salt fish ; and with that view there was a provision of one hundred and sixty gallons of mustard per year; so that there cannot be any thing more erroneous than the magnificent ideas formed of "the roast beef of Old England." On flesh days, (that is, when meat was not forbidden by the roman catholic religion,) through the year, breakfast for my lord and lady was a loaf of bread, two manchets,* a quart of beer, a quart of wine, half a chine of mutton, or a chine of beef boiled. On meagre days, (or when meat was forbidden,) a loaf of bread, two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, a dish of butter, a piece of salt fish, or a dish of buttered eggs. During Lent, a loaf of bread, two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, two pieces of salt fish, six baconed herrings, four white herrings, or a dish of sprats. There was as little variety in other meals, except on festival days; and this way of living was, at the time, high luxury. Fowls, pigeons, plovers, and partridges, were prohibited as delicacies, except at my lord's table. The table-cloth was washed about once a month; no sheets were used; and only forty shillings were allowed for washing throughout the year. The family rose at six in the morning, dined at ten, and supped at four in the afternoon; and the castle gates were shut at nine. Mass was said in the chapel at six o'clock, that all the servants might rise early. The earl passed the year at three country seats, but he had furniture only for one: he carried every thing along with him, beds, tables, chairs, kitchen utensils; and seventeen carts and one wagon conveyed the whole: one cart sufficed for all his kitchen utensils, cooks' beds, &c. There were in the establishment eleven priests, besides seventeen persons, chanters, musicians, &c. belonging to the chapel. No mention is made of plate, but only hiring of pewter vessels. Wine was allowed in abundance for my lord's table, but the beer for the hall was poor indeed; only a quarter of malt being allowed for two hogsheads. The servants seem all to have bought their own clothes from their wages. Every thing in the household was done by order, with the pomp of proclamation; and laughable as it may now seem, an order was issued for the right making of mustard, beginning, “it seemeth good to us and our council.' In this apparently sumptuous establishment, even the person who kept the account of oats and corn used in the stables had a • Small loaves of fine bread. kind of title: he was called the clerk of the avenar; and one of the towers of the outer court of Alnwick Castle is, to this day, called the Avenar's Tower. But there were only two cooks, a groom of the larder, and a child of the scullery, to victual this numerous family of two hundred persons. The regulations of this household do not, however, accord with our ideas of hospitality. All joints of meat were entered and accounted for by clerks: if a servant was absent a day, his mess was struck off: if he went on my lord's business, board wages was allowed him, 8d. a day for his journey in the winter, 5d. in summer: when he stayed in a place, 2d. a day was allowed him, besides the maintenance of his horse. The under servants ate salted meat almost throughout the whole year, and with few or no vegetables; so that they had a very bad and unhealthy diet. The earl kept only twenty-seven horses in his stable at his own charge: his upper servants had allowance for maintaining their own horses. When on a journey, he carried thirty-six horsemen along with. him; together with beds and other accommodation.-Domestic Life in England. MEDICAL PROPERTIES OF LEGUMINACEOUS PLANTS, &c. THE first that we shall notice as belonging to this family, shall be the Tamarindus Indica, or Tamarind Tree, since its beauty and its grateful fruitage entitle it to a pre-eminence in our regards. The fair trunk of the tamarind is surmounted by a tuft of wide-spreading branches, which bow their soft green twigs towards the earth from which they derive the material for their growth and developement. Amidst the delightful foliage, at certain seasons of the year, may be seen numerous diffusive clusters of various flowers, imparting by their tincture a lovely contrast to the verdure around them. These flowers are succeeded by as many pods of a most irregular and fanciful description. They are variously incurved, bent sideways, swelled out or prolonged, so that it would be difficult to meet with a pair upon the same tree, which had much resemblance to each in point of shape and size. But the varying form and dimensions of the pods, instead of impeding the beauty of the tree, add to its effect by varying the extreme regularity of the branches. Just as, in painting, the introduction of a few broken lines, the fragment of a ruin, or a leafless tree, relieves the sameness of even proportions,and greatly increases the effect of the picture. The pods are at first