the city. The rates paid for these lights is 68. per annum, by such whose houses front the streets. And these lights begin to burn three days after the first full moon after Michaelmas-day, and are lighted every evening at six, burning till one, two, or more, in the morning. They are said to be the invention of one Mr. Hemmings. Conic Lights-The office is situate in Lamb's Conduit Row. Mr. Cole was the first inventor of them about the year 1707. They light in common streets without the city for 48. between Micaelmas and Lady-day. Cupid's (or Cuper's) stairs, appear to be near against Somerset Stairs. Here are pleasant gardens, and whither many of the Westerly part of the town resort for pastime in the summer season. Near these stairs lise at anchor The Royal Diversion (commonly called the Folly, perhaps from the foolish things there sometimes acted). It is a timber building erected on a strong barge, where used to be the entertainments of music, &c. It takes its name from the late Queen Mary the Second, who they say once honoured it with her presence. Fleet Bridge is even with the street, It leads from Fleet-street over the Fleetditch to Ludgate-hill; is accommodated with strong battlements, which are adorned with six piers, and enriched with the arms of London, and supporters, pine apples, &c. all of stone; and between the piers are iron rails and banisters, on the North and South sides of the bridge. CASHMIR GOATS. These animals, which were at different times supposed to be sheep, goat-sheep, goats, and antilopes, are really goats, differing very little from the active inhabitants of the Welch mountains, in their general conformation, their movements, and their habits. Their horns are more or less large, the greater part straight, although many are turned backward. Their fleece is composed of long hair mingled with short, resembling down growing near the skin: it is chiefly white; there is some black hair growing near the head and neck of many, on others it grows in different spots upon the body. Their fleeces are thick, very long, and covering even their legs. THE ORGAN OF HAARLEM. (EXTRACT OF A LETTER.) The greater part of my stay in this town was spent in listening to the famous organ, the finest in the world. It is indeed the "sovereignest thing on earth," and seems made up of the very soul and essence of musical harmony. The variety of its tones is astonishing; and its power of imitating all instruments, whether single or combined, can neither be conceived by those who have not been in Haarlem, nor described by those who have. The warlike flourish of the trumpet, the clear note of the octave, and the mellow tone of the flute, are heard in beautiful succession,when these appear to swell into a thousand instruments, and the senses are nearly overpowered by the united effect of a most powerful and harmonious military band, which again sinks away in those more gentle and impressive sounds which an organ alone can produce. The organist, whose name is Schumann, played a very fine battle-piece, in which every imaginable sound of joy and sorrow,-fear, courage, misery and despair,-were combined with the roaring of musquetry, the thundrous sweep of cannon, and the loud and irresistible charge of a thousand horses; and commingled with these, during the dread intervals of comparative silence, were the shouts of the victims, the lamentations of the wounded, and the groans of the dying. No painting could have presented so clear and terrible a picture of two armies advancing in battle array, mingling in the mortal conflict, and converting the face of nature into one universal scene of confusion, dismay, and death. Rarely does music produce an effect upon the mind so permanent as either poetry or painting; but, in my own case, there is, in this instance, an exception to the general rule. I have listened to " the notes angelical of many a harp," but never were my ears seized with such ravishment as on the evening I passed at Haarlem. The organist afterwards took me up to the organloft, where I was favoured with a near inspection. I thought the appearance of the keys very diminutive, when contrasted with the sublime effect produced by them. There are about 5000 pipes belonging to this organ. The largest is 38 feet long, and 15 inches in diameter It was in the vicinity of Haarlem that the extraordinary tulip_mania, so general at one time in Holland, chiefly raged. To such a degree of violence were the inhabitants of this, and some other cities, affected by it, that the government was obliged at length to interfere, and put an end to such an absurd and ruinous species of commerce, by an official notification. In the year 1655, one hundred and twenty tulips were sold for the sum of 90,000 guilders; and it is mentioned in the Dutch records, that "single tulips have been sold for seven, eight, nine, and even ten thousand guilders, which is more than ten times what any person would have given for the garden in which they grew. curious passage occurs:-"I went to visit the Queen of England, whom I found in her daughter's chamber, who hath been since Duchess of Orleans. At my coming in, she said, "You see I am come to keep Henrietta company; the poor child could not rise to-day for want of fire."