over his head, declaring, in very emphatic terms,"That not a soul of them should depart till every drop of the wine was drunk!" Whether this experiment had the immediate desired effect, we cannot say, but this we know, that they no longer labour under the tea-drinking imputation.

CHANTING A-LA-GREEK.

During the time that the erudite Dr. Bentley was preparing an edition of Homer, which he had undertaken at the desire of Earl Grenville, he was accustomed not unfrequently to spend his evenings with that distinguished nobleman. These congenials, when drinking deep at the classic fountain, would sometimes keep it up to a late hour. One morning, after one of their mental carousals, the mother of his lordship reproached him for keeping the country clergyman, as she termed the learned Cantab, till he was intoxicated. Lord Grenville denied the charge, on which the lady replied, he could not have sung in so ridiculous a manner, if he had not been in liquor; but the truth was, that the singing, which appeared so to have annoyed the noble lady, was no other than the doctor endeavouring to entertain and instruct Lord Grenville in the true catilena, or recitative, of the

ancients.

DR. SAMUEL CLARKE versus THE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY.

When that profound scholar and divine, Dr. Samuel Clarke, deemed it necessary for him to proceed to the degree of D.D., he entered the schools, in Cambridge.

with the two following questions, as the basis of his public exercise; and the manner in which this erudite Cantab acquitted himself, is worthy of being handed down to the latest posterity :

-:

I. Nullum fidei Christiana dogma, in S. Scripturis traditum, est recta rationi dissenteneum.

II. Sine actionum humanarum libertate nulla potest esse religio.

1. No article of the Christian faith, delivered in the Holy Scriptures, is disagreeable to right reason.

2. Without the liberty of human actions, there can be no religion.

These two questions were worthy of such a divine and philosopher, to propose for a public debate. Dr. James was the Regius Professor, a learned and very acute disputant, and he exerted himself beyond his accustomed practice, in order to oppose and try Dr. Clarke to the utmost. Possessed of a retentive memory, and fluent in words, with a natural turn for disputation, the professor began with an examination of the candidate's thesis (an elaborate discourse founded on the first question), sifting every part with the strictest nicety, and pressed him with all the force of syllogistic argument. He was an adversary worthy of the respondent, who made an extempore reply to the learned professor's queries, which occupied nearly half an hour, without hesitation; and with such perspicuity of thought and purity of language did he take off all that the professor had advanced against his opinions, that those who heard him were astonished thereat, and declared that, had they not seen him, they should have supposed his reply to have been previously written. He

guarded so well, replied so readily and clearly, and pressed so close upon the professor, in his replies, through the remainder of the disputation, that perhaps such a conflict, kept up with such spirit, and which ended with such perfect honour to the respondent, was never before heard in the schools. The professor, who was a man of humour as well as learning, after a long disputation, used often to say to a respondent,-" Finem jam faciem, nam te probè exercui;” (I will now make an end, for I have sufficiently worked you). He was about to address the same words to Dr. Clarke; but, after the word te, he stopped and corrected himself, by saying,"Nam ME probè EXERCUISTI," (for you have worked ME thoroughly); a high compliment, in his humorous way of expressing himself: but so justly did Dr. Clarke merit it, that those who heard the disputation declared that, for handling his argument, the fluency and (notwithstanding his great attention to other matters) purity of his Latinity, he spoke as one who had discoursed in no other language, and was an ornament to the university.

ADVICE GRATIS.

At the sittings of Guildhall, an action of debt was tried, before Lord Mansfield, in which the defendant, a merchant of London, with great warmth, complained of the plaintiff's conduct, to his lordship, in having caused him to be arrested, not only in the face of the day, but in the Royal Exchange, and in the face of the whole assembled credit of the metropolis. The chief justice stopped him with great composnre, saying,-" Friend, you forget yourself; you were the defaulter, in refusing to pay a

just debt; and let me give you a piece of advice worth more to you than the debt and costs: be careful not to put it in any man's power to arrest you, either in public or private, for the future."

THE BRIDE IN WAITING.

A celebrated Cantab, who, for his poetic taste and splendid imagination, might almost be designated the ANGEL OF THE WORLD," had the good fortune to lead to the altar of Hymen a blooming bride, and the misfortune, amidst his angelic speculations, to forget her. The happy pair were to start for Paris, to spend the honeymoon, immediately after the ceremony; the bridegroom begged an hour to pack for the occasion,-the smiling fair one granted his request,-the hour was past, but he did not appear; two, three, four, five hours, which, to the lady, were as many ages, had Sol laboured towards the western horizon, and she was still in waiting. A messenger was despatched in search of the truant, and Paris was found, not as many Cantabs are, in the midst of triangles, &c. but, forgetful of his Helen, rearing a temple to the muses, totally unconscious of the part he had so lately acted in the consummation of holy matrimony.

BON MOT.

"The Bishop of London," says Aubrey," having cut down a noble cloud of trees at Fulham, Lord Chancellor Bacon told him, he was a good expounder of dark places.'"

DR. HENNIKER'S DEFINITION OF WIT.

Dr. Henniker being one day in conversation with that celebrated statesman, the Earl of Chatham, amongst other questions, was asked, by his lordship, how he defined wit?" Wit," replied the learned doctor," is like what a pension would be given by your lordship to your humble servant,— -a good thing well applied."

WHAT A DEBAUCH!

A pious queen's-man being invited to a spread, refused the invite, on the ground of the last evening's excesses,— when, upon being pressed to tell when and how he had spent the previous night, he, with reluctance, confessed he had committed a great debauch, inasmuch as he had sat up till ten o'clock, and drank two bumpers of plum wine!! Silicet, raisin.

NEW READINGS.

Every son of Alma Mater has, a primis ephebis, appropriated to his own schoolmates the humorous translation of the words-coctilibus muris, by cocktailed mice; and not a few have thought that the arma virumque cano Troja qui primus ab oris, alluded to the archididascalus, with his cane for his arms, and his mouth as prim as a Trojan's; but we much question whether the sense of a Latin writer was ever more ludicrously misunderstood,