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INFAMOUS FAME.

Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Cato nullo,
Pompeius parvo. Quis putet, esse Deos?
Saxa premunt Licinum, levat altum Fama Catonem,
Pompeium Tituli. Credimus esse Deos?

O'er base Licinus costliest marbles rise;
Unburied Cato, meanly Pompey, lies.
Is there a God?

His tomb Licinus damns to endless fame,
Cato's and Pompey's monument their name.

There is a God.

A NOTE FOR LITTLE BOYS.

In order that all good little boys may know how much more lucky it is for them to be little boys now, than it was in the ancient times, be informed of the cruel manner in which even good little boys were liable to be treated by the law of the Ripuarians. When a sale of land took place, it was required that there should be twelve witnesses, and with these as many boys, in whose presence the price of the land should be paid, and its formal surrender take place; and then the boys were beaten, and their ears pulled, so that the pain thus inflicted upon them should make an impression upon their memory, and that they might, if necessary, be afterwards witnesses as to the sale and delivery of the land. (Lex Ripuarium LX., de Traditionibus et Testibus.) In a note of Balucius upon this passage, he states:

A practice somewhat similar to this prevails in our own times, for in some of the provinces, whenever a notorious criminal is condemned to death, parents bring their sons with them to the place of execution, and, at the moment that he is put to death, they whip their children with rods, so that being thus excited by their own sufferings, and by seeing the punishment inflicted on another for his sins, they may ever bear in mind how necessary it is for them, in their progress through life, to be prudent and virtuous.—Rer. Gall. et Franc. Script., vol. iv. p. 277.

MRS. PARTINGTON.

The "original Mrs. Partington" was a respectable old lady, living at Sidmouth, in Devonshire. Her cottage was on the beach, and during an awful storm (that, I think, of November, 1824, when some fifty or sixty ships were wrecked at Plymouth) the sea rose to such a height as every now and then to invade the old lady's place of domicile; in fact, almost every wave dashed in at the door. Mrs. Partington, with such help as she could command, with mops and brooms, as fast as the water entered the house, mopped it out again; until at length the waves had the mastery, and the dame was compelled to retire to an upper story of the house. The first allusion to the circumstance was made by Sidney Smith, in a speech on the Reform Bill, in which he compared the Conservative opposition to the bill to be like the opposition of "Dame Partington and her mop, who endeavored to mop out the waves of the Atlantic."

MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENT.

Mr. Burke, in his Anecdotes of the Aristocracy, furnishes the following specimen of an advertisement of Sir John Dinely for a partner :

To the angelic fair of true English breed,-Sir John Dinely, of Windsor Castle, recommends himself and his ample fortune to any angelic beauty of good breed, fit to become and willing to be a mother of a noble heir, and keep up the name of an ancient family, ennobled by deeds of arms and ancestral renown. Ladies at a certain period of life need not apply, as heirship is the object of the ladies' sincere admirer, Sir John Dinely. Fortune favors the bold. Such ladies as this advertisement may induce to apply or send their agents (but not servants or matrons), may direct to me at the Castle, Windsor. Happiness and pleasure are agreeable objects, and should be regarded as well as honor. The lady who thus becomes my wife will be a baronetess, and rank accordingly as Lady Dinely of Windsor. Good and favor to all ladies of Great Britain. Pull no caps on his account, but favor him. with your smiles, and pæans of pleasure await your steps.

AMERICAN SURNAMES.

The changes that have taken place in family names during the short period that has elapsed since the settlement of America by Europeans, lead us to believe in the greater changes that are reported to have occurred in surnames in the Old World.

Whenever William Penn could translate a German name into a corresponding English one, he did so, in issuing patents for land in Pennsylvania: thus, the respectable Carpenter family in Lancaster are the descendants of a Zimmerman.

Many Swedish and German names have suffered change: from Soupli has come Supplee; from Up der Graeff, Graeff and Updegrove; from Hendrick's son, Henderson. The district of Southwark, in this county, covers ground once owned by a Swede named Swen. His son was called Swen's son, from whom the Swanson family derived their name. The Vastine family came from a Van de Vorstein.

