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not to take notice of it, since he makes the proposal only for the honour of God and the good of religion.

"In consequence of these instructions, the Count made the proposal direct to the Queen, and he reports that it was well received; but that the Queen stated, 'That she must consult her Parliament on the subject,' adding, 'that the Catholic King might rest assured, that should she resolve to marry, he would be preferred to any other.' Philip was delighted with this answer, and he wrote to Elizabeth, to assure her of his friendship, and of the interest he took in the success of the affair, of which the Count had spoken to her.

foreigner;' and speaking afterwards to Lord Paget on the same subject, his lordship observed, That he was resolved not to interfere in such a business, because he had taken a part in bringing about the marriage between Queen Mary and Philip, and he repented of having done so.' This was before Mary's death; afterwards, it appears, that the Count had great difficulty in introducing the subject, in consequence of the ill opinion entertained of his master; and he and his friends proposed to Philip, as an introductory step, to allow them to persuade the Queen and her council, that the ill-will which Queen Mary had shown towards her, had arisen from a feeling of jealousy, she thinking that Philip loved her sister better than herself. Philip, however, would not sanction this proceeding, and desired his ambassador not to assign any other reason for his proposal, but the interest of the two crowns; and at the same time ordered the Count to give to the new Queen, not only all her sister's jewels, but also a box filled with very valuable ones, belonging to himself, which he had left in Whitehall, and which Elizabeth, and personally to represent to her beth accepted.

"Though the Count himself never entertained any sanguine hopes of success, in this negociation for a marriage, there was a time, in which he saw that Elizabeth's most confidential friends, for various political reasons, were inclined to favour it. This was at the beginning of 1559, and in consequence, Philip sent a letter to the Count, desiring him to make the proposal openly, telling him, 'That putting aside many obstacles and weighty objections, he had resolved to marry Elizabeth upon the following conditions:-That she must abjure all errors in matters of religion, and turn Catholic, if she were not so; that she must, secretly if she pleased, ask absolution and dispensation from the Pope; that he must not be required to reside in England longer than he could with convenience; and that he could not now, as on his marriage with Mary, stipulate, that the first born should inherit the Low Countries.' He also directs the Count to make the proposal, by word of mouth, to the Queen herself, and not by writing; and he tells him, that it is no necessary to keep the matter secret, because it is no disgrace to ask a lady in marriage, and be rejected; and even though his dignity and authority might suffer by a refusal, he had determined

"As soon as the members of the council suspected that the Queen was inclined to marry Philip, they endeavoured by every means to dissuade her. In the meantime, the Parliament had been assembled, and it had been there proposed to change the religion, and to repeal the laws promulgated in Queen Mary's time upon the subject. Philip was greatly hurt on hearing this, and wrote immediately to the Count, directing him to wait on Eliza

the ill consequences of the projected change in matters of religion, and he concludes by desiring him to inform her, unequivocally, that if persevered in, it was useless to treat about the marriage. The Count did as he was ordered; and Elizabeth replied, that she thought it would be better to remain single, for she had a great scruple about asking a dispensation from the Pope.

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Philip was greatly displeased with this answer, but he was politic enough to conceal it, and wrote to Elizabeth, telling her that, although he regretted not having succeeded in what he so much desired, and what he believed was so desirable for the public good, he was nevertheless satisfied and content, since she thought that a firm friendship would produce the same beneficial effects.

"A very short time after, when it was known that Philip was about to be married to a French princess, Elizabeth was, in her turn, offended, and told the Count, that his master could not have been very much in love with her, when he had not patience to wait even four months. The Count replied, that she only was to blame, which she denied, telling him, that it had been his master's fault, for she had never given a definite answer. The Count replied

that it was true, the negative had been indirect, but he had not thought proper to bring her to the point of giving a direct refusal, in order not to produce animosity between two such great princes."

THE NARROW ESCAPE.

TERRENCE was a stout, broad faced, good-humoured boy about fifty, who would rather talk than work, and rather sing than do either. He was a sort of agricultural dependant upon Farmer Mullins; he was his hedger, his ditcher, reaper, mower, gardener, and factotum; and the farmer, won by his humour and good-nature, kept him as a hanger-on about the farm, more than for any particular industry, of which he was seldom found guilty.

An elderly gentleman, who lodged in the farm-house, had been repeatedly amused with the vocal powers of Terrence, particularly at daybreak, when he had much rather "his morning's winged dreams" had not been broken, as he heard him pass to the stable, where he was to perform the augean process. Terrence had just rested himself on his pitchfork, to give more effect to the last cadence of "Sheela na Guira," when the gentleman complimented him by saying, "You've a fine voice of your own, Terrence."

"Faith, sir," replied he, "you may say that, and thank God for it; although it had like to have been the ruin of me, so it had."

"The ruin of you, my good fellow, how so?"

