Place for the nobility! A notice to the following
effect was sent for insertion to the St.
James's High-Flyer, the court and fashionable
organ of that period.

                                "DEATH.

"On the sixteenth instant, near Tyburn, aged
twenty-five, in consequence of a sudden fall, to
the great grief of a large circle of friends, the
Lord Viscount Lob, son of the Right Honourable
the Earl of Hawkweed, K.G.T., &c."

It is true that the fashionable organ declined
to publish the above (though drawn up by no
less an authority than the deceased himself, on
the day preceding his anticipated demise), and
it is well it did so, as on that very night his
lordship, who had been some time ailing,
fortunately broke a blood-vessel, whereby his
decease was, by medical authority, adjourned for
three weeks. During that interval, a copy of
the above announcement was submitted to the
Earl of Hawkweed himself, and acted so strongly
upon the well-known sensibility of that excellent
nobleman, that his influence was exerted in the
sick man's favour, and obtained permission for
him to visit the plantations of America. Mercy
so unexpected, and, let us add, so unmerited,
wrought for this unhappy man what the fear of
death could not. He survived, indeed, but for a
few months, but these were months of penitence,
and that true sorrow "not to be repented of."

Considering that old Mr. Humpage positively
refused to part with his friend Arthur, and that,
though interfering little in domestic affairs, he
was regarded, more than ever, as absolute master,
Polly-my-Lamb had to put up, as best she might,
with the society of the young artist. In order,
however, to relieve her as much as possible,
kind Aunt Serocold contrived an attractive little
studio in a remote corner of the mansion, to
which it was confidently hoped Arthur would
often retire. And so he did, and also painted
six more portraits; but as these proved to be all
studies of the same young person, in different
attitudes, and as no strange model visited the
house, it is to be presumed that Miss Serocold's
principal object failed.

One evening, as the party (little Mr. Hartshorne
happened to be present) were sitting together
after tea, papa, who seldom spoke, suddenly raised
his white head, and taking a hand of each of his
two nearest neighbours, put them softly together.

"My children, my good children, make me
happy."

There was again a day of excitement in Jermyn-
street. All Saint James's appeared to be out
on that pleasant morning in May that witnessed
the nuptials of the charming and wealthy heiress
of Basil Humpage, Esquire, and Arthur Haggerdorn,
of Stumpfelgrbölzgrad, Western Transylvania.
The St. James's High-Flyer devoted a
special paragraph to a description of the
ceremony, in which the Very Reverend Doctor
Cozey, Dean of St. James's, without the slightest
assistance (as in these degenerate days), first
united the above parties, and subsequently, like
a pleasant postscript to an interesting letter,
married Miss Mabel Serocold to Mr. John
Hartshorne. Among the blushing maids
attendant on the younger bride, the High-Flyer
distinguished the Señora Torre-Diaz, whose
devoted interest in her lovely friend, no less than
her own incomparable beauty, attracted deserved
attention. The bride's magnificent necklace of
pearls and emeralds was a present from Sir James
Polhill, the eminent magistrate. The police
arrangements, rendered necessary by the
immense assemblage, were under the immediate
direction of Mr. Henry Armour, chief officer.

PLANT SIGNATURES.

"THOUGH Sin and Sathan have plunged mankind
into an Ocean of Infirmities, yet the mercy
of God, which is over all his workes, maketh
Grasse to grow upon the Mountaines, and Herbes
for the use of men, and have not only stamped
upon them a distinct forme, but also given them
particular Signatures, whereby a man may read,
even in legible characters, the use of them."
Such is the ancient doctrine of Plant Signatures,
as stated by William Coles in the twenty-seventh
chapter of his Art of Simpling. Many plants
still bear the names given to them in accordance
with this doctrine. Not merely the superstitions
and passions, but the pious delusions and migrations,
of our forefathers are to be found recorded
in the popular names of plants. An illustration
of the doctrine of Signatures occurs in the
following passage, which has been translated
from P. Lauremberg's Apparatus Planatarum:
"The seed of garlic is black; it obscures the
eyes with blackness and darkness. This is to be
understood of healthy eyes. But those which
are dull through vicious humidity, from these
garlic drives this viciousness away. The tunic
of garlic is ruddy; it expels blood. It has a
hollow stalk, and it helps affections of the wind-
pipe."

The shape of the corolla has, according to the
doctrine of Signatures, given to Aristolochia
clematitis the name of birthwort. Tormentilla
officinalis is called bloodroot, the red colour of
its root having suggested its styptic character.
Pimpinella saxifraga, Alchemilla arvensis, and
the genus saxifraga, plants which split rocks by
growing in their cracks, have been named break-
stones, and as lithontriptic plants administered
in cases of calculus. Brunella, now spelt Prunella
vulgaris, is called brownwort, having brownish
leaves and purple-blue flowers, and being therefore
supposed to cure a kind of quinsy, called
in German die braune, and hookheal, having a
corolla somewhat like a bill, and being applied
to bill, or hook wounds. Verbascum thapsus,
having a leaf resembling a dewlap, was used to
cure the pneumonia of bullocks, under the
appellation of bullock's lungwort. Burstwort
(Herniaria glabra) was supposed to be efficacious
in ruptures. Clary (Salvia sclarea) has been