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and the painfulness of the posture in which they were obliged to work, but they finished it in six months. They then employed themselves in making. from the wood which was allowed them as fuel, a ladder to mount from the fosse upon the parapet, a height of twenty-five feet; the logs were from eighteen to twenty inches in lenth, and to shape them he used a saw, made from an old iron candlestick. Each piece was made to fit into the next, and fastened by two strong pegs, upon which they were to climb. They finished twenty of these pieces taking the greatest care to stow them away as fast as they were done. [To be continued.]

ANECDOTE.

When the emperor Vespasian commanded a Roman senator to give his vote against the interest of his country, and threatened him with immediate death if he spoke on the other side. The noble Roman, conscious that the attempt to serve the people was in his power, though the event was eve so uncertain, answered with a smile, " Did I ever tell you I was immortal? My virtue is in my own disposal, my life in your's; do what you will, I shall do what I ought; and if I fall in the service of my country, I shall have more triumph in my death than you in all your laurels.' -Where is the English senator who would make such a reply. on a similar occasion?

INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

FLOWER GARDENS.-Professor Beckmann has not been able to discover any decisive testimony that either the Greeks or Romans indulged a taste for flowers; none at least that would imply their having gardens set apart for the culture of these pleasing objects. It does not appear that they ever endeavoured to improve their own wild and indigenous plants, or that they imported others from foreign countries. We can only consider the florid description of the garden of Alcinous as the effusion of 'poetry; and those of Cicero and Pliny were only vineyards with grottos, alcoves, and arbours. It is not in fact above two centuries ago that our own gardens were probably, in point of taste as well as of products, even inferior to those of the Greeks and Romans and, for most of the embellishments we now possess of flower-beds, shrubberies, and conservatories, we are indebted to foreign countries. The nations among whom a taste for flowers was first discovered to prevail in modern times were China, Persia, and Turkey. The vegetable treasures of the eastern world were assembled at Constantinople, whence they passed into Italy, Germany and Holland; and from the latter into England; and since botany has assumed the character of a science,

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we have laid the whole world under contribution for trees, shrubs, and flowers, which we have not only made our own, but generally improved in vigour and beauty. The passion for flowers preceded that of ornamental gardening, which still continued to be totally destitute of taste. The Dutch system of straight walks enclosed by high clipped hedges of yew or holly, every where prevailed; and tulips and hyacinths bloomed under the sheltered windings of the Walls of Troy,' most ingeniously traced in box.

Notwithstanding all the ridicule that has been directed against Brown and Repton, we are certainly indebted to them, in no small degree, for expelling the stiff formality of the Dutch system of ornamental gardening, and enlarging our prospects by the exchange of walls and high trimmed hedges for the sunk-fence. But the person who succeeded best in bringing us back to the point nearest to nature was Kent. It was he who, as Walpole observed, chastened or polished, not transformed, the living landscape where the united plumage of an ancient wood extended wide its undulating canopy, and stood venerable in darkness, Kent thinned the foremost ranks, and left but so many detached and scattered trees as softened the approach of gloom, and blended the chequered light with the thus lengthened shadows of the remaining columns.' From his time, the taste in pleasuregrounds, shrubberies, and ornamental gardening has gradually improved, and may now be said to have reached a degree of excellence in this island unrivalled in any other part of the world.

It is certain that no nation on earth can boast that assemblage of various kinds of shrubs and flowers now to be found in Great Britain. Most countries have a predilection for some particular plants, while all the rest are disregarded. In Turkey, for instance, the flowers which, after the rose, are principally esteemed, are the ranunculus and the tulip, the latter of which grows wild in the Levant; but, through accident, weakness or disease, few plants,' says Beckmann, acquire so many tints, variegations, and figures as the tulip.' This gaudy flower was first cultivated in Italy about the middle of the sixteenth century under the name of tulipa, obviously derived from tuliband, which, in the Turkish language, signifies a turban.

It is well known that in Holland the tulip became, about the middle of the seventeenth century, the object of a trade unparalleled in the history of commercial speculation. From 1634 to

1637 inclusive, all classes in all the great cities of Holland became infected with the tulipomania. A single root of a particular species, called the Viceroy, was exchanged, in the true Dutch taste, for the following articles-2 lasts of wheat, 4 of rye, 4 fat oxen, 3 fat swine, 12 fat sheep, 2 hogsheads of wine, 4 tons of beer, 2 tons of butter, 1000 pounds of cheese, a complete bed, a suit of clothes, a silver beaker,-value of the whole 2500 florins.

Police Regulations. Those who have never experienced the want of the luxuries and conveniences of every description which London and other great cities and towns of England now afford, will not readily conceive how our ancestors contrived to pass their lives in any degree of comfort with their unpaved, unlighted, undrained streets-without water conveyed to their door by pipes or aqueducts-without hackney-coaches or other light vehicles for travelling-with out a general or penny post-and a thousand other petty conveniences, the privation of any one of which would griev ously disturb the temper, and affect the comforts of the present generation.

Paving of Streets. The first of all conveniences is proba bly that of a free and easy power of locomotion; and hence we find that the ancient Greeks and Romans paid particular attention, the latter more especially, to the pavement of their roads or highways-while they were indifferent as to the state of their streets; though, as Professor Beckmann observes, one would think that men would be more desirous of a good pavement (in front of their houses) where they daily trod, than on the highways which they probably seldom troubled. The streets of Rome, however, were partially paved; and those of Herculaneum and Pompeii had (besides the pavement) raised trottoirs on the sides for the use of foot passengers.

