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PLEASURES OF TRAVELLING.

Dover quite full—­horrible place!  Shocking, the inns!  Amphibious wretches, the population.  Ashore (from steam-packet) at four in the morning.  Fires out at The Ship.  No beds!  Think of it!  Had to wait till a party got up—­going off at six.  Six came—­changed their minds (lazy!) wouldn’t go!  Woke the whole house with ringing the bells, however—­took care they shouldn’t sleep.  Filthy breakfast!  Bad butter—­vile chops—­ eggs!  I never got an egg properly boiled in my life!  Royal Society ought to give a premium.  Set off, starved and shuddering—­roads heavy—­four horses.  Ruined with the expense.  Man wanted to take half.  Fat—­looked greasy.  Thought ruin best.  Got up to Pagliano’s a petrifaction!  Worthy creature, the cook!  Tossed me up such a “Saumon, Tartare”—­“Vol au vent”—­“Maccaroni”—­all light.  Coffee—­liqueur—­no wine for fear of fever—­went to bed quite thawed in body and mind; and walked round Leicester-square next morning like “a giant refreshed!”—­Blackwood.

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A woman’s true dowry is virtue, modesty, and desires restrained; not that which is usually so called.

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DOMESDAY.

Mr. Bowles in his History of Bremhill, makes a few observations suggested by the account in Domesday Book, on the wages, and some of the prices of agricultural produce on the farms where the villani and servi, literally slaves and villans, laboured.  When we find two oxen sold for seventeen shillings and four-pence, we must bear in mind that one Norman shilling was as much in value as three of ours; when we find that thirty hens were sold for three farthings each, we must bear in mind the same proportion.  The price of a sheep was one shilling, that is three of ours.  Wheat was six shillings a-quarter; that would be, according to our scale, two shillings and three-pence a-bushel.  Now, at the time of this calculation, everything must have borne a greater price, reckoning by money, than at the time of Domesday; for the prices of articles now set down (from an authentic document of the accounts of the Duke of Cornwall, first published from the original by Sir R.C.  Hoare, in his History of Mere,) bear date somewhat more than two hundred years afterwards, in the reign of Edward the First, 1299.  But at that time, what were the wages of the labourer?  The ploughman’s wages were about five shillings a-year, fifteen shillings by the present scale; a maid for making “pottage” received a penny a week!

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THE SKETCH BOOK.

STRIKING INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF A MIDSHIPMAN.