least equally
necessary with the study of languages, and the cultivation of taste
and imagination.--_Library of Useful Knowledge_.

[Footnote 10: For a Report of this discovery, see MIRROR, vol. xiii p.
409.]

* * * * *

THE GATHERER.

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.--SHAKSPEARE.

* * * * *

ORIGIN OF THE WORD WORSTED.

Worsted, in the county of Norfolk, though formerly a town of
considerable trade, and much celebrity, is now reduced to a village,
and the manufactures, which obtained a name from the place, are
removed to Norwich and its vicinity.

Shakspeare has not been very courteous towards the _worsted gentry_;
had he lived in our times, they might have _worsted_ him for a libel:
he says in King Lear, "A base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three suited,
hundred pound, filthy, worsted stocking knave."

P.T.W.

* * * * *

I asked a poor man, how he did? He said, he was like a washball,
always in decay.--_Swift_.

* * * * *

CAT-FANCIER.

Lady Morgan gives the following anecdote in her _Book of the Boudoir_.
"The first day we had the honour of dining at the palace of the
Archbishop of Taranto, at Naples, he said to me, you must pardon my
passion for cats, (_la mia passione gattesca_) but I never exclude
them from my dining-room, and you will find they make excellent
company." Between the first and second course the door opened, and
several enormously large and beautiful Angola cats were introduced by
the names of Pantalone, Desdemona, Otello, &c. They took their places
on chairs near the table, and were as silent, as quiet, as motionless,
and as well behaved, as the most _bon ton_ table in London could
require. On the bishop requesting one of the chaplains to help
the Signora Desdemona, the butler stepped up to his lordship, and
observed, "My Lord, La Signora Desdemona will prefer waiting for the
roast."

* * * * *

ANCIENT FAMILY.

There was much sound truth in the speech of a country lad to an idler,
who boasted his ancient family: "_So much the worse for you_," said
the peasant, as we ploughmen say, "_the older the seed the worse the
crop_."

* * * * *

At North Ferryby, in Yorkshire, the following very instructive
lines, are inscribed on a handsome tablet to the memory of Sir T.
Etheringto