Miscellanea.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 4, Issue 191, 18 May 1861, Page 8

Miscellanea.

A Cambridge Gbaduate at the Diggings. — After this he tried various avocations, Mb health not permitting him to take any hard labour. "Bui the best trade," said he, "that I -went into was sign-painting."— " What, Blue Lions and Green Dragons?" inquired M. — "Oh noj nothing in the Mgh art line, only labels on a large scale, great inscriptions of letters, on wood or calico, for stores and public houses. An old friend joined me in it' and we were making money fast. Once, by and fey» a grand commission came in. A fellow of ambition and comprehensive notions determined to set up a thoroughly British device, and desired me to caint, in addition to his name and calling, the Rose, Shamrock, and Thistle. That was a dilemma ! but we could not afford to refuse ; so I made a model for the thistle by stuffing' a little bundle of short sticks in a teacup, and drew that ; then the three leaves of the shamrock I managed pretty well ; but the rose ! How was a rose painted ? I could not think of it. I was completely baffled. At length a brilliant idea occurred to me : I went to a store where I remembered to have seen some cabbages, and asked permission to draw one. This done, I painted my cabbage red and there was a rose. After this work of genius being turned out by our firm, business improved astonishingly j we were in the high road to dis- , tinction 5 our star was in the ascendant ; but alas ! all our glory was soon eclipsed by the arrival of a real painter of signboards, who came armed with such an array of pots and brushes as extinguished us at once and for ever." — " Over the Straits" by Louisa Anne Meredith. Theodore Hook. — If Brummell was the last of the beaux, Theodore Edward Hook was the last of the wits, for society has ceased to keep a professional jester. We have "agreeable rattles" and diners -out, but these are quite minnows compared to the departed great fish, and their numbers thin more and more every season. Hook surrendered his birthright for such a mess of pottage as the smiles of society. He had great talent ; with care and industry, and self-respect, he might fairly have assumed a very high position in literature. But he was quite spoiled j he was driven by the success of the moment into becoming the mere hoaxer, the practical joker, the punster, the comic singer, the improvisatore. He produced burlettas and farces, — he wrote scampish novels^ in which extraordinary talent is weighed down by extravagances and incoherences and carelessnesses that render them almost unreadable. He was pitchforked from behind the scenes of the theatre into fashionable life, was smiled upon, idolised, and killed. He set the town in a blaze with a scurrilous, newspaper, witty and clever, but cruel and unmanly in its attacks on the unworthy wile of the unworthy king. He ruined his health by the intemperance that was in a manner thrust upon _him. His favorite seat at the Athengeum Club waa known as Temperance Corner^ and the waiters well understood the meaning of bis frequent calls for "Another glass of toast' and water," " A little more lemonade." Yet still he was a brilliant talker. Men dined at the club expressly to be within ear earshot of Theodore's good things. Indeed the number of club diners Ml off three hundred per annum after his death. But he lost his appetite altogether at last. . He lived almost entirely upon brandy. He was much made wp.now when he ventured to appear in society. Once he was caught in a deshabille, and cried out piteously, "You see me as I am at last ; all. the bucklings, and paddings, and washings dropt for ever, a poor old grey-haired man, with my belly about my knees." He died in 1841, and was interred in Fulham Churchyard. .No aristocrat or famous friend mourned over the grave of their " dear Theodore." He had squandered for them what might have been a great, at least a valuable life 5 he had died miserably for them ; yet not even an empty carriage did they send to do. honour to his funeral, and it was a difficuLt task indeed to raise even a small sum for those who had been dependent upon the dead man, and who possessed more than ordinary claims upo n the consideration of his friends. A Gtßand Duchess in 1741. — In the Memoirs of Mary Granviile (Mrs. Deiany), just published by Lady Llahover, is a letter describing a ball "given by Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1741 . The following is the account of the appearance of -one of the "finest of the ladies" : — "The Duchess of Queensbury's clothes pleased me best ; they vrere white satin embroidered, the bottom of the petticoat brown hills covered with all sorts of tweeds, and every breadth had an old stump of a tree cthat run up almost to the top of the petticoat, broken and ragged and worked with brown chenille, round which twined nastersians, ivy, honeysuckles, periwinkles, convolvuluses, and ail sorts of twining flowers, which spread and covered the petticoat, vines with' the leaves variegated as you have seen them by*the sun, all rather smaller than nature, which made them look very light ; the robings and facings