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conspicuously interesting in his life and adventures of Roderick Randoin. The deceased was a very intelligent man, and took delight in recounting the scenes of his early life. He spoke with pleasure of the time he passed in the service of the Doctor, and it was his pride as well as boast to say that he had been educated at the same seminary with so learned and distinguished a character. His shop was hung round with Latin quotations, and he would frequently point out to his acquaintance the several scenes in Roderick Random pertaining to himself, which had their foundation, not in the Doctor's inventive fancy, but in truth and reality. The Doctor's meeting with him at a barber's shop at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the subsequent mistake at the Inn, their arrival together in London, and the assistance they experienced from Strap's friend, were all of that description. The deceased, to the last, obtained a comfortable subsistence by his industry, and of late years had been paid a weekly salary by the inhabitants of the Adelphi, for keeping the entrances to Villier's-walk, and securing the promenade from the intrusion of strangers.

There is another claimant for this honor mentioned by Mr. Faulkner, in his History of Chelsea, vol. i. p. 171, who states that Mr. W. Lewis, of Lombard Street, Chelsea, was the original of this character. He established himself in Chelsea by Smollett's advice, and died there about 1785. Faulkner states that he resided with his widow for seven years, and thus had opportunities of being acquainted with the facts.

COLERIDGE'S OPINION OF DEFOE.

Wilson, in his Memoirs of the Life and Times of Defoe, vol. ii. p. 205, having quoted the opinion of the editor of Cadell's edition of Robinson Crusoe—" that Defoe wanted many of those qualities, both of mind and manner, which fitted Steele and Addison to be the inimitable arbitri elegantiarum of English society, there can be no doubt,”—Coleridge wrote in the margin of his copy, "I doubt this, particularly in respect to Addison, and think I could select from Defoe's writings a volume equal in size to Addison's collected papers, little inferior in wit and humor, and greatly superior in vigor of style and thought."

BURNET'S OWN TIMES.

"Did you ever read that garrulous, pleasant history? He tells his story like an old man past political service, bragging to his sons on winter evenings of the part he took in public transactions when his 'old cap was new.' Full of scandal, which all true history is. So palliative; but all the stark wickedness that actually gives the momentum to national actors. Quite the prattle of age and outlived importance. Truth and sincerity staring out upon you perpetually in alto relievo. Himself a party-man, he makes you a party-man. None of the cursed philosophical Humeian indifference, so cold and unnatural and inhuman.' None of the cursed Gibbonian fine writing, so fine and composite. None of Dr. Robertson's periods with three members. None of Mr. Roscoe's sage remarks, all so apposite and coming in so clever, lest the reader should have had the trouble of drawing an inferBurnet's good old prattle I can bring present to my mind; I can make the Revolution present to me."-Charles Lamb: Letters.

ence.

An Epigram on the Reverend Mr. Lawrence Eachard's and Bishop Gilbert Burnet's Histories. By Mr. Matthew Green, of the Custom-House.

Gil's History appears to me
Political anatomy-

A case of skeletons well done,

And malefactors every one.

His sharp and strong incision pen,

Historically cuts up men,

And does with lucid skill impart

Their inward ails of head and heart.
Lawrence proceeds another way,
And well-dressed figures does display;
His characters are all in flesh,

Their hands are fair, their faces fresh;

And from his sweet'ning art derive

A better scent than when alive;

He wax-work made to please the sons,

Whose fathers were Gil's skeletons.

From a Collection of Poems by several hands. London: Dodsley, 1748.

THE LAST OF THE PALEOLOGI.

About two centuries ago, lived and died in England, Theodore Paleologus, the immediate descendant of the Constantine family. He is buried in the church of St. Landulph, near Saltash, in the county of Cornwall. The following is his epitaph :

Here lyeth the body of Theodoro Paleologus
Of Pesaro in Italye, descended from ye Imperyail
Lyne of ye last Christian Emperors of Greece
Being the sonne of Camilio, ye soñe of Prosper
the sonne of Theodoro the sonne of Iohn, ye sonne
of Thomas, second brother to Constantine
Paleologus, the 8th of that name and last of
yt lyne yt raygned in Constantinople, untill sub-
dewed by the Turkes, who married with Mary
Ye daughter of William Balls of Hadlye in
Souffolke Gent, & had issue 5 children, Theo-
doro, Iohn, Ferdinando, Maria & Dorothy, and de-
parted this life at Clyfton ye 21th of January, 1636.

WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS.

Ennui.--"Cleland (voc. 165) has, with his usual sagacity, and with a great deal of trouble, as he himself acknowledges, traced out the true meaning and derivation of this word; for after he had long despaired of discovering the origin of it, mere chance, "In he says, offered to him what he took to be the genuine one. an old French book I met," says he, "with a passage where the author, speaking of a company that had sat up late, makes use of

this expression, 'l'ennuit les avoit gagnés,' by the context of which it was plain he meant that the common influence of the night, in bringing on heaviness and yawning, had come upon them. The proper sense is totally antiquated, but the figurative. remains in full currency to this day."-Lemon's Etymological Dictionary.

Tandem.-A practical pun is now naturalized in our language in the word "Tandem " (at length).

Brown Study.—Surely a corruption of brow-study, brow being derived from the old German, braun, in its compound form aug-braun, an eyebrow..

Scamp.-The word means literally a fugitive from the field, one qui ex campo exit.

Luncheon. -Our familiar name of luncheon is derived from the daily meal of the Spaniards at eleven o'clock, termed once or l'once (pronounced l'onchey).—From Ford's Gatherings in Spain.

Geho!-A learned friend, whose communications I have frequently had occasion to acknowledge in the course of this work, says the exclamation "Geho! Geho!" which carmen use to their horses, is probably of great antiquity. It is not peculiar to this country, as I have heard it used in France. In the story of the Milkmaid, who kicked down her pail, and with it all her hopes of getting rich, as related in a very ancient collection of apologues, entitled Dialogus Creaturarum, printed at Gonda in 1480, is the following passage: "Et cum sie gloriaretur, et cogitaret cum quantâ gloriâ duceretur ad illum virum super equum dicendo gio gio, cepit percutere terram quasi pungeret equum calcaribus.”—Brand's Popular Antiq.

Hip, Hip, Hurrah!—Originally a war-cry, adopted by the stormers of a German town, wherein a great many Jews had taken

their refuge. The place being sacked, they were all put to the sword, under the shouts of Hierosolyma est perdita! From the first letter of those words (H. e. p.) an exclamation was contrived.

There are two English words, in pronouncing which not a single letter of them is sounded; namely, ewe (yo), and aye (I).

Runic Names.-Sir William Temple, in his Essay on Poetry, says, speaking of the old Runic :

The remainders are woven into our very language. Mara, in old Runic, was a goblin that seized upon men asleep in their beds, and took from them all speech and motion. Old Nicka was a spirit that came to strangle people who fell into the water. Bo was a fierce Gothic captain, son of Odin, whose name was used by his soldiers when they would fight or surprise their enemies.

Lack-a-daisy. In Todd's Johnson it is explained as "a frequent colloquial term implying alas; most probably from the forgotten verb lack, to blame. The expression, therefore, may be considered as blaming, finding fault with, the day on which the event mentioned happened."

Banyan Day.-A marine term for those days in which the sailors have no flesh meat; and is probably derived from the practice of the Banians, a caste of Hindoos, who entirely abstained from all animal food.

Snooks.-This name, so generally associated with vulgarity, is only a corruption, or rather a contraction, of the more dignified name of Sevenoaks. This town is generally called Se’noaks in Kent; and the further contraction, coupled with the phonetic spelling of former days, easily passed into S'nooks. This is no imaginary conclusion, for Messrs. Sharp and Harrison, solicitors, Southampton, have recently had in their possession a series of deeds, in which all the modes of spelling occur from Sevenokes down to S'nokes, in connection with a family now known as Snooks.

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