prising monument of his great learning and indefatigable research was printed in 1665: the first appeared, afterwards, in 1666, and the third in 1670. Most of the copies of the first two volumes of this great and invaluable work were burnt by the fire of London in 1666: it is said that of the first volume only twenty-three copies

were saved. A set of the 3 volumes complete is exceedingly rare, and worth ninety or a hundred guineas.

A catalogue of Prynne's works, and particulars concerning himself, are in Wood's "Athenæ Oxoniensis." An account of him is in the late Mr. Hargrave's preface to his edition of Hale on Parliaments. Prynne's ardor in writing was intense. Wood says "his custom was to put on a long quilted cap, which came an inch over his eyes, serving as an umbrella to defend them from too much light; and seldom eating a dinner, he would every three hours or more be munching a roll of bread, and refresh his exhausted spirits with ale." He was born in 1606 and died in 1669; and, supposing that he commenced authorship in arriving at man's estate, he is computed to have written a sheet a day *

1753 Sir Hans Sloane, a celebrated physician and botanist, died at the age of 93. He was a native of Killileagh in the county of Down, Ireland. After he had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and admitted a member of the College of physicians, he embarked in 1687 for Jamacia, as physician to the duke of Albemarle, and returned with eight hundred unknown plants, and a proportional number of new specimens of the animal kingdom. These he collected in so short a time that his French eulogist says he seemed to have converted minutes into hours. He was the first learned man whom science had tempted from England to that distant quarter of the globe. On returning

in May 1689, and, settling in London, he became eminent in his profession, and in 1694 was elected physician to Christ's Hospital, which office he filled till, compelled by infirmity, he resigned it in 1730. In 1693 he was elected secretary to the Royal Society, and revived the publication of the "Philosophical Transactions," which had been discontinued from 1687. He was succeeded in this office by Dr. Halley in 1712, about which time he actively promoted a Dispensary" for the poor, which was at length established, and ridiculed by Dr. Garth in a once celebrated satire bearing that title. In 1702 Sloane was incorporated doctor of physic at Oxford, and became an associated member of several Academies on the continent. In 1708, during a war with France, he was elected member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, as a compliment of high distinction to his eminent science. Queen Anne frequently consulted him; he attended her in her last illness, and on the accession of George I. he was created baronet, which was the first hereditary honor conferred in England on a physician. He also received the appointment of physician general to the army, which he held till 1727, when he was made physician to George II., and, being honored with the confidence of Queen Caroline, prescribed for the royal family till his death. In 1719 he was elected president of the Royal College of Physicians, and on the death of Sir Isaac Newton, in 1727, was chosen president of the Royal Society. While presiding over these, the two most illustrious scientific bodies of the kingdom, he learnedly and liberally promoted the objects of each.

Sir Hans Sloane had begun early in life to form a museum, and he spared no expence in continually storing it with the rarest and most remarkable specimens in botany and other departments of natural history, and with useful and curious works of art and science. These acquirements, with an excellent library, and the collections he made during his short voyage to to the West Indies, enabled him to publish his Natural History of Madeira, Barbadoes, and other West India Islands, with an account of his voyage, in two folio volumes, which was productive of great benefit to science, and excited emulation to similar pursuits both in England and abroad. From a catalogue in this work, it appears that his library and museum, in 1725, contained more than 26,200 subjects of natural history, exclusive of 200 volumes of preserved preserved plants; the year before his death, they amounted to upwards of 36,600.

In May, 1741, Sir Hans Sloane resigned all his public offices and employments and retired to his mansion at Chelsea, which manor he had bought in 1712. Thither he removed his museum, and there he received, as he had in London, the visits of the royal family and persons of rank, learned foreigners, and distinguished literary and scientific men; nor did he refuse admittance or advice to either rich or poor, who went to consult him respecting their health. At ninety he rapidly decayed, and expired at the age of ninety-two, after an illness of only three days.

Sir Hans Sloane's manners were courteous, his disposition was kind, his benevolence to the poor and distressed abundant: He was a governor of almost every hospital in London; to each of them he gave £100 in his lifetime and bequeathed more considerable sums by will. He zealously promoted the colonization of Georgia in 1732, and in 1739 formed the plan of bringing up the children in the Foundling Hospital. In 1721 he gave freehold ground of nearly four acres at Chelsea, on which the botanical garden stood, to the company of Apothecaries.

