dle till it once took fire, it would then continue flaming till all the spirit was compressed out of the bladder: which was the more surprising, because no one could discern any difference in the appearance between these bladders, and those which are filled with common air.

"But then I found that this spirit must be kept in good thick bladders, as in those of an ox or the like; for if I filled calves' bladders therewith, it would lose its inflammability in twenty-four hours, though the bladders became not relaxed at all."

But the application of the gas thus generated to the purposes of economical illumination, is of much more recent date, and the merit of introducing it is principally due to Mr. Murdoch, whose observations upon the subject are published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1808. He first tried it in Cornwall, in the year 1792; and afterwards in 1798 established an apparatus upon a more extended scale at Boulton and Watts' foundry at Birmingham; and it was there that the first public display of gas lights was made in 1802, upon the occasion of the rejoicings for peace. These, however, were but imperfect trials, when compared with that made in 1805 at Messrs. Philips and Lee's cotton mills at Manchester; and upon the results of which, all subsequent procedures, with regard to gas lighting, may be said to be founded. The whole cotton mill, with many adjacent buildings, were illuminated with coal gas to the exclusion of lamps, candles, and other sources of artificial light. Nearly a thousand burners of different forms were employed; and the light produced was estimated equal to that of 2500 well managed candles of six to the pound.

The most important and curious part of Mr. Murdoch's statement, relates to the cost of the two modes of lighting (namely, by gas and candles,) per annum. The cost of the coal used to furnish the gas, amounting annually to 110 tons, was 1251. Forty tons of coals to heat the retort, 201. and the interest of capital sunk, with due allowances for accidents and repairs, 5507. From the joint amount of these items, must be deducted the value of seventy tons of coke, at 1s. 4d. per cwt. amounting to 931. which reduces the total annual expense to 6021.; while that of candles to give the same light, would amount to 2000/.

Such was the flattering result of the first trial of gas illumination upon a tolerably extensive scale. In regard to its efficacy, we are informed by Mr. Murdoch, that the peculiar softness and clearness of the light, with its almost unvarying intensity, brought it into great favour with the work people; and it being free from the inconvenience of sparks, and the frequent necessity of snuffing, are circumstances of material importance, as tending to diminish the hazard from fire, to which cotton mills are so much exposed.

AUBREY'S ACCOUNT OF SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON.

From his manuscripts preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford.

MR. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

"WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE'S father was a butcher, and I have been told heretofore, by some of the neighbours, that when he was a boy he exercised his father's trade; but when he killed a calf he would do it in a high style, and make a speech. This William being inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came to London, I guess about eighteen, and was an actor at one of the play houses, and did act exceedingly well. (Now Ben Jonson was never a good actor, but an excellent instructor.) He began early to make essays in dramatique poetry, which at that time was very lowe, and his playes took well. He was a handsome well shaped man, verie good company, and of a very ready, and pleasant, and smooth witt. The humour of the constable, in A Midsommer Night Dreame, he happened to take at Crendon, in Bucks, (I think it was midsommer night that he happened to be there,) which is the road from London to Stratford; and there was living that constable about 1642, when I came first to Oxon. Mr. Jos. Howe is of the parish, and knew him. Ben Jonson and he did gather humours of men wherever they came. One time, as he was at the taverne at Stratford, Mr. Combes, an old usurer, was to be buryed; he makes then this extemporary epitaph upon him:

Ten in the hundred the Devill allowes,

But Combes will have twelve, he swears and he vowes;
If any one aske who lies in this tombe,

Hoh! quoth the Devill, 'tis my John O'Combe!'

"He was wont to go to his native country once a yeare. I think I have been told that he left neare 300l. to a sister. He understood Latin pretty well, for he had been in his younger yeares a school master in the country."

MR. BENJAMIN JOHNSON, POET-LAUREAT.

"I remember when I was a scholar at Trin. Col. Oxon, 1646, I heard Mr. Ralph Bathurst (now dean of Wells) say, that Ben -Johnson was a Warwyckshire man. Tis agreed that his father was a minister; and by his epistle D. D. of Every Man to Mr. Wm. Camden, that he was a Westminster scholar, and that Mr. W. Camden was his schoolmaster. His mother, after his father's death, married a bricklayer; and tis generally sayd, that he wrought some time with his father in lawe, and particularly on the garden wall of Lincolns Inn, next to Chancery lane; and that a knight, a bencher, walking thro', and hearing him repeat some Greeke verses out of Homer, discoursing with him, and finding him to

have a witt extraordinary, gave him some exhibition to maintain him at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was

