The celebrated mathematical instrument maker, Mr. Ramsden, was frequently deficient in punctuality, and would delay for months, nay, for years, the delivery of instruments bespoken...
Dean Swift being in the country, on a visit to Dr. Sheridan, they were informed that a beggar's wedding was about to be celebrated. Sheridan played well upon the violin; Swift ther...
The Gazette of Augsburg for January, 1820, contained a singular account of the heroism and presence of mind displayed by the daughter of a gamekeeper, residing in a solitary house...
A child of one of the crew of His Majesty's ship _Peacock_, during the action with the American vessel _Hornet_, occupied himself in chasing a goat between decks. Not in the least...
When the Earl of Clancarty was captain of a man-of-war, and was cruising on the coast of Guinea, he happened to lose his chaplain by a fever, on which the lieutenant, who was a Sco...
On the elevation of this princess to the throne after the death of Louis XV., an officer of the body-guard, who had given her offence on some former occasion, expressed his intenti...
It is a custom among the Canadian Indians, that when one dreams that another has rendered him any service, the person dreamed of thinks it a duty to fulfil the dream, if possible....
The late Countess of Orkney, who died at an advanced age, was deaf and dumb, and was married in 1753 by signs. She resided with her husband at his seat, Rostellan, near Cork. Short...
When the late Lord Paget was ambassador at Constantinople, he, with the rest of the gentlemen who were in a public capacity at the same court, determined one day when there was to...
In one of the last discussions on the slave trade, Sir Charles Pole said, "while he deprecated the motion (for the abolition), he rejoiced that it had been brought forward thus ear...
A lawyer of Strasburgh being in a dying state sent for a brother lawyer to make his will, by which he bequeathed nearly the whole of his estate to the Hospital for Idiots. The othe...
This distinguished wit, upon being asked by a young member of parliament how he first succeeded in establishing his fame as an orator, replied, "Why, sir, it was easily effected. A...
Frederick the Great rang the bell one day, and nobody answered. He opened the door, and found the page sleeping on a sofa. About to wake him, he perceived the end of a billet out o...
Sydney Smith, preaching a charity sermon, frequently repeated the assertion that, of all nations, Englishmen were most distinguished for generosity and the love of their species. T...
Frederick, in surveying one evening some of the advanced posts of his camp, discovered a soldier endeavouring to pass the sentinel. His majesty stopped him, and insisted on knowing...
At a recent examination at Marlborough House Grammar School, a piece written for the occasion, entitled "Satan's Address to Nena Sahib," was to have been recited by two pupils. Onl...
When Admiral Cornwallis commanded the _Canada_, a mutiny broke out in the ship, on account of some unavoidable delay in the clerks paying some of the crew, in consequence of which...
Lord Tenterden contracted such an inveterate habit of keeping himself and everybody else to the precise matter in hand, that once, during a circuit dinner, having asked a country m...
The massacre of St. Bartholomew was not confined to Paris; orders were sent to the most distant provinces to commence the work of destruction. When the governor of the province bro...
The duke of Ossuna, viceroy of Naples, once visited the galleys, and passing through the prisoners, he asked several of them what their offences were. All of them excused themselve...
A rich man sent to call a physician for a slight disorder. The physician felt his pulse, and said, "Do you eat well?" "Yes," said the patient. "Do you sleep well?" "I do." "Oh, the...
Sir Phelim O'Neil, one of the leaders in the Irish rebellion of 1641, while in prison, previous to his trial, was frequently solicited, by promises of a free pardon, and large rewa...
During the French revolution, Madame Saintmaraule, with her daughter, and a youth, her son, not yet of age, were confined in prison and brought to trial. The mother and daughter be...
Bonaparte was passing along the dreadful road across the Echelles de Savoie, with his engineer, when he stopped, and pointing to the mountain, said, "Is it not possible to cut a tu...
On Mr. Erskine's receiving his appointment to succeed Mr. Dundas, as justiciary in Scotland, he exclaimed that he must go and order his silk robe. "Never mind," said Mr. Dundas, "f...
M. Labat, a merchant of Bayonne, ill in health, had retired in the beginning of the winter, 1803, to a country house on the banks of the Adour. One morning, when promenading in his...
Burton, in his "Anatomie of Melancholy," tells us of a physician in Milan, who kept a house for the reception of lunatics, and by way of cure, used to make his patients stand for a...
In the second year of Kean's London triumph, an elderly lady, whose sympathy had been excited by his forlorn condition in boyhood, but who had lost sight of him in his wanderings t...
The British sailors had always been accustomed to drink their allowance of brandy or rum pure, until Admiral Vernon ordered those under his command to mix it with water. The innova...
An old chiffonnier (or rag picker) died in Paris in a state apparently of the most abject poverty. His only relation was a niece, who lived as servant with a greengrocer. This girl...