Various

“ The circumstance of her refusing to save her sister's life by an act of perjury, and undertaking a pilgrimage to London to obtain her pardon, are both represented as true by my fair and obliging correspondent; and they led me to consider the possibility of rendering a fictitious personage interesting by mere dignity of mind and rectitude of principle, assisted by unpretending good sense and temper, without any of the beauty, grace, talent, accomplishment, and wit, to which a heroine of romance is supposed to have a prescriptive right. ”

“ Calais, unlike any English town you could name, is content to remain where it is—instead of perpetually trying to stretch away towards Paris, as our's do towards London, and as London itself does towards them. Transporting you at [pg 340] once to the "Place" in the centre of the town (an entirely open square, of about 150 paces by 100,) you can scarcely look upon a more lively and stirring scene. ”

“ Clair died! He sank on the rough, uncouth couch, and with him the senseless form of his fond wife. The stillness of the corpse scarcely surpassed that which for a time was reigning over the group assembled there; at length the brother gently raised the wretched widow from her sad resting-place; but the fair sufferer was released from all earthly pain; with her husband she could not live, but she indeed with him had died! ”

“ Then again, a third set of the curious are to be seen, mounted upon lamp-posts, and peeping into their neighbours' windows, to learn whether they shave themselves, or employ a barber on a Sunday morning; and a fourth, who cannot find time to go to church, in their anxiety to know that their neighbours do not smoke pipes and drink ale in the time of divine service. In short, society may be considered as one great system of espionage; and the business of every man is not only with the actions, but with the very thoughts of all his neighbours. ”

“ Immediately behind the centre of this side of the "Place" also rises the lofty tower, which serves as a light-house to the coast and harbour, and which at night displays its well-known revolving lights. Most of the principal streets run out of this great Square. The most busy of them—because the greatest thoroughfare—is a short and narrow one leading to the Port— (Rue du Havre:) in it live all those shopkeepers who especially address themselves to the wants of the traveller. But the gayest and most agreeable street is one running from the north-east corner of the "Place" (Rue Royale.) ”

“ Of all the plots and conspiracies that ever entered into the mind of man, the Gunpowder plot stands pre-eminent in horror and wickedness.
The singular perseverance of the conspirators is shown by the fact, that so early as in Lent of the year 1603, Robert Catesby, who appears to have been the prime mover of the plot, in a conversation with Thomas Wintour and John Wright, first broke with them about a design for delivering England from her bondage, and to replant the Catholic religion. ”

“ On the contrary, I have usually found such topics, even when introduced from motives most flattering to myself, rather embarrassing and disagreeable. I have now frankly told my motives for concealment, so far as I am conscious of having any, and the public will forgive the egotism of the detail, as what is necessarily connected with it. I have only to repeat, that I avow myself in print, as formerly in words, the sole and unassisted author of all the novels published as the composition of the "Author of Waverley." ”

“ In South America, the whole population is equestrian. No man goes to visit his next door neighbour on foot; and even the beggars in the street ask alms on horseback. A French traveller being solicited for charity by one of these mounted petitioners, at Buenos Ayres, makes the following entry in his note-book.—"16th November. Saw a beggar this morning, who asked alms of me, mounted on a tall grey horse. The English have a proverb, that says—'Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the devil!' I had often heard this mentioned, but never saw one upon his way before." ”

“ It is more than twenty years since Robert Patterson's death, which took place on the high road near Lockerby, where he was found exhausted and expiring. The white pony, the companion of his pilgrimage, was standing by the side of its dying master; the whole furnishing a scene not unfitted for the pencil. ”

“ All early rising is relative; what is early to one, is late to another, and vice versâ. "The hours of the day and night," says Steele, (Spec. No. 454.) "are taken up in the Cities of London and Westminster, by people as different from each other as those who are born in different countries. Men of six o'clock give way to those of nine, they of nine to the generation of twelve; and they of twelve disappear, and make room for the fashionable world, who have made two o'clock the noon of the day." ”

“ It was not until I had attained the age, of thirty years that I made any serious attempt at distinguishing myself as an author; and at that period, men's hopes, desires, and wishes, have usually acquired something of a decisive character, and are not eagerly and easily diverted into a new channel. ”

“ The pier of Calais is, in fact, every thing that it need be, and what perhaps no other pier is; and yet it is nothing more than a piece of serviceable carpentery, that must have cost about as much, perhaps, as to print the prospectuses of some of the late undertakings, and pay the advertisements and the lawyer's bill.
Monthly Magazine. CURIOSITY.
If I were to enumerate all the great and venerable personages who indulge in an extensive curiosity, I should never arrive at the end of my subject. Lawyers and physicians are eternal questionists ”

“ If you believe its maligners, Calais is no better than a sort of Alsatia to England, a kind of extension of the rules of the King's Bench. The same persons would persuade you that America is something between a morass and a desert, and that its inhabitants are a cross between swindlers and barbarians ”

