people. From this Mahomet ascended to heaven. Within the storied walls, moreover, are the scales for weighing the souls of men, the shield of Mahomet, and other relics, besides the entrance to the infernal regions; seventy thousand angels ever guard the precious stone.

Entrance to this hallowed edifice has been gained only by two or three Europeans; indeed, the Turks will not allow infidels to approach the sacred enclosure around it, which measures about sixteen hundred feet in length, by one thousand in width, and is adorned with fountains, orange, cypress, and other trees.

The mosque itself is esteemed the finest piece of Saracenic architecture in existence, far surpassing St. Sophia in beauty. Its view, combined with the distinguished monuments in the City of the Sultan, in Egypt, Greece, and Italy, strongly induces a belief in the accuracy of an able article in the Quarterly Review, in which the origin of the five predominant styles of architecture throughout the world, viz., the Byzantine, Chinese, Egyptian, Grecian, and Gothic are assigned respectively to the convex and concave curves, to the oblique, horizontal, and perpendicular lines.

A COUPLE OF ECCENTRICS.

Mr. Day, the eccentric founder of Fairlop fair, had a housekeeper, who had lived with him for thirty years, and was equally eccentric. She had two very strong attachments; one to her wedding-ring and garments, and the other to tea. When she died, Mr. Day would not permit her ring to be taken off; he said, "If that was attempted, she would come to life again ;" and directed that she should be buried in her weddingsuit, and a pound of tea in each hand; and these directions were literally obeyed.

THE UNIVERSALITY OF TAXATION.

The following extract, from the Edinburgh Review, is not inappropriate to our pages, inasmuch as it is both a rare specimen of effective composition, and also serves to show us what the state of taxation was in England even within the last forty years.-Taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed upon the feet-taxes upon every thing which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste-taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion-taxes on everything on earth, and the waters under the earth-on every thing that comes from abroad, or is grown at home-taxes on the raw materialtaxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of mantaxes on the sauce which pamper's man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health-on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal-on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice-on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribands of the bride at bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay;-the schoolboy whips his taxed top-the beardless youth manages his taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road :-and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent., into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent., flings himself back upon his chintz bed, which has paid twenty

two per cent.-makes his will on an eight-pound stamp, and expires in the arms of an apothecary, who has paid a license of an hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from two to ten per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed markle; and he is then gathered to his fathers-to be taxed no more.

SHAM PROPHETS.

William Hackett, a fanatic of the sixteenth century, after a very ill life, turned prophet, and signified the desolation of England. He prophesied at York and at Lincoln; where, for his boldness, he was whipped publicly, and condemned to be banished. He had an extraordinary Huency of speech, and much assurance in his prayers; for he said, that if all England should pray for rain, and he should pray to the contrary, it should not rain. Hackett had two brother-prophets joined with him, Edward Coppinger, named the prophet of mercy, and Henry Arthington, the prophet of judgment. Coppinger, the merciful prophet, declared that Hackett was the sole monarch of Europe; and at length they proclaimed him, July 16, 1592. On the 28th of the same month, however, the monarch of the whole earth, who had also personated divinity, was hanged and quartered. Coppinger famished himself in prison, and Arthington was pardoned. Fitz Simon relates, that in a quarrel Hackett had at Oundle, "He threw down his adversary, and bit off his nose; and, instead of returning it to the surgeon, who pretended to set it on again, while the wound was fresh, ate it." Hackett, on the scaffold, made a blasphemous prayer, which is recorded by Fitz Simon and Camden, too horrid to be repeated. He hated Queen Elizabeth, and tried to deprive her of her crown; he confessed to the judges that he had stabbed the effigies of this princess to the heart, with an iron pin; and a little before he was hanged, being an accomplished swearer, he cursed her with all manner of imprecations.

HOOKING A BOY INSTEAD OF A FISH.

About five and thirty years ago, as Mr. George Moor was fishing in the river Tyne at Pipewellgate, Gateshead, he espied something in the water which seemed like a drowned dog, but the day being clear, and the sun shining, he thought he perceived a face, upon which he threw his line to it (which had but three hairs at the hook) and hooked a coat, by which he found it was a boy, but the hook loosing hold, he again cast his line and struck him in the temple and drew him to the shore, and in less than quarter of an hour he revived.

CHILDREN OF AGED PARENTS.

Margaret Krasiowna, of the village of Koninia, Poland, died 1763, aged 108. The following extraordinary circumstances are stated, by Eaton, as connected with the life of this woman:-"At the age of ninety-four she married her third husband, Gaspard Raycolt, of the village of Ciwouszin, then aged one hundred and five. During the fourteen years they

lived together she brought him two boys and a girl; and, what is very remarkable, these three children, from their very birth, bore evident marks of the old age of their parents-their hair being grey, and a vacuity appearing in their gums, like that which is occasioned by the loss of teeth, though they never had any. They had not strength enough, even as they grew up, to chew solid food, but lived on bread and vegetables, they were of a proper size for their age, but their backs were bent, their complexions sallow, with all the other external symptoms of decrepitude. Though most of these particulars," he adds, "may appear fabulous, they are certified by the parish registers. The village of Ciwouszin is in the district of Stenzick, in the palatinate of Sendonier. Gaspard Raycolt, the father, died soon after, aged 119."

SEPULCHRAL VASE FROM PERU.