-The truth is, that the Cardinal (Mazarin) for six months had not ordered her any money towards her pension; that no tradespeople would trust her for any thing; and there was not at her lodgings in the Louvre one single billet. Posterity will hardly believe that a princess of England, grand-daughter to Henry the Great, wanted a fagot in the month of January, to get out of bed in the Louvre, and in the eyes of the French court. SKETCHES OF FEMALE BIOGRAPHY. No. III. LADY MORTON. Anne, Countess of Morton, was daughter to Sir Edward Villiers, (the great Duke of Buckingham's brother,) and wife of Robert Douglas, Lord Dalkeith, who, upon the death of his father, succeeded to the earldom of Morton. She was one of the most celebrated beauties of her age; and the graces of her mind were not inferior to those of her person; for which reason she was chosen by King Charles the First and his Queen to be governess to the Princess Henrietta, whom she conveyed in disguise from Oatlands to France, in the year 1646. At that time Mr. Waller, the poet, was there in exile, and to his private calamities, had the additional mortification of seeing that coast covered with the wrecks of a royal family, which, but a few years before, he had beheld in such flourishing prosperity. Very disproportionate to their affliction and former grandeur, was their reception at the French court, through the avarice of Mazarin, who, although a member of the sacred college, seems to have reverenced Cromwell more than his maker. In a letter written by Cardinal de Retz, giving an account of a visit which he paid to the Louvre, this MARY, PRINCESS OF ORANGE. Mary, Princess of Orange, eldest daughter of the unfortunate Charles the First, was born at St. James's, in 1631, and contracted in the tenth year of her age to William, only son of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. She was a lady whose piety and natural goodness of heart, were not confined to fruitless compassion for the calamities of her family, but were evinced in active exertion to promote its interests, and in profuse bounty to its friends, when they required her support and protection. After an absence of nineteen years she returned to her native country, to participate in the general joy at her brother's restoration. Soon after her arrival, the House of Commons presented her highness with ten thousand pounds, which, though it might in some measure prove their duty and affection, was but a small equivalent for one article of her bounty, her highness having for many years appropriated one-half of her annual revenue to the support of the Duke of Gloucester, that he might not be influenced to change his religion, by accepting a pension from the Catholic princess; but her soul was too noble either to balance benefits herself, or to reduce them to a strict computation. After having spent above three months in England, she died of the small-pox, and was interred in Henry the Eighth's chapel, December 31st, 1660, in the twenty-ninth year of her age. VERSES ON A WOODEN LEG. BY DR. SHERIDAN, THE FRIEND OF SWIFT. ones, That you may father on the devil find, The other will not lay behind :- We hav'n't done with savings yet, Or tape in bow-knots three time's three; see, Upon the wooden deputy; And it will serve him all his life, To bear him up, or beat his wife. Another thing, if he should beg, There's nothing like a wooden leg; And when he moves upon his pins, He's not afraid of broken shins; Besides he stands a fourth relation To ev'ry blockhead in the nation. Now, reader, if you please we'll stop, And moralize upon the prop. What is a leg of flesh and bone? If well proportioned, I must own It adds new beauties to the fair, And always marketable were. Like every other charm, they last, Until the honey-moon is past; With age they shrivel and they shrink, And then, alas! what must we think! Sure it should mortify our pride, To think the best are thrown aside. ARIOSTO. Ariosto Lodovico, the famous Italian poet, and author of Orlando Furioso, was born at the castle of Reggio, in Lombardy, in 1474. His father was major-domo to Duke Hercules, lived to the extent of his fortune, and left but little at his death. Ariosto, from his childhood, showed great marks of genius, especially in poetry; and wrote a comedy, in verse, on the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, which his brothers and sisters played. His father being utterly unlearned, and