ORIGIN OF ISABELLA COLOUR.
The Archduke Albert married the infanta Isabella, daughter of Philip II. king of Spain, with whom he had the Low Countries in dowry. In the year 1602, he laid siege to Ostend, then in possession of the heretics; and his pious princess, who attended him on the expedition, made a vow, that, till the city was taken, she would not change her clothes. Contrary to expectation, it was three years before the place was reduced; in which time her highness' linen had acquired a hue, which, from the superstition of the princess and the times, was much admired, and adopted by the court fashionables under the name of "Isabella colour." It is a yellow or soiled buff, better imagined than described.
HALBERT H.
FAMINE IN ENGLAND.
A severe dearth began in May, 1315, and proceeded to the utmost extremity, until after the harvest of 1316. In July, 1316, the quarter of wheat rose to 30s., (equal to 22l. 10s.;) and in August reached to the enormous price of 40s. or 30l. the quarter. A loaf of coarse bread, which was scarcely able to support a man for a single day, sold for 4d., equal in value to 5s. now. Wheat rose in Scotland at one time to the enormous sum of 100s. the quarter, equal to 75l. of the present currency. This dearth continued, but with mitigated severity, until after the harvest of 1317; but great abundance returned in 1318. This famine occasioned a prodigious mortality among the people, owing to the want of proper food, and employment of unwholesome substitutes. The rains set in so early in 1315, and continued so violently, that most of the seed of that year perished in the ground; the meadows were so inundated, that the hay crop of that year was utterly destroyed.
H.B.A.
OLD ADVERTISEMENTS.
Puffing is by no means a modern art, although so extravagantly practised in the present day. Of its success two hundred years since, E. S. N. of Rochester, has sent us the following specimens:—