against his throat or his breast; or when one rests the stick which he holds in his teeth against some vessel into which the other speaks.

FASHIONABLE RAT.

IN December 1815, a full grown rat was caught in a shop here, the neck of which was found to be embellished with the very unusual decoration of two finger rings; these were of the description manufactured as baubles for children, and were fancifully disposed round the neck of the animal, the stone of one gracing the breast, while that of the other adorned the centre of the neck behind. Conjecture is at a loss to account for the circumstance of the rat becoming so oddly equipped: the rings were so small as to be even less than half the circumference of the head and the skin around the neck, exposed to the tight friction of the rings, had become completely excoriated; beneath them the hair was entirely worn off, and the flesh protruded in some parts over the rings. This sufficiently indicates that the poor animal must have become possessed of this piece of troublesome finery when very young, and leads to the conclusion of the rings having been stolen by the parent rat and carried to her nest, where, by a singular fatality, this one of her progeny might have put its head severally through both, and been afterwards unable to extricate itself from either. It is well known that these animals are extremely fond of trinkets, and in the present case, several rings of the same description had been, at some distance of time, missed from the shop where the rat was caught. It having been killed in the taking, a gentleman

in town had it stuffed, which has been admirably performed by an ingenious mechanic in Large, of the name of Wilson, and it is now in the possession of the former.-Glasgow Paper.

The Scrap Book.

SILKWORM.

In a communication to the Society of Arts and Manufactures, it is stated, by Miss Henrietta Rhodes, that one line of the silkworm, when unwound, measured 404 yards, and, when dry, weighed three grains. Hence it follows, that one pound avoirdupois of the thread, as spun by the worm, may be extended into a line 535 miles long, and that a thread which would encompass the earth, would weigh no more than fortyseven pounds.

PETRIFYING SPRING AT LUTTER

WORTH.

NEAR the town of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, is the celebrated petrifying spring, the water of which is exceedingly cold, and so strongly impregnated with petrifying particles, that in a very little time, it converts wood and several other substances into stone.

SINGULAR DENTITION.

A FEMALE, of the name of Mary Thompson, residing at Little Smeaton, near Pontefract, at the advanced age of ninety-six years, has, within a few months back, cut four new teeth. The last tooth perforated the gum about six weeks ago.

Published by J. LIMBIRD, 355, Strand

(East End of Exeter 'Change); and sold by all Newsmen and Booksellers. Printed by A. APPLEGATH, Stam ford-street.

It would be a very difficult matter to persuade the public that one Englishman will not at any time beat three Frenchmen; indeed to doubt it for a moment would be deemed heresy. In the field we have often done much more, as the ensanguined plains of Cressy, Poictiers, Agincourt, and Minden, bear witness. It has however been generally considered that our national superiority lay more in our physical strength than in generalship, though in this we have, to say the least of it, always been a match for the French.

A singular instance of English skill and valour furnishes the

subject of our present engraving, which is copied from a very scarce tract, entitled "Three to One. Being an English Spanish combat. Performed by a westerne Gentleman of Tavystoke in Devonshire, with an English Quarterstaffe, against three Spanish Rapiers and Poniards. at Sherries in Spain, the 15th day of November, 1625. In the presence of Dukes, Condes, Marquisses and other great Dons of Spain, being the Counsel of Warre. The author of this book and actor in this encounter, R. Peeke."

to Algiers, entered as a volunteer in the expedition against Cales in Spain, and who, to use his own phrase," performed some desperate service" at the castle of Puntall, on that coast. On the surrender of the castle, the English troops landed, when some of them, wandering up the country for plunder, were set upon by the Spaniards and killed. Peeke, who landed after them, hearing there was no danger in venturing up the country, set out alone. He had scarcely proceeded a mile on his way when he discovered the bodies of three Englishinen dead, and one just dying he resolved if possible to carry the wounded man on board the English ship, and set out with him on his back. He was pursued by a Spanish horseman, whom he threw to the ground, and then began to rifle his pockets; but a party of fourteen musketeers came up at the time and took him prisoner. He was led a prisoner into the town of Cales, where he reports to have seen "Englishmen's heads kicked about the streets like footballs, and their ears cut off and worn in Spanish hats in

scorn.

:

After Peeke had been confined eighteen days in prison at Cales, he was ordered to Xeres, about three leagues distant, to take his trial, where he underwent a long examination before several of the nobles, who passed bitter taunts and jokes on his countrymen. One Spaniard compared the English to hens, which so roused Peeke's indignation, that he said if the English were hens, the Spaniards were chickens and pullets. The duke of Medina, who was present, frowned, and asked Peeke if he dared fight with one of those pullets. This

was readily accepted; a combatant was brought forward, but Peeke soon disarmed him, and presented his weapons, rapier and poniard to the nobles. He was then asked if he would engage another Spaniard. "Another,' says Peeke, "ay, for the honour of my country I will do good service against any six, and that without any other weapon than a halberd, deprived of its head."

The noblemen present thinking six persons too many for one man to encounter, restricted the number to three, who were armed with two weapons, a rapier and poniard each. Peeke modestly excuses his presumption in undertaking so unequal a contest by saying, "To die I thought most certain, but to die basely I would not; for three to kill one, had been to me no dishonour, to them (weapons considered) no glory. Upon these thoughts I fell to it."