rather regarding profit than his son's inclinations, compelled him to study the civil law; in which, having plodded some years to no purpose, he quitted it for more pleasing studies; yet often lamented, as Ovid, Petrarch, and our own Milton, did before him, that his father banished him from the muses. At the age of 24, Ariosto lost his father, and found himself perplexed in family affairs. However, in six years, he was, for his good. parts, taken into the service of Hippolito, Cardinal of Este. At this time he had written little but a few sonnets, and now resolved to write a poem. He was, however, interrupted in his design, being chosen as a fit person to go on an embassy to Pope Julio II. where he acquitted himself so well, he was sent again, and at his return was highly favoured. Having before chosen Bayrdo's Orlando Inamorata for a ground-work, he now applied himself to his poem; but soon after incurring the cardinal's displea sure by refusing to accompany him into Hungary, he was so discouraged as to defer writing for 14 years, till the cardinal's death. He now finished, by degrees, in great perfection, what he had begun under great expectation, Duke Astolfo offered him great promotions if he would serve him; but preferring liberty to grandeur, he refused his and other offers from princes and cardinals, particularly from Leo X. from all of whom he received, notwithstanding, great presents. The Duke of Ferrana delighted so much in his comedies, of which he wrote five, that he built a stage on purpose to have them played in his court, and enabled our poet to build himself a house in Ferrara, with a pleasant garden, where he used to compose his poems, which were highly esteemed by all the princes in Italy, who sent him many presents; but he said," he would not sell his liberty for the best cardinal's cap in Rome." It was but a small though convenient house; being asked why he had not built it a more magnificent mansion, since he had given such noble descriptions of sumptuous palaces, beautiful porticos, and pleasant fountains in his Orlando Furioso? he replied, "That words were cheaper laid together than stones." Upon the door he caused to be placed the following inscription : Parva, sed opta mihi, sed nulli obnoxia, sed non Sordida, partameo, sed tamen ære, domus.. In English. This house is small, but fit for me, Yet paid for with mine own. In his diet he was temperate, and so careless of dainties, that he was fit to have lived in the world when they fed upon acorns. He began one of his comedies in his father's lifetime, when the following incident shows the remarkable talent he had for poetry. His father one day rebuked him sharply, charging him with some great fault; but all the while he returned no answer. Soon after, his brother began on the same subject; but he easily refuted him, and with strong arguments justified his own behaviour. "Why then," said his brother, "did you not satisfy my father?” “In truth," said Lodovico, "I was thinking of a part in my own comedy, and methought my father's speech was so suited to an old man chiding his son, that I forgot I was concerned in it myself, and considered it only to make a part of my play." It is also related of him, that one day passing by a potter's shop, he heard him singing a stanza out of his Orlando, with so bad a grace, that, out of patience, he broke with his stick several of his pots. The potter, in a pitiful tone, asked what he meant by wronging a poor man that had never injured him? "You rascal," he replied, "I have not done thee half the wrong you have done me; for I have broken but two or three pots of thine, not worth so many half-pence; whereas thou hast broken and mangled a stanza of mine worth a mark of gold." Ariosto was tall, of a melancholy complexion, and so absorbed in study and meditation, that he often forgot himself. His picture was drawn by Titian in a masterly manner. He was honoured with the laurel from the hands of the Emperor Charles V. He was naturally affable, always assuming less than his due, yet never putting up with a known injury, even from his superiors. He was so fearful of water, that whenever he went out in a ship, he would see others go out before him; and on land, he would alight from his horse on the slightest danger. He bore his last sickness with great resolution and serenity; and died at Ferrara, 8th of July, 1533, aged 59. He was interred in the church of the Benedictine Monks, who, contrary to their usual custom, attended his funeral. He had a bust erected him, and an inscription, written by himself, was engraved on his tomb. EXOTIC FLOWERS, FRUIT, &c. The greater number of our exotic flowers and fruits were carefully transported into this country by many of our travelled nobility and gentry. Some names have been casually preserved. The learned Linacre first brought, on his