horse
seemed on the point of falling back with his fair rider, the queen
slipped off on one side, and remained with one of her feet hanging in
the stirrup. The unruly beast, irritated still more at the burden which
fell on one side, kicked with the utmost violence in all directions. In
the first moments of danger and alarm, no person durst venture to the
assistance of the queen for this reason, that excepting the king and the
chief of the menimos, or little pages, no person of the male sex was
allowed to touch any part of the queens of Spain, and least of all their
feet. As the danger of the queen augmented, two cavaliers ran to her
relief. One of them seized the bridle of the horse, while the other drew
the queen's foot from the stirrup, and in performing this service
dislocated his thumb. As soon as they had saved her life they hastened
away with all possible expedition, ordered their fleetest horses to be
saddled, and were just preparing for their flight out of the kingdom,
when a messenger came to inform them that at the queen's intercession,
the king had pardoned the crime they had committed in touching her
person.--_Meiner's History of the Female Sex._

* * * * *

ADVANTAGES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

In the year 1825, Henry Drummond, Esq. of Albury Park, Surrey, and
formerly of Christchurch, subjected his estate in Surrey with a yearly
rent-charge of 100_l._ for the endowment of a professorship in
Political Economy, under certain conditions. Mr. Senior, whose name is
not unknown to students of political economy, has been appointed first
professor, and in his first lecture gives the following illustration of
the advantages of the science:--

If we compare the present situation of the people of England with that
of their predecessors at the time of Caesar's invasion; if we contrast
the warm and dry cottage of the present labourer, its chimney and glass
windows, (luxuries not enjoyed by Caesar himself,) the linen and
woollen clothing of himself and his family, the steel, and glass, and
earthenware with which his table is furnished, the Asiatic and American
ingredients of his food, and above all, his safety from personal injury,
and his calm security that to-morrow will bring with it the comforts
that have been enjoyed to-day; if, I repeat, we contrast all these
sources of enjoyment with the dark and smoky burrows of the Brigantes or
the Cantii, their clothing of skins, their fo