Or going to revell it in some disorder,
  Without the Walls, without the Liberties,
    Where she neede feare nor Mayor nor Recorder. 
  Well! say she do, ’twere pretty, yet ’tis pitty
    A Middlesex Bailiff should arrest the Citty.”

W.C.R.R.

* * * * *

AVVER.

(For the Mirror.)

The word “Avver” has doubtless the same origin as the German word "Hafer” “Haber" which signifies in English, oat.

In some parts of Germany a pap of oatmeal “Haferbrei” is very common as breakfast of the lower classes.  Of “Haferbrod” oatbread, I only heard in 1816, when the other sorts of grain were so very scarce in Germany.

A German and Constant Reader of the Mirror.

* * * * *

THE HALCYON

(For the Mirror.)

So often alluded to by the poets, is the bird called the King Fisher.  It was believed by the ancients that while the female brooded over the eggs, the sea and weather remained calm and unruffled; hence arose the expression of Halcyon days.

R.N.

* * * * *

SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

(For the Mirror.)

Woolsthorp, Lincolnshire, a little village on the great north road between Stamford and Grantham, is memorable as the birthplace of that illustrious philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton.  The house in which he was born, is a kind of farmhouse, built of stone, and is, or was lately standing.  The learned Dr. Stukely visited it in 1721, and was showed the inside of it by the country people; in a letter to Dr. Mead on this occasion, he says, “They led me up stairs, and showed me Sir Isaac’s study, where I suppose he studied when in the country, in his younger days, as perhaps, when he visited his mother from the university.  I observed the shelves were of his own making, being pieces of deal boxes, which probably he sent his books and clothes down in upon these occasions.”

Halbert H.

* * * * *

The Gatherer.

“A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.”

SHAKSPEARE.

* * * * *

When Dr. Johnson courted Mrs. Porter, whom he afterwards married, he told her “that he was of mean extraction, that he had no money; and that he had an uncle hanged!” The lady by way of reducing herself, to an equality with the doctor, replied, “that she had no more money than himself; and that, though she had not a relation hanged, she had fifty who deserved hanging.”  And thus was accomplished this very curious amour.

W.G.C.

* * * * *

On the Dorchester road from Sturminster, is a public-house called the “King’s Stag,” its sign displays a stag with a gold collar around its neck, and underneath are the following lines:—­