I was reflecting what dire calamities would fall upon the doomed City, since the era of luxury, corruption, and desertion, thus denounced, had now manifestly arrived, and Gog and Magog were actually starting and trembling upon their pedestals, when the hall-keeper, shaking me by the shoulder, exclaimed—"Come, Sir, you musn't be sleeping here all night! Bundle out, if you please, for I am just going to shut the great gates!"—New Monthly Mag.
THE GATHERER.
A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.—SHAKSPEARE.
MODERN SALAMANDER.
An experiment to ascertain the degree of heat it is possible for a man to bear, was made a few days ago at the New Tivoli, at Paris, in the presence of a company of about 200 persons. The man on whom this experiment was made is a Spaniard of Andalusia, named Martenez, aged 43. A cylindrical oven, constructed in the shape of a dome, had been heated for four hours, by a very powerful fire. At ten minutes past eight, the Spaniard, having on large pantaloons of red flannel, a thick cloak also of flannel, and a large felt, after the fashion of straw hats, went into the oven, where he remained, seated on a foot-stool, during fourteen minutes, exposed to a heat of from 45 to 50 degrees, of a metallic thermometer, the gradation of which did not go higher than 50. He sang a Spanish song while a fowl was roasted by his side. At his coming out of the oven, the physicians found that his pulse beat 134 pulsations a minute, though it was but 72 at his going in, The oven being healed anew for a second experiment, the Spaniard re-entered and seated himself in the same attitude; at three quarters past eight, ate the fowl, and drank a bottle of wine to the health of the spectators. At coming out his pulse was 176, and the thermometer indicated a heat of 110 degrees of Reaumur. Finally, for the third and last experiment, which almost immediately followed the second, he was stretched on a plank, surrounded with lighted candles, and thus put into the oven, the mouth of which was closed this time. He was there nearly five minutes, when all the spectators cried out, "Enough, enough," and anxiously hastened to take him out. A noxious and suffocating vapour of tallow filled the inside of the oven, and all the candles were extinguished and melted. The Spaniard, whose pulse was 200 at coming out of this gulf of heat, immediately threw himself into a cold bath, and in two or three minutes after was on his feet safe and sound.
WILL OF MR. WILLIAM HICKINGTON,
Proved in the Deanery Court of York, 1772.
This is my last Will,
I insist on it still,
So sneer on and welcome
And e'en laugh your fill.
I, William Hickington,
Poet of Pocklington,
Do give and bequeathe,
As free as I breathe,
To thee, Mary Jaram,
The queen of my haram,
My cash and cattle,
With every chattel,
To have and to hold,
Come heat or come cold,
Sans hindrance or strife,
(Tho' thou art not my wife,)
As witness my hand,
Just here as I stand,
This 12th of July,
In the year seventy ——
Signed, &c. W. HICKINGTON.
J. W. F. B.