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The church of Loddon, in the southeastern angle of the county of Norfolk, about five miles from Bungay, was built about 1495, and contains a depository of this description, with two separate boxes, each of them secured by two padlocks: over one of these is a hole in the lid for the offerings. When a sufficient sum was collected, it was taken out and placed in the adjoining box in the presence of the two churchwardens.

Ben Jonson, in his "Masque of the Metamorphosed Gipsies, as it was thrice presented before king James, 1621, &c." makes a gipsy tell Tom Ticklefoot, a rustic musician,

"On Sundays you rob the poor's-box with your tabor, The collectors would do it, you save them a labour." Whereunto a countryman answers,

"Faith, but a little they'll do it non-upstant."*

:

Non-upstant, notwithstanding.

From this we gather that it was customary at that time to put money in the parish poor's-box on Sundays, and that the trustees of the poor were sometimes suspected of misapplying it.

The neglect of this mode of public contribution is noted in Hogarth's marriage scene of the "Rake's Progress," by a cobweb covering the poor's-box in the church. There is an intimation to the same effect in one of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, which further intimates that poor's-boxes had posies

The poor man's box is there too: if ye find any thing
Besides the posy, and that half rubb'd out too,
For fear it should awaken too much charity,
Give it to pious uses: that is, spend it.

Spanish Curate, 1647.

The posies or mottoes on poor's-boxes were short sentences to incite benevolence

-such as, "He that giveth to the poor

lendeth to the Lord," &c.

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COWPER.

The poet of "The Sofa," when "in merry pin," trifled pleasantly. As an instance of his manner, there remains the following

LETTER TO THE REV. J. NEWTON.

July 12, 1781.

My very dear Friend,-I am going to send, what, when you have read, you may scratch your head, and say, I suppose there's nobody knows, whether what I have got, be verse or not; by the tune or the time, it ought to be rhyme; but if it be, did you ever see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before?

I have writ Charity, not for popularity, but as well as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the reviewers should say "to be sure, the gentleman's muse wears Methodist shoes; you may know by her pace, and talk about grace, that she and her bard, have little regard, for the taste and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoidening play, of the modern day; and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, 'tis only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production, on a new construction; she has baited her trap, in hopes to snap, all that may come, with a sugar plum." This opinion in this will not be amiss: 'tis what I intend, my principal end; and if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought, to a serious thought, I should think I am paid for all I have said, and all I have done, though I have run, many a time, after a rhyme, as far from hence, to the end of my sense, and by hook or crook, write another book, if I live and am here, another year.

I have heard before, of a room with a floor, laid upon springs, and such like things, with so much art, in every part, that when you went in, you was forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a figure of eight, without pipe or string, or any such thing. And now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penned; which that you may do, ere madam and you are quite worn out, with jigging about, I take my leave, and here you receive a

bow profound, down to the ground, from your humble me

W. C.

When prevented by rains and floods from visiting the lady who suggested "The Task," Cowper beguiled the time by writing to her the following lines, and afterwards printing them with his own hand. He sent a copy of these verses, so printed, to his sister, accompanied by the subjoined note written upon his typographical labours.

To watch the storms, and hear the sky
Give all the almanacks the lie;
To shake with cold, and see the plains
In autumn drown'd with wintry rains:
'Tis thus I spend my moments here,
And wish myself a Dutch mynheer;
I then should have no need of wit,
For lumpish Hollander unfit;
Nor should I then repine at mud,
Or meadows delug'd with a flood;
But in a bog live well content,
And find it just my element;
Should be a clod, and not a man,
Nor wish in vain for sister Anne,
With charitable aid to drag
My mind out of its proper quag;
Should have the genius of a boor,
And no ambition to have more.

My dear Sister,-You see my beginning I do not know but in time I may proceed to the printing of halfpenny ballads.

Ex

cuse the coarseness of my paper; I wasted so much before I could accomplish any thing legible, that I could not afford finer. I intend to employ an ingenious mechanic of this town to make me a longer case, for you may observe that my lines turn up their tails like Dutch mastiffs; so difficult do I find it to make the two halves exactly

coincide with each other.

We wait with impatience for the departure of this unseasonable flood. We think of you, and talk of you; but we can do no more till the waters subside. I do not think our correspondence should drop because we are within a mile of each other; it is but an imaginary approximation, the flood having in reality as effectually parted us, as if the British Channel rolled be

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HIGHLAND DEER AND SHEEP. "THE LAST DEER OF BEANN DORAN."

