tittrarg Itanings.

NEW ANECDOTPS or Minna SHAR.—" The anecdotes related of Nadir Shah are beyond computation. I may be permitted to repeat one or two, which were lately told me by one whose grandsire had been a soldier in Nadir's army, and had witnessed the sack and massacre of Delhi. When Nadir invaded India, he arrived first at Lahore • where the Governor immediately surrendered the city to him, and treated him with princely honours. At night, Nadir, whose only couch, for months past, had been a horse. blanket, with a saddle for a pillow, was conducted to a magnificent bed, with piles of cushions ; and twelve young damsels were in attendance to shampoo his limbs and fan him to sleep. Nadir started from his luxurious couch, roared for his secretary, and gave orders that the drums should be beat, and a proclamation made that Nadir had conquered all India. The astonished scribe ventured to hint that this conquest had not yet been accomplished. 'No matter,' said Nadir, where the chiefs of the people choose to live in this effeminate manner, it will cost me little trouble to conquer them.' And his anticipation was luny verified.

"After he had taken the city of Delhi, he visited the discomfited Emperor, who received him in fear and trembling. Nadir was seated in the chair of state, and the otto of roses and other perfumes brought, according to custom, and presented to him. Nadir had not changed his clothes or taken off his armour for many a day, and his person was by no means free from vermin. He asked contemptuously, what was the use of perfuming a soldier's garments ; and, thrusting his hand into his bosom, drew forth a number of lice, which he told the astonished Emperor were better companions than all his sweet scents.

"A very common salutation to a friend, whom one has not seen for some time, is to welcome him and assure him that his place has long been empty.' Nadir had ordered a splendid mausoleum to be built for himself at Mush' lied in Khorassan ; arid on his return from India, ho wont to see it. The night before he visited his intended resting-place, some unfriendly wag wrote above the spot destined for the grave= Welcome, conqueror of the world ! your place here has long been empty.' Nadir offered a reward for the discovery of the writer ; but whoever he was he took good care to keep incognito. The place was not long empty; for Nadir was assassinated soon after; and here his remains rested till they were dug up and desecrated by Agha Mahommed."—Binnine's Two Years' Travel in Persia.

PERSIAN ALUSUSCRIPTS.—" The art of caligraphy is carried by the Persians to the highest perfection, and they are allowed to be the best penmen in the East. Their beautiful character affords the greatest scope for a fine writer to displayhis skill—so different from our ugly, stiff, up hairstroke and down backstroke character, in which to make any writing look elegant is almost impossible. To write really well, is here considered a great accomplishment; and it is a pretty sure way of making a livelihood. Many persons earn their subsistence by transcribing books, and a good copyist is well paid for his labour. I have heard of a famous caligrapher, who lived at Ispahan in the last century, whose writing. was so exquisitely beautiful that he could obtain five toluene for every line he transcribed.. For the truth'of this statement I cannot vouch ; but whether correct or otherwise, it will serve to show the estimation in which this elegant art is held. Copies of the works of Persian authors, written in this country, are far superior to any transcribed in India. Independent of the handwriting being usually much better, they are always far more accurate. An Indian scribe seldom understands a word of the Persian book which he is copying ; and consequently makes all sorts of blunders. Besides this, the Indian moon.

shoes or i language-masters, i notwithstanding the pretension and conceit, are for the most part very. indifferent scholars, and when they meet with a passage in a Persian author which they arc unable to comprehend, they make no scruple of altering the original text to suit their own fancy or limited knowledge. When a work thus garbled is put into the hands of an Ignorant copyist, one may imagine what a mutilated production will be the result of his labours. I have rarely seen a copy of any well-known Persian work, written in India, which did not abound, in almost every page, with the grossest mistakes Persian ink never loses its colour and lustre. I have in my possession some MSS. written more than four centuries ago— the paper has turned dingy and dark, but the writing is as clear and brilliant as if it had been executed yesterday. This ink, though not impaired by age, is easily injured by damp, and may be completely blotted out by a wet finger."—Idem.

