He proposed that the Duchess de Berri should be threatened for all her strange conspicuous freaks, thus: "Madame, there is no hope for you, you will be tried, condemned, and pardoned!"

Speaking of a well-known lady on one occasion, he said emphatically:

"She is insufferable."

Then, as if relenting, he added:

"But that is her only fault."

Madame de Stael cordially hated him, and in her story of Delphine was supposed to have painted herself in the person of her heroine, and Talleyrand in that of a garrulous old woman. On their first meeting, the wit pleasantly remarked, "They tell me that we are both of us in your novel, in the disguise of women."

While making a few days' tour in England, he wrote this note to a gentleman connected with the Treasury:—

"My dear Sir,

"Would you give a short quarter of an hour to explain to me the financial system of your country? Always yours,

"TALLEYRAND."

PORSON.

A favorite diversion of Porson, when among a party of literary men, was to quote a few lines of poetry, and ask if any of the company could tell where they came from. He frequently quoted the following lines without finding any one able to name the author:

For laws that are inanimate,

And feel no sense of love or hate,
That have no passion of their own,
Or pity to be wrought upon,

Are only proper to inflict
Revenge on criminals as strict:
But to have power to forgive

Is empire and prerogative;
And 'tis in crowns a nobler gem
To grant a pardon than condemn.

The lines remind the Shakspeare student of a similar verse in Measure for Measure, (Act III, Sc. 2.):

He that the sword of state would bear,

Should be holy as severe;

Pattern in himself to know,

Grace to stand, and virtue go, &c.

The company generally guessed every likely author but the right one. When conjecture was exhausted, Porson would satisfy curiosity by telling them the lines were in Butler's Hudibras, and would be found in The Heroic Epistle of Hudibras to his Lady, which few people ever did read, and no one now thinks of reading.

Historical Memoranda.

THE FIRST BLOOD SHED IN OUR REVOLUTION.

THE "First Blood of the Revolution" is commonly supposed to have been shed at Lexington, April 19, 1775; but Westminster, Vt., files a prior claim in favor of one William French, who it is asserted was killed on the night of March 13, 1775, at the King's court-house, in what is now Westminster. At that time Vermont was a part of New York, and the King's court officers, together with a body of troops, were sent on to Westminster to hold the usual session of the court. The people, however, were exasperated, and assembled in the court-house to resist. A little before midnight the troops of George the Third advanced and fired indiscriminately upon the crowd, instantly killing William French, whose head was pierced by a musket ball. He was buried in the churchyard, and a stone erected to his memory, with this quaint inscription:

"In Memory of William French, Who Was Shot at Westminster March ye 12th, 1775, by the hand of the Cruel Ministerial tools of Georg ye 3rd at the Courthouse at 11 o'clock at Night in the 22d year of his age.

"Here William French his Body lies,
For Murder his Blood for Vengeance Cries.
King Georg the third his Tory crew
that with a bawl his head Shot threw,
For Liberty and his Countrys Good

he Lost his Life his Dearest blood."

THE "TEA-PARTY" AND THE "TEA-BURNING."

The world has rung with the story of the "Boston teaparty," how in the darkness of night certain men disguised as Indians threw overboard the cargo which bore the obnoxious duty, and kept their secret so well that even their own families were not trusted with it. It was a resolute and patriotic act, and answered its purpose. But why all the darkness, the disguise and mystery? Because the number of those who opposed the act, either from loyalty to Great Britain, from timidity, or from pecuniary interest in the cargo, was so great, that only by such means could the deed be done and the doers of it escape punishment.

How does this compare with the "tea-burning" in Annapolis in the same year? Here the course to be taken was publicly and calmly discussed in open assembly; the resolution arrived. at was openly announced, and carried out in the face of day, the owner of the vessel himself applying the torch. This was the Maryland way of doing the thing; and it may well be asked whether the calm judicial dignity of the procedure, the unanimity of sentiment, the absence alike of passion and of concealment, are not far worthier of commemoration and admiration than the act of men who, even for a patriotic purpose, had to assume the garb of conspirators and do a deed of darkness.

The local historians thus tell the story:

On the 14th of October, the brig Peggy Stewart arrived at Annapolis, having in its cargo a few packages of tea. The duty was paid by the owner of the vessel. The people were outraged at the attempt to fix upon them the badge of servitude, by the payment of the tax.

A meeting was held, at which it was determined that the tea should not be landed. The owner, fearing further trouble, proposed to destroy the tea. But that was not sufficient punishment. The offence was a grave one, for had this attempt succeeded, it would have been followed by others more aggressive, and thus the very principle which was contended for would have been overthrown in the end. the ugly beast that was thrust in the door, and it must not only be put out, but driven out by blows, lest growing bold, it should push its whole body in.

It was the head of

After much discussion it was proposed to burn the vessel. The meeting did not consent to this, but many expressed their determination to raise a force to accomplish the brig's destruction.

Acting under the advice of Mr. Carroll of Carrollton, the owner, seeing that the loss of his property was certain, and willing to repair his good name, even by that loss, proposed to destroy the vessel with his own hands. In the presence of the assembled multitude he set fire to it, with the tea on board,— expiating his offence by the destruction of his property.

The striking features of this transaction were not only the boldness with which it was executed, but the deliberation and utter carelessness of concealment in all the measures leading to its accomplishment.

It was not until the 28th of November that the Dartmouth arrived in Boston harbor, and not until the 16th of December that protracted discussion ended in the overthrow of its cargo. The tea-ship sent to South Carolina arrived December 2d, and the tea-ship to Philadelphia, December 25th. The cargo of the former perished in storage; that of the latter was sent back.

THE UNITED STATES NAVY.

A South Carolina correspondent of the American Historical Record writes as follows concerning the inception of the Navy:

A few years ago, while looking over a volume of manuscript

letters in the Charleston (South Carolina) Library, I found a leaf of coarse foolscap, with the following endorsement:—

ORIGIN OF THE NAVY.

At a caucus in 1794, consisting of Izard, Morris, and Ellsworth of the Senate, Ames, Sedgwick, Smith, Dayton, &c. of the Representatives, and of Secretaries Hamilton and Knox, to form a plan for a national navy, Smith began the figuring as Secretary of the meeting. Hamilton then took the pen, and instead of minuting the proceedings, he amused himself by making a variety of flourishes during the discussion. In consequence of the plan adopted at this meeting, a bill was reported for building six frigates, which formed the foundation or origin of the American Navy.

The "figuring" on the top of the page consists of five lines, and is as follows:

First cost of a frigate, 44 guns, of 1,300 tons, and

provision for six months..

350 men..............

$150,000

51,000

11,000

$212,000

Then follows an estimate of the annual cost of such a vessel. The rest of the page below these estimates is occupied by bold flourishes, which seem, if they mean anything, to imitate a drawing of a peacock's tail "in its pride." Similar scratching, but to a less extent is on the other side of the page.

The only letter addressed to Shakspeare, which is undoubtedly genuine, is that now in the museum at Stratford, from Richard Quinn, the actor, asking for a loan of £20. This letter is endorsed: "To my lovinge good ffriend and countreyman, Mr. William Shackespere deliver Thees." If the writer spelled names no better than other words, this affords little aid to the solution of the perplexing question, for notwithstanding the outrageous fashion in which our forefathers spelled English, he is considerably ahead of his age in this respect.