This rendered him so unpopular, That when he found it necessary to adopt cooling measures, His conduct was generally accompanied with a hiss. Yet, where his interest was concerned, He made it a constant rule to strike while the iron was hot, Regardless of the injury he might do thereby; And whenever he had any matter of moment on the anvil, He seldom failed to shape it to his own advantage. Among numerous instances that might be given of the cruelty of his disposition, It need only be mentioned, he was the means of hanging Under the idle pretence of keeping them from jangling, Merely, as he declared, to soften the obduracy At length, After passing a long life in the commission of these His fire being exhausted, and his bellows worn out, Where only the fervid ordeal of his own forge could be exceeded, Declaring with his last puff, That man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards. す A Receipt to pay a Reckoning.-A certain popular nobleman, on his return from Bath, was so delighted with his entertainment at a great inn at M --gh, that he stayed there a fortnight, with all his retinue. He took his leave of the landlord with great expressions of perfect satisfaction, but never asked for his bill. The landlord carried his politeness so far as not to tender his account till his Lordship was seated in his chariot, and just ready to set off. His Lordship looked at the sum total, which was only 2007., said the bill was extremely reasonable, and bade the coachman drive on. Last Sunday died at Durham, whither he went for the recovery of his health, Mr. Robert Dodsley, Bookseller, in Pall Mall, author of the Toy-shop, the Miller of Mansfield, the tragedy of Cleone, and other poetical pieces. -He was highly esteemed by all his acquaintance, among whom were many of the first characters of the age, both in point of rank and abilities, for his good-nature, and for his affable and decent behaviour. No man was ever more inoffensive, nor could any one fill the station in life, to which his personal talents raised him, with greater reputation. Ipswich, November 23.-Last week a man and his wife falling into discourse with a grazier at Parham fair, the husband offered him his wife in exchange for an ox, provided he would let him chuse one out of his drove. The grazier accepted the proposal, and the wife readily agreed to it. Accordingly they met the next day, when she was delivered to the grazier, with a new halter round her neck, and the husband received the bullock, which he afterwards sold for six guineas.-It is said the woman has since returned to her husband, and that they have been married near ten years. I To the Printer.-Being the other day on Epping Forest, to pursue the diversions of the season, I slept at a village in that voisinage, and that I might not spend a solitary evening, prevailed on the curate of the parish to partake of a duck and a bottle of port, who gave me the following anecdotes concerning Waltham Abbey, a small town on the forest. 1. Formerly this abbey was tenanted by a number of jolly friars, who used to make frequent excursions by moon-light to visit a nunnery at Cheshunt, which is distant about two miles from Waltham. Harry VIII. who heard of this, and envied the luxurious enjoyments of these holy inamoratos, was once ill-natured enough to spoil their sport; for being a hunting on the forest, he contrived, with his courtiers, to place/ toils in the way from Waltham to Cheshunt, by which he caught five brace of bald heads in one night. A 2. Between thirty and forty years ago, the manor-house of Waltham Abbey was inhabited by the famous Bumper, Squire Jones. In digging to enlarge his cellar, the body of King Harold was found, as evidently appeared from Haroldus Rex inscribed on the lid of the coffin. Jones thought he could not do greater honour to the corpse than by placing it at the head of the cellar where it had been interred; and whenever any of his friends were led by curiosity to see it, he made them offer libations to the memory of the deceased, till they could not see it. To the Printer.-A paragraph having, some time since appeared, extracted from the Irish papers, mentioning a ball lodged in an ivory tooth with some improbable circumstances attending it, will not, I hope, prevent the following fact from having a place in your paper. "As Mr. Yeavely, surgeon to the 70th regiment in Ireland, was trepanning a captain in the same regiment, whose skull was fractured by a fall from his horse, he extracted a ball which was lodged between the two tables of his skull, and had been received on the expedition to the Isle of Aix, the beginning of the late war; but affected him no other ways, than by rendering him exceedingly stupid at times. An engineer who was present during the operation, observing the thickness of the skull, declared, that had it not been for the ball he just saw extracted, he should have pronounced it bomb proof." To the Printer of the Salisbury Journal.―The following extract from a sermon of Bishop Latimer's I met with lately in Grainger's Biographical History, I wish you would give it a place in your paper, as it is a sort of curiosity which I fancy would amuse your readers. I am, Sir, &c. PHILALETES. "My father was a yeoman, and had lands of his own; only he had a farm of three or four pounds by the year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had a walk for an hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the king a harness (suit of armour), with himself and horse, while he came to the place that he should receive the king's wages. I can remember that I buckled on his harness when he went into Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to preach before the King's Majesty now. He married my sisters with five pounds or twenty nobles a piece, so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor; and all this did he of the said farm." |