CHALMEMS AS AN ORATOR.—" Among recent British orators, Chalmers was an extraordinary example of the power of sheerly physiological action which distinguishes the born orator from the merely cultivated speaker. He was a man of large and heavy build, whose demeanour, when he was not himself speaking, was so far from being fidgety or excitable, that he sat like a mass of stone, perfectly placid and unperturbed, either not moving his head at all or moving it slowly round as if it turned on a weighty pivot. All the more impressive was it to see this heavy frame under the influence of the oratorical agitation. How the whole man was moved while he moved others ! It was not speech ; it was phrensy. Even on lesser occasions, when he still kept within bounds, it was plain that in hearing him the audience was subjected not merely to the influence of his meaning, but to the influence also of the sheer physical excitement which accompanied his own sense of that meaning. And on greater occasions the sight was absolutely terrible. His heavy frame was convulsed • his face flushed and grew Pythic ; the veins in his forehead and neck steed out like cordage ; his voice pealed or reached to a shriek; foam flew from his mouth in flakes ; he hung over his audience almost menacing them with his shaking fist; or he stood erect, maniacal and stamping. More than once after such an exhibition there were fears of apoplexy; and once he lay for three hours on a sofa, having his head laved with vinegar, before sufficiently recovering himself. And often, when one remembered and carried away the exact words spoken by him in one of these phrensies, they would seent plain enough, and such as any one else might have delivered without any approach to the same state of fury. Once, for example, when his agitation was at the uttermost, the sentiment which he was expressing was simply this—that if the landed aristocracy of the country did not ay heed to certain social tendencies,

the importance of which he had 'been expounding, 'their

estates were not worth ten years' purchase.' Here was a notion, here were words, which could have been spoken by any hardheaded man, or any quiet thinker who had anyhow got them into his head, and which certainly, if spoken by such a person, might have been spoken calmly; so that clearly the oratorical fury with which they came from the lips of Chalmers depended on a constitutional peculiarity—that peculiarity being an unusual amount of emotional and nervous perturbability in association with his thoughts and feelings, whatever they were."—British Quarterly Review.

CHINESE AHIJSEMENTS.—" Sir Dugald Dalgetty, who WU SO scandalised

by the bows and arrows of the Children of the Mist among the civilized

weapons of Montrose's host, would have been still more shocked by the ap pearance of a Chinese army. The matchlocks now in use among them are

the old Portuguese matchlock of the sixteenth century, which bears about the same relation to our old Brown Bess' that Brown Peas' bears to the Minie rifle. The Tartan, mostly cavalry, are soldiers by profession. Their arms are bows and broad scimitars; and in comparison with the cumbrous and uncertain matchlock, the bow is not to be despised. The scimitar is

worn on the left side, like a gentlemanly and Christian sword ; but it does not, like that appendage, dangle at the ha= of its wearer; neither is it ever carried jantily upon his luau, but protrudes forward shockingly, and is drawn by carrying the right hand behind the back, for the prudent Tartar is of opinion that to draw it from the front of his body would expose his arm to an adversary. Of these Tartar forces, which are the elite of the Chinese army, there are eight brigades, or 'banners.' The native soldiers are for the most part a militia, who perform many of the functions of a garde civique ; and as they are permitted to follow their peaceful avocations during at least two-thirds of the year, they possess about as military an aspect as citizen soldiers usually wear. Their ordinary employments are, to guard the city-gates, to carry Government expresses, to not as customhouse-officers at the military stations along the roads, rivers, and canals ; and to aid the civil magistracy as policemen. In dress and appearance they resemble the valiant supernumeraries who represent in provincial theatres the armies of Richard or Rolla. Their helmets are made of paper ; their boots of a coarse satin; and their uniform consists of a wadded gown and a quilted petticoat. Instead of a military salute, they acknowledge the presence of an officer by falling on their knees; and in warm weather they ply their fans as assiduously as any dowager duchess in an opera-box in July. The Government has occasionally betrayed misgivings of the effect of these military phenomena upon barbarians. There was great anxiety that Lord Amherst should report favourably to his Britannic Majesty of the martial beefing of the celestial host." Through the whole route,' proclaimed an imperial rescript, take care that the soldiers have their armour fresh and sliming, and their weapons disposed in a commanding style, and that their attitude be dignified and formidable.' "—Wasiminster Review.