"I can soon incense you how, sir," said he, "but you should hear the songs first, and by them you will see what they had nearly done for me.'

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"Well, Terrence,' ," said the gentleman, "if you will come in, in the evening, and sing me the songs, I'll hear your story, and give you half-a crown."

"Oh, by dad, that I II do! and thank your honour,' said Terrence. So accordingly, he brushed his brogues, washed his shining face, put on his long-tailed grey frieze, and made himself "clean and dacent," to go into the prescence, and made his bow among the family party, and commenced 'The Groves of Blarney,' 'The Cruiskeen,' 'The Boys of Kilkenny,' 'Donnybrook Fair, and many others, when he came to a full stop.

"Now, sir," says he, "I'll give you

the one that was near the ruin of me. This was none other than 'The Wak of Teddy Roe,' a song as well known as the writer, S. W. Ryley, author of the Itinerant; which, when Terrence had finished, he said, "There, sir, that's the one; and I never sing it, but I think of the narrow escape I had. And now I'll tell you how that was. I was loading the cart with manure, God help me! one morning, and singing that song, when a gentleman came by, and stood to listen to me. Faiks! little thought of the mischief he was putting on me. 'You've an excellent voice,' says he, my man, and that's a good song you're singing.'-'Faith, I have, sir, for I had been told it often before; and for the song, shure it bates Bannohir, and that bates all the world intirely.' Well,' says he, have you any more of them songs?'-'Shure I have, sir,' says I, one for every day in the week. Well, then, come up to my house in Dublin, and sing all you know, and I will see what I can do for you'; but would you be afraid to sing them before a large company?'Not in the least, sir, the larger the better, and then they'll all hear at

once.

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"He tould me where he lived; and accordingly I wint, and was shewn up to a most beautiful drawing-room, where sat one beautiful crater at the piania, and another at the harp.

Terrence O'Farrell,' says I to myself, 'hould yourself up, you're among quality intirely;' and sure enough there was a great company. One of the beautiful craters handed me, with her own hands, a glass of wine, saying,

Take this, Mr. O Farrell, before you begin.'. 'Och,' thought I, Mister O'Farrell, but I wish my mother heard that. So I plucked up a spirit, and says I, I'm obleeged to you, ma'am, for the compliment, but barrrin its all the same to you, I'll sing better afther the smallest taste in life of whiskey.' So wid that, the gentleman up and filled a cruiskeen for me, and that made all the differ wid me. Will I sit down, or stand up, sur?' says I–

As you please,' said the gentleman. 'Well then, as you're all sated, shure I'd be but one like yourselves, so 'll stand up, then I can give ye the thrue maning. Well, to be sure, I sang to their intire satisfaction, and grate divarsion they had wid me.

"When I finished, 'Now,' says the gentleman, Terrence, I'll give you thirty shillings a week to sing me three

of them songs three times a week.'-I soon agreed to the bargain; and putting the card he gave me with a trifle of writing on into my pocket, which I did not stop to make out, I made the best of my way home, to tell my mother how my fortune was made all at

once.

"Well, as luck wauld have it, who should be sitting wid my mother but Tim Dooley. Now Tim had been brought up at the Sunday School, and had the gift, more nor any other man, and mighty proud he was-for there was no speaking to him since he larned to read and write-but he'd no notion of singing. Well, 'May be,' thought I, Mister Tim, you won't be so consequence, when you see who the rich man is before you.' So I up and tould them all I'd done, and sung, and said. May be my mother's eyes did not shine, the ould cratur! and may be she did not bless her son Terry. Faiks she did; but it was left for Tim Dooley to spoil all.

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"Where is this you are to go to? says he. Och! wait awhile till I show you,' says I. "Show me the ticket,' says he, and, taking it out of my pocket, he set up such a howl!'What's conie over you, sir?' says I.'Och hone! och hone! is it come to this you are?-is it going to disgrace your family you are ?-and the mother that's sitting before you? Shure I thought there was some ill wind in the mighty good fortune all of a suddint. But for you to bring your ould mother with sorrow to the grave, by goings on of the like, is what she neither desarves from you, or the likes of you.' 'Let's be knowing my sin,' says, and I'll thank you.'-Faith here's your sin and your shame before you; and if you go to the place of this present writing,' says Tim, why, you're a lost man, that's all!'-' Will you please to give us the benefit of your larning now, and no more words from you,' says I, not very well pleased at the sarmon he was beginning, 'and let's see the way I am going to my ruin?'-Shure it's straightforward forenint you here.' And he read the direction Mr. Ryder, manager of the Theatre Royal, Crow Street, Dublin!!!'-' Och, save my poor boy!' says my mother. And has your mighty fine pipe brought you to this disgrace? says Tim.- Och, the spalpeen,' says I, to go to make a tayatrical of a dacent woman's child! Och, is that the game you're after, Mr. Ryder? And

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if I'd known that, may be but I would have seen you, and all your iligant friends, hanging by the fifth wheel of Pharo's chariot in the Red Sea, before I'd call up my lungs for your divarsion.'

