Watching for the Soul.—­Margaret of Valois, Queen of Navarre, being present at the death-bed of one of her maids of honour, continued to fix her eyes on the dying person with uncommon eagerness and perseverance till she breathed her last.  The ladies of the Court expressed their astonishment at this conduct, and requested to know what satisfaction her majesty could derive from so close an inspection of the agonies of death.  Her answer marked a most daring and inquisitive mind.  She said that having often heard the most learned doctors and ecclesiastics assert, that on the extinction of the body the immortal part was set at liberty and unloosed, she could not restrain her anxious curiosity to observe if such separation were visible or discernible; that none had she been able in any degree to discover.  She was suspected of Hugonotism, and was so devout as to compose hymns.

Harvest-home.—­This custom a Correspondent believes to be exclusively English; and its rapid disuse in many parts of England cannot be but a source of regret to those who study the moral enjoyment of the labouring classes of society.  The social meal is now recompensed by a trifling sum of money, which is either the resource of drunkenness and debauchery, or at best is but comparatively ill-spent.

All things by Comparison.—­Aristippus being reprehended of luxury by one that was not rich, for that he gave six crowns for a small fish, answered, “Why, what would you have, given?” The other said, “Some twelve pence.”  Aristippus said again, “And six crowns is no more with me.”

P.T.W.

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Epitaphs.—­At Castle Camps, in Cambridgeshire, is the following quaint epitaph on a former rector—­

  Mors mortis morti mortem nisi morte dedisset,
  Aeternae Vitae Janua clausa foret.

The translation is obviously, “unless the Death of Death (Christ) had given death to Death by his own death, the gate of eternal life had been closed.”  A poetic specimen of declension!

At Babraham, in Cambridgeshire, is this on Orazio Palovicini, who was the last deputed to this country to collect the Peter-pence; but instead of returning to Rome, he divided the spoil with the Queen, and bought the estate at Babraham.—­

  Here lies Orazio Pulovicin,
  Who robb’d the Pope to pay the Queen. 
  He was a thief:—­A thief? thou liest! 
  For why?—­He robb’d but antichrist. 
  Him Death with besom swept from Babraham,
  Unto the bosom of old Abraham;
  Then came Hercules, with his club,
  And knocked him down to Beelzebub.

INDAGATOR.

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THE ANNUALS FOR 1833.

  With our next Number, a SUPPLEMENT,
  CONTAINING THE
  Spirit of the Annuals for 1833: 
  With a fine Engraving, &c.