return from Italy, the damask-rose; and Thomas Lord Cromwell, in the reign of Henry VIII. enriched our fruit gardens with three different plums. In the reign of Elizabeth, Edward Grindal, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, returning from exile, transported here the me dicinal plant the tamerisk. The first oranges appear to have been brought into England by one of the Carew family; for a century after they still flourished at the family seat at Beddington, in Surrey. The cherry or chards of Kent were first planted about Sittingbourne by a gardener of Henry VIII.; and the currant-bush was transplanted when our commerce with the island of Zante was first opened in the same reign. The elder Tradescant, in 1620, entered himself on board of a privateer armed against Morocco, solely with a view of finding an opportunity of stealing apricots into Britain, and it appears that he succeeded in his design. To Sir Walter Raleigh we have not been indebted solely for the luxury of the tobacco-plant, but for that infinitely useful root, which forms part of our daily meal, and often the entire meal of a poor man-the potatoe, which deserved to have been called a Raleigh, Sir Anthony Ashley first planted cabbages in this country, and a cabbage at his feet appears on his monument. Sir Richard Weston first brought clover grass into England from Flanders, in 1645; and the figs planted by Cardinal Pole at Lambeth, so far back as the reign of Henry VIII. are said to be still remaining there: nor is this surprising, for Spelman, who set up the first paper-mill in England, at Dartford, in 1590, is said to have brought over in his portmanteau the two first lime trees, which he planted here, and which are still growing. The Lombardy poplar was introduced into England by the Earl of Rochford in 1758. The first mulberry trees in this country are now standing at Sion House. By a Harleian MS. it is mentioned that the first general planting of mulberries and making of silk in England was by William Stallenge, Comptroller of the Custom House, and Monsieur Verton, in 1608. It is probable that Monsieur Verton transplanted this novelty from his own country, where we have seen De Serres's great attempt. Here the mulberries have succeeded better than the silk-worms. The very names of many of our vegetable kingdom indicate their locality, from the majestic cedar of Lebanon, to the small Cos-lettuce, which came from the Isle of Cos; the cherry from Cerasuntis, a city of Pontus; the peach, or Persicum, or mala Persica, Persican apples, from Persia; the pistachio, or psittacia, is the Syrian word for that nut. The chesnut, or chataigne, in French, and castagna, Italian, from Castagna, a town of Magnesia. Our plums coming chiefly from Syria and Damascus, the damson, or Damascene plum, gives us a recol lection of its distant origin. It is somewhat curious to observe, on this subject, that there exists an unsuspected intercourse between nations, in the propagation of exotic plants, &c. Lucullus, after the war with Mithridates, introduced cherries from Pontus into Italy; and the newlyimported fruit was found so pleasing that it was rapidly propagated, and six and twenty years afterwards, as Pliny testifies, the cherry-tree passed over into Britain. Thus a victory obtained by a Roman Consul over a King of Pontus, with which it would seem that Britain could have no concern, was the real occasion of our countrymen possessing cherry-orchards. Yet to our shame must it be told, that these cherries, from the King of Pontus's city of Cerasuntis, are not the cherries we are now eating; for the whole race of cherry-trees was lost in the Saxon period, and was only restored by the gardener of Henry VIII. who brought them from Flanders, without a word to enhance his own merits concerning the bellum Mithridaticum. A calculating political economist will little sympathize with the peaceful triumphs of those active and generous spirits, who have thus propagated the truest wealth, and the most innocent luxuries of the people. The Romans entertained very different notions of these introducers into their country of exotic fruits and flowers. Sir William Temple has elegantly noticed the fact:-" The great captains, and even consular men, who first brought them over, took pride in giving them their own names, by which they ran a great while in Rome, as in memory of some great service or pleasure they had done their country; so that not only laws and battles, but several sorts of apples and pears, were called Manlian and Claudian, Pompeyan and Tiberian, and by several other such noble names." Pliny has paid his tribute of applause to Lucullus, for bringing cherry and nut-trees from Pontus into Italy; and we have several modern instances, where the name of the transplanter, or rearer, has been preserved in this sort of creation. |