—Can any of your correspondents tell me the date of the last public slave sale in England? Till the establishment of Granville Sharpe's great principle, in 1772, announcements of these are by no means uncommon. The following, from the Public Ledger of Dec. 31, 1761, grates harshly upon the feelings of the present generation:—
"FOR SALE:
"A healthy negro girl, aged about fifteen years; speaks good English, works at her needle, washes well, does household work, and has had the small-pox."
SAXONICUS.
Hoax on Sir Walter Scott.
—The following passage occurs in one of Sir W. Scott's letters to Southey, written in September, 1810:
"A witty rogue, the other day, who sent me a letter subscribed 'Detector,' proved me guilty of stealing a passage from one of Vida's Latin poems, which I had never seen or heard of; yet there was so strong a general resemblance as fairly to authorise 'Detector's' suspicion."
Lockhart remarks thereupon:
"The lines of Vida which 'Detector' had enclosed to Scott, as the obvious original of the address to 'Woman' in Marmion, closing with—
"'When pain and anguish wring the brow,