SWAINE.

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A Singing Paganini.—­In the year 1760, La Paganini, an admirable singer and actress, came to London from Berlin.  Her reputation was so great, that when she had her benefit at the Opera, such a crowd assembled as was never before witnessed on a like occasion, not one third of the company that presented themselves at the Opera House doors being able to obtain admission.  Caps were lost, and gowns torn to pieces, without number or mercy, in the struggle to get in.  Ladies in full dress, who had sent away their servants and carriages were obliged to appear in the streets, and walk home in great numbers without caps or attendants.  Luckily the weather was fine, and did not add to their distress by rain or wind, though their confusion was greatly augmented by its being broad daylight, and the streets full of spectators, who (says her biographer) could neither refrain from looking nor laughing at such splendid and uncommon street-walkers.

P.T.W.

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The old Teutonic word rick is still preserved in the termination of our English bishoprick.  Stubbs, in his libel, The Discovery of a Gaping Gulf, &c. imprinted 1579, says, “The queen has the kingrick in her own power.”—­Notes to Pennie’s Britain’s Historical Drama.

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On Friendship.

  “I love a friend that’s frank and just,
  To whom a tale I can entrust,
  But when a man’s to slander given,
  From such a friend protect me heaven.”

J.J.

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Sea Coal.—­In the reign of Edward the First, dyers and brewers began to use sea coal.  In consequence of an application from the nobility, &c. he published a proclamation against it, as a public nuisance.  And afterwards, under a commission of Oyer and Terminer, the commission ordered that all who had “contumaceously” disobeyed the proclamation, should be punished by “pecuniary mulcts.”  P.T.W.

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Witty Optics.—­A Jew went into a coffee-house to offer some spectacles for sale:  one of the company, after trying several pairs, wishing to amuse himself at the Jew’s expense, exclaimed, “Oh, these suit me very well; I see through them very well, and through you too, friend, and discern that you are a rogue.”  The Jew taking them from him and clapping them on his own nose, very composedly replied, “then our eyes are alike, for I see that you are the same.”

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Cromwell’s Fun.—­Before the trial of Charles I., the chiefs of the Republican party and the general officers met to concert the model of the intended new government.  One day, after the debates on this most interesting and important subject, Ludlow informs us, that Cromwell, by way of frolic, threw a cushion at his head, and even in the high court of justice, in that solemn moment when he took the pen to sign the warrant for the unhappy monarch’s execution, he could not forbear the levity of daubing the face of his neighbour with the ink.  G.M.