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In James I.'s reign, the two universities and the stationers' company had patent privileges exclusively to themselves. Thomas Carman, a bookseller and astrologer, had a trial respecting this right, and obtained a verdict in his favour. This cunning man gives the following sage advice: "Astrologers ought never to pronounce anything absolutely or peremptorily concerning future contingences, the reason is, lest he bring himself and the art under censure and condemnation, in case it happens he shall not take his measures truly, and the event contradict or answer not his prediction or prognostication." However, this piece of admonition was lost upon himself, who is said to have been so infatuated by the art, that having foretold the time of his own death, he starved himself, to prove the truth of his own prediction." Gentleman's Magazine.

Partridge's, Moore's, and Poor Robin's, are the oldest; an early copy of the last has the following remarks:

"It is customary to dedicate almanacs, as well as other books, so this is dedicated to the world; with pipers and ballad-singgers, it is a merry world; with sick people, prisoners, and moneyless persons, a sad world; with soldiers, a hard world; with lawyers, a contentious world; with a courtier, a slippery world; with most men, a mad world; and with all men, a bad world!" There is a mass of doggrel poetry for each month of the year, January begins thus:

"Best physic now to give relief,

Is legs of pork and chines of beef."

In prose he pompously tells his credulous dupes: "There will be little of action among soldiers, unless it be some of the centinels blowing off their nailes."

Poor Robin's, for 1685, gives the following list of drinkables which he recommends in his January rhapsody of rhymes: “China ale, cock ale, lemon ale, posset ale, Lambeth ale, horseradish ale, spiced ale, scurvy-grass ale, elemosynary ale."

"O ale ab alendo, thou liquor of life,

That I had but a mouth as big as a whale,
For mine is too little to speak the least tittle,
That belong to the praise of a pot of good ale."

"The diet most suitable to this season is custards and cheesecakes, flawns, fools, and flap-jacks, bacon froyzes and hastypuddings, stewed prunes and sugar plums; and for the drinks, tankards of wine with lemons, bowls of punch, cider bracket, stepony, pomperkins, and a glass of brisk canary, which is never out of season. Sack seems to have been composed of other wines, as we say of punch, viz.: rum-punch, arrack-punch, only

specifying the name of the particular spirit: so of sack, there was sherry-sack, canary-sack, &c. They were very fond of sherry, here are some lines in praise of it:

Metheglin is fulsome,

Cold cyder and raw perry,

Thus all drinks stand, with cap in hand,
In presence of old sherry.

Now let us drink old sack, old sack,
Which makes us blythe and merry;
The life of mirth, the joy of earth,
Is a good cup of old sherry!

(From a description of "Cambridge Studies and Manners," 1632, it appears the following were the prices of wines, a bottle of sack 1s. 7d., of claret 10d.)

"This quarter being so cold, makes people very hungry, so that now all sorts of victuals will go down, whether it be the bag puddings of Gloucestershire, the black puddings of Worcestershire, the white puddings of Somersetshire, the hasty puddings of Hampshire, or the pudding-pies of any shire; whether sausages or links of Devonshire, white pots or Norfolk dumplings, all of them this quarter are in season; but especially about the latter end of December feed heartily on plum-porridge and mince-pies."*

He gives the following characteristic advice on travelling: 1st. For those who have a mind to see strange countries, let

* Mince, or shred, or Christmas pies, are said to have been suggested by the offerings of the wise men, who came to worship on the birth of our Saviour, bringing spices, &c. According to Misson's "Travels in England," the composition consisted of neat's tongues, chickens, eggs, sugar, raisins, lemon and orange peel, with various kinds of spicery, &c. In the Northern parts, according to Brand, "a goose was the chief ingredient;" he says, the first thing served up at the chaplain's table, at St. James' palace, was a turrcen of rich luscious plum porridge. According to Selden's "Table Talk," the hollow or coffin shape of the Christmas pie, is the imitation of the cratch or manger in which the infant Jesus was laid. Brand says, "about the reigns of Elizabeth and James, they were called minched pies." The ingredients and shape of these pies are mentioned in a satire of 1656.

"Christmas, give me my beads! the word implies,
A plot by its ingredients, beef and pies,
The cloister'd steaks, with salt and pepper lye,
Like nunnes with patches in a monasterie,
Prophaneness in a conclave! nay, much more,
Idolatorie in crust,

And bak'd by hanches, then

Serv'd up in coffins to unholy men;

Defil'd with superstition, like the Gentiles

Of old, that worship'd onions, roots, and lentiles." FLETCHER.

me tell them that Spain hath the best exchequer, France the best granary, England the fattest kitchen, Italy the richest wardrobe, Germany the best wood-yard, and Holland the best dairy.

2d. There shall be much contrariety in the natures and disposition of divers nations, as may appear by their actions; for when you see three Swedes, then you see two swash-bucklers; three Danes, two dissemblers; three Italians, two swaggerers; three Spaniards, two lofty persons; three Frenchmen, two W masters; three Dutchmen, two drunkards; three Englishmen, two tobacconists; three Scotchmen, two beggars; three Irishmen, two rebels; but when you see three Welchmen, then you see four gentlemen."

