over its leaves, to represent the amusements and humours of a fair in the low countries. At the top of a pole, which may have been the village May-pole, is a monkey with a cat on his back; then there is a sturdy bear-ward, in scarlet, with a wooden leg, exhibiting his bruin; an old woman telling fortunes to the rustics; a showman's drummer on a stage before a booth, beating up for spectators to the performan, e within, which the show-cloth represents to be a dancer on the tightrope; a well set-out stall of toys, with a woman displaying their attractions; besides other really interesting "bits" of a

crowded scene, depicted by no mean hand, especially a group coming from a church in the distance, apparently a wedding procession, the females welllooking and well dressed, bearing ribbons or scarfs below their waists in festoons. The destruction of this really interesting screen by worse than careless keeping, is to be lamented. This iuin of art is within a ruin of nature. Hornsey-tavern and its grounds have displaced a romantic portion of the wood, the remains of which, however, skirt a large and pleasant piece of water, formed at a considerable expense.

[o this water, which is well stored with fish, anglers resort with better prospect of success than to the New River; the walk around it, and the prospect, are very agreeable,

The old Hornsey-wood house well became its situation; it was embowered, and seemed a part of the wood. Two sisters, Mrs. Lloyd and Mrs. Collier, kept the house; they were ancient women; arge in size, and usually sat before their door, on a seat fixed between two venerable oaks, wherein swarms of bees hived themselves. Here the venerable and cheerful dames tasted many a refreshing cup, with their good-natured customers, and told tales of by-gone days, till, in very old age, one of them passed to her grave, and the other followed in a few months. Each died regretted by the frequenters of the rural dwelling, which was

soon afterwards pulled down, and the old oaks felled, to make room for the present roomy and more fashionable building. To those who were acquainted with it in its former rusticity, when it was an unassuming "calm retreat," it is indeed an altered spot. To produce the alteration, a sum of ten thousand pounds was expended by the present proprietor, and Hornsey-wood tavern is now a well-fre quented house. The pleasantness of its situation is a great attraction in fine weather.

CHRONOLOGY.

1802. On the 3d of June, madame Mara, the celebrated singer, took leave of the English public. The Dictionary of Musicians, in recording the performance, observes, that never certainly was such a transcendent exercise of ability as

a duet composed to display the mutual accomplishments of madame Mara and Mrs. Billington, which they sung with mutual excitement to the highest pitch of scientific expression.

Madame Mara was born at Cassel, in Germany, in 1750. Her paternal name was Schmelling. Her early years were devoted to the study of the violin, which, as a child, she played in England, but quitted that instrument, and became a singer, by the advice of the English ladies, who disliked a "female fiddler." To this, perhaps, we owe the delight experienced from the various excellencies of the most sublime singer the world ever saw. Her first efforts were in songs of agility, yet her intonation was fixed by the incessant practice of plain notes. To confirm the true foundation of all good singing, by the purest enunciation, and the most precise intonation of the scale, was the study of her life, and the part of her voicing upon which she most valued herself. The late Dr. Arnold saw Mara dance, by way of experiment, and assume the most violent gesticulations, while going up and down the scale; yet such was her power of chest, that the tone was as undisturbed and free as if she had stood in the customary quiet position of the orchestra. The Italians say, that "of the hundred requisites to make a singer, he who has a fine voice has ninety-nine." Mara had certainly the ninety-nine in one. Her voice was in compass from G to E in altissimo, and all its notes were alike even and strong; but she had the hundredth also in a supereminent degree, in the grandest and most sublime conception. At the early age of twentyfour, when she was at Berlin, in the immaturity of her judgment and her voice, the best critics admitted her to have exceeded Cuzzoni, Faustina, and indeed all those who preceded her. Our age has since seen Billington and Catalani, yet in majesty and truth of expression (a term comprehending the most exalted gifts and requisites of vocal science,) Mara retains her superiority. From her we deduce all that has been learned concerning the great style of singing. The memory of her performance of Handel's sublime work, I know that my Redeemer liveth,' is immortalized, together with the air itself. Often as we have since heard it, we have never witnessed even an approach to the simple majesty of Mara: it is to this air alone that she owes her

