Prince Henry, son of William I. disgusted at the little attention his brothers, Robert and William, paid to him in an accommodation respecting the succession to the throne, retired to St. Michael’s Mount, in Normandy, and infested the neighbourhood with his forces.  Robert and William, with their joint forces, besieged him in this place, and had nearly reduced him by the scarcity of water; when the elder hearing of his distress, permitted him to supply himself, and also sent him some pipes of wine for his own table.  Being reproved by William for his ill-timed generosity, he replied, “What, shall I suffer my brother to die of thirst?  Where shall we find another when he is gone?”

CLARENCE.

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

COBBETT’S CORN.

The most interesting article in the last Number of the Westminster Review, is a paper on Cobbett’s Corn, headed with the title of Mr. Cobbett’s Treatise on the cultivation of the plant.  The reviewer has there interwoven some choice extracts from Mr. Cobbett’s book, which together with the connecting observations, we have abridged to suit our columns:—­

The value of Indian Corn has never been disputed:  it could not, by men who had ever seen the corn of America, or the maize of the more southern districts of France.  Its introduction into England has not been speculated upon; for it was supposed there was an in limine objection, that in our climate it would not ripen.  In the more northern part of France, for the same reason, its cultivation is not known, and in the map prefixed to Arthur Young’s Travels in France and other countries, may be seen a line drawn across the country, which line he considered was the limit of the maize country.  Neither has this experiment till now been tried, for Cobbett’s corn is a different variety of Indian or American, from that cultivated either in the new or old world.  It appears that it is a dwarfish species, and one which will not only ripen in this country, but produce results of fertility beyond that calculated upon in the United States in the most prosperous seasons.  It was an accident which threw it into Mr. Cobbett’s hands:  his son brought some seeds from plants growing in a gentleman’s garden in the French province of Artois, and it was only at his son’s repeated entreaty that he was prevailed upon to try its effects.  And even this entreaty from a son might not have prevailed, had not the influence of a sleepless night from the heat of summer, led to a conversation to be followed by results so important.