The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-10-10 00:00:00

VARIETIES.

A. cute Yankee has invented a nest, in the bottom of
'which there is a kind of trap door, through which the
egg when laid, immediately drops ; and the hen, looking
round and perceiving none, soon lays another !
NOT BAD.—Some time ago, a gentleman passing
through Lancaster was taken ill. A friend of his, looking
over the list of surgeons in the directory, asked " who
Was the great gun ?" whereupon a ccrtain clergyman
t!esent replied, " Mr. Howitzer," (Mr. Howitt, sir.) ;
Howitt being a surgeon, at Lancaster, of great skill
and extensive practice.
YAr-TAX.—One of the taxes proposed during the
'Pflug of 1797, which gave most room for satire and
ridicule, was a duty on hats, which people evaded by
wearing caps. Gillray, in a caricature published on the
sth of April -entitled "Le bonnet rouge ; or, John Bull
a
evading
ading the hat-tax"—intimates the danger that such
might drive John Bull to adopt the republican cos-
tume of his neighbours_; and he certainly does look
"transformed." John chuckles in contemplation of the
astonishment that his ruler must feel when he beholds the
strange effect of his taxes—" Waunds ! when Measter
silly sees I in a red cap how he will stare !—egad, I
thinks I shall cook'en at last—well, if I could but once
get a cockade to my red cap, and a bit of a gun—why, I
thinks I should make a gord stockey soldier."—Wright's
" England."
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.—A Swiss journal furnishes us
With the following romantic tale of real life :—A married
couple who had for several years lived in a state of anti-
Conjugal harmony, determined to part, and made an ap-
pointment with each other to meet at a notary's to sign
the deed of separation. To arrive at the office of the man
of law they had to cross a lake, and, as it happened, they
both embarked in the same boat. On their passage a
storm arose, and the boat was upset. The husband being
It good swimmer, soon reached the shore in safety. On
looking round to see the fate of his fellow-passengers, he
distinguished his wife still struggling for her life, but in
!Intninent danger. A feeling of his early affections re-
turnedto him, and plunging again into the water he swam
hertO and succeeded in rescuing her. When she recovered
her
senses, and learned to whom she owed her life, she
threw herself into his arms, and he embraced her with
equal cordiality ; they then vowed an oblivion to all their
Ip,fferences, and that they would live and die together.—
x7a/ignanilp
Messenger.
HISTORIC EVENTS CONNECTED WITH THE HEAD-
LANDS OF THE ISLE OF MAN.—The headlands of the isle
o':;l3oroemorate in this manner many events and incidents
thehe past. Thus, Spanish Head records the visit and
Issued so gloriously from Spain never to return, and which
aiiu_,Tlg itself and its cargo of warriors, priests, torturers,
,Thu weapons, as trophies, on the shore of the land of that
lePle which they came to subdue to Spain, convert to
eritee and to put to the cruel question or to the death
siozr oet.d by martyrdom. To the shores of Man the divi-
destr,,,P'e armada, which rushed upon the coast to meet
that 1741°0, conveyed the progenitors to which is owing
The 'reed of tailless cats which is peculiar to the island.
,_r Shetlanders ascribe their celebrated ponies to a simi-
L,4 circumstance—viz., the wreck of a division of the
demon fleet, and the coming ashore of a few Spanish
Jennets, the sires and dams of that shaggy-maned race
°TI which our young nobility first learn to acquire a seat
and find a home in the saddle. The jennets of Spain,
from which our Shetland ponies are descended, are said
'0 be themselves the offspring of the winds. It is a le-
gi,end, perhaps, to characterize their once famed swiftness.
P-owever this may be, Virgil records this descent from
fabulous sires ; and Horace and Silius tell us that their
blood was the favourite beverage of the wild and valorous
'eoncani. The Tartars, we may add, of this day, do the
horse."
and more, a Tartar " not only rides but eats his
oorse." The horses of Diomedes, on the other hand, eat
The h
hien, as did those of Glaucus who
b fed upon their master.
-orses of King Duncan, it will e remembered, fore-
shadowed the king's death by devouring one another,
verY much, as old Ross says—