composed of a dense substance, penetrated with numerous woody fibres, after the resemblance of bark. In the unripe state they possess an acid remarkable for its poignancy, so that it is impossible for the tasters to keep their features in their natural position. This sourness is abated as they ripen, and tempered with a flavour that renders them peculiarly_acceptable to the feverish patient. The Arabian physicians were the first who prescribed the tamarind as a medicine; the Greek and Roman writers seem not to have known of its existence. The tamarind is a native both of the East and West Indies, and though authors notice a difference between the pods brought from those opposite regions, they are doubtless the production of one and the same tree, since, as we have stated from our own observation, they are so unlike each other when growing upon the same tree. The tamarind is compounded of tamar, the Hebrew and Arabic term for a palm or date-tree, and Ind, India. From which we may collect, that the first who named them were unacquainted with their origin; since there is not the remotest affinity between the tamarind and the date-tree. goat's Astragalus tragacantha, the thorn or milk vetch.-The most obvious mark of distinction in the astragalus is found in the pod, which is two-celled; the inner ridges which we observed in the pod of the pea are prolonged so far as to meet and unite. The goat's vetch now under consideration is a native of Asiatic Turkey, and the southern parts of Europe; particularly of Italy, Sicily, and Crete. Tournefort found it growing plentifully about Mount Ida, where he examined the plant in the month of July, when both the bark and the wood were discovered to be replete with gum tragacanth, which by the impulse of the sun's beams forces its way through the bark, and concretes into irregular lumps or long worm-like pieces, bent into a variety of shapes. The goat's thorn has not its name for nothing; for the stems of this shrub are fenced about with long sharppointed thorns, so as to exhibit a very formidable appearance. The small leaflets are ranged in a series on each side of a midrib ending in a pointed thorn. This circumstance intimates, what has often been said, that thorns are stunted leaves, which for lack of nutriment have been taught to put on a less attractive form. The mountainous region of Lebanon, so familiar in description to the students of Scripture, abounds in a shrub of the same genus, which likewise yields gum tragacanth. The There is no medicament with which we chief distinctions between the two shrubs are better acquainted than liquorice are these-the cretan or common astragaits agreeable and spicy flavour, and its lus has its stem blackish, and its leaves efficacy in soothing the inflammatory downy, while the stem of the Lebanon action of colds, have rendered it a general astragalus is yellow, and its leaves are favourite. The shrub from whose root smooth. The best gum tragacanth, which it is extracted belongs to the leguminous is more generally known under the name family; that is to say, its blossom is simi- of gum dragon, is of a nearly transparent lar in conformation to that of a pea, whiteness, and very unlike those dingy and its seeds are ripened in a pod. Its parched fragments which are often sold for systematic name, glycyrrhiza, signifies, ait. Its fineness depends upon the health of sweet root, and is therefore a very proper appellation. The glycyrrhiza glabra is a native of Spain, but is now cultivated very commonly in the neighbourhood of London. Nor does the liquorice prepared from the root of the cultivated plant, seem inferior to that which is obtained from it when growing in its native soil. It is not liable to fermentation, and therefore may be taken without any fear of disordering the stomach, while the power it has of preventing thirst renders it peculiarly acceptable as a comfort in slight fevers, where the patient feels an uneasy dryness, accompanied by a craving after something that is not within reach the shrub and the freedom with which the gum flows when the incision is made. Gum tragacanth possesses the softening qualities of gum arabic, and even, it would seem, in a higher degree; but it is not so readily dissolved in water as that wellknown drug. Either of them may be used with kindly effect, when the surfaces of the internal passages of the body are inflamed by dysentery, and other disorders of the bowels. In cases of this malady, it is customary to administer the laudanum which is given at night in a glass of gumwater. The writer of this has long been in the habit of using gum tragacanth, or, to call it by its more frequent name, gum dragon, in fastening botanical specimens | After this description of the goat's-thorn Spartium scoparium, common broom. Dr. Cullen found the broom, as a decoction, in great use among the common people; from thence he was led to make trial of it, and discovered