A note to a poem, with this title, by John Hay Allan, Esq., relates, that in former times the barony of Glen Urcha was celebrated for the number and the superior race of its deer. When the chieftains relinquished their ancient character and their ancient sports, and sheep were introduced into the country, the want of protection, and the antipathy of the deer to the intruding animals, gradually expelled the former from the face of the country, and obliged them to retire to the most remote recesses of the mountains. Contracted in their haunts from corrai to corrai, the deer of Glen Urcha at length wholly confined themselves to Beann Doran, a mountain near the solitary wilds of Glen Lyon, and the vast and desolate mosses which stretch from the Black Mount to Loch Ranach. In this retreat they continued for several years; their dwelling was in a lonely corrai at the back of the hill, and they were never seen in the surrounding country, except in the deepest severity of winter, when, forced by hunger and the snow, a straggler ventured down into the straiths. But the hostility

which had banished them from their ancient range, did not respect their last retreat. The sheep continually encroached upon of subsistence. Deprived of the protection their bounds, and contracted their resources of the laird, those which ventured from their haunt were cut off without mercy or inroads of poachers, continually diminished fair chase; while want of range, and the their numbers, till at length the race became extinct.

About the time of the disappearance of the deer from these wilds, an immense stag side of Beann Donachan. He remained was one evening seen standing upon the for some time quietly gazing towards the lake, and at length slowly descended the hill, and was crossing the road at Stronnmilchon, when he was discovered by some herdsmen of the hamlet. They immediately pursued him with their cooleys; and the alarm being given, the whole straith, men, women, and children, gathered out to the pursuit. The noble animal held them a severe chase till, as he passed through the copse on the north side of Blairachuran, his antlers were entangled in the boughs, he was overtaken by the pursuers, and barbarously slaughtered by the united onset, and assault of dogs, hay-forks, and Sgian an Dubh." When divided, he

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proved but a poor reward for the fatigue; for he was so old, that his flesh was scarcely eatable. From that time the deer were seen no more in Beann Doran; and none now appear in Glen Urcha, except when, in a hard winter, a solitary stag wanders out of the forest of Dalness, and passes down Glen Strae or Corrai Fhuar.

The same cause which had extirpated the deer from Glen Urcha has equally acted in most part of the Highlands. Wherever the sheep appear, their numbers begin to decrease, and at length they become totally extinct. The reasons of this apparently singular consequence is, the closeness with which the sheep feed, and which, where they abound, so consumes the pasturage, as not to leave sufficient for the deer: still more is it owing to the unconquerable antipathy which these animals have for the former. This dislike is so great, that they cannot endure the smell of their wool, and

never mix with them in the most remote situations, or where there is the most ample pasturage for both. They have no abhorrence of this kind to cattle, but, where large herds of these are kept, will feed and lie among the stirks and steers with the greatest familiarity.

HIGHLAND MEALS.

Among the peculiarities of highland manners is an avowed contempt for the luxuries of the table. A highland hunter will eat with a keen appetite and sufficient discrimination: but, were he to stop in any pursuit, because it was meal time, to growl over a bad dinner, or visibly exult over a good one, the manly dignity of his character would be considered as fallen for ever.*

TREAD MILLS.

At Lewes, each prisoner walks at the rate of 6,600 feet in ascent per day; at Ipswich, 7,450; at St. Alban's, 8,000; at Bury, 8,650; at Cambridge, 10,176; at Durham, 12,000; at Brixton, Guildford, and Reading, the summer rate exceeds 13,000; while at Warwick, the summer rate is about 17,000 feet in ten hours. †

Mrs. Grant. †The Times,

EXTRAORDINARY

ORAN-OUTANG,

THE WILD MAN OF THE WOODS.

The largest and most remarkable oranoutang ever seen by Europeans, was discovered by an officer of the ship Mary Anne Sophia, in the year 1824, at a place called Ramboon, near Touromon, on the west coast of Sumatra.