to the amazement of mine eyes

That look'd upon 't." •
King William's Bank is as another page in a dread i.nr-
-44,1, recording a martin escape rrom death. The ship
Which conveyed the hero, whose crusade against popery
has rendered him so distasteful to Tractarian writers, had
tlhe kere well nigh made wreck of Cwsar and his fortunes.
monarch was on his way to Ireland and the Boyne.
read his career been stopped for ever on this bank, the
ZLeen.e hol present condition of the world m
influenced the events
othe entire of Europe. Had it not been given to poets s
t°s sing that triumph, there perhaps would have been
n
ot—
retender—Charles Stuart would not have turned s
ogland might have been preserved to the unhappy race
hoin Tractarians deplore, and Mr. Oakeley might have
been born a Papist instead of having become one by force
°f development.—Church of England Quarterly Review.
Is MANX LEGEND.—From the
summit of the gravel
"ass of the Calf Islet was once witnessed a scene, some
account of which will serve as a specimen of the rich le-
gendary history scattered about these pages. It appears
that in the early days of Olave Godredson, a Norman ba-
ron, with dreadful sporting propensities, had so nearly
,xhausted the racsons and elks that, to check the
bunter and save whey could of the little he had left,
the people had, of course, recourse to magic. While he
v,es one day chasing the red deer of the Calf, and his
t°,llt-lunged cook, Eaoch, was sleep ng
i by
Barrull, the side of the
pot in the castle kitchen of a Manx
Witch. named Ada, set the fat running over and therewith
Ant fire to the castle. Eaoch roared so loud that his mas-
leir, the Baron Kitter, heard him, though ten miles off.
eiinnipPed into a boat with all his followers, to gain the
real - island from the Calf; but the witch touched the
in, the prow touched a rock, and the whole of them
—vent to the bottom. The poor cook was forthwith seized
4:11 the author of all the evil and condemned to death, with
e solitary rivilege allowed to that early Ude, of choos-
kirig„ii\ow he would " Well (said Eaoch to Olave the
;g),I if it be so, I wish my head to be laid across one of
✓ Majesty's legs, and there cut off by your majesty's
Macabuin, which was made by Loan Maclibhuin,
,ue-dark smith of Drontheini." The king's scimetar was
gLten3nered that it would cleave through a mountain of
the he felt, we may suppose, a little, uneasy about
pie tibia and fibula ; but his word was pledged and his
w:ocige was not to be forfeited. All the precaution taken
timesY Ada the witch—who placed a dressing of nine
k nine filthy and witch-like components between his
tOestY's leg and the head of Eaoch the cook. All these
o'ngs (says Mr. Cumming) being properly adjusted, the
akeia,t, sword Macabuin, made by Maclibhuin, the dark
by -,,"„" of Drontheim, was lifted with the greatest caution
one of the king's most trusty servants, and laid gently
4c Zieck of the cookere its downward course
0,4, u° stayed, it severed the head from the body of
bt,C, and cut all the preventives asunder except the
they saving the king's leg from harm. When the
t smith of Drontheim heard of the stratagem submit-
be._"! to by Olave to thwart the efficacy of the sword Maca-
Qin, he was so highly offended that he despatched his
tnreerman, Haillus-nanurd, who had only one leg, hay-
g lost the other when assisting in making that great
tonrd, to the Castle of Peel, to challenge King (Have, or
any of his people, to walk with him to Drontheim. It
Was accounted very dishonourable in those days to refuse
challenge, particularly if connected with a point of ho-
11,car. Olave, in mere compliance with this rule, accepted
'4 challenge, and set out to walk against the one-legged
Zaveller from the Isle of Man to the smithy of Loan
a,clibhuin, in Drontheim. They walked o'er the land,
ato sailed o'er the sea ; and so equal was the match that,
I.l'lerl within sight of the smithy, Haillus-nanurd, who was
l't, called to Loan Maclibhuin to open the door, and
hiiave called out to shut it. At that instant, pushing past
th°2 of the one leg, the king entered the smithy first, to
tie; evident discomfiture of the swarthy smith and his as-
Olo.,,:;„. To show that he was not in the least fatigued,
save lifted a large forge hammer, and, under pretence of
te ling the smith, struck the anvil with such force that
assisting
it, not only from top to bottom, but also the
Lo upon which it rested. Emergaid, the daughter of
dee,°,' seeing Olave perform such manly prowess, fell so
leas Y in love with him that, during the time her father
Portje.Placing the block and the anvil, she found an op-
blaeillity of informing him that her father was only re-
thatTg the studdy to finish a sword he was making, and
destr e had. decoyed him to that place for the purpose of
vieOction, as it had been prophesied. that the sword
affrn'u„ be tempered in royal blood, and in revenge for the
•Ja-„°`,of the cook's death by the sword of Macabuin.
or°L Your father the son of old Windy Cap, King of
1411aY Olave. He is,' replied Emergaid. as her
11/54" entered the smithy. Then (cried the'King of
kosals he drew the red steel from the fire) the prophecy
lifted hand
fulfilled!' Emergaid was unable to stay his up-
-I,4tQuand till he quenched the sword in the blood of her
ham r' and afterwards pierced the heart of the one• legged
life.,l;sertoan, who he knew was in the plot for taking his
co Such a dramatic legend would
too it
without
the 9clusion, with a marriage tacked to it. Accordingly,
kerh,egend of the cook and the one-legged hammermac
the7.4lated conjugally. Emergaid married with alacrity
Atiti;°Yal murderer of her father : just as Chimene, but
Who more show of reluctance, espoused the valiant Cid,
man , .er Properly slew that tedious and rude old gentle-
-send_ -01.1 Gomez, the lady's sire. As for the Manx le-
'taloa Pre suppose there is a moral to it, if it could be
lioo for the seeking. To our thinking the chief instruc-
.l3Y th:reYed by it is, that cooks should not go to
.sleep
kitchen fire ; and that, if they do, it is perfectly
akflestble for them to calculate the consequences. At the
awa9e, every cook who falls asleep is not to suppose,
tri,..arti,,7 king, that the first step has been made towards the
vilurcle of a king with a monarch's grand-daughter.—
4i England Quarterly Review.