were little green banks, with all sorts of weeds, and the sleeves and the" rest of the gown 'loose twining branches of the same as those on the •'. petticoat.; many of the leaves were finished with gold, and part of the stumps of the trees looked like the gilding of the sun. I never saw a piece of work so prettily fancied." A Chaie'Six Httndbed and Seventh-two Yeabs Old; — Curiosities in literature are being brought to light daily by the active research of bibliopoles, but curiosities in furniture are not so often to be obtained.' The specimen to which we at present refer is to be seen in Castle-Douglas, and is, we believe, the oldest piece of workmanship to bejbund in the country. This " old arm-chair" "was.made~ih the year 1188, the initials of themaker being ~ carved, somewhat" rudely on the back. 8..M., with a small c above the M., is distinctly visible, arid the figures 88, but the 11 has-been ~^ fobbed off in the course of several centuries' wear, , ""/The.present /possessor states that 1 it has been to fiis knowledge in the family, for 150 years, and had beep, handed down from generation to generation ™ ■prOT.iously.;: r Thetchaii 1 is in good condition, and ■*7inay-'see^a^ther/Eundred years. It is somewhat -^sho^rt^i^vtKe^legS,- but. otherwise is a comfortable of the twelfth century should ■• : .be^reßsr^ed, .asit is more than probable we ne'er ■■;■:■ may lootiwpion its like again. — Kirkcudbright Ad- ,,,;■■ x*>m>is'er.?. '■'■,■• ■'■'/',■ '-■•,:-■.'• "" '■

Beau Fieeding. — Robert Fielding, justice of he peace, and the subjeot of two papers in the ?atler, was the beau-pur et simple. Avery comely, mpty-headed, large calfed gentleman, consenting o play through life the part of an incarnate lothes-horse. He wore magnificent attire. His uffles were the finest in town, his wig the most •erfect. The whole presence of the creature was o superb that an applauding crowd followed him a the streets as he. passed along, to use Steele's rords "in an open tumbril, of less size than ordilary, to show the largeness of his limbs and the randeur of his personage." On the credit of his lorious proportions he became an intense bragart and bully, though his loud talking insolence t the theatre once induced the actors to rise gainst him en masse and kick him off the stage, )f course the time came at last when the tailors lemanded a settlement of their bills. The beau ras desperately in debt ; compelled sometimes to :eep off the baliffs with his sword. He sought to xtric'ate himself by a splendid marriage. He was niserably duped. He married, as he imagined, a air widow with a fortune of sixty thousand >ounds. He returned from church to find himself, r oked for life to a most shameful adventuress/ Che beau was at bay. Desperation only could lave betrayed him into his next act of folly and srime. He had inspired with an absurd passion 3arbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, then about ixty-fi ye years of age — a woman /whose career oj; ibandoned profligacy had raised a loud cry against ler, even in those case-hardened times. Losing ler royal admirer, she had condescended to find lew lovers amongst highwaymen and actors. Grey md wrinkled, she was in love with Beau Fielding. Phree weeks after his marriage iwith the supposiious widow he was united to the Duchess of Cleveland. Of course the happy couple quarrelled lisgracefully, and the superb beau was not ashamed o lay his hand upon a woman, and not in the way >f kindness. But a duchess cannot be thumped vith impunity. She obtained evidence of his first narriage, and the beau was tried at the Old Bailey or bigamy. He was sentenced to be burnt in the land, — the white and shapely hand he had been o proud of.. T^ierpunishment, however, was not nforeed. Further record of him there is none. If o one seems to have given further thought to the lisgraced and degraded beau. How and when he lied is not chronicled. But there is small reason o conclude that his death was any more honour.ble than his life. The Parochial Mind. — There is- a popular dea that every vestryman is an oratorical greengrocer or a discontented tailor, with mean views, a oud voice, and an abusive tongue. Some vestry - nen may be of this order, like some members of Parliament ; but underlying this sort of scum scum always floats to the top) there is often a olid substratum of sound sense and discretion. Phe faculty of ready utterance is generally posessed by small minds, which have little in them o check volubility. It is the mere parochial orator fho brings ridicule upon the good old system of elf-government ; while those men who do credit 0 it, and who are the working bees among the »uzzing drones of the parochial hive, are seldom leard- It is they who do the work ; the others alk about doing it, but really obstruct it ; and are, lappily, the minority. The revenues of the larger jondon parishes amount to sums which many a ull- blown continental State looks upon with envy. let, on the whole, these are collected and dispensed nth. reasonable accuracy and judgment. The aajorities in vestries must, therefore, consist of nen of unsullied principles and active business ccomplishments, who work hard and talk