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highest preeminence; and tney who, not having heard her, would picture to themselves a just portraiture of her performance, must image a singer who is fully equal to the truest expression of the inspired words, and the scarcely less inspired music of the loftiest of all possible compositions. She was the child of sensibility: every thing she did was directed to the heart; her tone, in itself pure, sweet, rich, and powerful, took all its various colourings from the passion of the words; and she was not less true to nature and feeling in The Soldier tir'd,' and in the more exquisite, Hope told a flattering tale,' than in ' I know that my Redeemer liveth.' Her tone, perhaps, was neither so sweet nor so clear as Billington's, nor so rich and powerful as Catalani's, but it was the most touching language of the soul. It was on the mastery of the feelings of her audience that Mara set her claims to fame. She left surprise to others, and was wisely content with an apparently, but not really humbler, style; and she thus chose the part of genuine greatness." Her elocution must be taken rather as universal than as national; for although she passed some time in England when a child, and retained some knowledge of the language, her pronunciation was continually marred by a foreign accent, and those mutilations of our words which are inseparable from the constant use of foreign languages, during a long residence abroad. Notwithstanding this drawback,the impression she made, even upon uneducated persons, always extremely alive to the ridiculous effects of mispronunciation, and upon the unskilled in music, was irresistible. The fire, dignity, and tenderness of her vocal appeal could never be misunderstood; it spoke the language of all nations, for it spoke to the feelings of the human heart. Mrs. Billington, with a modesty becoming her great acquirements, voluntarily declared, that she considered Mara's execution to be superior to her own in genuine effect, though not in extent, compass, rapidity, and complication. Mara's divisions always seemed to convey a meaning; they were vocal, not instrumental; they had light and shade, and variety of tone; they relaxed from or increased upon the time, according to the sentiment of which they always appeared to partake: these attributes were always remarkable in her open, true, and liquid shake, which was certainly full of expression. Neither in

ornaments, learned and graceful as they were, nor in her cadences, did she ever iose sight of the appropriate characteristics of the sense of melody. She was, by turns, majestic, tender, pathetic, and elegant, but in the one or the other not a note was breathed in vain. She justly held every species of ornamental execution, to be subordinate to the grand end of uniting the effects of sound sense, in their operations upon the feelings of her hearers. True to this spirit, if any one commended the agility of a singer, Mara would ask, "Can she sing six plain notes?" In majesty and simplicity, in grace, tenderness, and pathos, in the loftiest attributes of art, in the elements of the great style, she far transcended all her competitors in the list of fame. She gave to Handel's compositions their natural grandeur and effect, which is, in our minds, the very highest degree of praise that we can bestow. Handel is heavy, say the musical fashion-mongers of the day. Milton would be heavy beyond endurance, from the mouth of a reader of talents even above mediocrity. The fact is, that to wield such arms, demands the strength of giants. Mara possessed this heavengifted strength. It was in the perform ance of Handel that her finer mind fixed its expression, and called to its aid all the powers of her voice, and all the acquisitions of her science. From the time of her retirement from England, Mara chiefly resided in Russia; yet as the conflagration of Moscow destroyed great part of her property, towards the close of the year 1819, or the beginning of 1820, she returned to London, and determined on presenting herself once more to the judgment of the English public, who had reverenced her name so highly and so long. She, consequently, had a concert at the Opera-house, but her powers were so diminished that it proved unsuccessful. Justice to the channel which supplies these particulars concerning madame Mara requires it to be observed, that they are almost verbatim from a book of great merit and extensive usefulness, The Dictionary of Musicians. Its information obviously results from extensive research concerning the deceased, and personal acquaintance with many of the living individuals whose memoirs it contains. The work has experienced the fate of originality and excellence-it has been pillaged without acknowledgment; and the discovery of an error or two,

preceding Sunday morning, while the sexton of All Saints' church, at Stamford, was engaged in ringing the bells, two youths, named King and Richards, through mere emulation, ascended the steeple by meaus of the crotchets, or projecting stones on the outside of that beautiful and lofty spire. The projecting stones on which they stepped in the ascent are twenty-six in number, three feet asunder, and the summit of the spire 152 feet from the ground. In ten or twelve minutes the feat was performed, and the adventurers had safely descended; one of them (Richards) having hung his waistcoat on the weathercock as a memento.

FLORAL DIRECTORY. Three-leaved Rose. Rosa Sinica. Dedicated to St. Boniface

June 6.

St. Norbert, A. D. 1134. St. Philip the Deacon, A. D. 58. St. Gudwall, Bp. 6th Cent. St. Claude, Abp. ▲. D, 696 or 703.

CHRONOLOGY

1762. George lord Anson, the circumnavigator of the world, died, at Moorpark, near Rickmansworth, Herts; he was born at Shuckborough, in Staffordshire, in 1700.