"These laboured nothings in so strange a style

Amaz'd the unlearned, and made the learned smile."

After Poor Robin had puzzled, plagued, and amused the nation for 170 years, it was dropped only a year or two past. But Moore's, is at once the most foolish compound of nonsense, that can possibly be conceived; a perfect mess of astrological predictions, (agreeable to the advice of Tom Carman,) which will bear any construction, the moon struck novices choose to imagine. The writers of these queer things, seems to act up to the idea, that the veriest nonsense will be liked most. They have trespassed upon human patience, more than any other description of writers. It has been poetically observed,

"A little nonsense, now and then,

Is relished by the wisest men."

But this abominable thing is all nonsense; astrologers, or rather their credulous dupes, should recollect, "if the stars rule mankind, God rules the stars."

"The Protestant almanac," printed at Cambridge, 1667, is full of base attacks against the Catholics. And the "Yea and Nay Almanac, for the use of the people, called, by the men of the world, Quakers," is full of lewd remarks, and loose insinuations against them; this was printed in 1680.

"Vincent Wing's almanac," having been alluded to, vol. 1, page 116. It may be proper to inform the reader, that he was born 1619, and died 1668. He was the author of an "Ephemeris for thirty years," a " Complete Catholica," and several other astrological and mathematical pieces; his "Astronomi Britanniorem," has been much commended, and is certainly a work of considerable merit.

If I give another extract from these old twattling things, it

is merely to show the manners and customs of their time. "Vintners, shall get little by rich misers this year, for instead of canary, they drink a sort of liquor somewhat between frog's drink, and small beer; too bad to be drank, and somewhat too good to turn a mill:" clearly showing they were addressed to the most besotted.

"Such were the forms that o'er th' incrusted souls,

Of our forefathers scatter'd fond delight."

The "Ladies' Diary," was began by John Tipper, 1704, master of Bablake school, in the city of Coventry. And the "Gentleman's Diary," commenced in 1741; these have held a respectable rank among mathematicians."

The "Nautical Almanac," began 1767, which may be considered official, being under the superintendence of the Astronomical Society.

In 1828, began the "British Almanac," by the society of useful knowledge; that year, the amount of stamp duty on almanacs, amounted to £30,136 3s. 9d., which, at 1s. 3d. each, shows there were then in circulation, only 451,593. Whereas, of that trumpery, old Moore, which has lasted about 140 years; there are now sold about half a million, exhibiting a sad mental appearance of the English reading population! While we have been dinned so long with an account of their newspapers being the "very best possible public instructors," "the march of intellect," "the school-master being abroad," and other such senseless bragging trash. And while there have been societies busily employed (or pretending to have been so,) about ameliorating the condition of the negroes, and others.

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DR. GOOD, in his "Book of Nature," says, "Philosophy is a pilgrim for the most part of honest heart, clear foresight, and unornamented in dress, and manners; the genuine bride to whom heaven has betrothed him, is reason of celestial birth, and of spotless virginity; and the fruit of so holy a union is truth, virtue, sobriety, and order.”

It is investigations of this nature, that strongly marks the distinction between "the stoic of the woods, the man without

a tear," and civilized life. Besides, as the Almighty has placed us in a beautiful world, surely we cannot better employ our leisure, and our faculties, than in investigating its productions.

Dr. Tillock finely remarks, " chemical research conducts to the knowledge of philosophic truths, and forms the mind to philosophic enlargement, and accuracy of thought, more happily than almost any other species of investigation, in which the human intellect can be employed."

But all of us cannot be chemists; men's minds are so variously formed, that some sciences are more adapted to some people than others; and, perhaps, many errors are made in placing youth to objects and pursuits, for which the natural bent of their minds, or turn of their thoughts, are not adapted; fond parents, I apprehend, more often consult their own predilections, than the genius of their offspring; hence is there a cause for shifting and roving, which in a great degree would be avoided, if the mind was actually absorbed in the pleasure arising from their profession, independent of any mere profit that may arise from it; when the mind is delighted with its pursuit, more profits are more likely to arise. Nor should the rules of a sect be suffered to have too much weight; it has been well observed of the American West, that "genius has such resistless power :"

"That e'en the Quaker, stern and plain,

Felt for the blooming painter boy."

It is the study, or the practising of pursuits of this nature, which the writer offers, with some diffidence, as being in his opinion the best remedy to counteract the evil inclination for gambling, and for grogs; he can say for himself, that the pleasurable excitements arising from them, and literary pursuits, have at all times afforded him excitement enough, and a never failing fund of contemplation and delight.

"Nature exhaustless, still has power to warm,

And every change presents a novel charm."

This study may be so conducted as to be a never-failing solace, to be as kind, and as generous, as the noble and endearing quality of mercy, which

"Gives e'en affliction a grace,

And reconciles man to his lot." CowPER.

Dr. Paley writes, "every man has a particular train of thought into which his mind falls, when at leisure from the impressions of ideas that occasionally excite it; and if one train of thinking be more desirable than another, it is surely that

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