"Well, I burned the card before their faces, and blessed the star that lit Tim to the cabin that night, to save me from the narrow escape I had of being a ruined man by my beautiful voice, bad luck to it! and from becoming a divarting vagabond by Act of Parliament. Metrop.

Origins.

"Sleep like a top."-This we say in familiar language of a person completely under the influence of Morpheus; and we generally imagine the simile taken from the momentary pause of a peg-top, or humming-top, when its rotatory motion is at the height. But no such thing; the word top is Italian. Topo, in that language, signifies a mouse; it is the generic name, and applied indiscriminately to the common mouse, field mouse, and dormouse, from which the Italian proverb, “ Ei dorme cum un topo" is derived: Anglice-" He sleeps like a top.”

"On the tapis."—" The affair is on the tapis," or " carpet," is borrowed from the House of Peers, where the table used to be, and probably still is, covered with a carpet.

“Skin-flint.”—The antiquity of certain proverbs is among the most striking singularities in the annals of the human mind. Abdalmalek, one of the Khaliffs of the race of Ommiades, was surnamed, by way of sarcasm, "Raschal Hegiarah," that is, "The skinner of a flint ;" and to this day we call an avaricious man "A skin flint."

"I have paid my shot."-"Shot" is a common mode of expression among the commonalty, to denote a reckoning, &c. "I have paid my shot," or rather " from scottum," a tax or contribution, a shot.

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Miss. This word was brought into particular use about the year 1662. Evelyn, in his Diary, says :-" January 9th, 1662, I saw performed the third part of the Siege of Rhodes. In this acted the fair and famous comedian, called Roxolana,' from the part which she played; and I think it was the last, she being taken for the Earl of Oxford's Miss,' as at this time they began to call lewd women,"

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HONOUR OF Holding his MAJESTY'S HEAD IN SEA SICKNESS.-King John gave several lands at Kipperton and Attirton, in Kent, to Solomon Attesfield, to be held by this singular service that as often as the King should be pleased to cross the sea, the said Solomon, or his heirs, should be obliged to go with him, to hold his Majesty's head, if there should be occasion for it; 'that is, if he should be sea-sick;' and it appears by the record in the Tower, that this same office of head-holding was actually performed in the reign of Edward the First.

MISERIES OF WEALTH. It is to have a subscription-paper handed you every hour, and to be called a niggard if you once refuse your name.-It is to have every college, infirmary, and asylum make a run upon the bank of your benevolence, and then rail at the smallness of the dividend.-It is to pay the tailor for all his bad customers, and compensate the tradesman for what he loses by knavery or extravagance.-It is either to be married for money, or to have a wife always casting up the sum total of the fortune she brought.-It is to be invited to drink poor wine, that you may give better in return.-It is to have greater temptations than others in this world; and to find the entrance to a better more difficult than to the rest of mankind.

SINGULAR FISH.-A curious description of fish, resembling a mussel, was lately discovered by a gentleman at Brighton, in the centre of a chalk stone. It is not known in England, but in Italy it is called the stone-eater. It works its way into the chalk-stone by a kind of saw at its head, and is defended from all its enemies by prickly scales. In Italy it is prized as a great delicacy, the taste resembling an oyster, but the flavour vastly superior. In Smith's Tour mention is made of the Mytilus Lithophagus, or stone-eating Mytilus. The columns of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis, at Puzzuoli, are perforated by this species.

QUEEN CHARlotte and MISS BURNEY.-The Queen who was a selfish woman, and thought herself perfect because she studied the decorums, pounced upon our authoress, poor Fanny, for a Mistress of the Robes ; that is to say, for an attendant who was to provide her with daily amusement, by reading, and furnishing her with ideas. Now readers have heavy work of it at court, especially if (as we suppose Miss Burney did) they stand all the while they read, out of "respect.' And so poor Fanny Burney, cut off for years from decent society, and from beloved friends and relations, falls into a terrible illness, and gives manifest signs of consumption. She begged to be released from her office; all her friends said she ought to be; but the Queen would not let her go. The attendant grew worse and worse, fairly wasted away before the Queen's eyes, and at length was suffered reluctantly to depart. This she did upon halfpay; and it is not clear that she would have had that, if the better-natured King had not suggested that she would have earned as much by her pen.

Madame D'Arblay's Memoirs.

Varieties.