little : therwise, parochial affairs could not be so well arried on as they are. It must always be reaembered that the short-comings of local adminstrative bodies depend, not upon the noisy Lngrammatical speeehinakers, but upon those who lect them. Parish government & representative ;overnment, and the ratepayers pull the strings. - ill the Year Round. The Use or a Bath. — Julius, a Western darkey laving landed at Chicago, saw an advertisement totifying to those who wished to be clean that hey could get a good bath for a quarter dollar, md thought, it would be a good idea to ask the ise of them of another darkey, who said — " Baths vere used by white folks to wash in." Aecordngly Julius started with a bundle under his arm, md being shown into a bath room was left to his iblutions. Considerable time elapsed, and Julius lid come forth : and afler waiting for about an lour the keeper of the bath went to the door and icreamed out. "Say, darkey, are you coming >ut ? " " Yes, as soon as I get troo my washing." '•' How long will that be ? " " P'raps an hour to 1 hour ana half," coolly answered Julius. With that the man burst into the room, and there, all iround the room, was the darkey's freshly washed slothing hanging up to dry, but not noticing it [ust then, remarked, — " See here, you just clear out at once ; you've been in over two hours ! " " Look a here," said Julius in an enraged manner, pointing to his drying clothes, which rather took the bathing man down, " I'd like to see you wash and hang out two dozen pieces in less, time than I've been at it ! " ,In another minute Julius was landed in the street, surrounded by his washing. — Pottsville Miners' Journal,,.. Abe THEBiB Equesleiah Ahgels?— An old farmer, a crabbed sort of a fellow, Jised to give his minister a load of hay every summer as his yearly present. . Whenever he came with his load, the hay somehow or other used to be very low on the scaffold, and it gave Him a good opportunity to scold. " How you do waste your hay, Parson D ! You have too much company ; you shouldn't ask everybody that comes along to stay all night. Do as I do : when it comes dark, lock your door and go to bed." " But," replied the minister, " you would not turn a stranger away, would you, Mr..B— — ?. The Bible commends hospitality ; and you know it says that in entertaining strangers some have entertained angels unawares 1". "Ay! ay I" returned the old gentleman, " but angels don't ride on horses !" The Medicai Examination. — "What," an examiner of the Medicalßqard is reported to have said. to a candidate, would jyou have recourse to if, after ineffectually tried all the ordinary diaphoretics, you wanted to throw your patient, in as short a time as possible, into a profuse perspiration?" "I should send him here, sir, to be examined," was the reply.

Steam-Eitoho: bob Common Roads. — Messrs James Taylor & Co., Britannia Works, Birkenhead, have juac completed their improved Patent Traction Engine, for use- on common roads. It is manufactured of steel- plates for lightness, the large wheels are 7 feet diameter, and the small ones 5 feet, and are made broad so as not to injure the road? ; the entire weight, when supplied with 18 cwt. of coal and 1£ ton of water, is 8 tons. The Elephant is hung on springs to prevent jerking j has an apparatus which does away with the usual noise from the steam-pipe ; and is provided with hoisting-tackle for purposes of loading and unloading. The engine can do the work of 30 horses ; the speed is six miles an hour, and with a load of 15 tons, 2| miles. The Elephant is very light in appearance, and most compact j every particle of room being made available for useful purposes. The workmanship is unexceptionable. Altogether the engine has been much admired and commended by many engineers who have examined it. The trials it has undergone have been most satisfactory, and it has been prdved to be admirably adapted for all descriptions of road — level and hilly. This is the fifth engine of this kind "that has been constructed in this establishment. The first has now been at work for nearly two years, doing well j differing from all other engines hitherto made, the traction or driving wheels go first, and the grinding wheels follow in the rear. It is easily steered round corners, and with the nicest accuracy, rendering the whole under easy control. — Liverpool Chronicle. Had a Winning Way with Hee. — A wayward son of the Emerald Isle "left the bed and board" which he and Margaret his wife had occupied for a long while, and spent his time around rum- shops, where he was always on hand to count himself " in" whenever anybody should " stand treat." Margaret was dissatisfied with this state of things, and endeavoured to get her husband home again. , " Now, Patrick, my honey, will you come back again?" "No, Margaret, I won't come back." " An' wont you come back for the love of your children ?" ** Not for the love of the children, Margaret." " Will you come back for the love of myself ?" " Niver at all ; 'way wid ye." Margaret thought she would try another inducement. Taking a pint bottle of whiskey from her pocket, and holding it up to her truant husband, she said, " Will