*

LITERARY CLUBS.

O what curses, not loud, but deep, has not old Simpkin, of the Crown
and Anchor, in his day, and Willis and Kay in later times, groaned at
the knot of authors who were occupying one of his best dining-rooms
up-stairs, and leaving the Port, and claret, and Madeira to a death-like
repose in the cellar, though the waiter had repeatedly popped his head
into the apartment with an admonitory "Did you ring, gentlemen?" to
awaken them to a becoming sense of the social duties of man.--_New
Monthly Mag_.

* * * * *

ALLIGATORS SWALLOWING STONES.

The Indians on the banks of the Oronoko assert, that previously to an
alligator going in search of prey, it always swallows a large stone,
that it may acquire additional weight to aid it in diving and dragging
its victims under water. A traveller being somewhat incredulous on this
point, Bolivar, to convince him, shot several with his rifle, and in all
of them were found stones, varying in weight according to the size of
the animal. The largest killed was about 17 feet in length, and had
within him a stone weighing about 60 or 70 pounds.

* * * * *

CRICKET.

Miss Mitford, in one of her charming sketches, tells us of a
cricket-ball being thrown five hundred yards. This is what the people
who write for Drury-lane and Covent-garden would call "pitching it
pretty strong."

* * * * *

ADVANTAGES OF CHEAP BOOKS.

When Goldsmith boasted of having seen a splendid copy of his poems in
the cabinet of some great lord, saying emphatically, "This is fame, Dr.
Johnson," the doctor told him that, for his part, he would have been
more disposed to self-gratulation had he discovered any of the progeny
of his mind thumbed and tattered in the cabin of a peasant.--_Q.
Rev._

* * * * *

REMEMBRANCE.

I recollect my happy home,
My pleasures as a child;
The forest where I used to roam,
The rocks so bleak and wild.
That home is tenantless; the spot
It graced is rude and bare;
The lov'd ones gone, our name forgot.
And desolation there.

_Forget Me Not_--1829.

In how many thousand hearts will this lament find an echo!

* * * * *

The Gatherer

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.

SHAKSPEARE.

* * * * *

QUID PRO