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experienced for a considerable time, although at intervals, the most dreadful agitation.

The first shock continued without intermission for half an hour; about eight in the evening there came a second, no less violent than the first; and in the space of half an hour were two others. During the night was reckoned thirty shocks.

JULY.

THIS month was under the protection of Jupiter, and was originally called Quintilis, as being the fifth month of the year, according to the old Roman calender. It was Mark Anthony who, during his consulate, ordered that it should thenceforth be called Julius, in honour of Julius Cæsar, it being the month in which he was born.

The first was the day on which the leases of houses in Rome generally expired, and were renewed. On the fifth the festival of the Poplifugia was celebrated, in memory of the retreat of the people to the Aventine Hill, at the time when Rome was taken by the Gauls. The festival of Fortuna muliebris was held on the sixth it was established by the wife and sister of Coriolanus, on their having obtained peace from him for their country. On this day also began the Ludi Apollinares, which lasted eight days, in honour of Apollo. They were celebrated in the great Circus, under the direction of the Prætor. The seventh, or first day of the Nones, was called nones caprotines, and was a festival in honour of Juno; in which, in memory of the services that they had rendered, after the capture of Rome by the Gauls, the slaves entertained their mistresses, under the wild fig-trees out of the city. Romulus disappeared on this day. Vitula, the goddess of rejoicing, had a festival on the eighth; and, under the emperors, the twelfth day was kept, it being the birthday of Julius Cæsar. The Mercuriales, dedicated to Mercury, began on the fourteenth, and continued for six days. The fifteenth was consecrated to Castor and Pollux, and solemn sports and combats took place. The seventeenth was an unlucky day, because on that day the battle of Allia was lost. The Lucaria began

on the eighteenth, and continued for four days. They took their name from a sacred wood, Lucus, situated between the Tyber and the road called Via Salaria. It is said they were celebrated in this place, because here the Romans took refuge after having been defeated by the Gauls. Others derive their origin from the offerings in money which were made in the sacred wood, and which were denominated luci. Sports were held in honour of Neptune on the twenty-second, and pregnant women offered sacrifices to the goddess Opigena, which, in fact, was only another name for Juno. On the twenty-fifth the Furinalia were held. Some contend that Furina, the goddess to whom they were dedicated, was the goddess of thieving; others, and Cicero is of the number, consider her as being the same with the Furies. Be that as it may, she had a temple and a priest of her own. The Ambarvalia was also said to have been held on this day, but this is not certain. They were, however, held in July. The intent of them was to obtain a plentiful harvest from the gods. They took place in the country, and the offering was a young cow, a sow, or a sheep. On the twenty-eighth sacrifices of wine and honey were offered to Ceres; and, about the end of the month, a carrottyhaired dog was sacrificed to the Dog-star, in order to avert the excessive heat of the season.

The sun, during this month, is in the signs Cancer and Leo.

TO THE

EDITOR OF THE POCKET MAGAZINE.

AN INSCRIPTION ON A BASKET.

SIR, SHOULD the following be deemed worthy a place in your valuable miscellany, I shall be very much gratified by its insertion.

March 22, 1818.

Here lies the Body

OF

GABBLE, THE GANDER,

G. W. L.

WHO DIED OF A WOUND IN HIS WEAZON,
Sept. 29, 1817, aged Nine Months.

Reader,

TO THIS SILLY BIRD,

(WHICH THY SELF-SUFFICIENCY CONTEMNS)

THOU OWEST

INNUMERABLE BENEFITS.

He

GAVE RISE TO THAT SURPRISING INSTRUMENT WHICH, WITH MAGIC POWER,

DISPLAYS TO PUBLIC VIEW THE SENTIMENTS OF THE

HEART,

WHICH PROPAGATES WORKS OF GENIUS

TO FUTURE AGES,

AND ENABLES FRIENDS AND LOVERS TO ELUDE,
IN SOME DEGREE,

THE PAINS OF ABSENCE,

AND, IN SPITE OF INTERVENING OCEANS, ENJOY A MUTUAL INTERCOURSE IN DISTANT REGIONS. HIS DOWNY PLUMES

COMPOSE THE BED OF STATE,

WHILST

HIS BETTER PART IS A USEFUL ORNAMENT

TO THE TABLE OF PRINCES.

