THE CHERRY TREE.
The Cherry Tree was introduced into Great Britain before A.D. 53. The earliest mention of the fruit being exposed to sale by hawkers in London is in Henry the Fifth's reign, 1415. New sorts were introduced from Flanders, by Richard Haines, Henry the Eighth's fruiterer, and being planted in Kent were called "Flanders," or "Kentish Cherries," of which Gerard (1597) says, "They have a better juice, but watery, cold, and moist." Philips says, "There is an account of a cherry-orchard of thirty-two acres in Kent, which, in the year 1540, produced fruit that sold in those early days, for 1,000l.; which seems an enormous sum, as at that period good land is stated to have let at one shilling per acre." Evelyn tells us, that in his time (1662) an acre planted with cherries, one hundred miles from London, had been let at 10l. During the Commonwealth (1649), the manor and mansion of Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I., at Wimbledon, in Surrey, were surveyed previously to being sold, and it appears that there were upwards of two hundred cherry trees in the gardens. Since that time the cherry tree has found universal admission into shrubberies, gardens, and orchards.
INSTRUCTIONS TO A CHAPLAIN.
The following, and we believe they are unique, are Sir John Wynne of Gwedir's instructions to his chaplain, the Rev. John Pryce. "First, you shall have the chamber I showed you in my gate, private to yourself, with lock and key, and all necessaries. In the morning, I expect you should rise, and say prayers in my hall, to my household below, before they go to work, and when they come in at night, that you call before you all the workmen, specially the youth, and take account of them of their belief, and of what Sir Meredith taught them. I beg you to continue for the most part in the lower house: you are to have onlye what is done there, that you may inform me of any disorder there. There is a bayliff of husbandry and a porter, who will be commanded by you. The morning after you be up, and have said prayers, as afore, I would you to bestow in study on any commendable exercise of your body. Before dinner you are to come up and attend grace or prayers, if there be any publicke; and to sit up if there be not greater strangers above the chyldren, who you are to teach in your own chamber. When the table from half downwards is taken up, then you are to rise and to walk in the alleys near at hand until grace time, and to come in then for that purpose. After dinner, if I be busy, you may go to bowles, shuffel bord, or any other honest, decent recreation, until I go abroad. If you see me void of business, and go to ride abroad, you shall command a gelding to be made ready by the grooms of the stable, and to go with me. If I go to bowles or shuffel bord, I shall lyke of your company, if the place be not made up with strangers. I would have you to go every Sunday in the year to some church hereabouts, to preache, giving warnynge to the parish, to bring the yowths at after noon to the church to be catechysed; in which poynt is my greatest care that you should be paynfull and dylygent. Avoyd the alehouse, to sytte and keepe drunkard's company ther, being the greatest discredit your function can have."
TWO MISERS.
In the year 1778 died, at a village near Reading, John Jackson, aged ninety-three, and James Jackson, aged eighty-seven. These two brothers were old bachelors, and afforded a striking instance of the insufficiency of wealth to create happiness. Though these old men had been blest with great riches ever since they were twenty years of age, they absolutely denied themselves the common necessaries of life; and lived in the village for fifty years past as poor men, and often accepted of charity from rich persons who resided near them. They never suffered any woman or man to come into their apartment (which was only one shabby room), and were both taken ill, and languishing a short time, they expired on the same day, within one hour of each other. It is computed, by the writings left behind them, that they died worth £150,000.
ANECDOTE OF THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK.
The following anecdote relating to the august House of Brunswick is taken from the "Annual Register" of 1765:—"The late Duchess of Blakenburgh, great grandmother to the hereditary prince, who died some years since in a very advanced age, had the singular happiness to reckon amongst her posterity, sixty-two princes and princesses; (fifty-three of whom she saw at one time alive;) and amongst them three emperors, two empresses, two kings, and two queens; a circumstance that, probably, no sovereign house but that of Brunswick ever produced anything like it."
AMUSEMENTS OF SOME LEARNED AUTHORS.
Tycho Brahe polished glass for spectacles, and made mathematical instruments. D'Andilly delighted, like our Evelyn, in forest-trees; Balzac, with the manufacturing of crayons; Pieresc, with his medals and antiques; the Abbé de Marolles, with engravings; Rohault's greatest recreation was in seeing different mechanics at their labour; Arnauld read the most trashy novels for relaxation; as did our Warburton, the late Lords Loughborough and Camden; Montaigne fondled his cat; Cardinal Richelieu, in jumping and leaping. Grumm informs us that the Chevalier de Boufflers would crow like a cock, and bray like an ass; in both of which he excelled, not metaphorically but literally.