en the author of
_Anastasius_.

* * * * *

SMART REPARTEE.

Walpole relates, after an execution of _eighteen_ malefactors, a woman
was hawking an account of them, but called them _nineteen_. A gentleman
said to her, "Why do you say _nineteen_? there were but _eighteen_
hanged." She replied, "Sir, I did not know _you_ had been reprieved."

* * * * *

COLTON'S "LACON."

This remarkable book was written upon covers of letters and scraps
of paper of such description as was nearest at hand; the greater
part at a house in Princes-street, Soho. Colton's lodging was a
penuriously-furnished second-floor, and upon a rough deal table,
with a stumpy pen, our author wrote.

Though a beneficed clergyman, holding the vicarage of Kew, with
Petersham, in Surrey, Colton was a well-known frequenter of the
gaming-table; and, suddenly disappearing from his usual haunts in
London about the time of the murder of Weare, in 1823, it was strongly
suspected he had been assassinated. It was, however, afterwards
ascertained that he had absconded to avoid his creditors; and in 1828
a successor was appointed to his living. He then went to reside in
America, but subsequently lived in Paris, a professed gamester; and it
is said that he thus gained, in two years only, the sum of 25,000_l_. He
blew out his brains while on a visit to a friend at Fontainebleau, in
1832; bankrupt in health, spirits, and fortune.

* * * * *

BUNYAN'S COPY OF "THE BOOK OF MARTYRS."

There is no book, except the Bible, which Bunyan is known to have
perused so intently as the _Acts and Monuments_ of John Fox, the
martyrologist, one of the best of men; a work more hastily than
judiciously compiled, but invaluable for that greater and far more
important portion which has obtained for it its popular name of _The
Book of Martyrs_. Bunyan's own copy of this work is in existence, and
valued of course as such a relic of such a man ought to be. It was
purchased in the year 1780, by Mr. Wantner, of the Minories; from him it
descended to his daughter, Mrs. Parnell, of Botolph-lane; and it was
afterwards purchased, by subscription, for the Bedfordshire General
Library.

This edition of _The Acts and Monuments_ is of the date 1641, 3 vols,
folio, the last of those in the black-letter, and probably the latest
when it came into Bunyan's hands. In each volume he has written his na