nor ourselves, make any thing of it. To be sure, there are very alarming descriptions of laughter, even worded by sensible people, which might operate as a peventive to its indulgence; for instance they go so far as to say, they were convulsed-ready to burst-splitting their sides-and lastly, in due order, dying with laughter! The effects, therefore, being so alarmingly described or confessed, have prejudiced the cause, even among philosophers, already no way remarkable for their tenderness of feeling. True, these will say in reply, did not Chrysippus die laughing, when an ass was invited, and did actually sup with him? Did not a pope burst with laughter, when a monkey came to his bedside and put on the holy tiara? Besides. Dr. Johnson describes laughter as "convulsive merriment ;" and there is no merriment in getting into convulsions.

But laughter is weakening. Wolfius tells us of a countryfellow, named Brunsellius, who, at church, hearing a sermon, saw a woman fall from a form, half asleep; at which object most of the congregation laughed; but he, for his part, was so tickled, that, for three whole days he did nothing but laugh; by which means he was much weakened, says Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy.

No one could accuse those Chinese sages, Zoroaster and Fohi, of being monkeys; for the chronicles say that the latter never laughed at all, and the former only twice, viz. when he entered the world, and when he left it.

Wesley believed, laughter and hysterical laughter to be the work of the devil. Many would be ready to exclaim, The devil it is! without disparagemeut to Mr. Wesley, whose patriarchal smile we well remember.

THE

RECREATIVE MAGAZINE.

No. X.

ASSASSINATION-SANCTUARIES-LUSTRATIONS.

No doctrine can justify assassination.

There is no man so vile, that deserves to be cut off in this cowardly way. The veriest tyrant upon the earth must not be so dealt with he is unarmed and exposed. There has been some argument of late in the diurnals, the whole of which we consider to have been unnecessary; for who could advocate it? The vice,

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thank God, is not English; and may we never know of a single instance committed here, of an offence the most detestable of all in the black catalogue of human crimes. Judith's example was thought an encouragement to regicides for Balthazar Gerard, who killed William the First, Prince of Orange, had well thumbed the story of Judith murdering Holofernes. A French author says, this history, being taken for a canonical one, encourages assassins to attempt the life of kings, whom they hate; and furnishes orators with a crown of glory, to put upon the head of the Clements, the Ravaillacs, the Ankarstroms, and others. It certainly does no such thing.

The reason the King of Naples assigned for not putting down the horrid practice of private assassination in his kingdom is curious." At present, (said the monarch,) I lose five thousand of my subjects (annually) by assassination: if, therefore, I were to put to death every assassin, I should lose double that number."(Owen's Travels, vol. 2, p. 102.)

Pontoppidan, the historian of Norway, relates, that the Italian practice of privately stabbing, prevailed at one time to such a degree among the Norwegians, that a wife was ever

prepared for such an event, by carrying her husband's shroud about her, when they attended together a wedding-feast, or. any other merry-making.

We find, also, that when the Moslem assassins murdered Mr. Cherry, at Benares, they carried with them their winding-sheets, which had been dipped in the holy well of Zemzen.—( Valentia's Travels.)

But what an eccentricity of wickedness was it, to appoint any place where a murderer should get shelter--a church, too! -But such were, and are, (abroad,) called SANCTUARIES. Lancaster church was reserved, by Henry VIII., as a sanctuary, after the abolition of that dangerous privilege in the rest of England.--( Pennant.)

It appears, that one of the ancestors of the present Earl of Fife, Macduff, had the privilege, or any of his kindred within the ninth degree, of being acquitted of manslaughter, on flying to the sanctuary of the Cross at Mugdrum, in the county of Fife, and paying nine cows and a heifer.-(Camden.)

But if a murder, or an attempt to murder, is committed in a church, then that place, being polluted, though ever so unconscious, must undergo LUSTRATIONS, namely, a purification after murder has been committed with the walls. In 1492, a priest, Patrick Filling, was wounded almost to death by a Welch gentleman. Divine service was immediately suspended, till a lustration was performed, in order to purify the church from the foul stain.

An impiety of the same kind was committed in the church of Nôtre Dame, at Paris, 1670. The priest died of his wound; expiation was made; public prayers were put up in all the churches for forty hours; a fast was appointed; reparation was made; which, with a grand procession, restored the place to its usual discharge of the sacred offices.--( Felibien Hist. de Paris.) Fox mentions another instance, in his Martyrs.

INGENUITY OF ARTISTS.

