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The infirmities that come with old age may be the interest on the debt of nature, which should have been more seasonably paid.  Often the interest will be a heavier payment than the principal.

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By a Lord of the Admiralty, (in a speech in Parliament during our Revolution,) the number of American sailors employed in the British navy previous to the Revolution was estimated at eighteen thousand.

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Some men have no right to perform great deeds, or think high thoughts; and when they do so, it is a kind of humbug.  They had better keep within their own propriety.

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In England, in 1761, a man and his wife, formerly in good circumstances, died very poor, and were buried at the expense of the parish.  This coming to the ears of the friends of their better days, they had the corpses taken out of the ground and buried in a more genteel manner!

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In the “Annual Register,” Vol.  IV., for 1761, there is a letter from Cromwell to Fleetwood, dated August 22, 1653, which Carlyle appears not to have given.  Also one, without date, to the Speaker of the House of Commons, narrating the taking of Basing House.

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Recently, in an old house which has been taken down at the corner of Bulfinch Street and Bowdoin Square, a perfect and full-grown skeleton was discovered, concealed between the ceiling and the floor of a room in the upper story.  Another skeleton was not long since found in similar circumstances.

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In a garden, a pool of perfectly transparent water, the bed of which should be paved with marble, or perhaps with mosaic work in images and various figures, which through the clear water would look wondrously beautiful.

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October 20, 1847.—­A walk in a warm and pleasant afternoon to Browne’s Hill, not uncommonly called Browne’s Folly, from the mansion which one of that family, before the Revolution, erected on its summit. (On October 14, 1837, I recorded a walk thither.) In a line with the length of the ridge, the ascent is gradual and easy, but straight up the sides it is steep.  There is a large and well-kept orchard at the foot, through which I passed, gradually ascending; then, surmounting a stone wall, beneath chestnut-trees which had thrown their dry leaves down, I climbed the remainder of the hill.  There were still the frequent barberry-bushes; and the wood-wax has begun to tuft itself over the sides and summit, which seem to be devoted to pasture.  On the very highest part are still the traces of the foundation of the old mansion.  The hall had a gallery running round it beneath the ceiling, and was a famous place for dancing.  The house stood, I believe, till