stop and ask the fellow what he thought the weather would be? To which the fellow answered, that he believed ere long there would a good deal of rain, for that he had minded that his ass shook his ears, and rubbed his a―e against the posts confoundedly, which he said was always a sure sign of rain. The king and his conjurer laughed sufficiently at the peasant's prognostication; but they had been out two hours, when they found that he had told truth, and they were all thoroughly wet to the skin. The king, on his return, justly concluded, that the ass was much wiser than his conjurers, and accordingly dismissed them, and ordered a stable for the ass, to be kept at ease in as long as he should live. These, and a thousand other instances of a like kind, there are, which would, if considered, sufficiently laugh conjuring out of the world; but the misfortune is, these are all hud dled up in darkness, while the few prognostications that have proved true have been industriously spread every where abroad, and given the fortune-tellers the false credit of the Neptune of old, in whose temple were a thousand trophies of the people who had escaped shipwreck, but not one remembrance of the millions who had perished in spite of their prayers to him. Nothing was ever more just indeed, than what Henry IV, of France observed on this occasion. It was well known that he had many enemies, and it was daily expected that he would be assassinated. The conjurers of the times on this daily foretold, that he would be murdered, and this for many years, on which the king observed; "My enemies << are so many; that probably I shall be so one time or "other. And if that happens, the astrologer who foretells "it last before that time, will be deified for his prediction, "while the thousand false prophecies of these blunderers "will be all forgotten." FROM ANNALS OF THE FINE ARTS. In the year 1812, a poetical critique was written on the pictures exhibited that year in the British Gallery, in the style of Anstey's Bath Guide, for the amusement of a small circle of friends; from which we have been permitted to give the following extracts. D But when I came there, I first flew to the place, Where BIRD with new laurels has crown'd Chevy Chase; And around his own brow twin'd a wreath of such bays, Shews the soul of the Art, and its kindred to heaven. Involv'd in deep shadows resembling his doom, Now struck by Macbeth, a cold chill seized my blood, Sure the artist has witness'd some murd'rer's transgression; Ah! how shall I dare upon landscape to write, Where the river's rough current ran rapid and hoarse, Or the cat'ract enrag'd threw her foam to the blast. From the hare-bell's light stem, to the king of the woods; (To be continued.) THE ORIGIN OF SURNAMES. Before the arrival of the Normans, men were usually named from their condition and properties, as Godred, the Saxon word for good advice; and a woman was called from some quality of her body, Swcanshalfe, for the whiteness of her neck; but after that period, men began to be known by their dwellings, and to have an appellation from the possessions they enjoyed; at that time the names of John, Thomas, Nicolas, Francis, Stephen, and Henry, were introduced, with others scriptural, and now in use among us. Such as had lands assigned to them were called from these; thus, if Thomas had got the township of Norton, Sutton, Knowles, or Combe, he was thenceforth called Thomas of Norton, of Sutton, or of Combe; others again preferred the places in Normandy or Britany, whence they had arrived ; thus if a man came from a village called Vernon, Montague, Howard, or Spencer, to be put after their Christian names so long as should any of them remain. The Amusing Chronicle is published at No. 6, Gilbert's Passage, Portugal Street, and served at the houses of the subscribers, in the same manner as newspapers and magazines. G. Stobbs, Printer, Catherine Street,Strand. AMUSING CHRONICLE, A Weekly Repository for MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE. No. XIX.) January 25, 1817. (Vol. II. Price only Four Pence. A Quarto Plate of the THREE MISSES DENNETT'S, forming the much admired STARS, is in the hands of the Engraver. THE NARRATOR, No. XV. DISSERTATIONS On Hobby-horsical Propensities. "Every man has a right to bestride his own hobby, and to ride it a trot, a canter, or a gallop, or any other pace fancy may dictate, provi. ded always he does not prejudice or give offence to his neighbour.” L. STERNE. AMONG all the subjects that have employed the pens of the scientific, since the days of Lawrence Sterne, I have not seen one essay to commemorate the hobby-horsical pursuits of our bipedal race, at which I greatly wonder, since no age has been more whimsical than the past, or more productive of folly than this in which we live. To our great disappointment the Reverend Gentleman we have just mentioned, did but slightly touch on the matter; had he conti nued as he began, there is not a doubt remaining he had left us a panacea for melancholy, leisure for laughter, an antidote for somnolency, and for that disorder our French neighbours call ennui, a lazy stupid affectation, better cured by the horsewhip than by all the volumes of the profoundest philosophy. Printed by T. Kaygill, 36, Frith-Street, Soho. After an example so eminent, I shall presume to step forward, and to fill up in some degree, the ample hiatus I mount my hobby-horse and wield my quill, 'Tis not to torture but to MEND THE MIND. Mr. Pope, our English Homer, who could sometimes laugh with the rest, was surely glancing at our hobby-horsical propensities, when he thus describes the eventful history of his fellow man : "Behold the CHILD by Nature's kindly law, Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his RIPER STAGE, Till tir'd he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er." Hobby horses have been ridden in all ages, by men as well as children. "Men are but children of a larger growth," And full as often by their attachments call up our risibility; yes, as any of our juvenile equestrians. But, according to the whimsicality of Sterne, we have no right to censure so long as the cap and bells are not put on at the expense of another and now I am inclined to think, that to manage the hobby within these rules or restrictions, merits_commendation, nay, stands in some rank of praise: and farther, that the hobby may be ridden even to the advantage of the state, for every subject who promotes a free circulation of that Eldorado metal, without which no tradesman can keep his counter, or his credit unpolluted, becomes a strengthening link in the great chain of society. Having given our sentiments thus far, we shall proceed largely in our progress, and endeavour to describe some of. those hobbies which have been more conspicuous in their paces for eccentricity than the common hacks, which only. serve to offend our feelings and to provoke our contempt. The drunkard's hobby is among the latter, the libertine's, and the hobby of the unprincipled squanderer. |