The vessel of which the annexed is an engraving, was taken from the tomb of one of the ancient inhabitants of Peru; the subjects of the Incas,

or princes who ruled over that country before it was conquered by the Spaniards. Vases of this sort were probably placed in the sepulchres of the Peruvians to contain the ashes of the dead, or offerings to their disembodied spirits;-usages which are familiar to us through the frequent allusions to them which we meet with in the works of the poets of ancient Rome, and the discovery of urns and lachrymatories in Roman tombs which have been in our own and other cemetries. The specimen which we have

engraved is quadruple, but forms one vessel.

FIRST IRON CANNON.

The first cannon was cast in Sussex in 1535. In after years bonds were taken in £1,000 from the owners of the charcoal furnaces, that none should be sold till a license for the sale or issue of the ordnance had been procured. Fears were entertained that the enemy would purchase them.

PROLIFIC AUTHOR.

No one need despair, after the following instance, of shining in quantity, if not in quality-Hans Sacks was a Nuremberg shoemaker, born there in 1494; he was instructed, by the master-singers of those days, in the praiseworthy art of poetry; he, therefore, continued to make verses and shoes, and plays and pumps, boots and books, until the seventyseventh year of his age; when he took an inventory of his poetical stock in trade, and found, according to his narrative, that his works filled thirty folio volumes, all written with his own hand; and consisted of

four thousand two hundred mastership songs, two hundred and eight comedies, tragedies, and farces (some of which were extended to seven acts), one thousand seven hundred fables, tales, and miscellaneous poems, and seventy-three devotional, military, and love songs; making a sum total of six thousand and forty-eight pieces, great and small." Out of these, we are informed, he culled as many as filled three massy folios, which were published in the year 1558-61; and, another edition being called for, he increased this three volumes folio abridgement of his works, in the second, from his other works. None but Lope de Vega exceeded him in quantity of rhyme-making.

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2.

THE ART OF POTTERY IN CHINA.

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The Chinese traditions carry back the practice of the potter's art to a very remote epoch. Father Entrecolles, a French missionary, resided in China at the beginning of the last century, and his letters published in Paris, in 1741, supply some curious and interesting information on this subject. Writing in 1712, he says that at that time ancient porcelain was very highly prized, and bore large prices. Articles were extant which were reputed to have belonged to the Emperors Yao and Chun, two of the most ancient mentioned in the Chinese annals. Yao reigned in 2357 and Chun in 2255 before Christ. Other authorities place the reign of Chun in 2600 before Christ. It appears from the researches of M. Stanislaus Julian that, from the time of the Emperor Hoang-ti, who reigned 2698 to 2599 before Christ, there had always existed a public officer bearing the title of the Intendant of Pottery, and that it was under the reign of Hoang-ti that the potter's art was invented by KouenIt is also certain that porcelain, or fine pottery, was common in China in the time of the Emperors Han, 163 B.C.

ou.

In digging the foundations of the palaces, erected by the dynasties of Han and Thang, from 163 B.c. to 903 A.D. great quantities of ancient vases were found which were of a pure whiteness, but exhibited little beauty of form or fabrication. It was only under the dynasty of Song, that is to say, from 960 to 1278 A.D., that Chinese porcelain began to attain a high degree of perfection.

Further evidence of the antiquity of the potter's art in China, as well as of the existence of intercommunication between that country and Egypt, is supplied by the discoveries of Rossellina, Wilkinson, and others, who found numerous vases of Chinese fabrication, and bearing Chinese inscriptions, in the tombs at Thebes. Professor Rossellini found a small vase of Chinese porcelain with a painting of a flower on one side, and on the other Chinese characters not differing much from those used at the present day. The tomb was of the time of the Pharaohs, a little later than the eighteenth dynasty.

This vase, with its Chinese inscription, is represented in Fig. 1, from an exact cast made by Mr. Francis Davis.

Another of the Chinese vases, found in the Theban tombs, is represented in Fig. 2. This is preserved in the Museum of the Louvre. The shape of the vase is that of a flat-sided flask. A side view is given in Fig. 3.

These flasks are very small. The engravings represent them of their proper dimensions. Mr. Wilkinson thinks it probable that they were brought to Egypt from India, the Egyptians having had commercial relations with that country at a very remote epoch, and that they came not as pieces of porcelain, but as vessels containing some articles of importation.

STRONG ATTACHMENT TO SMOKING.

The following is a curious case of extreme fondness for smoking in a very poor and very old man. In the year 1810, there died in Dartford workhouse, aged 106, one John Gibson. He had been an inmate of the house for ten years, and till within two months of his death used daily to perambulate the town. His faculties were entire to the last. He was so much attached to smoking, that he requested his pipe, together with his walking-stick, might be placed in his coffin, which request was complied with.

EXTRAORDINARY LETTER.

The following strange and curious epistle, we are assured, was sent to a surgeon of eminence by a malefactor who had been sentenced to death. It has a degree of character and quaintness about it which is rarely found in the letters of convicts. Whether or not the surgeon complied with his request we do not know.

"Sir,-Being informed that you are the only surgeon in this county, in the habit of dissecting dead bodies--being very poor, I am desirous of passing what remains to me of life, with as much comfort as my unhappy condition admits of. In all probability I shall be executed in the course of a month; having no friend to intercede for me, nor even to afford me a morsel of bread, to keep body and soul together till the fatal mo