that the remarkable chimneys may have been subsequently
added.

* * * * *

OLD LONDON.

(_For the Mirror_.)

In a collection of Epigrams written by Thomas Freeman, of
Gloucestershire, and published in 1014, is the following, entitled
"London's Progresse:"--

"Why, how nowe, Babell, whither wilt thou build?
I see old Holbourne, Charing Crosse, the Strand,
Are going to St. Giles's in-the-field,
Saint Katerne, she takes Wapping by the hand,

"And Hogsdon will to Hygate ere't be long,
London has got a great way from the streame,
I thinke she means to go to Islington,
To eate a dish of strawberries and creame.
The City's sure in progresse I surmise,
Or going to revell it in some disorder,
Without the Walls, without the Liberties,
Where she neede feare nor Mayor nor Recorder.
Well! say she do, 'twere pretty, yet 'tis pitty
A Middlesex Bailiff should arrest the Citty."

W.C.R.R.

* * * * *

AVVER.

(_For the Mirror_.)

The word "Avver" has doubtless the same origin as the German word
_"Hafer" "Haber"_ which signifies in English, _oat_.

In some parts of Germany a pap of oatmeal "Haferbrei" is very common
as breakfast of the lower classes. Of "Haferbrod" oatbread, I only
heard in 1816, when the other sorts of grain were so very scarce in
Germany.

_A German and Constant Reader of the Mirror_.

* * * * *

THE HALCYON

(_For the Mirror_.)

So often alluded to by the poets, is the bird called the King Fisher.
It was believed by the ancients that while the female brooded over the
eggs, the sea and weather remained calm and unruffled; hence arose the
expression of Halcyon days.

R.N.

* * * * *

SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

(_For the Mirror_.)

Woolsthorp, Lincolnshire, a little village on the great north road
between Stamford and Grantham, is memorable as the birthplace of that
illustrious philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton. The house in which he was
born, is a kind of farmhouse, built of stone, and is, or was lately
standing. The learned Dr. Stukely visited it in 1721, and was showed
the inside of it by the country people; in a letter to Dr. Mead on
this occasion, he says, "They led me up stairs, and showed me Sir
Isaac's study, where I suppose he studied when in the country, in his
younger days, as perhaps, when he visited his m