with scriptural and historical subjects.  “Painting,” observes he, “were the use of it universal, would be a powerful means of instruction to children and the lower orders; and were all the fine surfaces, which are now plain and absolutely wasted, enriched with the labours of the art, if they once began to appear, they would accumulate rapidly; and were the ornamented edifices open to all, as freely as they ought to be, a wide field of new and agreeable study would offer itself.”

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PHILANTHROPY.

  Hast thou power? the weak defend,
  Light?—­give light:  thy knowledge lend. 
  Rich?—­remember Him who gave. 
  Free?—­be brother to the slave.

Amulet.

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LITERARY CLUBS.

O what curses, not loud, but deep, has not old Simpkin, of the Crown and Anchor, in his day, and Willis and Kay in later times, groaned at the knot of authors who were occupying one of his best dining-rooms up-stairs, and leaving the Port, and claret, and Madeira to a death-like repose in the cellar, though the waiter had repeatedly popped his head into the apartment with an admonitory “Did you ring, gentlemen?” to awaken them to a becoming sense of the social duties of man.—­New Monthly Mag.

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ALLIGATORS SWALLOWING STONES.

The Indians on the banks of the Oronoko assert, that previously to an alligator going in search of prey, it always swallows a large stone, that it may acquire additional weight to aid it in diving and dragging its victims under water.  A traveller being somewhat incredulous on this point, Bolivar, to convince him, shot several with his rifle, and in all of them were found stones, varying in weight according to the size of the animal.  The largest killed was about 17 feet in length, and had within him a stone weighing about 60 or 70 pounds.

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CRICKET.

Miss Mitford, in one of her charming sketches, tells us of a cricket-ball being thrown five hundred yards.  This is what the people who write for Drury-lane and Covent-garden would call “pitching it pretty strong.”

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ADVANTAGES OF CHEAP BOOKS.

When Goldsmith boasted of having seen a splendid copy of his poems in the cabinet of some great lord, saying emphatically, “This is fame, Dr. Johnson,” the doctor told him that, for his part, he would have been more disposed to self-gratulation had he discovered any of the progeny of his mind thumbed and tattered in the cabin of a peasant.—­Q.  Rev.

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