* * * * *

It is said that the first church was erected at Glastonbury; and this tradition may seem to deserve credit, because it was not contradicted in those ages when other churches would have found it profitable to advance a similar pretension.  The building is described as a rude structure of wicker-work, like the dwellings of the people in those days, and differing from them only in its dimensions, which were threescore feet in length, and twenty-six in breadth.  An abbey was afterwards erected there, one of the finest of those edifices, and one of the most remarkable for the many interesting circumstances connected with it.  The destruction of this beautiful and venerable fabric is one of the crimes by which our reformation was sullied.—­Southey.

* * * * *

GHOST STORY, BY M.G.  LEWIS.

A gentleman journeying towards the house of a friend, who lived on the skirts of an extensive forest, in the east of Germany, lost his way.  He wandered for some time among the trees, when he saw a light at a distance.  On approaching it he was surprised to observe that it proceeded from the interior of a ruined monastery.  Before he knocked at the gate he thought it proper to look through the window.  He saw a number of cats assembled round a small grave, four of whom were at that moment letting down a coffin with a crown upon it.  The gentleman startled at this unusual sight, and, imagining that he had arrived at the retreats of fiends or witches, mounted his horse and rode away with the utmost precipitation.  He arrived at his friend’s house at a late hour, who sat up waiting for him.  On his arrival his friend questioned him as to the cause of the traces of agitation visible in his face.  He began to recount his adventures after much hesitation, knowing that it was scarcely possible that his friend should give faith to his relation.  No sooner had he mentioned the coffin with the crown upon it, than his friend’s cat, who seemed to have been lying asleep before the fire, leaped up, crying out, “Then I am king of the cats;” and then scrambled up the chimney, and was never seen more.

* * * * *

RIDICULOUS MISTAKE.

A quantity of Worcestershire china being sent to the Nawaab at Lucknow, in India, from England, he was as impatient to open it as a child would be with a new plaything; and immediately gave orders for invitations to be sent to the whole settlement for a breakfast, a la fourchette, next morning.  Tables were accordingly spread for upwards of a hundred persons, including his ministers and officers of state.  Nothing could be more splendid than the general appearance of this entertainment; but the dismay may be more easily imagined than described, on discovering that the servants had mistaken certain utensils for milk-bowls, and had actually placed about twenty of them, filled with that beverage, along the centre of the table.  The consequence was, the English part of the company declined taking any; upon which the Nawaab innocently remarked, “I thought that the English were fond of milk.”  Some of them had much difficulty to keep their countenances.