How to acquire Knowledge.—­Edmund Stone, the celebrated mathematician, was a native of Scotland, and the son of the Duke of Argyle’s gardener.  Before he attained the age of eighteen years, he had acquired a knowledge of geometry, &c., without a master.  When he was asked by the Duke of Argyle how he had gained this knowledge, he replied, “I first learned to read; and the masons being at work on your house, I saw that the architect used a rule and compasses, and that he made calculations.  Upon inquiring into the uses of these things, I was informed there was a science named arithmetic.  I purchased a book of arithmetic, and I learned it.  I was told there was another science called geometry, and I learned that also.  Finding that there were good books on these two sciences in Latin, I bought a dictionary, and learned Latin.  I also understood there were good books of the same kind in French, and I learned French.  This, my lord, is what I have done; and it seems to me that we may learn anything when we know the twenty-four letters of the alphabet.”  The Duke, pleased with this simple answer, drew Stone out of obscurity, and provided for him an employment which allowed of his favourite pursuit.

P.T.W.

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Duelling.—­The students of the Berlin University lately introduced a new mode of duelling.  In order that chances might be equal on both sides, the combatants went to the bed of a man attacked with cholera, and kissed him.  Neither of the parties having experienced the least symptom of the epidemic during the next twenty-four hours, the seconds declared that the two adversaries had satisfied the laws of honour, and the affair was consequently settled.—­SWAINE. (We take this piece of irony to be well applied.)

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Popes.—­His Highness Leo.  XII., the present Pope’s predecessor, was, according to the visual mode of reckoning, the two hundred and fifty-second since Peter the Apostle.  Of these 208 were natives of Italy, 14 were Frenchmen, 11 Greeks, 8 Syrians and Dalmatians, 5 Germans, 3 Spaniards, 2 North Africans, and 1 Englishman.

W.G.C.

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In the churchyard of Arthuret, a village in Cumberland, are interred, the remains of poor Archy Armstrong, jester or fool to Charles I.; and by an accident suitable to his profession, the day of his funeral was the first of April.

SWAINE.

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Imperial Extravagance.—­Asses’ milk is said to be a great beautifier and preserver of the skin.  Poppaea, wife of the Emperor Nero, used it for that purpose, having four or five hundred asses constantly in her retinue, to furnish her every morning with a fresh bath.

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ANNUALS FOR 1833.

With the present Number, a SUPPLEMENT,