nch brewed by
Hogg in Burns' bowl, and in general very kindly and socially helped into
the many glasses sent up for it by Lord Mahon: there was also some
beautiful singing by Broadhurst, Wilson, Templeton, and Messrs. Jolly,
Stansbury, Chapman, and other vocalists. The Shepherd, too, treated us
with an original song, the burden of which was 'Robin's awa.' It is a
lament for Burns as the best of the minstrels; but it was brought in by a
laugh, in consequence of the toast-master calling for silence for a song
from _Mr_. Shepherd."

By the _Gazette_ report we conclude the Festival must have ended as many
such meetings do; and never better expressed than by Lord Byron in his
facete moments--"then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then
unintelligible, then altogethery, then inarticulate, and then"--but we
have done.

There is some talk of an annual national meeting on this day among the
parties with whom this "Festival" originated: but we think others will say
it were better to leave ill-done alone, lest it become worse. Probably the
next "Noctes" of _Blackwood's Magazine_ will set the matter at rest by
giving the world the only true and faithful account of this memorable
meeting.

* * * * *

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS.

LACONIC JUSTICE.

Over the door of the town-hall, in Zante, one of the Greek Islands (the
better to instruct the magistrates in their public duty) these verses are
inscribed:--

Hic locus 1 odit, 2 amat, 3 punit, 4 conservat, 5 honorat,
1 Nequitiam, 2 pacem, 3 crimina, 4 jura, 5 probos.

_Thus Englished by G. Sandys_.

This place doth 1 hate, 2 love, 3 punish, 4 keep, 5 requite,
1 voluptuous not, 2 peace, 3 crimes, 4 laws, 5 th' upright

_From Heylyn's Cosmographie_.

* * * * *

FLOATING SCHEME.

In George the Third's collection of tracts, now in the British Museum, is
a broadside of one page, commencing thus:--"In the name of God, amen! John
Bulmer, of London, esquire, Master and Surveyor of the King's Majesties
Mines, &c. &c. propoundeth--by God's assistance, that he the said John
Bulmer, shall and will, at and in a flowing water, set out a boat or
vessel with an engine, floating with a man or boy, in and on board the
said boat, in the River of Thames, over against the Tower-wharf, or lower.
Which said boat, with the said man or boy, in or aboard her, shall the
same tide before low-water again, by art of the