surrounding rocks reverberating the music till it seems like enchantment;
but sometimes the illusion is dissipated by the appearance of the singers,
in the persons of two old women, returning from their labour in a
neighbouring valley.

INA.

* * * * *

NAPOLEON.

During a tour through France shortly before Bonaparte's accession to the
throne he received the addresses of the Priests and Prefects, who vied
with each other in the grossness and impiety of their adulation. The
Prefect of the Pas de Calais seems to have borne away the palm from all
his brethren. On Napoleon's entrance into his department, he addressed
him in the following manner:--"Tranquil with respect to our fate, we know
that to ensure the happiness and glory of France, to render to all people
the freedom of commerce and the seas, to humble the audacious destroyers
of the repose of the universe, and to fix, at length, peace upon the
earth, God created Bonaparte, and rested from his labour!"

INA.

* * * * *

APOSTLES.

In the diplomatic language of Charles I.'s time, were marginal notes,
generally in the king's hand, written on the margin of state papers. The
word, in somewhat a similar sense, had its origin in the canon law. There
are many instances of apostles by Charles I. in Archbishop Laud's Diary

JAMES SILVESTER.

* * * * *

When Voltaire was at Berlin, he wrote this epigram on his patron and host
the king of Prussia:--

"King, author, philosopher, hero, musician,
Freemason, economist, bard, politician,
How had Europe rejoiced if a _Christian_ he'd been,
If a man, how he then had enraptured his queen."

For this effort of wit, Voltaire was paid with thirty lashes on his bare
back, administered by the king's sergeant-at-arms, and was compelled to
sign the following curious receipt for the same:--

"Received from the righthand of Conrad
Backoffner, thirty lashes on my bare
back, being in full for an epigram on
Frederick the Third, King of Prussia."

I say received by me, VOLTAIRE.

_Vive le Roi_!

* * * * *

The church at Gondhurst, in Kent, is a fine old building, and remarkable
for several reasons; one of which is, that thirty-nine different parishes
may be distinctly seen from it, and in clear weather the sea, off
Hastings, a distance of twenty-seven miles and a half.