that it answered extremely well as a purgative, when two table spoonfuls were given every hour till it operated. The ashes of broom have been much used in dropsies, on the authority of Sydenham, whose account of their good effects have been since confirmed by the testimony of Dr. Monro, and other writers. The broom, by incineration or reducing to ashes, is found to | GOD'S OMNISCIENCE AND HOLINESS MARK HIS OMNISCIENCE. God knew in heart and life. It was his meat and drink to do his Father's will. He loved God with all his heart and soul, and his neighbour as himself. Attempts have, at various times, been made to fix on him some charge of sin; but all have failed, and have only served to manifest more clearly his sinless holiness. Although more than eighteen centuries have passed since his birth, and although his character has been sifted and scrutinized, as that of no other man ever was, by Pharisees and Sadducees, by philosophers and sages, by infidels and atheists, by sects and parties, by friends and foes, yet, unto this day, no charge of sin was ever proved against him. His character stands alone among men. There is none equal or second thereto. All other men must stand afar off, and gaze with admiration; yea, rather, they must abase themselves at the contrast, and cry, How glorious is God! how vile is man! And do you not see the holiness of God in this also, that while the gospel of Christ offers you a full and free pardon, and an entire justification, yet it tells every soul among you-This is not that you may continue n sin? God forbid! In order to this, you must be born again. You must have a new heart, a new spirit, a new life. "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord," Heb xii. 14; but in acquiring this, God offers you, through Christ, the grace and strength of the Holy Spirit to encourage, sustain, and effectually enable. Thus no man can gain a right view of God, as he proposes himself in the gospel, without having the thought continually pressed upon his soul, "God is infinitely holy; but I am altogether unholy."-Hambleton. CONSISTENCY.OF THE SACRED WRITERS. THERE is one argument which impresses my mind with particular force. This is, the great variety of the kinds of evidence which have been adduced in proof of christianity, and the confirmation thereby afforded of its truth: the proof from prophecy; from miracles; from the character of Christ; from that of his apostles; from the nature of the doctrine of christianity; from the nature and excellence of her practical precepts; from the accordance between the doctrinal and practical system of christianity, whether considered each in itself or in their mutual relation to each other; from other species of internal evidence, afforded in the more abundance, in proportion as the sacred records have been scrutinized with greater care; from the accounts of contemporary, or nearly contemporary writers; from the impossibility of accounting, on any other supposition than that of the truth of christianity, for its promulgation and early prevalence: -these and other lines of argument have all been brought forward, and ably urged by different writers, in proportion as they have struck the minds of different observers more or less forcibly. Now granting that some obscure and illiterate men, residing in a distant province of the Roman empire, had plotted to impose a forgery upon the world, though some foundation! for the imposture might, and indeed must have been attempted to be laid, it seems, at least to my understanding, morally impossible that so many different species of proofs, and all so strong, should have lent their concurrent aid, and have united their joint force in the establishment of the falsehood. It may assist the reader in estimating the value of this argument, to consider upon how different a footing, in this respect, has rested every other religious system, without exception, which was ever proposed to the world, and indeed every other historical fact of which the truth has been at all contested.-Wilberforce. BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF ATMOSPHERIC AIR. I WOULD wish to observe how beautiful an instance the history of atmospherical air affords of the multiplicity of beneficial effects, of very different characters, produced by one and the same agent ; and often at one and the same moment. While the air of the atmosphere serves as the reservoir of that mass of water from whence clouds of rain, and consequently springs and rivers are derived, at the same time it prevents, by the effect of its pressure on their surface, the unlimited ́evaporation and consequent exhaustation of the ocean, and other sources from whence that mass of water is supplied. And again, while the agitation of the air contributes to the health of man, by supplying those currents which remove or prevent the accumulation of local impurities, it at the same time facilitates that intercourse between different nations, in which the welfare of the whole world is ulti mately concerned. And lastly, while in passing from the lungs in the act of expiration, it essentially forms the voice; it at the same time removes from the system that noxious principle, the retention of which would be incompatible with life.