Abduction.

This offence was by no means uncommon in England some years ago. In the London Chronicle for 1762, there is an extract from a letter, dated "Sunday, Highgate, June 6," from whence it appears, that on that morning, between twelve and one, a postchaise, in which was a lady, was driven through that place very furiously by two postillions, and attended by three persons who had the appearance of gentlemen, from which she cried out, "Murder! save ine! Oh, save me!" Her voice subsided from weak ness into faint efforts of the same cries of distress; but as there was at that time no possibility of relief, they hastily drove "From antowards Finchley Common. other quarter," says the London Chronicle, "we have undoubted intelligence of the same carriage being seen, and the same outcries heard, as it passed through Islington, with the additional circumstance of

St Medard, Bp. 6th Cent. St. Gildard, or Godard, Bp. A. D. 511. St. Mariminus, 1st Cent. St. William, Abp. of York, A. D. 1154. St. Clou, or Clodulphus, Bp. A. D. 696. St. Syra, 7th Cent.

Thimble and Pea.

On the 8th of June, 1825, a publican in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel was charged at the Public Office, Bow-street, by Mr. John Francis Panchaud, a foreigner, with having, in conjunction with several other persons, defrauded him of a 107. note, at Ascot Heath race-course, on The alleged the Thursday preceding. fraud, or robbery, was effected by means of an unfair game known among the frequenters of races and fairs by the name of "the thimble rig," of which J. Smith, the officer, this day gave the following description to Mr. Minshull, in order that the worthy magistrate might perfectly understand the case:-A gang of seven or eight, or more, set up a table, but they

all appear strangers to each other, and anconnected with the game. except one who conducts it,and who appears to be the sole proprietor. This master of the ceremonies has three thimbles, and is provided with a number of peas, or pepper-corns. He puts one under each thimble, u perhaps only under one or two, as the case may be. He then offers a bet as to which thimble a pepper-corn is or is not under, and offers at first such a wager as is eagerly taken by those round the table, and he loses. He pays the losings freely, and the other members of this joint-stock company affect to laugh at him, as what they call a "good flat." Having thus drawn the attention, and probably excited the cupidity of a stranger, who appears to have money, they suffer him to win a stake or two, and get him to increase his bets. When he seems thoroughly in the humour, the master of the table lifts a thimble, under which is a pepper-corn, and turning his head aside to speak to some one, he suffers the corn to roll off; and, seeming to be unconscious of this, he replaces the thimble, and offers bets to any amount that there is a corn underneath that particular thimble. The stranger having seen the corn roll off" with his own eyes," as the phrase is, chuckles to himself, and eagerly takes the bet; the thimble is removed, and behold!-there is a pepper-corn under it still, the fellow having dexterously slipped another under it when the first rolled off the table." So that the plain fact is, sir," continued Smith," that the stranger, fancying he is taking in the master of the table, cheerfully stakes his money with a dead certainty, as he supposes, of winning, and he finds that he has been taken in himself." Smith said, he had known instances of gentlemen getting from their carriages, and in a few moments ridding themselves of 201. or 301., or perhaps more, and going off wondering at their folly, and looking uncommon silly.

It appeared that Mr. Panchaud went up to one of these tables, at which the defendant and many others were playing, and after winning two or three times, the trick above described was commenced. The conductor of the game offered a bet of 51., and Mr. Panchaud having seen the pepper-corn roll off, took the wager, and put down a 10%. note. In a moment after there was a general hustling, the table was upset, and the whole party speedily disappeared, together with the

VOL. I.

10%. note. When the bet was offered, the defendant, who stood next to him, joggec his elbow, and said eagerly, "Bet him. bet him; you must win, the ball is under our feet." Mr. Panchaud had no doubt, from his whole manner, that the defendant was concerned with the others in the trick. The case stood over for further investigation. It is only mentioned here for the purpose of showing a species of slight of hand continued in our own times to defraud the unwary.

PASSION FLOWER.

This flower, says the elegant author of the Flora Domestica, derives its name from an idea, that all the instruments of Christ's passion are represented in it.

The above engraving from an ancient print, shows the curious distortion of the flower in those parts whereon the imagination has indulged. The original print bears an inscription to this effect; that nature itself grieves at the crucifixion, as is denoted by the flower representing the five wounds, and the column or pillar of scourging, besides the three nails, the crown of thorns, &c.

Most of the passion-flowers are natives

2 C