A Hint to Jewellers.-It is surprising, that our jewellers, who deal in the precious things of this world, should, at the same time, deal so little in sentiment, never calling up the wonder-working aid of fancy. They sell us rings, bracelets, diadems, cestusses, and so on, composed of rare stones, with

out once alluding to their allegories, relations, or symbols. Now, no less a personage than Pope Innocent himself may be said to give them a precedent for the future exercise of their genius; for when Cardinal Langton was made archbishop of Canterbury, by the intrigues of the pope, whose creature he was, in despite of King John-to appease the latter, his holiness presented him with four golden rings, set with precious stones; and enhanced the value of the gift, by informing him of the many mysteries implied in it. "He begged of him (John) to consider seriously the form of the rings, their num ber, their matter, and their colour. Their form, he said, being round, shadowed out eternity, which had neither beginning nor end; and he ought thence to learn his duty of aspiring from earthly objects to heavenly, from things temporal to things eternal. The number, four, being a square, denoted steadiness of mind, not to be subverted either by adversity or pros perity, fixed for ever on the firm basis of the four cardinal virtues. Gold, which is the matter, being the most precious of metals, signified wisdom, which is the most precious of all accomplishments, and justly preferred, by Solomon, to riches, power, and all exterior attainments. The blue colour of the sapphire represented Faith; the verdure of the emerald, Hope; the redness of the ruby, Charity; and the splendour of the topaz, good works."-(Hume.) Now if, by these conceits, his holiness, Pope Innocent (who was not in the jewellery line) endeavoured to repay John for one of the most important prerogatives of his crown, which he had ravished from him, then how much more does it behove Rundell and Bridge, Hamlet, Jefferies, and others, (with whom, alas! we have little dealings,) to leave off calling a ring a ring, and to call up all those associations of thought, that display of imagination, in the display of their goods, wherein the purchaser may receive more satisfaction, and the seller an extra fifty per cent!

But we have observed some striking specimens of ingenuity in artists who have excelled in minute penmanship; for instance-Cicero records, that the whole of the Iliads of Homer was written on a piece of parchment, in so small a character, that the whole might be inclosed in the compass of a nut-shell-see Pliny, lib. 7; but he does not say what nutshell; perhaps a cocoa-nut!There was one also, in Queen Elizabeth's time, who wrote the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Pater Noster, the queen's name, and the year of our Lord, within the compass of a penny; and gave her majesty a pair of spectacles, of such an artificial make, that, by their help, she plainly discerned every letter.—(Heylin's Life of Charles Ï.)

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Another penman, in the miniature style, one Francis Almonus, wrote the Creed, and the first fourteen verses of St. John's Gospel, in the compass of a penny.In the library of St. John's College, Oxford, is a picture of Charles I., done with a pen, the lines of which contain all the Psalms, in a legible hand.

Of minute Carving.—At Halston, in Shropshire, the seat of the Myttons, is preserved a carving, much resembling that mentioned by Walpole, in his Anecdotes of Painting, vol. 2, p. 42. It is the portrait of Charles I., full-faced, cut on a peach-stone; above is a crown: his face and clothes, which are vandyck dress, are painted: on the reverse is an eagle, transfixed with an arrow; and round it is this motto, I feathered this arrow. The whole is most admirably executed, and is set in gold, with a crystal on each side. It probably was the work of Nicholas Briot, a great graver of the Mint, in the time of Charles I.-(Pennant's Wales.)In the Royal Museum, at Copenhagen, is a common cherry-stone, on the surface of which are engraved two hundred and twenty heads; but their smallness makes them rather appear imperfect.

STURT, a very neat writing-engraver, published a Common Prayer Book, all of which was agraved on silver plates. Unfortunately, however, it did not sell; and poor Sturt became seriously alarmed, and took every body's advice, (as usual,) as to what was to be done. It was at length determined to take off a number of copies privately, and then to cut the plates up publickly. After this, the hoarded copies being brought out stealthily, one by one, as particular favours, fetched greater prices. Such are the attractions and tricks in the world of connoisseurs.-(Noble's Grainger.)

How to make a Man catch a Cannon-ball in his Hand.When you have the proper quantity of powder for a charge, put a very little of it into the cannon; then put in the ball, and over it put in the rest of the powder; then put in the wadding, and ram it down as hard, as usual. A cannon so charged, will not carry the ball twenty yards. The report of the cannon this way is as loud as any other, for all the powder is fired, the bullet not filling the barrel so exactly as to prevent its catching. This experiment was once tried, and the ball caught, from a nine-pounder, by the person who invented the trick.

A man of the name of Huber, had acquired such a facility in forming Voltaire's countenance, that he could not only cut most striking likenesses of him out of paper, with scissors,