pecimens:--

At the end of an old medical book which I have in my possession, are the
following, among other advertisements:--"_The new Plannet no Plannet_, or
the Earth no _Wandring_ Star. Here, out of the principles of divinity,
philosophy, &c. the earth's immobility is asserted, and _Copernicus_, his
opinion, as erroneous, &c. fully refuted, by _Alexander Ross_, in quarto."

"_A Recantation of an Ill-led Life_, or a discovery of the highway law, as
also many _cautelous_ admonitions, and ful instructions how to know, shun,
and apprehende a _thiefe_, most necessary for all honest travellers to
peruse, observe, and practice; written by _John Clavel_, gent."

* * * * *

ENGLISH FASHIONS.

Our constant changes of habit were the subject of ridicule at home and
abroad, even at an early period. Witness the ancient limner's jest in 1570,
who, being employed to decorate the gallery of the Lord Admiral Lincoln
with representations of the costumes of the different nations of Europe,
when he came to the English, drew a naked man, with cloth of various
colours lying by him, and a pair of shears held in his hand, as in rueful
suspense and hesitation; or the earlier conceit, to the same effect, of
"Andrew Borde of Physicke Doctor," alias "Andreas Perforatus," who, to the
first chapter of his "Boke of the Instruction of Knowledge," (1542,)
prefixed a naked figure, with these lines:--

"I am an Englishman, and naked I stande here,
Musing in minde what rayment I shal weare:
For nowe I wil weare this, and now I will weare that--
And now I will weare I cannot telle whatt."

* * * * *

THE GATHERER.

"A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles."

SHAKSPEARE.

* * * * *

CONNING (_quasi Cunning_.)

A convict, during the voyage to New South Wales, slipped overboard, and
was drowned--What was his crime?--_Felo de se_ (fell o'er the sea.)

* * * * *

THE CHANGES OF TIME.

I dreamt, in Fancy's joyous day,
That every passing month was May;
But Reason told me to remember,
And now, alas! they're all December!

* * * * *

The only memorial of the death of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, remaining
at Kirkby Moorside (where he died in obscurity and distress,) is an
entry in an old register of burials, which runs thu