--(_Pennant's London._)
When the Bastille of France was demolished, three iron cages were
discovered, they were made of strong bars of iron, about eight feet high
and six feet wide, and such have been used in other prisons in that
country. The Bishop of Verdun, according to Mezeray, was the inventer,
and was himself the first man confined in them, and remained a prisoner
thus for eleven years, so that he could speak practically as to his own
invention.
* * * * *
FEMALE LEANDER.
The Duchess of Chevereux, who was for the first time at the court of
England, in 1638, swam across the Thames, in a frolic, near Windsor. On
this occasion some verses were composed by a Sir J. M. containing these
lines:--
But her chaste breast, cold as the cloyster'd nun,
Whose frost to chrystal might congeal the sun,
So glar'd the stream, that pilots, there afloat,
Thought they might safely land without a boat;
July had seen the Thames in ice involv'd,
Had it not been by her own beams dissolv'd.
* * * * *
BIRTHDAY PRAYER.
The observance of a birthday by _prayer_ is not altogether incurious
in these days of license; and the following specimen, quoted from the
_Diary_ of that truly good man, JOHN EVELYN, may be entertained as the
genuine effusion of piety, unmixed with any alloy of fanaticism, or
religious enthusiasm:--
_Oct_.
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