-Professor Kidd. ANTICIPATION OF TROUBLE. EXPECT troubles before they come. The very state of the world is uncertain and unstable, and for the most part stormy and troublesome. If there be some inter We vals of tranquillity and sedateness, they | ing man that W. R. In about an hour and a half we were on the familiar terms of long acquaintance, and gilded each subsequent intercourse with the most copious pouring out of mutual sentiment. spent one whole day between the luxuries of the farmers' kitchens and wandering on the banks of the Severn, which we laid under contribution for a wide diversification of fancies and arguments. He is of that class of men who never think of bartering their friendly qualities. One has neither to There covet them nor purchase them. they are ready for you; and if you have only sense to estimate and feeling to reciprocate them, they come forward to meet you without manœuvre, without counting steps, without punctilious adjustment. His first actions seem to say, I have a heart,—I hope you have one?' those banks on which Nature has displayed her own violets and roses, and seems to say to Art- I don't want you; I despise you.' He is one of the few favourites whom Nature chose to retain, in order to present to Wisdom, when she sold the rest of the world to be cut and painted and twisted into fashion, formality, and insipidity, or that kind of low cunning which gives me the idea of a man distilled." : are commonly attended with longer periods of unquietness and trouble: and the greatest impressions are then made by them when they surprise us and come unexpectedly. When the mind is prepared for them by a kind of anticipation, it abates the edge, and keenness, and sharpness of them. By this means, a man, in a great measure, knows the worst of them before he feels them; which renders them not so smart and troublesome to sense as otherwise they would be. This pre-apprehension and anticipation of troubles and difficulties is the mother of prevention, where it is possible; and where it is not, yet it is the mother of patience and resolution when they come. Bilney, the martyr, was wont, before he suffered, to put his finger in the candle, to habituate himself to patient undergoing of his future martyrdom by this means he, in a great measure, knew the worst of it, and armed himself with resolution and patience to bear it. Men are apt to feed their fancies with the anticipation of what they hope for and wish in this world, and to possess it in imagination before they attain it in fruition; and this makes men vain: but if they would have the patience sometimes to anticipate what they have just cause to fear, and to put themselves under a pre-apprehension of it, in relation to crosses and troubles, it would make them wise, and teach them a lesson of patience and moderation before they have occasion to use it; so that they need not then begin to learn it, when the present pressure renders the lesson more difficult. This was the method our blessed Lord took with his disciples, frequently to tell them beforehand what they must expect in the world, Matt. X., and in divers other places, telling them they must expect in this world the worst of temporal evils, that they might thereby be prepared to entertain them with resolution and patience, and might habituate their minds for their reception.— Sir M. Hale. A PLEASING ACQUAINTANCE. THE following particulars are given in a letter by the late Rev. Joseph Hughes, M. A.: "The quiet situation and beautiful scenery of Thornbury give it the appearance of a nest placed in a recess of the world, and I passed a number of days in that feeling of complacency which is imparted by goodness and sense in a rural abode. A most pleas | He is like one of CONFORMITY TO CHRIST. THE life of God in us consists in con formity to Christ; nor is the Holy Spirit, as the principal and efficient cause of it, given to us for any other end but to unite us to him and make us like him! Wherefore the original gospel duty, which animates and rectifies all others, is a desire for conformity to Christ in all the gracious principles and qualifications of his holy soul, wherein the image of God in him doth consist. His meekness, lowliness of mind condescension unto all sorts of persons, his love and kindness to mankind, his readiness to do good to all, with patience and forbearance, are continually set before us in his example. With respect unto them it is required, that the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus, and that we walk in love, as he also loved us, Eph, v. 2, Phil. ii. 5, Rom. viii. 29.-Owen. |