SHETLAND ISLES.
Here, on the shortest—day, the sun rises 17-1/2 min. past 9 o’clock, and sets 42 min. past 2 o’clock. The nights begin to be very short early in May, and from the middle of that month to the end of July, darkness is absolutely unknown—the sun scarcely quits the horizon, and his short absence is supplied by a bright twilight. Nothing can surpass the calm serenity of a fine summer night in the Shetland Isles.
A SAFE WAY TO OPEN STALE OYSTERS.
There is an old proverb, viz. “The Mayor of Northampton opens oisters with his dagger.” The meaning of which is, to keep them at a sufficient distance from his nose. For this town being eighty miles from the sea, fish may well be presumed stale therein. “Yet I have heard (says Dr. Fuller,) that oisters put up with care, and carried in the cool, were weekly brought fresh and good to Althrop, the seat of the Lord Spencer, at equal distance; and it is no wonder, for I myself have eaten, in Warwickshire, above eighty miles from London, oisters sent from that city, fresh and good, and they must have, been carried some miles before they came there.”
P.T.W.
Castellan, in his funeral sermon on the death of his patron, Francis I. modestly expressed his belief that the great prince was in paradise; this gave great offence to the Sorbonne, who complained of it to the court of France. Their remonstrance was coldly received, and Mendoze, who had been steward to Francis, told them, “that he knew the disposition of his old master better than they, that he never could bear to remain long in one place; and that if he had been in purgatory, he stopped there merely to take a little refreshment, and afterwards went on.”
J.G.B.