The streets of London had no pavement in the eleventh century. In 1090, Cheapside, the heart of the city, was of such soft earth, that when the roof of St. Mary-le-Bow was blown off by a violent gale of wind, four of the beams, each six and twenty feet long, were so deeply buried in the street, that little more than four feet remained above the surface. The first toll we know of in England, for repairing the highways, was imposed in the reign of Edw. III. for mending the road between St. Giles's and Temple Bar.-(Rymer, vol. v. p. 520.) It was not till 1417 that Holborn was paved, tho it was often impassable from its depth of mud; it appears, indeed, that during the reign of Henry VIII. many of the streets of London were 'very foul and full of pits and sloughs, very perilous and noyous as well for the king's subjects on horseback as on foot and with carriage.' Smithfield was not paved till 1614. In fact, down to 1762, the streets of the metropolis were generally obstructed with stalls, sheds, signposts, and projections of various kinds; and each inhabitant paved before his own door in such manner, and with such materials, as pride, poverty, or caprice might suggest: there were no trottoirs-the footway was exposed to the carriage

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way except in some of the principal streets, where they were, separated by a line of posts and chains, or by wooden paling. In that year, (1762) the Westminster Paving Act' passed, from which we may date all those improvements and conveniences which have made this country the boast and envy of the world.

The first pavement in Paris was made in 1184, on which occasion, Rigord, the physician to Philip II. says, 'it changed its name from Lutetia (so called from its filthiness) to Paris the son of Priam: What relationship there was be tween the city of Paris and Priam we are ignorant; but he tells us that the king, standing one day at the window of his palace near the Seine, and observing that the dirt thrown up by the carriages produced a most offensive stench, resolved to remedy this intolerable nuisance by causing the streets to be paved. For a long time swine were permitted to wallow in them; till the young king, Philip, being killed by a fall from his horse, by a sow running between its legs, an order was issued that no swine should in future run about the streets.

Those only who are accustomed to the pure air and clean streets of London, can scarcely be brought to imagine that many large cities in the world know not yet the luxury of a water closet. Mr. Beckmann tells us, that the residence of the King of Spain was destitute of this improvement, at the very time that the English navigators found conveniences constructed in the European manner near the habitations of the cannibals of New Zealand. It is but very few years the streets of Warsaw ceased to be the common receptacle of every kind of filth. Those of Lisbon still continue to be so: in the streets of this great city it is suffered to accumulate in heaps which, in the summer months, are dried into dust, and dispersed and scattered by the wind, in the most offensive manner. A Portugueze gentleman, who had a large tract of land in the neighbourhood of Lisbon, once offered to cleanse the streets at his own expense; but his petition was consi dered as insulting to the police, and he was glad to be let off with a reprimand. The streets of Berlin were never cleaned till about the middle of the seventeenth century; and hogsties were erected immediately under the windows: this practice was forbidden, but to little purpose, in 1641; and it was not till forty years afterwards that it was suppressed by a positive order, that no inhabitant should keep swine; which was carried into execution without any exception, because, observes the Professor, St. Anthony had no abbeys in Berlin.

Lighting the Streets. This was a police-regulation an

known to the Romans. In returning from their nocturnal feasts their slaves carried before them torches or lanterns.Public illuminations on particular occasions are, however, very ancient Egypt and Greece had them. Rome, according to Suetonius, was lighted up on the occasion of some games exhibited by order of Caligula. The Jews lighted up the Holy City for eight days at the feast of the Dedication of the Temple; and Constantine ordered Constantinople to be illuminated on Easter eve,

in the fathers of the

It would appear from some passages Greek church, that Antioch was permanently lighted in the fourth century, and Edessa in Syria in the fifth, and that the lamps were suspended, as they now are in Paris, from ropes stretched across the street. Paris was not lighted until the early part of the sixteenth century. In 1524 a mandate was issued for the inhabitants whose houses fronted the streets to hang out candles, after nine in the evening, to prevent incendiaries and street robbers. In 1555, large vases, filled with pitch, rosin, and other combustibles, called falots, were placed at the corners of the streets. In 1662, an Italian Abbe of the name of Laudați obtained an exclusive privilege for twenty years to let out torches and lanterns for hire; for this purpose he erected booths in every part of Paris, and had men and boys in waiting at cach, ready to attend either foot passengers or carriages; five years after this the whole city was lighted as it now is.

Night Watch. The next great improvement in police regulations, after paving and lighting the streets, was that of the night-watch, which, however, is perhaps more inefficient in London than in any other city of the world. The nightwatch is certainly a very ancient institution. It is often alluded to in the Song of Solomon and in the Psalms. Athens and other cities of Greece had their bell-bearers, besides mutes that went their rounds occasionally to see that the others did their duty. The same regulation nearly prevails in all the cities of China; the number of the hour, or watch, is struck on a hollow piece of wood, and mute officers go round to see that these watchmen sleep not on their post. The patroles of Rome carried bells, but they used them only to give the alarm in cases of fire, &c. The French say that the first night-watch in their country was established by Charlemagne in the year 595. At first the citizens were obliged to keep watch in turn, under the command of a miles gueti, who was also called chevalier;' guet, they say, is derived from wache, wacht-the watch; as is bivouac from bewacht. Beckmann thinks that the custom of calling the

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