He told us, with great humour, a laughable incident which had occurred to him at Antwerp.  The morning after his arrival at that city from Holland, he started at an early hour to visit the tomb of Rubens in the Church of St. Jacques, before his party were up.  Having provided himself with a map of the city, he had no other guide; but after wandering about for an hour, without finding the object he had in view, he determined to make inquiry, and observing a person stalking about like himself, he addressed him, in his best French; but the stranger pulling off his hat, very respectfully replied, in the pure Highland accent, “I’m vary sorry, Sir, but I canna speak ony thing besides English.”—­“This is very unlucky indeed, Donald,” said Mr. Scott, “but we must help one another; for, to tell you the truth, I’m not good at any other tongue but the English, or rather, the Scotch.”—­“Oh, Sir, maybe,” replied the Highlander, “you are a countryman, and ken my maister, Captain Cameron, of the 79th, and could tell me where he lodges.  I’m just cum in, Sir, frae a place they ca’ Machlin, and ha forgotten the name of the captain’s quarters; it was something like the Laaborer.”—­“I can, I think, help you with this, my friend,” rejoined Mr. Scott.  “There is an inn just opposite to you, (pointing to the Hotel de Grand Laboreur,) I dare say that will be the captain’s quarters;” and so it was.  I cannot do justice to the humour in which Mr. Scott recounted this dialogue.

New Monthly Magazine.

* * * * *

THE GATHERER.

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles. 
SHAKSPEARE.

* * * * *

SUPERSTITION.

Catherine de Medicis, in order to be assured of the assistance of heaven in a certain project, vowed to send a pilgrim to Jerusalem, who should walk three feet forwards and one backwards all the way.  A countryman of Picardy undertook the fulfilment of this vow, and having employed a whole year in the task, was rewarded with a title and a large sum of money.

* * * * *

The Romans deposed their Dictator, Minutius, and the general of their cavalry, Caius Flaminius, on the same day they had been elected, because one of the citizens of Rome had heard a mouse squeak.

A.V.M.

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NAPKINS.

When Diego de Torres, the Spanish ambassador, in 1547, first dined with the Emperor of Morocco at his court, he was amused by the customs of the table; neither knives, forks, nor spoons, were provided; but each person helped himself with his fingers, and cleaned his hands with his tongue, excepting the emperor, who wiped the hand he took his meat up with on the head of a black boy, ten years old, who stood by his side.  The ambassador smiled, and the emperor observing it, asked what Christian kings wiped their hands with at meals, and what such things were worth?  “Fine napkins,” replied the ambassador, “a clean one at every meal, worth a crown a piece or more.”  “Don’t you think this napkin much better,” said the emperor, wiping his hand again on the black boy’s head, “which is worth seventy or eighty crowns.”