MEAT POE THE niter TIME.—" We were sitting under the walls of Phyle. We had trodden that rugged pass under a hot sun, and wore resting under the shade of au oak. We had eaten and drunken, and were luxuriously watching the smoke of our cigar as it curled amid the leaves, and the lizards as they crept and glided amid the huge old stones ; when suddenly there stood before us a young Greek, perfect in form and feature as an Antinous, wild and savage as a colt of the Ukraine. Curiously he eyed us and our costume ; more curiously still his eye fell on the fragments which lay beside our wallet. With the benevolence of a full-fed man we threw him a bone of lamb. He clutohed it eagerly, eyed it suspiciously, smelt it as monkeys do when in doubt, bit at it cautiously at first, then snatched three or four mouthfuls hurriedly and greedily, then threw up his hands and shouted in ecstacy, then returned to the attack, and proceeded to tear off every morsel until the bone wasjwhiter and more bare than our trusty Ponto, best of polishers, could have left it. We thought, at first, that we were witnessing the ravenings of hunger, but there was more of novelty than of craving in the young savage's delight; and the truth then dawned upon us that we were looking on a creature, genus home, who had tasted flesh for the first time. The fact was a phenomenon to us, who, though not so voracious as the piper's son, yet heard in our consciences the lowings and bleatings from a sort of small Smithfield which had been sacrificed to our appetite."—Blacktrood'e Magazine.

RED TIERRINGS.—" SO great a rarity, a few years ago, was an English cured herring, that a story is told of Admiral Rodney, when dining at Carlton Home, congratulating the Prince of Wales upon seeing what hethought to be a dish of Yarmouth bloaters upon the table; adding, that if the Prince's example were followed by the upper ranks only, it would be the means of adding twenty thousand hardy seamen to the Navy. The Prince observed, that he did not deserve the compliment, as the herrings had not been cured by British hands ; but,' he continued, henceforward I shall order a dish of English-cured herrings to be purchased at any expense, to appear as a standing dish at this table. We shall call it a Rodney ; and, under that designation, what true patriot will not follow my example ? ' We have made some advance since the days of the Rodney ; yet the price of fish still places it beyond the reach of the poor; and it is viewed with suspicion by those who indulge in it as a luxury."—Feaser' a Magazine.

Enscricar, Jogneo ow PARIS.—" M. Duponchel:was, while administrator, the victim of an infinite variety of practical jokes. His head (in pasteboard) was only saved from being thrown at the feet of Taglioni by the Queen Marie Amelie,_who interceded to prevent so lugubrious a demonstration. The walls of Paris were placarded with the ominous words 'Feu Duponchel !' Another time funereal letters were despatched to the artists and employes. The undertakers arrived and decorated the gateways of the opera with more than usual pomp. They then penetrated into the interior, when they met a person issuing forth hurriedly. 'Monsieur,' said the man in black, would you be kind enough to tell us where we shall find the body ?' What body?' ' The body of M. Duponchel." The body of M. Duponchel ! I am M. Duponchel.' A moment after, whilst explanations were being made, friends came hurrying in to the funeral. The director had the good senile intake the thing as a joke ; and the day which was to have been passed at Pere Lachaise, was spent at a restaurant's high in renown. The best part of the joke, however, was, that all the newspapers were taken in, and even those which had been long inimical to him appeared.on the morning of the supposed funeral with long panegyrics, such as are only given to the dead."—Bentley's Miscellany.