and a full account of his being sent for a soldier, by Mr. Fern (an Ecclesiastical Justice of Peace) and other conspirators, to the eternal honour of the temper and moderation of High-Church principles. London, 1705, 4to., pp. 58. As this book did not sell well, it was issued with a new title-page as a second edition. It was then called- The Modesty and Sincerity of those Worthy Gentlemen, commonly called High Churchmen, exemplified in a modern Instance. London, 1707. ANTIQUITY OF THE POLKA. The description of the lavolta, in Sir John Davies's poem on dancing, The Orchestra (1596), shows that it must have closely resembled the dance which we fondly boast of as one of the great inventions of the nineteenth century. It runs as follows: Yet is there one, the most delightful kind, A lofty jumping, or a leaping round, Where arm in arm two dancers are entwined, And whirl themselves with strict embracements bound; And still their feet an anapæst do sound; An anapæst is all their music's song, Whose first two feet are short, and third is long. The "anapast" is conclusive; it points exactly to the peculiar nature of the polka, the pause on the third step. Moreover, it appears, that as there is no especial figure for the polka, so there was none for the lavolta; for it is classed among those dances Wherein that dancer greatest praise has won, Who can doubt after that? The polka was certainly danced before Queen Elizabeth! To this valuable historical parallel, it may be added that the galliard and coranto also were apparently danced ad libitum (ob serving only a particular measure), just as our waltz and gallop also are: For more diverse and more pleasing show, A swift, a wandering dance, he [Love] did invent, Yet with a certain answer and consent, To the quick music of the instrument. A CUSTOM OF "YE ENGLYSHE." When a more than ordinarily doubtful matter is offered us for credence, we are apt to inquire of the teller if he "sees any green" in our optics, accompanying the query by an elevation of the right eyelid with the forefinger. Now, regarding this merely as a "fast" custom, I marvelled greatly at finding a similar action noted by worthy Master Blunt, as conveying to his mind an analogous meaning. I can scarcely credit its antiquity; but what other meaning can I understand from the episode he relates? He had been trying to pass himself off as a native, but— The third day, in the morning, I, prying up and down alone, met a Turke, who, in Italian, told me, Ah! are you an Englishman? and with a kind of malicious posture laying his forefinger under his eye, methought he had the lookes of a designe.-Voyage in the Levant, performed by Mr. Henry Blunt, p. 60: Lond. 1650. -a silent, but expressive, "posture," tending to eradicate any previously-formed opinion of the verdantness of Mussulmans! THE FALLACY OF TRADITIONS. Several communications have already proved how little reliance is to be placed upon the traditions repeated by vergers and guides to wondering lionizers. A collection of other instances, where the test of science and archæological investigation have exposed their falsity, would be interesting and instructive. In spite of Sir Samuel Meyrick's judicious arrangement of the armor in the tower, the beef-eaters still persist in relating the old stories. handed down. At Warwick Castle the rib of the dun cow is ascertained to be a bone of a fossil elephant, and Guy's porridgepot a military cooking utensil of the time of Charles I. St. Crispin's chair, carefully preserved in Linlithgow Cathedral by insertion in the wall, is of mahogany-an American wood! The chair of Charles I. at Leicester bears a crown, which, having been the fashionable ornament after the Restoration, together with the form, betrays the date. Queen Eleanor's crosses, it now appears, were not built by her affectionate husband, but by her own direction and her own money. The fire-place and other objects in belted Will's bedroom, at Naworth Castle, are manifestly of later date. The curious bed treasured up near Leicester as that occupied by Richard III., immediately before the battle of Bosworth, is in the style commonly called Elizabethan. Queen Mary's bed at Holyrood is of the last century; and her room at Hardwicke is in a house which was not erected till after her death; the tapestry and furniture, however, may have been removed from the old hall where she was imprisoned. The tower of Caernarvon Castle, in which the first Prince of Wales is supposed to have been born, is not of so early a period. In short, archæologists seem to show that there is not only nothing new under the sun, but that there is also nothing true under the sun. DESCENDANTS OF DEFOE. A son of Daniel shines in Pope's Dunciad. Does the follow ing notice refer to a son of that son? It is extracted from an old Wiltshire paper :— On the 2 Jan. 1771, two young men, John Clark and John Joseph Defoe, said to be a grandson* to the celebrated author of the True Born Englishman, *It appears from Wilson's Life that he was a great-grandson. &c., were executed at Tyburn for robbing Mr. F―, the banker, of a watch and a trifling sum of money on the highway,— and the writer then proceeds to moralize on the inequality of that code of laws, which could visit with death the author of a burglary committed on another man, who, by the failure of his bank, had recently produced an unexampled scene of distress, in the ruin of many families, and was yet suffered to go scatheless. Another notice, which is also extracted from a Wiltshire paper, is dated 1836. In a street adjoining Hungerford Market, there is now living, "to fortune and to fame unknown," the great-grandson of the author of Robinson Crusoe. His trade is that of a carpenter, and he is much respected in the neighborhood. His father, a namesake of this great progenitor, was for many years a creditable tradesman in the old Hungerford Market. It is doubtless of the latter that the Edinburgh Review (Oct. 1815, p. 487) speaks. It is there stated that he was then living in London," a creditable tradesman in Hungerford Market. His manners give a favorable impression of his sense and morals. He is neither unconscious of his ancestor's fame, nor ostentatious of it." He is there stated to be a great-grandson of Defoe, and not a grandson, as is implied in the preceding notice. ZACHARY BOYD. The well known couplet about Pharaoh— And was not Pharaoh a saucy rascal? That would not let the children of Israel, their wives To eat the Pascal. is from a certain History of the Bible or Bible History, by the Rev. Dr. Zachary Boyd, of Todrig, who was either Principal or Professor of Divinity at Glasgow in the seventeenth century. He left considerable property to the College there, on condition that his bust should be placed in the quadrangle, and his great work printed under the care of the Academical Senatus. The bust was placed accordingly, and is, or lately was, to be seen in a niche over the inner doorway. The History was also printed, it is said, but never published. However, curious visitors have always been allowed a peep into it, and a few choice morsels are This is one stave of the lamentation of Jonah: current. Lord! what a doleful place is this! And greasy guts do handle. Speaking of Zackariah Boyd, Granger says (vol. ii. p. 379): His translation of the Scripture, in such uncouth verse as to amount to burlesque, has been often quoted, and the just fame of a benefactor to learning has been obscured by that cloud of miserable rhymes. Candor will smile at the foible, but applaud the man. Macure, in his account of Glasgow, p. 223, informs us he lived in the reign of Charles I. ODD TITLES. In 1686 a pamphlet was published in London, entitled A most Delectable Sweet Perfumed Nosegay for God's Saints to Smell at. About the year 1649, there was published a work entitled A Pair of Bellows to blow off the Dust cast upon John Fry; and another, called The Snuffers of Divine Love. Cromwell's time was particularly famous for title-pages. The author of a work on charity entitled his book, Hooks and Eyes for Believers' Breeches. Another, who professed a wish to exalt poor human nature, calls his labors High-heeled Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness. And another, Crumbs of Comfort for the Chickens of the Covenant. A Quaker, whose outward man the powers that were thought proper to imprison, published A Sigh of Sorrow |