"I am but a Gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff."—Wotton
A man of learning was complaining to Voltaire, that few foreigners relished the beauties of Shakspeare. "Sir," replied the wit, "bad translations torment and vex them, and prevent them understanding your great dramatist. A blind man, sir, cannot perceive the beauty of a rose, who only pricks his fingers with the thorns."
The reign of Edward I. was marked with a singular occurrence, which serves to Illustrate the general character of this monarch. In the year 1285, Edward took away the charter of London, and turned out the mayor, in consequence of his suffering himself to be bribed by the bakers, and invested one of his own appointing with the civic authority. The city, however, by making various presents to the king, and rendering him other signal services, found means to have their charter restored.
Dr. E. D. Clarke's Rules far Travellers.—"Remember that you are never to conceive that you have added enough to your journal; never at liberty to go to sleep, because you are fatigued, until you have filled up all the blanks in it; never to go to the bottom of a mountain without also visiting its top; never to omit visiting mines, where there are any; never to listen to stories of banditti; nor in any instance to be frightened by bugbears."
A traveller lately returned from Florida says, it is the most fertile country he ever found, the lands producing forty bushels of frogs to the acre, and alligators enough to fence them—American paper.