Oranges.—­It is not perhaps generally known or suspected, that the rabbis of the London synagogues are in the habit of affording both employment and maintenance to the poor of their own persuasion, by supplying them with oranges at an almost nominal price.—­Ibid.

Noble Authors.—­The poor spinsters of the Minerva press can scarcely support life by their labours, so completely are they driven out of the market by the Lady Charlottes and the Lady Bettys; and a rhyming peer is as common as a Birmingham button.  It would take ten Horace Walpoles at least to do justice to the living authors of the red book.

Buying Books.—­Money is universally allowed to be the thing which all men love best; and if a man buys a book, we may safely infer he thinks well of it.  What nobody buys, then, we may justly conclude is not worth reading.

* * * * *

On the Duchess of Devonshire’s canvassing for Mr. Fox at the Westminster Election.

  Array’d in matchless beauty, Devon’s fair
    In Fox’s favour takes a zealous part;
  But, oh! where’er the pilferer comes beware,
    She supplicates a vote, and steals a heart.

* * * * *

Lines sent by a Surgeon, with a box of ointment, to a Lady who had an inflamed eye.

  The doctor’s kindest wishes e’er attend
  His beauteous patient, may he hope his friend;
  And prays that no corrosive disappointment
  May mar the lenient virtues of his ointment;
  Of which, a bit not larger than a shot,
  Or that more murd’rous thing, “a beauty spot,”
  Warmed on the finger by the taper’s ray,
  Smear o’er the eye affected twice a day. 
  Proffer not gold—­I swear by my degree,
  From beauty’s lily hand to take no fee;
  No glittering trash be mine, I scorn such pelf,
  The eye, when cured, will pay the debt itself.

* * * * *

George III. is said to have observed to a person who approached him in a moment of personal restraint, indispensable in his situation, “Here you see me checkmated.”

* * * * *

OLD GRIMALDI.

The first Grimaldi celebrated on the stage, appeared at Paris about the year 1735, when his athletic force and extraordinary agility procured him the sobriquet of “Jambe de Fer,” or iron-leg.  In 1742, when Mahomet Effendi, ambassador of the Porte, visited Paris, he was received with the highest honour and utmost distinction; and the court having ordered a performance for the Turk’s entertainment, Grimaldi was commanded to exert himself to effect that object.  In obedience to his directions, in making a surprising leap, his foot actually struck a lustre, placed high from the stage, and one of the glass drops was thrown in the face of the ambassador.  It was then customary