Chapter 4

I regret to say, I was last month nigh committing manslaughter; I broke down in the Strand and dislocated the shoulder of a rich old maid. I cannot help thinking that she deserved the visitation, for, as she stepped into me in Oxford Street, she exclaimed, loud enough to be heard by all neighbouring pedestrians, "Dear me! how dirty! I never was in a hackney conveyance before!"--though I well remembered having been favoured with her company very often. A medical gentleman happened to be passing at the moment of our fall; it was my old medical master. He set the shoulder, and so skilfully did he manage his patient, that he is about to be married to the rich invalid, who will shoulder him into prosperity at last.

I last night was the bearer of a real party of pleasure to Astley's:--a bride and bridegroom, with the mother of the bride. It was the widow of the old rector, whose thin daughter (by the by she is fattening fast) has had the luck to marry the only son of a merchant well to do in the world.

The voice suddenly ceased!--I awoke--the door was opened, the steps let down--I paid the coachman double the amount of his fare, and in future, whenever I stand in need of a jarvey, I shall certainly make a point of calling for number One Hundred.

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THE GATHERER

"A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles." SHAKSPEARE.

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BELL.--THE CRY OF THE DEER SO CALLED.

I am glad of an opportunity to describe the cry of the deer by another name than _braying_, although the latter has been sanctioned by the use of the Scottish metrical translation of the Psalms. Bell seems to be an abbreviation of the word _bellow_. This sylvan sound conveyed great delight to our ancestors chiefly, I suppose, from association. A gentle knight in the reign of Henry VIII., Sir Thomas Wortley, built Wantley Lodge, Warncliffe Forest, for the purpose, as the ancient inscription testifies, of "Listening to the Harts' Bell."

C.K.W.

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THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND.

The origin of the nine of diamonds being called the Curse of Scotland is not generally known. It arose from the following circumstance:--The night before the battle of Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland thought proper to send orders to General Campbell not to give quarter; and this order being despatched in much haste, was written on a card. This card happened to be the nine of diamonds, from which circumstance it got the appellation above named.

W.M.

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POLITICAL PUNS.

Among the many expedients resorted to by the depressed party in a state to indulge their sentiments safely, and probably at the same time, according to situation, to sound those of their companions, puns and other quibbles have been of notable service. The following is worthy of notice:--The cavaliers during Cromwell's usurpation, usually put a crumb of bread into a glass of wine, and before they drank it, would exclaim with cautious ambiguity, "God send this Crum well down!" A royalist divine also, during the Protectorate, did not scruple to quibble in the following prayer, which he was accustomed to deliver:--"O Lord, who hast put a sword into the hand of thy servant, Oliver, _put it into his heart_ ALSO--to do according to thy word." He would drop his voice at the word also, and, after a significant pause, repeat the concluding sentence in an under tone.

W.M.

_Erratum_ at page 306.--For _Hemiptetera_ read HEMIPTERA.

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ANNUALS FOR 1830.

With No. 398 was published a SUPPLEMENT, containing the first portion of the SPIRIT OF THE ANNUALS, with a splendid Engraving of the CITY OF VERONA, and Notices of the _Gem_, _Literary Souvenir_, _Friendship's Offering_, and _Amulet_.

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LIMBIRD'S EDITION OF THE _Following Novels is already Published:_

s. d. Mackenzie's Man of Feeling 0 6 Paul and Virginia 0 6 The Castle of Otranto 0 6 Almoran and Hamet 0 6 Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia 0 6 The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne 0 6 Rasselas 0 8 The Old English Baron 0 8 Nature and Art 0 8 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield 0 10 Sicilian Romance 1 0 The Man of the World 1 0 A Simple Story 1 4 Joseph Andrews 1 6 Humphry Clinker 1 8 The Romance of the Forest 1 8 The Italian 2 0 Zeluco, by Dr Moore 2 6 Edward, by Dr Moore 2 6 Roderick Random 2 6 The Mysteries of Udolpho 3 6 Peregrine Pickle 4 6

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_Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD 143, Strand, (near Somerset House,) London; sold by ERNEST FLEISCHER, 626, New Market, Leipsic; and by all Newsmen and Booksellers_.