qualities, are ever found to adorn the character of the greatest

This question has received the following replies in the Norfolk (United States) Beacon; which show how little the Americans have to dread "the fatal day :"

"On Friday, August 21, 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed on his great voyage of discovery. On Friday, October 12, 1492 he first discovered land. On Friday, January 4, 1493, he sailed on his return to Spain, which, if he had not reached in safety, the happy result would never have been known which led to the settlement on this vast continent. On Friday, March 15, 1493, he arrived at Palos in safety. On Friday, November 22, 1493, he arrived at Hispaniola, in his second voyage to America. On Friday, June 13, 1494, he, though unknown to himself, discovered the continent of America. On Friday, March 5, 1496, Henry VIII. of England gave to John Cabot his commission, which led to the discovery of North America. This is the first American state-paper in England. On Friday, September 7, 1565, Melendez founded St. Augustine, the oldest town in the United States by more than forty years. On Friday, November 10, 1620, the May-Flower, with the Pilgrims, made the harbour of Province Town; and on the same day they signed that august compact, the forerunner of our present glorious constitution. On Friday, December 22, 1620, the Pilgrims made their final landing at Plymouth Rock. On Friday, February 22, George Washington, the father of American freedom, was born. On Friday, June 16, Bunker Hill was seized and fortified. On Friday, October 7, 1777, the surrender of Saratoga was made, which had such power and influence in inducing France to declare for our cause. Friday, Sept. 22, 1780, the treason of Arnold was laid bare, which saved us from destruction. On Friday, October 19, 1781, the surrender at Yorktown, the crowning glory of the American arms, occurred. On Friday, July 7, 1776, the motion in Congress was made by John Adams, seconded by Richard Henry Lee, that the United States Colonies were, and of right ought to be, free and independent. Thus, by numerous examples, we see that, however it may be with foreign nations, Americans need never dread to begin on Friday any undertaking, however momentous it may be."

On

In a pamphlet entitled Day Fatality, printed in 1679, several evidences of "days lucky and unlucky" are brought together. "On the 6th of April," says the writer, "Alexander the Great was born; upon the same day he conquered Darius, won a great victory at sea, and died the same day. Neither was this day less fortunate to his father Philip: for on the same day he took Potidea; Parmenio, his general, gave a great overthrow to the Illyrians; and his horse was victor at the Olympic games. Upon the 30th of September, Pompey the Great was born; upon that day he triumphed for his Asian conquest, and on that day died."

British History.

GOG AND MAGOG.

MANY learned commentators have asserted that the country occupied in the fourth century by the Huns (a Scythian nation, on the eastern shores of the Sea of Azof) was the same as is mentioned in Ezekiel by the description of Gog, the land of Magog. Magog was the second son of Japhet, and, it is said, gave his name to that part of the world; the Mogul Tartars, who are unquestionably Scythians, being still known by the name of Gog. Michaelis assimilates the word Gog to that of Kak, or Chak, the general name of kings amongst the ancient Turks, Moguls, and Tartars; and Dr. Hyde asserts, that the Arabs distinguish the celebrated Chinese wall, which was built nearly three hundred years before the Christian era, as the wall of Gog and Magog; and it seems probable that Magog was the name given to those vast tracts of land called Scythia by the Greeks, and Tartary by the moderns.—Chatfield on the Darker Ages, 1824.

ALFRED AND THE NEATHERD'S WIFE.

Of this interesting adventure we find the following narrative in an ancient "Homily" upon the life and miracles of St. Neot, written in Anglo-Saxon, contained in a Ms. in the Cottonian Library, Vesp. D. xiv.

In the winter of 878, when king Alfred was defeated by the Danes, he fled to Athelney, a secluded spot at the confluence of the Thone and the Parrett. "Here," says the Homily, "he entreated a certain rustic for refuge in his dwelling, where he diligently served him and his 'evil' wife. It happened one day that the wife of this countryman heated her oven, and Alfred sat near it, warming himself by the fire, his protector being all the while ignorant that he was the king. Then that 'evil' woman became suddenly enraged, and said in anger to the king, 'Turn thou these loaves, lest they become too much burnt; for I notice daily that thou art a great glutton.' He speedily obeyed that 'evil' woman, because need compelled him to do so." "We know," says Sir F. Palgrave, "that Alfred was wont, when happier times arrived, to recount his adventures to his listening friends; and this anecdote may have been among those which originally rested upon his own testimony.

The king

"One very curious fact remains to be added. wore an ornament, probably fastened to a necklace, made of gold and enamel; which, being lost by him at Athelney, was found there, entire and undefaced, in the seventeenth century, It is now preserved at Oxford (in the Ashmolean Museum); and the inscription in Gallic-Saxon which surrounds it, Alfred het meh gewircan-Alfred caused me to be (worked) made, affords the most authentic testimony of its origin.”—Sir F. Palgrave.

THE ELEPHANT FIRST SEEN IN ENGLAND.