“ The only other street devoted exclusively to shops is one running parallel with the south side of the "Place." The rest of the interior of Calais consists of about twenty other streets, each containing here and there a shop, but chiefly occupied by the residences of persons directly or indirectly connected with the trade of Calais as a sea-port town. ”

“ Held up to infamy by one party as a rebel and a traitor, and venerated as a saint and a martyr by the other; the same party spirit, and the same conflicting opinions, have descended from generation to generation, down to the controversialists of the present day. ”

“ But half an hour had scarce elapsed from the formation of this arrangement ere admission was sought and gained by a brigade of English soldiers, six of whom, on a support formed by muskets, bore what seemed to be the corpse of an officer, whose arm, hanging down, gave to another officer the hand. Such a scene soon attracted general attention. In a few minutes a couch, by the junction of two or three chairs, was made, and on that the body laid. The soldiers who had formed the support, with arms grounded and grief deeply marked on their countenances, presented a melancholy group ”

“ The gentlemen of the Stock Exchange live only from one story to another, and are miserable if a "great man's butler looks grave," without their knowing why. So general indeed is this passion, that one half of every Englishman's time is spent in inquiring after the health of his acquaintance, and the rest in asking "what news?" There is a very respectable knot of persons who go up and down the country asking people their opinion of the pope's infallibility, and what they think of the Virgin Mary ”

“ Taking advantage of the long and dreary nights between Christmas and Candlemas, they then brought their powder over from Lambeth in a boat and lodged it in Percy's house, and afterwards continued to labour at the mine. In the Easter following (1605) as they were at their work, the whole party were dreadfully alarmed on hearing a rushing noise near them; but on inquiry they found no danger menaced [pg 334] them, but that it proceeded from the removal of some coals in an adjoining vault, under the Parliament House. Nothing could be more propitious for the conspirators ”

“ The party in the house—consisting of Catesby, Percy, Sir E. Digby, Robert, John, and Thomas Wintour, Grant Rookewood, the two Wrights, Stephen Littleton, and their servants,—finding their condition now to be desperate, determined to fight resolutely to the last, treating the summons to surrender with contempt, and defying their pursuers. A singular accident, however, put an end to all conference between the parties. Some gunpowder, which the conspirators had provided for their defence, proving damp, they had placed nearly two pounds in a pan near the fire to dry ”

“ The houses here seem all to have grown up out of the ground—not to have been built upon it. This is what gives to them their most striking effect of novelty at the first view. Their brilliant and various colourings—so unlike our sombre brick-work—is the next cause of the novel impression they produce. ”

“ The prince asked the soldier what he was about? He replied, the dew had fallen in the night, had made his fusil rusty, and that he was scraping and cleaning it. The prince, looking at it, was struck with something like a figure eaten into the barrel, with innumerable little holes, closed together, like friezed work on gold or silver, part of which the fellow had scraped away. The genie second en [pg 333] experiences (says Lord Orford) , from so trifling an accident, conceived mezzo-tinto. ”

“ On Saturday, the Lord Chamberlain, according to the customary forms of his office previous to the meeting of every Parliament, viewed every room and cellar belonging to the Parliament House, and amongst others the identical vault in which the wood and powder was deposited, and observed a man, who subsequently proved to be Guy Fawkes, standing there to answer any questions that might have been asked. ”

“ The moral culpability of late rising is when it interferes with the necessary duties of the day; and though, my fair readers, you may in a great measure claim exemption from these, I would still, simply in reference to your health and complexions, advise you not to exceed seven o'clock. ”

“ Whinniard, Yeoman to the King's Wardrobe of the Beds, then in the occupation of one Henry Ferrers; of which, after some negociation, he succeeded in obtaining possession, at the rent of twelve pounds per annum, and the key was delivered to Guy Fawkes, who acted as Mr. Percy's man, and assumed the name of John Johnson. Their object in hiring this house was to obtain an easy communication with the upper Parliament House, and by digging through the wall that separated them, to form an extensive mine under the foundations. ”

“ The iron-bound coast of Scotland affords upon its headlands and promontories fifty such castles as Wolf's-Hope; every country has a valley more or less resembling Glendearg; and if castles like Tillietudlem. ”

“ Digby promised to subscribe one thousand five hundred pounds, and Tresam two thousand pounds. Percy engaged to procure all he could of the Duke of Northumberland's rents, which would amount to about four thousand pounds, and to furnish ten good horses.
Thus far, every thing had prospered with the conspirators; success had followed every effort they had made. ”

“ Will make a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
"There are no gains without pains;
Then plough deep, while sluggards sleep."
And a third proverb is a compendium of my advice to both classes of readers:
"He who will thrive must rise at five ”