The present Hero,

LIKE THE CELEBRATED PRESERVER OF THE CAPITOL, WAS REMARKABLY VIGILANT;

AND, THO' NO FEMALE, EXTREMELY LOQUACIOUS. YET HIS VOICE WAS NOT THE VOICE OF PRAISE; FOR, LIKE THE PUNY CRITICS OF A MODERN STAGE, HIS ONLY TALENT LAY IN

Hissing.

ANECDOTE AND WIT.

No. 7.-LOTTERY MANIA.

THE dreadful spirit of gambling which the Lottery inspires, was never, perhaps, more strongly manifested than in the case of Mr. Christopher Bartholomew, who was once the proprietor of White Conduit House, at Pentonville. Independent of his possessing the freehold of that house, and of the Angel Inn at Islington, he rented land to the amount of 20007. a year in the neighbourhood of Islington and Holloway; and was remarkable for having the largest quantity of hay-stacks of any grower in the neighbourhood of London. At that time, he is believed to have been worth 50,0007. kept his carriage, and servants in livery; and, upon one occasion, having been unusually successful at insuring in the lottery, gave a public breakfast at his tea gardens, "to commemorate the smiles of fortune," as it was expressed upon the tickets of admission to this fête champétre. He at times had some very fortunate hits in the lottery, which, perhaps, tended to increase the mania which hurried him to his ruin. He has been known to spend upwards of 2000 guineas in a day for insurance, to raise which, stack after stack of his immense crops of hay have been cut down and hurried to market, as the readiest way to obtain the supplies necessary for these extraordinary outgoings. Having at last been obliged to part with his house from accumulated difficulties and embarrassments, he passed the last thirteen years of his life in great poverty, subsisting by the charity of those who knew him in his better days, and the emolument he received as a juryman of the sheriff's court for the county. Still his propensity to be engaged in this ruinous pursuit never forsook him; and meeting one day, in the year 1807, with an old acquaintance, he related to him a strong presentiment which he entertained, that if he could purchase a particular number in the ensuing lottery (which he was not then in a situation to accomplish) it would prove successful. His friend, after remonstrating with him on the impropriety of persevering in a practice

that had already been attended with such evil consequences, was at last persuaded to go halves with him in a sixteenth part of the favourite number, which being procured, was most fortunately drawn a prize of 20,000%. With the money arising from this extraordinary turn of fortune, he was prevailed upon by his friends to purchase an annuity of 607. per annum ; yet, fatally addicted to the pernicious habit of insurance, he disposed of it, and lost it all. He has been known frequently to apply to those persons who had served him in his prosperity, for an old coat, or some other article of cast off apparel, and not many days before he died, he solicited a few shillings to buy him necessaries. He died, aged 68, in March, 1809, in a room up two pairs of stairs, in Angel Court, Windmill-street, Haymarket.

DUTCH STRATAGEM.

AT the Cape of Good Hope, in 1776, the Dutch employed a stratagem which could hardly have succeeded except with the Hottentots. One of the Company's officers had killed an individual belonging to this inoffensive tribe. All his countrymen took part in the injury, and an example became necessary for their pacification. The delinquent was brought before them, fettered as a criminal. He underwent all the formalities of justice, was condemned, and made to swallow a goblet of burning brandy. The man acts his own part, counterfeits death, and is carried off the stage wrapped in a cloak. The Hottentots declared themselves completely satisfied. The worst they could have done would have been to throw the man into the fire; but the Dutch had inflicted a much more exemplary punishment, by pouring fire into the man.

SINGULAR PUNISHMENT.

ONE of the French parliaments condemned a person of the name of Aujay, for having insulted a lady of quality, to withdraw himself from all places in which she should appear, under pain of some severer chastisement; and Madame de Montbason, for having in like manner offended the Princess of Condé, received from Queen Ann of Austria a similar sentence.

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