* * *

PAINTING CATS.

Gottfried Mind, a celebrated Swiss painter, was called the _Cat-Raphael_,
from the excellence with which he painted that animal. This peculiar
talent was discovered and awakened by chance. At the time when
Freudenberger was painting that since-published picture of the peasant
cleaving wood before his cottage, with his wife sitting by, and feeding
her child with pap out of a pot, round which a cat is prowling, Mind cast
a broad stare on the sketch of this last figure, and said in his rugged,
laconic way, "That is no cat!" Freudenberger asked, with a smile, whether
Mind thought he could do it better. Mind offered to try; went into a
corner, and drew the cat, which Freudenberger liked so much that he made
his new pupil finish it out, and the master copied the scholar's work--for
it is Mind's cat that is engraven in Freudenberger's plate. Imitations of
Mind's cats are already common in the windows of printsellers.

* * * * *

PLAY-WRITING.

When the manager of a theatre engaged Sacchini to write an opera, he was
obliged to shut him up in a room with his mistress and his favourite cats,
without them at his side he could do nothing. The fifth act of _Pizarro_
was actually finished by Sheridan on the first evening of its performance,
when the illustrious playwright was shut up in a room with a plate of
sandwiches and two bottles of claret, to finish his drama.

* * * * *

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS.

THE BISHOPRICKS OF ENGLAND AND WALES

Were instituted according to the following order of time, viz. London an
Archbishoprick and Metropolitan of England, founded by Lucius, the first
Christian king of Britain, A.D. 185; Llandaff, 185; Bangor, 516; St.
David's, 519. The Archbishoprick of Wales from 550 till 1100, when the
Bishop submitted to the Archbishop of Canterbury as his Metropolitan;
St. Asaphs, 547. St. Augustine (or Austin) made Canterbury the Metropolitan
Archbishoprick, by order of Pope Gregory, A.D. 596; Wells, 604; Rochester,
604; Winchester, 650; Lichfield and Coventry, 656; Worcester, 679;
Hereford, 680; Durham, 690; Sodor and Man, 898; Exeter, 1050; Sherborne
(changed to Salisbury) 1056; York (Archbishoprick) 1067; Dorchester
(changed to Lincoln) 1070; Chichester, 1071; Thetford (changed to Norwich)
1088; Bath and Wells, 1088; Ely, 1109; Carlisle, 1133. The following six
were founded upon the supp