With a natural anxiety that his museum might not be dispersed, Sir Hans Sloane bequeathed it to the public on condition that £20,000 should be paid by parliament to his family, and in 1753 an act was passed for the purchase of his collections and of the Harleian collection of MSS., and for procuring a general depository for their reception with the Cottonian collection, and other public property of a similar kind. The duke of Montague's mansion in Bloomsbury was bought for the purpose, and in 1759 these collections, having been brought together and arranged, were opened to the public under certain regulations as the British Museum, which since then has been increased by parliamentary grants for purchases, and a multitude of donations and bequests of a like kind. Within a few

"An epistolary letter from TH-to Sir H-S-, who saved his life, and desired him to send over all the curiosities he could find in his Travels."*

An Epistolary Letter, &c.

Since you, dear doctor, saved my life,
To bless by turns and plague my wife,
In conscience I'm obliged to do
Whatever is enjoined by you.
According then to your command,
That I should search the western land,
For curious things of every kind,
And send you all that I could find;
I've ravaged air, earth, seas, and caverns,
Men, women, children, towns, and taverns,
And greater rarities can show
'Than Gresham's children ever knew;
Which carrier Dick shall bring you down
Next time his waggon comes to town.

I've got three drops of the same shower
Which Jove in Danae's lap did pour,
From Carthage brought: the sword I'll send
Which brought queen Dido to her end.
The stone whereby Goliah died,
Which cures the headach when applied.
A whetstone, worn exceeding small,
Time used to whet his scythe withall.
St Dunstan's tongs, which story shows
Did pinch the Devil by the nose.
The very shaft, as all may see,
Which Cupid shot at Anthony.
And what above the rest I prize
A glance from Cleopatra's eyes.
I've got a ray of Phœbus' shine,
Found in the bottom of a mine.
A lawyer's conscience, large, and fair,
Fit for a judge himself to wear.
In a thumb vial you shall see,
Close cork'd, some drops of honesty;
Which after searching kingdoms round
At last were in a cottage found.
An antidote, if such there be,
Against the charm of flattery.
I ha'nt collected any Care,
Of that there's plenty every where;
But, after wond'rous labor spent,
I've got one grain of rich Content.

It is my wish, it is my glory,
To furnish your Nicknackatory.
I only wish, whene'er you show'em,
You'll tell your friends to whom you owe'em,
Which may your other patients teach
To do as has done Yours,

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years restrictions that were vexatious have

h. m.

5 54

ings, and further improvements and al

Sun rises

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terations are now in progress.

The following pleasantry on Sir Hans Sloane's ardor in collecting is in a print

The farmer may now look for lambs,

* London, 1729, folio.

POND. an Almanac for 1678-amplified with "many good things both for pleasure and profit "-inserts the following notice as belonging to these pleasurable and profitable things:

"Times prohibiting Marriage. "Marriage comes in on the 13th day of January, and at Septuagesima Sunday it is out again until Low Sunday; at which time it comes in again, and goes not out until Rogation Sunday; thence it is forbidden until Trinity Sunday, from whence it is unforbidden till Advent Sunday; but then it goes out and comes not in again till the 13th day of January next following."

Wedding Rings, and the Ring Finger. The wedding ring is worn on the fourth finger of the left hand, because it was anciently believed that a small artery ran from this finger to the heart. Wheatley, on the authority of old missals, calls it a vein. "It is," he says, "because from thence there proceeds a particular vein to the heart. This indeed," he adds, "is now contradicted by experience: but several eminent authors, as well gentiles as Christians, as well physicians as divines, were formerly of this opinion, and therefore they thought this finger the properest to bear this pledge of love, that from thence it might be conveyed as it were to the heart.

Levinus Lemnius, speaking of the ringfinger, says, that " a small branch of the artery and not of the nerves, as Gellius thought, is stretched forth from the heart unto this finger, the motion whereof you may perceive evidently in all that affects the heart in women, by the touch of your fore finger. I used to raise such as are fallen in a swoon by pinching this joint, and by rubbing the ring of gold with a little saffron; for, by this, a restoring force that is in it passeth to the heart, and refresheth the fountain of life, unto which this finger is joined. Wherefore antiquity thought fit to compass it about with gold."