-; then he went into the Lowe Countreys, and spent some time, not very long, in the armie, not to the disgrace of it, as you may find in his epigrames. Then he came into England, and acted and wrote at the Green Curtaine (but both ill;) a kind of nursery, or obscure playhouse, somewhere in the suburbs (I think towards Shoreditch or Clarkenwell.) Then he undertooke againe to write a play, and did hitt it admirably well; viz. Every Man - which was his first good one. Sergeant Jo. Hoskins, of Herefordshire, was his father. I remember his sonne (Sir Bennet Hoskins, baronet, who was something poetical in his youth) told me, that when he desired to be adopted his sonne, No, said he, 'tis honour enough for me to be your brother: I am your father's sonne, 'twas he that polished me, I doe acknowledge it. He was (or rather had been) of a cleare and fair skin: his habit was very plainc. I have heard Mr. Lacy, the player, say, that he was wont to weare a coate like a coachman's coate, with slitts under the arm-pitts. He would many times excede in drinke: Canarie was his beloved liquor; then he would tumble home to bed, and when he had thoroughly perspired, then to studie. I have seen his studyeing chaire, which was of strawe, such as old women used, and as Aulus Gellius is drawn in. When I was in Oxon, Bishop Skynner (Bp. of Oxford,) who lay at our coll., was wont to say, that he understood an author as well as any man in England. He mentions, in his epigrames, a sonne that he had, and his epitaph. Long since, in King James's time, I have heard my uncle Davers (Danvers) say, who knew him, that he lived without Temple barre, at a combe-maker's shop, about the Eleph Castle. In his later time he lived in Westminster, in the house under whiche you passe as you goe out of the Churche yarde into the Old Palace, where he dyed. He lies buried in the north aisle, the path square of stones, the rest is lozenge, opposite to the scutcheon of Robertus de Ros, with this inscription only on him, in a pavement square of bleu marble, O RARE BEN JONSON; which was donne at the charge of Jack Young, afterwards knighted; who walking there when the grave was covering, gave the fellow eighteen pence to cutt it.”

The Prudent Judge.

[From the European Magazine.]

A TURKISH merchant, whose affairs called him into foreign countries, deposited a purse of a thousand sequins in the hands of a dervise, whom he considered as his friend, and prayed to take the charge of that sum for him till his return from a journey he was about to make.

At the expiration of twelve months the merchant returned, claimed his property, and desired the dervise to restore it him;

but he denied strongly his having any sum of the merchant's, and consequently refused delivering him any. The other, shocked at this perfidy, addressed himself immediately to the cady, who told him he had acted very imprudently in trusting his money to a man with whose principles he was totally unacquainted. "It will be a difficult matter," replied the cady, "to compel this wretch to refund the sum, having received it from you without witnesses: but I will see," added he, "what I can do for you. Return to him, speak amicably to him, but do not give him the least intimation that I am acquainted with the affair; and come to me again tomorrow same hour."

The merchant obeyed punctually the cady's orders; but so far from drawing his money from the dervise, he met with nothing but insults from him. During the dispute, one of the cady's slaves arrives, and invites the dervise to come to his master, which he immediately complies with. He is introduced into the handsomest room, received by the cady with great friendship, and even treated as a person of distinguished rank. The cady conversed with him on various subjects, interlarding the discourse, as occasion offered, with encomiums on the knowledge and wisdom of the dervise. When by these means he thought he had gained his confidence, he said to him, "I have sent for you, honest dervise, to give you a proof of my friendship and esteem. An affair of the greatest moment requires my absence for some months; and as I do not trust to my slaves, I want to deposit my treasure into the hands of a man who enjoys, like you, an unblemished reputation. If you can take this charge upon yourself without any prejudice to your occupations, I will send you to-morrow, in the night, my most valuable effects; but as this business requires a profound silence, I shall give orders to my slaves to convey them to you as a present." -A gracious smile instantly covered the dervise's countenance; he returned the cady a thousand thanks for the confidence he reposed in him; and bound himself by the strongest oaths to guard his treasure as the apple of his eye, and departed as contented as if he had already bilked the judge.

The next day the merchant returned to the cady, and informed him of the dervise's obstinacy in refusing to restore him his sequins" Return again to him," said the judge to him: "and if he persists in his refusal, threaten to complain of him to me, and it is my opinion you will not be obliged to repeat the threat." The merchant goes back to the dervise, and had no sooner mentioned the cady to him, than he, fearing to lose the treasure he was to have the care of, returned him his purse, telling him, with a smile, "My dear friend, why need you have recourse to the cady? Your money was in perfect safety with me; my refusal was but a joke I put upon you, to see how you would take it." The merchant was prudent enough not to give credit to this jesting, and returned to the cady to thank him for his generous assistance.

Night coming on, the dervise prepared to receive the treasure that had been promised; but it passed without the appearance of any of the cady's slaves, and the night was for him of an insupportable length. As soon as the day appeared, he went to the judge. "I am come to know why my lord the cady did not send his slaves last night to me?"" Because," answered the judge, "I have been apprized from an honest merchant that you are a perfidious wretch, whom justice will one day punish as your villany deserves, if a second complaint of this nature comes to my knowledge." The dervise made a profound reverence, and departed without proffering the least syllable.

Dangerous Attractions: Suicides: Lakes.

[From the Literary Panorama.]

A Danish Journal offers the following anecdote: "During several months past a number of individuals, especially young men bewildered by ambition, have put themselves to death, by throwing themselves from the Round Tower: and to prevent these misfortunes, it has been found necessary to station sentinels at the place. The same precaution is frequently resorted to in Norway, with regard to a lake in the neighbourhood of Bergen. In a bason extremely deep, surrounded by projecting rocks, the lake spreads its still and motionless water, so effectually concealed from the light of day, that the stars may be discerned in the fluid at noon-day. The birds, conscious of a kind of attractive power resident in this vast gulf, dare not attempt to pass it. Whoever visits it, after having, with great exertions clambered up the barrier of rocks, around it, experiences a most uncontrolable desire to throw himself into his heaven reversed. It may be referred to the same kind of delusive feeling which is suffered when in a small boat, crossing a still water, so perfectly transparent that every stone at the bottom may be seen; it seems to invite the passenger to enter; and the passenger feels himself willing to comply. The Norwegians attribute this sensation to the magic power of the nymphs, or Nixes, who are still supposed to people every river and lake in the romantic districts of Scandinavia.