Polyænus, who wrote about A.D. 180, has left us this singular picture of Roman strategy, in his Strategematum:

"Cæsar attempting to cross a large river in Britain, Cassolaulus, king of the Britons, obstructed him with many horsemen and chariots. Cæsar had in his train a very large elephant, an animal hitherto unseen by the Britons. Having armed him with scales of iron, and put a large tower upon him, and placed therein archers and slingers, he ordered them to enter the stream. The Britons were amazed on beholding a beast till then unseen, and of an extraordinary nature. As to the horses, what need we write about them, since even among the Greeks horses fly at seeing an elephant, though without harness; thus towered and armed, and casting darts and slinging, they could not endure even to look upon the sight. The Britons, therefore, fled with their horses and chariots. Thus the Romans passed the river without molestation, having terrified the enemy by a single animal.”

but

Yet, Matthew Paris relates, that in 1255 an elephant was sent by the king of France to Henry III.; and that, it being the first animal of that species that had been seen in England, the people flocked in great numbers to behold it. Upon the Close Rolls is entered a writ, tested at Westminster the 3d of February, 39 Hen. III. (1255), directing the sheriff of Kent to

go in person to Dover, together with John Gouch, the king's servant, to arrange in what manner the king's elephant, which was at Whitsand,* may best and most conveniently be brought over to these parts; and to find for the same John a ship, and other necessary things to convey it; and if, by the advice of the mariners and others, it could be brought to London by water:" directing it to be so brought. That the stranger ar rived safely, is evident from a similar writ, dating the 23d of the same month, commanding the sheriffs of London to " cause to be built at the Tower of London a house 40 feet in length and 20 feet in breadth, for the king's elephant."

The shortest and most convenient passage from France to England appears to have been from Whitsand to Dover. The tenure of certain lands in Coperland, near Dover, was the service of holding the king's head between Dover and Whitsand whenever he crossed there

"6 THE ELEPHANT AND CASTLE."

The choice of this inn-sign would appear to have been taken from an early traveller's account of the use of the elephant in battle.

Cæsar Frederick, a merchant of Venice, who spent eighteen years in travelling in the East, about the middle of the sixteenth century, states that the king of Pegu had 4000 warelephants, with wooden castles on their backs.

Milton has the phrase of "elephants indorsed with towers of archers," in his description of the retreat of Antony from Parthia.

We gather also from Florus, that elephants with their war-accoutrements and towers were the rarest parts of the spoils of Dentatus from the Epirot camp.

THE FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN BRITAIN.

Glastonbury, Somerset, claims to have furnished a site for the first Christian church in Britain; whence ancient chroniclers delighted to dignify her as the fountain and origin of all religion in the realm of Britain-" the second Rome"-the "Ealdecherche ;" upon which Southey observes :

"It cannot now be ascertained by whom the glad tidings of the Gospel were first brought into Britain. It is said that the first church was erected in Glastonbury; and this tradition may seem to deserve credit, because it was not contradicted in those ages when other churches would have found it profitable to advance a similar pretension. The building is described as a rude structure of wicker-work, like the dwellings of the people in those days, and differing from them only in its dimensions, which were three score feet in length, and twenty-six in breadth. An abbey was afterwards erected there; and the destruction of this beautiful and venerable fabric is one of the crimes by which our Reformation was disgraced."-Book of the Church.

Here the ancient British kings, Arviragus, St. Lucius, and the renowned Arthur, were reported to be interred. Here also the Anglo-Saxon kings, Ethelred, Edgar, Edmund Ironside, and St. Edward the Martyr, who was assassinated at Corfe Castle, sleep their last sleep; besides "many other kings and queens, not only of the West Saxons, but of other kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Several archbishops and bishops, many dukes, and the nobility of both sexes, thought themselves happy in increasing the revenue of this venerable house, and to obtain them a place of sepulture. In the churchyard lay buried St. Joseph of Arimathea and his eleven companions, St. Patrick, and many other saints.”—Eyston's Little Monument.

KING ARTHUR.

Arthur is said to have lived about the year 530. Geoffrey

of Monmouth calls him the son of Uther Pendragon, others think he was himself called Uther Pendragon: Uther signifying in the Danish tongue a club, because as with a club he beat down the Saxons; Pendragon, dragon's head, because he wore a dragon on the crest of his helmet.*

COALS AND WINDOW-GLASS USED BY THE ROMANS IN

BRITAIN.

It is now well ascertained that the Romans, in Britain at least, made use of mineral coal. The cinders have been found in some cases in the fireplaces of Roman villas; and in several places in Northumberland, where the coal-beds came to or near the surface, the Roman workings have been traced to a very considerable extent. On the northern coast of Wales, where the coal-beds also cropped out, there can be little doubt from appearances that the Romans worked coal-mines extensively.

In Britain, and in the colder climates generally, the Romans appear always to have warmed their houses with hot air, and never with fireplaces in the rooms, as at present. The floors of the rooms were formed of strong cement, resting on numerous short pillars; and from the narrow subterranean appartment thus formed, termed the hypocaust, numerous fluetiles were run up the internal surfaces of the walls of the house. Fireplaces were made at the side of the hypocaust externally, for the purpose of heating the air within, which rose up the pipes of the flue-tiles.

Window-glass was no doubt used in the Roman villas in this country, for in excavating the remains of these buildings numerous pieces of glass are often found on the original floor at the foot of the wall, where there had evidently been windows above. This glass resembles in quality our common windowglass, and is of about the same thickness.-Tho. Wright, F.S.A.

VENERABLE BEDE.

Beda, or Bede, an English monk, was one of the brightest ornaments of the eighth century, and one of the most eminent fathers of the English Church, whose talents and virtues procured him the name of Venerable Bede. He was born about A.D. 672, at Monkton, Durham (only a few years after the introduction of Christianity into England); at seven years of age was sent to the monastery of St. Peter, where he was carefully educated for twelve years. He was ordained deacon at nineteen, and priest at thirty, and never quitted his monastery.

His most valuable work is a Latin History of the English Church, in five books, from the time of Julius Cæsar to A.D. 731; with a continuation of the Acts of the English before the Saxon Invasion, by an anony. * See also King Arthur's Round Table, Things not generally Known, p. viii.