According also to the same author, this finger was called "Medicus;" for, on account of the virtue it was presumed to derive from the heart, "the old physicians would mingle their medicaments and potions with this finger, because no venom can stick upon the very outmost part of it, but it will offend a man, and communicate itself to his heart."

left hand

To a question, "Why is it that the person to be married is enjoined to put a ring upon the fourth finger of his spouse's left hand?" it is answered, "there is nothing more in this than that the custom was handed down to the present age from the practice of our ancestors, who found the left hand more convenient for such ornaments than the right, because it is less employed. For the same reason they chose the fourth finger, which is not only less used than either of the rest, but is more capable of preserving a ring from bruises, having this one peculiar quality, that it cannot be extended but in company with some other finger, while the rest may be singly stretched to their full length and straightness."

Some married women are so superstitiously rigid, in their notions concerning their wedding ring, that neither when they wash their hands, nor at any other time, will they take it off their finger; extending, it should seem, the expression of " till death us do part," even to this golden circlet, the token and pledge of matrimony.

There is an old proverb on wedding rings, which has no doubt been many a time quoted for the purpose of encouraging and hastening the consent of a diffident or timorous mistress :

"As your Wedding Ring wears, Your cares will wear away."

Formerly rings were given away at weddings. Anthony Wood relates of Edward Kelly, a "famous philosopher" in Queen Elizabeth's days, that "Kelley, who was openly profuse beyond the modest limits of a sober philosopher, did give away in gold-wire-rings (or rings twisted with three gold-wires), at the marriage of one of his maid-servants, to the value of £4000."

Davison, in his "Poetical Rhapsody," has the following beautiful

SONNET

Upon sending his Mistress a Gold-Ring with this poesie :

"PURE and ENDLESS."

If you would know the love which I you bear, Compare it to the ring which your fair hand Shall make more precious, when you shall it

wear:

So my Love's nature you shall understand. Is it of metal pure? so you shall prove

My Love, which ne'er disloyal thought did
stain.

Hath it no end? so endless is my Love,
Unless you it destroy with your disdain.
Doth it the purer grow the more 'tis tried?

So doth my love; yet herein they dissent, That whereas gold the more 'tis purified

By growing less, doth show some part is spent;

My love doth grow more pure by your more trying,

And yet increaseth in the purifying.*

Manchester, the seat of cotton mills, manufactories, and mechanical and musical science, is a place of great antiquity. It is surrounded by old halls of curious structure, and contains within itself many vestiges that excite peculiar admiration in lovers of literature and ancient remains. By the munificience of one of its merchants, Humphrey Chetham, there exists a Public Library in the full meaning of the term. With merely an incidental mention of the noble collegiate or parish church, and wholly passing by other edifices and institutions, some notices are subjoined of Humphrey Chetham's endowments and of the edifice in which his liberality is still fostered and dispensed.

Thomas West, lord de la Warre, the last male heir of that family, who was first rector of Manchester and then succeeded to the peerage, procured a license in the ninth year of Henry V., 1422, for making the parish church of Manchester collegiate. The college consisted of a warden and eight fellows, of whom two were parish priests, two canons, and four deacons, with two clerks and six choristers. The building of the house cost at that time £5000. The value of twelve lordships was bestowed by the founder on the college and to other pious uses.

About the time of the foundation of the

college was erected the present fabric of Christ Church, which, being the parish church, is now usually called the Old Church, to distinguish it from other churches in the town. It is a fine Gothic structure, ornamented with sculpture on the outside, and contains several chapels belonging to considerable families in the neighbourhood. It is enriched with curious tabernacle work over the stalls, and very grotesque carvings under the foldings of the seats.

The college was dissolved by act of Parliament in the first year of Edward VI., and the land and revenues taken by the king, and by him demised to Edward earl of Derby. Queen Mary afterwards refounded the college, and restored almost all the lands. The house called the college remained in the Derby family until the civil wars, when, with the rest of the property of James earl of Derby, it was sequestrated by the parliament. At that time it was greatly dilapidated; some parts were used as private dwellings, others were employed as magazines for powder and arms, and the greater part was devoted to the purposes of a prison. After the restoration it returned once more to the Derby family, and was ultimately destined to its present use.

Humphrey Chetham, by his will dated