's affections irrevocably. Another gentleman, whom she knew, saw a lady at Rome get out of a carriage, her head being covered by an umbrella, which the servant held over her head on account of the rain; and seeing nothing but her foot and leg, vowed he would marry her-which he did.

Lady Hester held an implicit faith in the influence of the stars on the destiny of men, and brought her theories into a striking though rather ridiculous system. She had a remarkable talent for divining characters by the conformation of men. This every traveller testified who had visited her in Syria; for it was after she went to live in solitude that her penetration became so extraordinary. It was founded both on the features of the face and on the shape of the head, body, and limbs. Some indications she went by were taken from a resemblance to animals; and wherever such indications existed, she inferred that the dispositions peculiar to those animals were to be found in the person. But, independent of all this, her doctrine was that every creature is governed y the star under whose influence it was born.

"Animal magnetism," said Lady Hester, "is nothing but the sympathy of our stars. Those fools who go about magnetizing indifferently one person and another, why do they sometimes succeed and sometimes fail? Because, if they meet with those of the same star with themselves, their results will be satisfactory; but with opposite stars they can do nothing.'

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"What Lady Hester's own star was," says her physician, may be gathered from what she said one day, when, having dwelt a long time on this her favourite subject, she got up from the sofa, and approaching the window, she called me. "Look," said she, "at the pupil of my eyes; there! my star is the sun-all sun-it is in my eyes: when the sun is a person's star it attracts every thing." I looked, and I replied that I saw a rim of yellow round the pupil. "A rim!" cried she; "it isn't a rim-it's a sun; there's a disk, and from it goes rays all round: 'tis no more of a rim than you are. Nobody has got eyes like mine."

Lady Hester described the eyes of her grandfather, Lord Chatham, to be grey; yet, by candlelight, from the expression that was in them, one would have thought them black.

MRS. PIOZZI'S GOSSIP.

In a letter written by Mrs. Piozzi in her 80th year, we find this entertaining specimen of her lively, rattling manner :"Whilst we were living here (Weston-super-Mare) at the hotel, the waiter, with a grin upon his naturally sullen countenance, said, 'Here's a man inquires for Mrs. Piozzi.'—' Bid him come in ;' and, seeing the strange visitant, 'Be pleased to call my maid.' Both entered. 'What's all this,' cried I. 'Edwards!'' Yes, sure!'-' Why, the poor fellow is half dead, I vow, in a smock-frock, and dirty?'-' Yes, sure! '— 'And hungry, too! and mind what he says, Bessy; he says he walked hither from Dymerchion, 228 miles; and slept in the streets of Bath last night, and walked here to-day! For what! in the name of Heaven! Ask him.'-'He is stone deaf. He came to see you, he says.' 'See me! why he is blind, high gravel blind, at least; and one eye quite extinguished.''I must get him some meat,' says Bessy; so she did; and set what we call a Benjamin's mess before him, which a dapper post-boy snatched away, and left my countryman a living study for Liston, a statue of dirt and despair, reversing Neddy Bray's distress, who ate up other people's food, and this fool lost his own. On close inquiry, the poor witless wanderer had gone to Brynbella upon Midsummerday, it seems, to claim 27., which as a superannuated labourer he tells me I used to pay him annually. Salusbury drove him from the door. 'Ah, Sir John, your good aunt, God bless her! would not have served me so.' Where is the lady that was Mistress of this house ?-with a Welsh howl that naturally enough provoked the present Master. Why, she is at Bath; go look for her, you dog!' And the wretched creature took him literally. So I had to ship him off for Cardiffe, which, though the wrong end of our Principality, was better for him to be lost in than England, and I hope he got safe home somehow.

