ll ivory box made by her own hands, the poet induced his niece to
instruct him in the art of knitting stockings; and he had actually
half finished a pair, of white silk, when he became completely tired.
Unfinished as the stockings were, however, he sent them to her Majesty,
accompanied by a charmingly gallant poetical epistle, in which he told
her that, "As she had presented him with a piece of man's workmanship
made by a woman, he had thought it his duty to crave her acceptance,
in return, of a piece of woman's work from the hands of a man."--When
Constantia Phillips was in a state of distress, she took a small shop
near Westminster Hall, and sold books, some of which were of her own
writing. During this time, an apothecary who had attended her once when
she was ill, came to her and requested payment of his bill. She pleaded
her poverty; but he still continued to press her, and urged as a reason
for his urgency, that he had saved her life. "You have," said Constantia,
"you have indeed done so: I acknowledge it; and, in return, here is my
life"--handing him at the same time the two volumes of her "Memoirs,"
and begging that he would now take _her life_ in discharge of his
demand.

* * * * *

CHATTERTON'S PROFIT AND LOSS RECKONING.

Chatterton, the marvellous boy, wrote a political essay for the _North
Briton_, Wilkes's journal; but, though accepted, the essay was not
printed, in consequence of the death of the Lord Mayor, Chatterton's
patron. The youthful patriot thus calculated the results of the
suppression of his essay, which had begun by a splendid flourish about
"a spirited people freeing themselves from insupportable slavery:"

"Lost, by the Lord Mayor's death, in this essay, L 1 11 6
Gained in elegies, L 2 2 0
Do. in essays, 3 3 0
--------
5 5 0
----------
Am glad he is dead by L 3 13 6"

* * * * *

LOCKE'S REBUKE OF THE CARD-PLAYING LORDS.

Locke, the brilliant author of the _Essay on the Human Understanding_,
was once introduced by Lord Shaftesbury to the Duke of Buckingham
and Lord Halifax. But the three noblemen, instead of entering into
conversation on literary subjects with the philosopher, very soon sat
down to ca