Chapter 4

A very valuable musical manuscript, by Guillaume de Machault, who was _valet de chambre_ to Phillippe-le-Bel, in 1307, has been discovered in the royal library at Paris. It contains several French and Latin anthems, ballads, &c.; and concludes with a mass, which is supposed to have been sung at the coronation of Charles V., in 1364; and which proves, at that time they were acquainted with the art of composition in four parts.

NOISY FISH.

M. Cuvier lately read a short paper to the French academy on the species of fish called _pogonias_, in which he particularly adverted to the noise by which they make themselves heard, even under water. However difficult the explanation of this phenomenon, there can be no doubt of its existence; the evidence of it adduced by M. Cuvier being perfectly satisfactory. The silurus, a large and ravenous fish, which abounds in the Danube, gives daily proof of it.

GEOLOGY.

A treatise on the great geological question, whether the continents now inhabited, have or have not been repeatedly submerged in the sea, has lately been read to the Académie des Sciences, by M. Constant Prevost. M. Prevost maintains, contrary to the generally received opinion, that there has been but one great inundation of the earth; and that the various remains of plants, animals, &c., which have given rise to the supposition of successive inundations, have been floated to the places in which they are occasionally found.

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THE GATHERER.

"I am but a _Gatherer_ and disposer of other men's stuff."--Wotton.

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A PUZZLE FOR THE CURIOUS.

At a town in Gloucestershire the relatives as below, recently surrounded one dinner-table:--One great-grandfather, two grandfathers, one grandmother, three fathers, two mothers, four children, three grand-children, ore great-grandchild, three sisters, one brother, two husbands, two wives, one mother-in-law, one father-in-law, two brothers-in-law, three sisters-in-law, one son-in-law, two daughters-in-law, two uncles, three aunts, one nephew, two nieces, and two cousins. The whole party consisted of seven persons only.

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THE ROMANCE OF WAR.

A French soldier, who accompanied the armies of Russia, concealed a small treasure at the entrance of a village near Wilna, with a view of taking it with him on his return. After the defeat of Moscow he was made prisoner, and sent to Siberia, and only recovered his liberty at the end of last year. On reaching Wilna he remembered his hidden treasure, and after tracing out the spot where he had hid it, he went to take it away. What was his astonishment to find, in the place of his money, a small tin box, containing a letter addressed to him, in which a commercial house was mentioned at Nancy, where he might receive the sum buried, with interest, since the year 1812. The soldier supposed this was all a hoax; he went, however, to the house pointed out, where he received his capital, with twelve years' interest. With this sum he established a small business at Nancy, which enables him to live comfortably; but he has never been able, though he has taken some pains, to ascertain how his money was taken away and restored to him.

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Two lovely ladies dwell at ----, And each a-churching goes; Emma goes there _to close her eyes_, And Jane to _eye her clothes_.

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The death of Stanislaus, king of Poland, was occasioned in a singular manner. Being much addicted to smoking, he generally every day finished many pipes. In knocking out the ashes he set fire to his dressing-gown. As no one was near him, the flames had surrounded him, when the officer on guard, hearing his cries, ran to his assistance, and extinguished the fire. He might have survived, but a singular circumstance accompanied the accident. He had been devout during the last years of his life, and, as a penance for his sins, had worn a girdle with points on the inside; these became heated, and being pressed into his body while the flames were extinguishing, caused a number of wounds, the discharge from which, at his period of life, proved too much for his debilitated constitution.

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Professor Porson was often in pecuniary difficulties. On one occasion he came with a dejected air to a friend, and said he had been walking through the streets of London all the morning, thinking how strange it was that not one of all the crowds he met should know as much about Greek tragic verse as himself, and yet that he could not turn his knowledge into a hundred pounds. In these moments he often talked of retiring forever to the wilds of America, where he formed a plan of living in solitary happiness, without a book or a friend.

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One evening, at the Literary Fund Club, Mr. Incledon having sung with great effect Mr. T. Dibdin's ballad of "May we ne'er want a friend, or a bottle to give him," an elderly gentleman whispered in Mr. T. Dibdin's ear, "Ah! my dear sir, these are the true things of the old school; what a pity it is no one living is found to write such ditties now!"

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