The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 46 pages of information about The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 46 pages of information about The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.

Quarterly Journal of Agriculture.

* * * * *

THE SHOWER BATH.

  Quoth Dermot, (a lodger of Mrs. O’Flynn’s),
    “How queerly my shower bath feels! 
  It shocks like a posse of needles and pins,
    Or a shoal of electrical eels.”

  Quoth Murphy, “then mend it, and I’ll tell you how,
    Its all your own fault, my good fellow;
  I used to be bothered as you are, but now
    I’m wiser—­I take my umbrella.”

X.Y.Z.

* * * * *

THE TOWER OF LONDON.

Some of the following inscriptions are to be found in the “Beauchamp Tower.”

In the third recess on the left hand is “T.C.  I leve in hope, and I gave q credit to mi frinde, in time did stande me most in hande, so wolde I never doe againe, excepte I hade him suer in bande, and to al men wishe I so, unles ye sussteine the leike lose as I do.

  “Unhappie is that mane whose actes doth procuer,
  The miseri of this house imprison to induer.

  “1576, Thomas Clark.”

Just opposite the same is

  “Hit is the poynt of a wyse man to try and then truste,
  For Hapy is he who fyndeth one that is juste.

  “T.  Clarke.”

In the same part of the room between the two last recesses is this, in old English: 

“Ano.  Dni   ...    Mens.  As.
1568      J.H.S.       23

  “No hope is hard or vayne
  That happ doth ous attayne.”

And on the wall on the top of the Beauchamp Tower, are the following lines on a Goldfinch:—­

  “Where Raleigh pined within a prison’s gloom,
  I chearful sung, nor murmur’d at my doom,
  Where heroes bold and patriots firm could dwell,
  A Goldfinch in Content his note might swell;
  But death more gentle than the law’s decree,
  Hath paid my ransom from captivity.

  “Buried June 23rd, 1794, by a fellow-prisoner
  in the Tower of London.”

* * * * *

LORD THURLOW.

One day, when Lord Thurlow was very busy at his house in Great Ormondstreet, a poor curate applied to him for a living then vacant, “Don’t trouble me,” said the chancellor, turning from him with a frowning brow; “don’t you see I am busy, and can’t listen to you?” The poor curate lifted up his eyes, and with dejection said, “he had no Lord to recommend him but the Lord of Hosts!” “The Lord of Hosts,” replied the chancellor, “The Lord of Hosts!  I believe I have had recommendations from most lords, but do not recollect one from him before, and so do you hear, young man, you shall have the living;” and accordingly presented him with the same.

* * * * *

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.