SIR WALTER SCOTT, on one occasion, when on the eve of his departure for Roxburghshire, called, like a dutiful nephew, upon his aunt, Miss Scott, who happened to be residing in Edinburgh at the time, to inquire whether she had any commission for the country. He was solemnly invited to tea, and informed that she had something which she wished to intrust to his care. When he took his leave in the evening, a nondescript parcel of a tolerable size was delivered to him with great formality, and many strict injunctions to look to its safety. "Tak' care o't, Wattie, for there's siller in't." The bearer was considerably teased, while on the road by the incessant rattling and jingling which his charge kept up in his pocket, sorely to the annoyance of his pony. On reaching his journey's end, he hastened to deliver it to the blacksmith of the village, to whom it was addressed; intimating at the same time that he felt great curiosity to know the contents of the parcel, and adding that he supposed, from the sound and weight, it must be Miss Scott's pose. "Deed, it's just ane o' your aunty's pattens, and tippence to mend it,” was Burn-the-win's reply.

IRISH LOGIC.-The following specimen of Irish logic is from Bernard's Recollections:-" His landlady was what was termed a general dealer,' and, among other things, sold bread and whisky. A customer entered her shop, and inquired if she had anything to eat and drink? To be sure,' she replied, I have got a thimble-full of the cratur, my darling, that comes ounly to two-pence; and this big little loaf you may have for the same money.'Both two-pence!'- Both the same, as I am a Christian woman, and worth double the sum.'-' Fill me the whisky, if you plase.'-She did so, and he drank it; then rejoined, 'It comes to twopence, my jewel; I'm not hungry, take back the loaf,' tendering it. Yes, honey, but what pays for the whisky?' -Why, the loaf, to be sure?'-'But you haven't paid for the loaf.'-'Why, you wouldn't have a man pay for a thing he hasn't ate!'-A friend going by was called in by the landlady to decide the difficulty, who gave it against her; and, from deficiency in her powers of calculation, she permitted the rogue to escape.

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conclude, he runs as long as he can, and then goes to earth, and his heir is in at his death.

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WANTS AND CAPABILITIES. - We are never so much tempted to moralize as after a perusal of the advertising colums of the "Times." There is something intensely pathetic in many of the sighs which exhale from the damp surface of that broad sheet. What hope can be held out to a "respectable young woman without any followers?" who is so unreasonable as to desire a situation "as nursery-maid where there is no infant ?" Or to a 66 respectable strong youth," who will only be satisfied with the office of light porter?" Both must pine unheeded, unless they agree to meet and sigh to each other. They are, indeed “for a pair." The following we are inclined to think rather suspicious-"A lady of thirty years of age is desirous of meeting with a situation as useful companion. She is naturally cheerful, and to an invalid flatters herself she would be an acquisition." Dear creature, who could find in his heart to shut the door in her face? We fear, however, she has no chance against the experience of a widow. "Wanted, by a respectable widow, age about thirty-six, and free from every incumbrance, a situation to superintend the concerns of a widower. To one who has a family she flatters herself she would be an acquisi tion," &c. Who doubts it? We will back the widow for a rump and dozen they are man and wife in a month. These widows! Here is another—' A widow lady, of most respectable connections, wishes for a situation to manage the domestic establishment of a widower or single gentleman. feels confident of giving satisfaction." This is plain enough; but there is another still plainer. The noose matrimonial dangles in every sentence. "A widow, respectably connected, wishes a situation as housekeeper to a single gentleman or widower. She flatters herself she would be found an acquisi tion, as she is competen', and would not object to superintend the education What! not of the "single gentleof the younger branches of his family." man's!" Oh, fie!—Tait's Mag.

A Fox HUNTER IS A JUMBLE OF PARADOXES. He sets forth clean, though he comes out of a kennel, and returns home dirty. He cares not for cards, yet strives to be always with the pack. He loves fencing, but without carte or tierce; and delights in a steeple chase, though he does not follow the church. He is anything but lititious, yet is fond of a certain suit, and retains Scarlet. He keeps a running account with Horse, Dog, Fox, and Co., but objects to a check. He is no great dancer, though he is fond of casting off twenty couple; and no great painter, though he draws covers and seeks for a brush. He is no musician, and yet is fond of five bars. He despises doctors, yet follows a course of bark. He professes to love his country, but is perpetually crossing it. He is fond of strong ale and beer, but dislikes any purl. He is good-tempered, yet so far a tartar as to prefer a saddle of horse to a saddle of mutton. He says his wife is a shrew, but objeets to destroying a vixen. In politics he inclines to Pitt, and runs after Fox. He is as honest a fellow as needs be, yet his neck is oftener in danger than a thief s. He pretends to be knowing, but a dog As the mind governs the corporeal part, leads him by the nose. He swears he can clear anything, but is beaten by a fog. He esteems himself prosperous, and is always going to the dogs. To

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PRUDENCE.

She

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Prudence retains th' exuberance of the beart.

ЕРІТАРН.

God takes the good-too good on earth to stay,
And leaves the bad-too bad to take away.

Notices of New Books in our next number.

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