Jenkins, that upon his coming into his sister's kitchen to beg alms, he asked him how old he was? who after a little pausing, said, he was about a hundred and sixtytwo or three. The Doctor asked him what kings he remembered? he said, Henry VIII. What public event he could longest remember? He said, the fight of Flodden-field. Whether the king was there? He said no, he was in France, and the Earl of Surry was general. How old he was then? He said about twelve years old. The Doctor looked into an old chronicle that was in the house, and found that the battle of Flodden-field was 152 years before that the earl he named was general, and that Henry VIII. was at Tournay. Jenkins was a poor man, and could neither read nor write. There were also four or five in the same parish, reputed to be 100 years old, or near it, who all said he was an elderly man ever since they knew him. This remarkable man died on the 8th of December, 1670, at Ellerton-upon-swale, at the amazing age of 169 years.

What a multitude of events, says an ingenious author, have crowded into the period of this man's life! He was born when the Roman Catholic religion was established by law; he saw the supremacy of the Pope overturned; the dissolution of the monasteries; popery established again; and at last, the Protestant religion securely fixed on a rock of adamant. In his time the Invincible Armada was destroyed; the republic of Holland formed; three queens beheaded, Anne Boleyn, Catharine Howard, and Mary Queen of Scots: a king of Spain seated upon the throne of England; a king of Scotland crowned king of England at Westminster, and his son beheaded before his own palace, his family being proscribed as traitors; and, last of all, the great fire in London, which happened in 1666, toward the close of his wonderful life.

He was buried in Bolton church-yard, near Catterick and Richmond, in Yorkshire, where a small pillar was erected to his memory, on which is the following epitaph composed by Dr. Thomas Chapman, Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, from 1746 to 1760:

Blush not, marble,

To rescue from oblivion
the memory of HENRY JENKINS :
a person obscure in birth,
but of a life truly memorable:
for

he was enriched with the goods of Nature,
if not of Fortune:

and happy in the duration,

if not the variety of his enjoyments:
and though the partial world despised and
disregarded his low and humble state,
the equal eye of Providence beheld
and blessed it

with a Patriarch's health
and length of days;-
to teach mistaken man
those blessings are entailed on
temperance,

a life of labour, and a mind at ease.
He lived to the amazing age of 169.

TOPOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

RUINS OF THE THEATRE AT TAÓRMINA WITH A DISTANT VIEW OF MOUNT ETNA.

THE Island of Sicily abounds with ruins of ancient edifices, some of which are the most picturesque in the world. We have selected a view of those of a theatre at Taormina, beautifully situated on the side of a high mountain, and commanding a fine view of the sea. It is almost too disparaging to call them ruins, considering the remarkable preservation of a great part of the structure. There are five distinct platforms of seats, attached to which are convenient galleries ingeniously planned; and, above the whole, two apartments which are supposed to have been places of storage for the tropaea and moveable decorations of the stage. The theatre being constructed on the sloping side of the mountain, the seats are all cut from the original rock. All along the front of one of the rows, there are inscriptions on every compartment, in large Greek characters. They were so well chiselled that some of them have completely resisted the tooth of time. It is presumed that they designate the persons to whom the seats were especially appropriated

The theatre is capable of containing from twelve to fourteen thousand spectators. Its position is most eligible. From the seats, and particularly the upper platform, a noble view is obtained of the sea, harbour, city, and adjacent country. When Syracuse was in its glory, the prospect must have been inexpressibly magnificent.

It is not owing to any modern attention that this theatre continues in any kind of preservation. It appears to be sadly neglected and even abused. Not far from the Theatre there is another very interesting remnant of antiquity, a Roman amphitheatre. They are both monuments of the taste and genius of two distinct people; the one of the polished and civilized founders, the other of the brave but rude conquerors of the country. The first was the scene of action of the regular drama; the second was designed for the show of brutal and sanguinary sports. In the theatre, the thrilling tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, the pungent satires of Aristophanes, and the graceful comedies of Menander were intended to be exhibited. In the Amphitheatre, gladitorial combats, fights of men with men, of men with beasts, and beasts with one another, were waged for the barbarous gratification of the Roman-the half civilized Roman: for the same ferocious amusements, which were cultivated in the untutored times of the commonwealth, were sought with avidity, by the people, in the best days of the empire. The darkness of some of the dens of the Amphitheatre is absolutely fearful. It seems as though the glare of the lion's eyeballs might still illumine the horrid gloom, or his growl be heard muttering vengeance on the unbidden intruder. But the lion has resigned his den, and the other shaggy monsters of the wood their several prisons, to a swarm of harmless lizards. The Arena which formerly was stained with human gore, when the fated victims fought with beasts "after the manner of men at Ephesus," is now applied to the purposes of husbandry, and peacefully waves with a crop of flax. And the Corridor, along which the multitudes have rushed with thundering tread in their eagerness to fill the seats of the mighty amphitheatre, is at present made use of

by the neighbouring herdsmen, as a place of shelter for their flocks during the inclemencies of the weather.

FRIENDSHIP.

"When fortune smiles, and life is prosperous and fair, then it is that the nominal and true friend may seem alike sincere." Then it is that small and great. rich and poor, bond and free, bow at your shrine, and prostrate themselves as it were at your feet. But when unfortunately the dark clouds of sorrow and disappointment gather thick around you, and you find yourself beset with troubles, losses, crosses, and disappointments on every side; then you are ready to exclaim, fortune can create friends, but adversity alone can try them. Your friends of fortune will then desert you. They will laugh at your misfortunes, and heap upon you shame and disgrace. They will sink you, if possible, lower and lower in point of honour and reputation, and in all your attempts to rise, cross and blight you at every turn. But not so with the true friend. Though all your earthly prospects are cut off, he will not desert you, but if possible administer to your relief. Let us therefore, cultivate and cherish that friendship, and that alone, which will not diminish, though sorrows oppress and afflictions invade us; that too which will cheer and animate us amid our darkest hours, and shine brightest in affliction's night.

Truth and reason never cause revolutions on the earth; they are the fruit of experience, which can only be exercised when the passions are at rest; they excite not in the heart those furious emotions which shake empires to their base. Truth can only be discovered by peaceful minds: it is only adopted by kindred spirits. If it change the opinions of men, it is only by insensible gradations-a gentle and easy descent conducting them to reason. The revolutions caused by the progress of truth are always beneficial to society, and are only burdensome to those who deceive and oppress it. Marsais.