you come for the dr,op of whiskey ?" " Ah, me darlint," said Patrick, unable to withstand such temptations, "it's yourself that'll always bring me home agin — ye has such a winning way wid ye, I'll come, Margaret." Margaret declares that Patrick was reclaimed by moral suasion." Rising- fbom Obsctjeity. — There are many ways of doing our best : one man struggles against the adverse circumstances of his birth — poverty and early neglect j another cultivates his mind, in spite of a meagre education, a want of books, or the necessity of devoting most of his time to earning his daily bread; a cobler has worked mathematical problems on strips of leather, while employed on his last ; a ploughman treading the heavy furrow, and pressing the share into the bosom of the earth, has meditated on the heavenly bodies, and prepared himself to become a great astronomer ; other men have combated the temptations of their natural characters, or broken boldly away from evil associations, to prove in time the upright and zealous servants of God their maker. — The j±rt of Doing Our Best. The Family oe BtritNS. — It may not be generally known that in our own immediate neighbourhood rest the remains of Agnes Brown, the mother of our great national poet Burns, and those of his brother Gilbert. It is now upwards of half a century since the widowed mother of Burns accompanied her eldest son Gilbert to Grant's Braes, on the Lennoxlove estate, and at this place her declining years were passed. Gilbert, the brother of the poet, occupied the responsible position of factor of the estate for the long period of 23 years, and as the records of Bolton Churchyard tell, had here ample experience of the sorrows that too often accompany the parental relationship. It was but the other day that our attention was arrested, in the cursory visit we chanced to pay to Bolton, by a neatly inclosed and freshly painted monumental erection in the primitive-looking and mound-covered churchyard of the village. On approaching it, a melancholy record of a bereaved hearth meets the gaze of the stranger, and with subdued feelings he reads the" following inscription. — "Erected by Gilbert Burns, factor at Grant's Braes, in memory of his children : — lsabel, who died 3nd of July 1815, in the seventh year of her age ; Agnes, who died 10th September 1815, in the fifth year of her age ; Janet, who died 30th September 1816, in the eighteenth year of her age ; and of his mother, Agnes Brown, who died on the 14th January, in the 88th year of her age, whose mortal remains all lie buried here. Also of other two children, namely, Jean, who died on the 4th January 1827, in the twentieth year of her age ; and of John, who died on the 26th February 1827, in the 25th year of his. age. Gilbert Burns, their father, died on the Sth April 1827, in the 67th" year of his age. Also here lies Annabella, sister of Gilbert Burns, who died March 2nd, 1832, aged 67." The stone, as the inscription bears, was erected by Gilbert Burns, but it is to the filial piety of his son, now a prosperous merchant in Dublin, that the enclosing wall and railing are due. It is only five years since the inclosure was put vp — the required permission having first been obtained from the heritors j and we believe that every year that has passed since then, the nephew of the poet has paid an annual visit to the spot where the ashes of so many of his kindred peacefully repose. At his last visit during the past summer Mr. Burns gave orders that the monument -and inclosures should all be repainted, and the lettering renewed, a piece of workmanship which has been executed with much taste by our townsman, Mr. Davidson. — Haddington Courier. Lady Crampton, the wife of Sir John Crampton, the British Envoy at St. Petersburg, was presented last week at the Imperial Court, and was received., by .the. Empress, with the most flat- . tering marks of grace and favor. . Lady Crampton, it will be remembered, was our charming young vocalist, Miss Victoire Balfe, who was withdrawn by her marriage from an artistic career which promised to be of extraordinary brilliancy, — Daily News.

The Fbenoh Empress' GtENEaiogt;—Alexander Kirkpatriok, fiust Baron of the Barony of Kirkmichael in Dumfriesshire, was second son of Roger Kirkpatrick, Baron of Closeburne, and Margaret, daughter of Thomas, first Lord Somerville, by Janet, daughter of Alexander, Lord Darnley. The Barony of Kirkmichael, Alexander Kirkpatrick gat, as a reward for the capture of James, ninth Earl of Douglas, at the battle of Burnswark, anno Dominil4S4i. Hume ofi Godecrofb relates the capture of Douglas by Kirkpatrick :— "At last the victory fell to the Scots. The Duke of Albany escaped by flight ; but the Earl of Douglas, being now an aged man, was stricken from his horse, and taken prisoner with his own consent, by a brother of the Laird of Closeburne's, in this manner : The King (James III.) had made a proclamation, that whosoever should take the -Earl of Douglas should have a- hundred pound land ; the Ear^being then thus on foot, in the field, wearied of so long an exile, and thinking that he might be known by some other, seeing Alexander Kirkpatrick, a son of Closeburne's, and