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Which of the Conrads known to historic truth is dramatized, I wonder! The elder was proclaimed King of the Romans about the year 1220 or 30; but would absolutely be Emperor in spite of the Pope; to annoy whose Italian dominions he drove into the Peninsula, and committed famous cruelties at Naples, Capua, &c., after having behaved beauti

fully the early part of his life; and so they compared him to Nero. He was poisoned by his brother Manfred, but left a son whom the Neapolitans called Conradino-the little Conrad; who had a great soul, however; set an army on foot at sixteen years of age, in order to recover some of his father's conquests, possessed by Charles of Anjou, who defeated him and his martial cousin, Frederick, at Lago Fucino-and as they crossed a river to escape, caught both the fugitives; and hapless Conrad lost his short life on a scaffold at eighteen years old. He was a youth of quite consummate beauty, which was the reason our King William the Third used to laugh when German friends and flatterers compared them; because, otherwise, the parallel ran happily enough; the same ardour in battle, the same hostility to Popes; and all at so unripe an age too! But, as Dr. Johnson said to Mr. Thrale, 'Oh, sir, stop my mistress! if once she begins naming her favourite heroes round, we are undone! I hate historic talk, and when Charles Fox said something to me once about Catiline's conspiracy, I withdrew my attention, and thought about Tom Thumb.' Poor dear Doctor Collier loved it no better. My sweet child,' he used to say, 'leave thy historians to moulder on the shelf; I have no hooks in my brains to hang their stories on.' And yet their adoring pupil distracts her latest found friend with it in the year 1811-and all out of her own head, as the children say; for ne'er a book have I. Send me the tragedy if 'tis good for anything, and you can do it without inconvenience. Once again, I wonder much who wrote it! Who acted it last night you have told me; and it was very kindly done; and I am now more easy about your health, and more careful of my own—that I may the longer enjoy the comfort of being considered as dear Mr. Conway's admiring and faithful friend. H. L. P."

Another of these charming Letters, thus strangely associates a well-known incident of friendship of the divine and the poet, with the writer's own personal regard for Mr. Conway : "When Atterbury presented Mr. Pope, the poet, with a Bible-Does your Lordship abide by it yourself?' said he― 'We have not time to talk now,' replied the Bishop; 'but I do certainly, and ever will abide by it. Accept my book: I consider it as a legacy.' Pope's letter to him afterwards, just as poor Rochester set out for the Continent, is very tender, very touching; and I am always wishing when I read it that

such may be dearest Mr. Conway's sentiments toward me. 'I shall never suffer to be forgotten-nay, to be only faintly remembered the pleasure and pride which I must ever have in reflecting how frequently you have entertained me, how kindly you have distinguished me, how cordially you have advised me. In conversation I shall wish for you; in study I shall want you; in my most lively and most thoughtful hours I shall equally bear about me the impression of you; and perhaps it may not be in this life only that I shall have cause to remember and acknowledge the friendship of the Bishop of Rochester.' Alex. Pope loquitur.-Will you subscribe to them as your sentiments for poor H. L. P. ! abating the ideas of dignity annexed to Atterbury's superior station and superior learning? More desire of your temporal and eternal welfare could not have animated his gentle bosom, had he known and conversed with you as I have done."

SYDNEY SMITH, AND HIS EDINBURGH FRIENDS. When Smith was at Edinburgh, a certain gentleman was the paramount bore, and his favourite subject the North Pole. No one escaped him, and Sydney, as a protection, declared he should invent a slip button. Jeffrey fled from this bore whenever he could; but one day his tormentor met him in a narrow lane, where escape was impossible, and he forthwith began on the North Pole. Jeffrey could not stand it—so he darted off, crying out, "D-n the North Pole!" Mr. Sydney Smith met the bore shortly after, very indignant at Jeffrey's contempt of the North Pole. "Oh, my dear fellow," said Smith, never mind; no one minds what Jeffrey says, you know; he is a privileged person; he respects nothing, absolutely nothing. Why, you will scarcely believe it, but it is not more than a week ago that I heard him speak disrespectfully of the Equator!"

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Horner, another of Smith's Scottish friends, loved truth so much, that he could not bear any jesting on important subjects. One evening, Lord Dudley and Smith pretended to justify the conduct of the Government in stealing the Danish fleet. They carried on the argument with some wickedness against their graver friend; he could not stand it, but bolted indignantly out of the room. They flung up the sash, and with a loud peal of laughter, professed them