The Spaniards made many desperate thrusts with their rapiers, which Peeke parried, and at length by a well directed blow laid one of his adversaries dead at his feet. The other two were soon so handled, that they both took to their heels, one running to the band of soldiers for protection, and the other sheltering himself behind the judges. The Spaniards who were assembled, seeing their countrymen thus defeated, became clamorous against the Englishman; but the duke of Medina Sidonia immediately declared it death to any man that dared to injure him. A collection of nearly five pounds was made for him by the judges; he was presented to the king at Madrid, who offered him a place, but he refused, and returning to England, published the narrative from which this account is taken.

THE FATAL REVENGE.

On the eighth of September, 1727, some strollers took a puppet shew to the village of Barnwell, in Cambridgeshire, for the purpose of exhibiting it in a large thatched barn; but just as the shew was about to begin, an idle fellow attempted to enter the barn without paying, which the owners of the shew prevented, and a quarrel ensued. After some altercation, the fellow departed, and the door being fastened, all was quiet; but this execrable villain, to revenge the supposed injury he had received from the showman, went to a heap of hay and straw which stood close to the barn, and secretly set it on fire. The spectators of the shew, who were in the midst of their entertainment, were soon alarmed by the flames, which had now communicated rapidly to the barn. In the sudden terror, which instantly seized the whole assembly, every one rushed towards the door, which unfortunately happened to open inwards; and the crowd that was behind still urging those that were before, they pressed so violently against it, that it could not be opened; and being too well secured to give way, the whole company, consisting of more than one hundred and twenty persons, were kept confined in the building till the roof fell in, which covered them with fire and smoke some were suffocated in the smouldering thatch, and others were consumed alive in the flames six only escaped with life; the rest, among whom were several young ladies of fortune, and many innocent children, were reduced to one undistinguishable heap of mangled bones and flesh, the bodies being

half consumed, and totally disfigured. The surviving unhappy friends of the dead, not knowing which were the relics they sought, a large hole was dug in the churchyard, and all were promiscuously interred together in one grave and what contributed still more to heighten this hor rible event was the escape of the villain without any punishment being inflicted on him.

WONDERS OF LITTLENESS.

PLINY and Elian relate that Myrmecides, wrought out of ivory a chariot with four wheels and four horses, and a ship with all her tackling, both in so small a compass, that a bee could hide either with its wings. Nor should we doubt this, when we find it recorded in our own domestic history, on less questionable authỏrity, that in the twentieth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, a blacksmith of London, of the name of Mark Scaliot, made a lock of iron, steel, and brass, of eleven pieces, and a pipe key, all of which only weighed one grain. Sealiot also made a chain of gold, of forty-three links, which he fastened to the lock and key, and put it round the neck of a flea, which drew the whole with perfect ease. The chain, key, lock, and flea, altogether weighed but one grain and a half!

Hadrianus Junius saw at Mechlin in Brabant, a cherrystone cat into the form of a basket; in it were fourteen pair of dice distinct, the spots and numbers of which were easily to be discerned with a good eye.

But still more extraordinary than this basket of dice, or any thing we have yet mentioned, must have been a set of turnery

shewn at Rome, in the time of Pope Paul the Fifth, by one Shad of Mitelbrach, who had purchased it from the artist Oswaldus Norhingerus. It consisted of sixteen hundred dishes, which were all perfect and complete in every part, yet so small and slender, that the whole could be easily enclosed in a case fabricated out of a peppercorn of the ordinary size! The Pope is said to have himself counted them, but with the help of a pair of spectacles, for they were so very small as to be almost invisible to the naked eye. Although his holiness thus satisfied his own eyes of the fact, he did not, we are assured, require of those about him to subscribe to it on the credit of his infallibility; for he gave every one an opportunity of examining and judging for himself, and among the persons thus highly favoured, particular reference is made to Gaspar Schioppins, and Johannes Faber, a physician of Rome.

Turrianus, of whose skill so many wonderful things are related, is said to have fabricated iron mills, which moved of themselves, so minute in size, that a monk could carry one in his sleeve; and yet it was powerful enough to grind, in a single day, grain enough for the consumption of eight men.

In penmanship, the productions of this class have been very numerous, and some of them not a little extraordinary. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, as Dr. Heylin, in his life of King Charles, relates. "There was one who wrote the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Pater Noster, the queen's name, and the year of our Lord, within the compass of a penny; and gave her majesty a pair of spectacles, of such án artificial making, that by the help

thereof, she did plainly and distinctly discern every letter."

A gentleman now living in Liverpool, has written the whole of Mr. Roscoe's poem of "Mount Pleasant,' in a square of 34 inches, by 27th inches; Goldsmith's Poem of "The Traveller" (488 lines) in a square of 3 inches by 3 inches; the book of the Prophet Malachi, in a kind of pyramid, not exceeding an ordinary little finger in bulk; and the Lord's Prayer, in the circle ofths of an inch, which may be distinctly read with a magnifying glass, and by some without that help.

This astonishing instance of industry and perseverance was produced by the exertions of Mr. Beedle, of Ottery St. Mary, whose skill in minute penmanship has placed him far beyond the reach of competition. He has just executed another specimen, comprehending ninetythree thousand four hundred and eighty letters in a space 3 inches by 3 inches, exceeding his former attempt within the same limits by many thousand letters. The following are the pieces he has chosen, and which are written without the slightest abbreviation :-Goldsmith's Traveller, Deserted Village, Essay on Education, Distresses of a disabled Soldier, the tale of Azim, Essay on Justice and Generosity, on the Irresolution of Youth, on the Frailty of Man, on Friendship, on the Genius of Love, and the National Anthem of God save the King. In the central circle he had delineated Ottery church, all the shades and lines of which form part of the writing. Though written without the aid of glasses, it requires microscopic powers to distinguish the characters. We understand that Mr. Beedle will