one that he loved much, calls him by his name, and said : ' I have fougbten long enough (eneucli) against my fortune, and since I must die, I would rather that ye have the benefit thereby, than any other. Wherefore, take me and deliver me to the king, according to his proclamation ; but see thou beest sure he keep his word before thou deliverest me.' The young man, who loved the Earl entirely in his heart, wept to see him thus aged and in disguise. Kirkpatrick conveyed him secretly from the field," and kept him in a poor cottage until he had spoken with the king, who granted him the Earl's life, and gave him the fifty pound lands of Kirkmichael." The barony remained in the hands of Alexander till 1655, when part of xt was sold by the then baron, William, (;o Sir John Charteris. William had two sons, and died 9th June, 1686. He and his eldest son, Greorge, of Knock, lie interred in Grarrell churchyard, Kirkmichael. Robert, his second son, of and in Grlenkiln, married Henrietta Gillespie, of Craighthields. He had four sons and one daughter, Henrietta, who married Bailie Kirkpatrick, (no relative,) " of Dumfries, merchant, and had issue two sons (who died unmarried in India,) and three daughters, married respectively to Captain Thomas Johnstone, of Thorniewhat ; Captain, afterwards Gi-eneral Fead, aide-de-camp to the King ; and Thomas Gordon, of Clondan Bank — from whom comes Mss. Walter Ferrier, of TorAvon, Edinburgh, &c." His third son was Wm. Kirkpatrick, Esq., of Conheath, near Dumfries, and of Over and Nether, Grlenkiln and Lainfoot, Kirkmichael j he married Mary Wilson, of Kelton, in Galloway — issue, nineteen children. His sixth child was William Kirkpatrick, merchant, and American Consul in Malaga, who married Fanny, daughter of Baron Grriveguee, of Malaga— issue, three daughters : Charlotte married her cousin, Thomas Kirkpatriek, son of John Kirkpatrick, merchant, of Ostend (the fifth son of William of Conheath,) by Janet Stotherd, of Arkland and Ariming ; Harriet married the Count de Cabarras; and the eldest, Mary Kirkpatriek, married the Count del Montijo, a grandee of Spain of the first rank — issue, two daughters j the eldest married the Duke of Berwick and Alba, and died this year; the second is the beautiful and amiable Eugenic, Empress of the French. Robert, the eighth child, became a merchant in London, and died there — no issue. Thomas died in Malaga — ■ no issue. Alexander died at New York — no issue. These are all the sons who reached manhood. The eldest daughter, Mary, married Thos. Wilson, Esq., W.S., Edinburgh — issue, Janet, married Thoruas Proudfoot, Esq., o£ Craigieburn, Mofi'at — issue, four sons and one daughter, of whom three sons survive j James, laird of Craigieburn, captain" of the Itoyal Durban Bangers at Port .Natal; William of JNeihenniln, at Port Natal ; and John, of Moffat, Esquires. Janet married the liev. Alexander Scott, D.D., of Dumfries, and had issue a son, Alexander, who died in infancy. Miss Jane Forbes Kirkpatrick, of Kith* bank, by Dumfries, who died 21st December, 1854, was the last survivor of the Conheath family — a lady respected by all who knew her for her many estimable qualities of heart and head. B.AEEy at Home. — The New York Herald says : — Among the passengers of the steamship Asia, that arrived here on Friday, was the celebrated J. T. Karey, the professor of horse taming. He took rooms in the aristocratic quarters of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where he was waited upon by his friends and admirers during Friday evening and Saturday. He has beeu absent about three years, during which time ho has astonished John Bull with his feats with the horse, accomplished wonders in tiie land of the theoretical Frenchman, caused the Arabs of Asia to look with amazement, and call upon Allah to attest his wonderful power. The Ishu Pacha of Turkey gave him free access amongst his well-trained animals, and on visiting .Russia caused the Czar to look around him for a magician to perform the same deeds. Having shown to the Europeans that some things can be done as well as others, he has now returned to his native country to practice his art and make our wild horses as docile as a lamb. Mr. Rarey leaves this city on Monday or Tuesday for Ohio, to visit his friends. Lord Kames~was fond of little adventures. ...On one occasion, when he had been officiating as judge at the Perth Qircuit, he proceeded to examine the bridge which shortly before had been thrown across the Tay. His Lordship was inspecting a board inscribed with the rates of pontage, when a smart-looking boy came up. " Can you tell me, laddie," said his Lordship, " what they charge for an ass crossing the brig ?" " Gfang across an* they'll tell ye," was the youth's reply. A New Mode as Pbeacheng. — In course of a discussion on acoustics in the Institute of Architects at last meeting, Mr. White stated, in reference to flat surfaces behiad a speaker, that on one occasion he remembered *the Bishop of Lincoln preaching in the open air, when,, instead of turning his back to the wall, he faced about towards it, and the result Vas that he was heard distinctly by several hundred persons. — Builder. ■