A person whose family name was Sturdevant, Englished it into Treadaway a few years ago; and a family which during the Revolution spelt their name Boehm have since softened it into Bumm.

Occasionally a French name is translated. One of two brothers living near Philadelphia, is known as Mr. La Rue, his brother as Mr. Street. Several New England names are corrupted from those of the French Acadians: thus, Bumpus comes from Bon pas, Bunker from Bon cœur, and Peabody from Picbaudier.

Buckalew is evidently a corruption.of Buccleugh, and Chism of Chisholm.

A large family in Virginia and other southern States spell their name Taliaferro, and pronounce it Toliver. Have they any connection with the Norman Taillefer?·

SACK,

This is the same wine which is now named sherry. Falstaff calls it sherris sack, and also sherris only, using in fact both names indiscriminately (2 Henry IV., Act IV. Sc. 3). For various commentaries regarding it, see Blount's Glossographia; Dr. Venner's Via recta ad Vitam longam, published in 1637; Nare's Glossary, &c. Cotgrave, in his Dictionary, makes sack to be derived from vin sec, French. In a MS. account of the disbursements by the chamberlain of the city of Worcester for 1592, Dr. Percy found the ancient mode of spelling to be seck, and thence concluded that sack is a corruption of sec, signifying a dry wine. Moreover, in the French version of a proclamation for regulating the prices of wines, issued by the Privy Council in 1633, the expression vins secs corresponds with the word sacks in the original. The term sec is still used as a substantive by the French to denote a Spanish wine; and the dry wine of Xeres is known at the place of its growth by the name of vino seco. foregoing account is abridged from The History of Ancient and Modern Wines, by Alex. Henderson, Lond. 1824. The following is taken from Cyrus Redding's History of Modern Wines, Lond. 1833:

The

In the early voyages to these islands (the Canaries), quoted in Ashley's collection, there is a passage relative to sack, which will puzzle wise heads about that wine. It is under the head of "Nicols' Voyage." Nicols lived eight years in the islands. The island of Teneriffe produces three sorts of wine, Canary, Malvasia, and Verdona, "which may all go under the denomination of sack." The term then was applied neither to sweet nor dry wines exclusively, but to Canary, Xeres (i. e. sherry), or Malaga generally. In AngloSpanish dictionaries of a century and a quarter old, sack is given as Vino de Canarias. Hence it was Canary sack, Xeres sack, or Malaga sack.

It may not be amiss here to quote the praises of sack as sounded by Falstaff (2 Henry IV. Act IV. Sc. 3):

"It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish, and dull, and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes, which, delivered o'er to the voice (the tongue), which is the frith, becomes excellent wit. ****** If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be,—to forswear their potations, and addict themselves to sack."

THOMSON'S HOUSE AND CELLAR.

None of the biographers of Thomson seem to have fallen in with a copy of the catalogue of his effects, disposed of by auction after his death in 1749. Thomson's residence for several years preceding his death was a snug cottage in Kewfoot Lane, near Richmond. The situation is one of the finest in that fine district. The cottage was embowered in trees and shrubbery, and behind it was a garden, in which the lazy good-humored poet took his ease of an afternoon, and muttered his verses throughout the moonlight nights. His garden-seat and writing-table are still preserved; but the cottage has been enlarged into a handsome villa, and the garden has been extended and improved so as to become one of the most exquisite and richly ornamented in that patrician neighborhood. Yet even in Thomson's time the cottage at Kewfoot Lane was a desirable residence; and the poet, after weathering many difficulties, had succeeded in gathering around him at least a moderate share of the comforts and elegancies of life. If his little Castle of Indolence could not boast its costly tapestry, huge covered tables and couches, "the pride of Turkey and of Persia land," there was no lack of respectable bachelor accommodation, with an assortment of valuable prints and books, and a cellar that could have supplied a dozen of jovial banquets to Quin, Armstrong, Lyttelton, Mitchell, and those other select friends whom he delighted to entertain, and by whom he was so tenderly beloved. But let us look at the differ

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