When the officer alluded to first saw the animal, he assembled his people, and followed him to a tree in a cultivated spot, on which he took refuge. His walk was erect and waddling, but not quick, and he was obliged occasionally to accelerate his motion with his hands; but with a bough which he carried, he impelled himself forward with great rapidity. When he reached the trees his strength was shown in a high degree, for with one spring he gained a very lofty branch, and bounded from it with the ease of the smaller animals of his kind. Had the circumjacent land been covered with wood, he would certainly have escaped from his pursuers, for his mode of travelling by bough or tree was as rapid as the progress of a very fleet horse: but at Ramboon there are but few trees left in the midst of cultivated fields, and amongst these alone he jumped about to avoid being taken. He was first shot on a tree, and after having received five balls, to loss of blood; and the ammunition havhis exertion was relaxed, owing, no doubt, ing been by that time expended, his pursuers were obliged to have recourse to of the first balls probably penetrated his other measures for his destruction. One lungs, for immediately after the infliction from a branch with his head downwards, of the wound, he slung himself by his feet and allowed the blood to flow from his mouth. On receiving a wound, he always put his hand over the injured part, and the human-like agony of his expression had the natural effect of exciting painful feelings in his assailants. The peasantry seemed as amazed at the sight of him as the crew of the ship; for they had never seen one before, although living within two days' journey from the vast and impenetrable forests on the island. They cut down the tree on which he was reclining exhausted; but the moment he found it falling, he exerted his remaining strength, and gained another, and then a third, until he was finally brought to the ground, and forced to combat his unrelenting foes, who now gathered very thickly round, and discharged

spears and other missiles against him. The first spear, made of a very strong supple wood, which would have resisted the strength of the strongest man, was broken by him like a carrot; and had he not been in almost a dying state, it was feared that he would have severed the heads of some of the party with equal ease. He fell, at length, under innumerable stabs inflicted by the peasantry.

The animal is supposed to have travelled some distance from the place where he was killed, as his legs were covered with mud up to the knees. His hands and feet had great analogy to human hands and feet, only that the thumbs were smaller in proportion, and situated nearer the wrist-joint. His body was well proportioned; he had a fine broad expanded chest and a narrow waist; but his legs were rather short, and his arms very long, though both possessed such sinew and muscle as left no doubt of their strength. His head was well proportioned with his body, and the nose prominent; the eyes were large, and the mouth larger than the mouth in man. His chin was fringed, from the extremity of one ear to the other, with a shaggy beard, curling luxuriantly on each side, and forming altogether an ornamental, rather than a frightful appendage to his visage. When he was first killed, the hair of his coat was smooth and glossy, and his teeth and whole appearance indicated that he was young, and in the full possession of his physical powers. He was nearly eight feet high.

The skin and fragments of this surprising oran-outang were presented to the Asiatic Society at Calcutta ; and on the 5th of January, 1825, Dr. Abel examined them, and read the observations he had made. The height already mentioned is according to the estimate of those who saw the animal alive, but the measurement of the skin went far to determine this question. The skin, dried and shrivelled as it was, in a straight line from the top of the shoulder to the point whence the ancle had been removed, measured five feet ten inches; the perpendicular length of the neck in the preparation, was three inches and a half; the length of the face, from the forehead to the chin, nine inches; and of the skin attached to the foot, from the line of its separation from the body to the heel, eight inches. The measurements made by Dr. Abel himself. Thus we have one foot eight inches and a half to be added to the five feet ten inches, in order to approximate his real stature, which would

were

make seven feet six inches and a half; and allowing the six inches and a half for the shortening that would result from the folding of the skin over the shoulders, the height would then be full seven feet. This is the greatest ascertained height of any tail-less monkey mentioned in the several notices which Dr. Abel collected from different writers on man-like apes.

The skin itself was of a dark leaden colour; the hair a brownish red, shaggy, and long over the shoulders and flanks.

Dr. Abel remarked, that of the small animals more particularly known in Europe, under the designation of oran-outang, one was an inhabitant of Africa, and the other of the east. Several living specimens of both have been seen in Europe, but all were of small stature, and very young, never exceeding three feet in height, or as many years of age. These animals were long considered as varieties of the same species, although in point of fact they are very distinctly separated by external character and anatomical distinctions. The African animal being always black with large ears, the eastern specimens as invariably having reddish brown hair, and very small ears; the former also are unprovided with the sacs communicating with the windpipe, which are always found in the latter.*

Different naturalists have deemed the oran-outang to be the connecting link between the brute and the human being.

A LITTLE LEARNING

"not a dangerous thing."

Mr. Thomas Campbell having been chosen lord rector of the university of Glasgow, made his inaugural speech on the 12th of April, 1827, wherein are the following estimable remarks on desultory attainments:

"In comparing small learned acquisitions with none at all, it appears to me to be equally absurd to consider a little learning valueless, or even dangerous, as some will have it, as to talk of a little virtue, a little wealth, or health, or cheerfulness, or a little of any other blessing under heaven, being worthless or dangerous.

"To abjure any degree of information, because we cannot grasp the whole circle of the sciences, or sound the depths of erudition, appears to be just about as sensible as if we were to shut up our windows,

*Calcutta Government Gazette, Jan. 13, 1825.

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