neighbours, and had become the talk of the
village. The terrors of the house had consequently
fallen ninety per cent., and its value had
risen in the same proportion. Feeling, under
these altered circumstances, that he had let
the house far too cheap, the agent called
on Samson Brown, with his cheque-book in
his pocket, to induce him to rescind the
contract.

On the afternoon of that day, Samson
Brown returned to London in a second-class
carriage, bearing in his pocket the hundred
pounds found in the cellar, and an additional
fifty received from the house-agent as a
consideration for cancelling the agreement. How
he spent his wonderful holiday is only known
to his most confidential friends; but it is
generally remarked that his opinions on two
particular subjects are not the same as they
were a few years ago. No one in the world
was more opposed to superstition; never was
man more severely in favour of sticking to
business than Samson Brown. But now he
is occasionally heard to remark, that a holiday
now and then is a very good thing, if
people know how to make use of it; and
that, as for a belief in ghosts, there is a great
deal to be said in its favour.

A VERY OLD GENTLEMAN.

MR. SYLVANUS URBAN, gent., formerly of
Saint John's Gate, Clerkenwell, and now of
Westminster, although in his one hundred
and twenty-seventh year, is still a hale old
gentleman; who, so far from dwindling into
the lean and slippered pantaloon, seems to
get more robust and portly every year. A
grandfather, he has survived hundreds of
his countless progeny; many of them having
gone down to their graves more or less
prematurely. All his immediate descendants
are dead: his first-born, and a few of his
grandchildren, only surviving.

The Gentleman's Magazine, or Monthly
Intelligencer, by Sylvanus Urban, Gent., was
brought into the world in January, seventeen
hundred and thirty-one, with the following
announcement:

Upon calculating the number of newspapers, it is
found that (besides divers written accounts) no less
than two hundred half-sheets per month are thrown
from the press only in London, and about as many
printed elsewhere in the three kingdoms; a considerable
part of which constantly exhibit essays on various
subjects for entertainment; and all the rest
occasionally oblige their readers with matters of publick
concern, communicated to the world by persons of
capacity through their means; so that they are
become the chief channels of amusement and intelligence.
But then, being only loose papers, uncertainly
scattered about, it often happens that many things
deserving attention contained in them are only seen by
accident, and others not sufficiently published or
preserved for universal benefit and information. This
consideration hath induced several GENTLEMEN to
promote a monthly collection,—to treasure up, as in a
Magazine,* the most remarkable pieces on the subjects
above mentioned, or at least impartial abridgments
thereof, as a method much better calculated to preserve
those things that are curious than that of transcribing.

* The first instance of the literary use of this word is
the title of The Gentleman's Magazine.

This modest statement is followed by the
table of contents, which are said to be more
in quantity, and greater in variety, than in
any book of the kind or price that then
existed. The essays are chiefly notices
of articles, generally in the form of abridgments,
from The Craftsman, The London
Journal, Fog's Journal, The Grub-Street
Journal. The Weekly Register, The Universal
Spectator, The Free Briton; The British
Journal, or The Traveller; The Daily
Courant, and Read's Journal: almost a complete
list of the most remarkable periodicals of the
time.

An Ode to the King on New Year's Day,
by Colley Cibber, Esquire, takes the lead of
the poetical department, and gives rise to the
insertion of no fewer than four select pieces
of some length; the first two, parodies of the
Ode, the third a Hymn to the Laureate, and
the fourth a reply to the hymn, amounting
to pretty handsome abuse. One stanza of
the Laureate's ode runs thus:
                  

                       AIR.

     Ye grateful Britons, bless the year
        That kindly yields increase,
     While Plenty that might feed a war
        Enjoys the guard of Peace;
     Your Plenty to the skies you owe,
        Peace is your monarch's care;
     Thus bounteous Jove and George below
        Divided empire share.

The parodies are as dull as the original;
which, perhaps, is their excuse. A running
commentary is however quoted from The
Craftsman, which has some humour. The
commentator wants to know, whether, in
proof of one line,

       For most we triumph when the farmer feeds,

the Beefeaters at Saint James's ought not to
be appealed to, to prove the justness of it.

As Mrs. B—rb—r and Mrs. C—s—r, of
Bath, are probably so far forgotten that the
blanks must remain blanks, it will be
useless to transcribe the lines addressed by the
latter lady to the former; but ladies in all
ages, as well as of all ages, are liable to be
stung by bees; and, for their comfort, we
will transcribe an Epigram on a Lady stung
by a Bee: the more willingly as it brings to
a close the select poetry:

     To heal the wound the bee had made
        Upon my Deliah's face,
     Its honey to the wound she laid,
        And bid me kiss the place.

     Pleas'd, I obey'd, and from the wound
        Suck'd both the sweet and smart:
     The honey on my lips I found,
        The sting went thro' my heart.