FEATS OF STRENGTH IN 1739.
April 21.—The following notice was given to the public:—"For the benefit of Thomas Topham, the strong man, from Islington, whose performances have been looked upon by the Royal Society and several persons of distinction, to be the most surprising as well as curious of any thing ever performed in England; on which account, as other entertainments are more frequently met with than that he proposes, he humbly hopes gentlemen and ladies, &c., will honour him with their presence at the Nag's Head, in Gateshead, on Monday the 23d of this instant, at four o'clock, where he intends to perform several feats of strength, viz.:—He bends an iron poker three inches in circumference, over his arm, and one of two inches and a quarter round his neck; he breaks a rope that will bear two thousand weight, and with his fingers rolls up a pewter dish of seven pounds hard metal; he lays the back part of his head on one chair, and his heels on another, and suffering four men to stand on his body, he moves them up and down at pleasure; he lifts a table six feet in length, by his teeth, with a half hundred weight hanging at the further end of it; and, lastly, to oblige the publick, he will lift a butt full of water." "Each person to pay one shilling." This "strong man" fell a victim to jealousy, as is proved by the following:—"August 10th, 1749, died, Mr. Thomas Topham, known by the name of the strong man, master of a publick house in Shoreditch, London. In a fit of jealousy, he stabbed his wife, then cut his own throat and stabbed himself, after which he lived two days."
ELEPHANTS FRIGHTENED AT PIGS.
"Then on a tyme there were many grete clerkes and rad of kyng Alysaunder how on a tyme as he sholde have a batayle with ye kynge of Inde. And this kynge of Inde broughte with hym many olyphauntes berynge castelles of tree on theyr backes as the kynde of the is to haue armed knyghtes in ye castell for the batayle, them ne knewe Alysaunder the kynge, of the olyphauntes that they drad no thynge more than the jarrynge of swyne, wherefore he made to gader to gyder all ye swyne that myghte be goten, and caused them to be dryuen as ny the olyphauntes as they myghte well here the jarrynge of the swyne, and thenne they made a pygge to crye, and whan the swyne herde the pygges a none they made a great jarrynge, and as soone as the olyphauntes herde that, they began to fle eche one, and keste downe the castelles and slewe the knyghtes that were in them, and by this meane Alysaunder had ye vyctory."—Liber Festivalis, printed by W. Caxton in 1483.
A VISIT TO THE OBSERVATORY OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
The memory of a great and good man is imperishable. A thousand years may pass away, but the fame that has survived the wreck of time remains unsullied, and is even brighter with age.
"The actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust."
In an age of progress like our own we have frequently to regret the destruction (sometimes necessary) of places associated with the genius of the past; but in the case of Sir Isaac Newton we have several relics existing, none of which, perhaps, are more interesting than the house in which he resided, still standing in St. Martin's Street, on the south side of Leicester Square. The engravings of the interior and exterior of this building have been made from drawings made on the spot. The house was long occupied as an hotel for foreigners, and was kept by a M. Pagliano. In 1814 it was devoted to the purposes of education. The Observatory, which is at the top, and where Sir Isaac Newton made his astronomical researches, was left in a dilapidated condition until 1824, when two gentlemen, belonging to a committee of the school, had it repaired at their own expense, and wrote a brief memoir of the philosopher, which was placed in the Observatory, with a portrait of him.