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The Sluice-house.

Ye who with rod and line aspire to catch
Leviathans that swim within the stream
Of this fam'd River, now no longer New,
Yet still so call'd, come hither to the Sluice-house!
Here, largest gudgeons live, and fattest roach

Resort, and even barbel have been found.

Here too doth sometimes prey the rav'ning shark
Of streams like this, that is to say, a jack.

If fortune aid ye, ye perchance shall find

Upon an average within one day,

At least a fish, or two; if ye do not,
This will I promise ye, that ye shall have

Most glorious nibbles: come then, haste ye here,
And with ye bring large stock of baits and patience.
From Canonbury tower onward by the
New River, is a pleasant summer afternoon's
walk. Highbury barn, or, as it is now
called, Highbury tavern, is the first place of
note beyond Canonbury. It was anciently
a barn belonging to the ecclesiastics of
Clerkenwell; though it is at present only
known to the inhabitants of that suburb,
by its capacity for filling them with good
things in return for the money they spend

there. The " barn" itself is the assemblyroom, whereon the old roof still remains. This house has stood in the way of all passengers to the Sluice-house, and turned many from their firm-set purpose of fishing in the waters near it. Every man who carries a rod and line is not an Isaac Walton, whom neither blandishment nor obstacle could swerve from his mighty end, when he went forth to kill fish.

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He was the great progenitor of all

That war upon the tenants of the stream, He neither stumbled, stopt, nor had a fall

When he essay'd to war on dace, bleak, bream,

Stone-loach or pike, or other fish, I deem.

The Sluice-house is a small wooden building, distant about half a mile beyond Highbury, just before the river angles off towards Newington. With

London anglers it has always been a house of celebrity, because it is the nearest spot wherein they have hope of tolerable sport. Within it is now placed a machine for forcing water into the pipes that supply the inhabitants of Holloway, and other parts adjacent. Just beyond is the Eel-pie house, which many who angle thereabouts mistake for the Sluice-house. To instruct the uninformed, and to gratify the eye of some who remember the spot they frequented in their youth, the preceding view, taken in May 1825, has been engraved. If the artist had been also a portrait painter, it would have been well to have secured a sketch of the present keeper of the Sluice-house; his manly mien, and mild expressive face, are worthy of the pencil: if there be truth in physiognomy, he is an honest, goodhearted man. His dame, who tenders Barcelona nuts and oranges at the Sluicehouse door for sale, with fishing-lines fron two-pence to six-pence, and rods at a penny each, is somewhat stricken in years, and wholly innocent of the metropolis and its manners. She seems of the times

"When our fathers pluck'd the blackberry And sipp'd the silver tide."

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Gordon meeting a gentleman in the received the honour of knighthood, Jemmy streets of Cambridge who had recently approached him, and looking him full in the face, exclaimed,

"The king, by merely laying sword on,

Could make a knight of Jemmy Gordon." At a late assize at Cambridge, a man named Pilgrim was convicted of horsestealing, and sentenced to transportation. Gordon seeing the prosecutor in the sir, have done what the pope of Rome street, loudly vociferated to him, "You, cannot do; you have put a stop to Pilgrim's Progress!"

of rather indifferent character, who pitied Gordon was met one day by a person Jemmy's forlorn condition, (he being without shoes and stockings,) and said, "Gordon, if you will call at my house, I will give you a pair of shoes." Jemmy, assuming a contemptuous air, replied,

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These brief memoranda suffice to memorialize peculiar individual. James Gordon at ore time possessed “fame, wealth, and honours :" now-his "fame" is a hapless notoriety; all the "wealth" that remains to him is a form that might have been less careworn had he been less careless; his honour is "air-thin air," "his gibes, his jests, his flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table in a roar, no longer enliven the plenteous banquet:

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"Deserted in his utmost need

By men his former bounty fed," the bitter morsel for his life's support is parish dole. "The gayest of the gay" is forgotten in his age-in the darkness of life; when reflection on what was, cannot better what is. Brilliant circles of acquaintance sparkle with frivolity, but friendship has no place within them. The prudence of sensuality is selfishness.

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A Lee..

A Bush

A Grove

A Lane

A Green.

A Hill.

.....

........a turf-dealer ...a baker

A Haycock

A Barne..
A Shed
A Hutt
A Hovel...

A Hatt

A Capp

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..a draper

..a bookseller

.........a gardener

A Spencer

A Bullock

A Fox.
A Lamb
A Lion.
A Mole..

A Roe

A Buck
A Hogg

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...

......a butcher

......a baker

a brazier

a sadler

a grocer
..a town-crier
... an engraver

a college gyp. ..a gentleman

A Bond ........a grocer
A Binder. ....a fruiterer

A Cock
........a shoemaker
A Hawk. ...................... a paperhanger
A Drake. ......a dissenting minister
A Swan ........a shoemaker

A Bird.

A Peacock

......an innkeeper

.... a lawyer

A Rook ........ a tailor

A Wren

A Falcon

a bricklayer's labourer ..a gentleman

A Crow .................... a builder

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St. Aldhelm.

He founded the abbey of Malmesbury, and was the first Englishman who cultivated Latin and English or Saxon poesy. Among his other mortifications, he was accustomed to recite the psalter at night, plunged up to the shoulders in a pond of water. He was the first bishop of Sherborne, a see which was afterwards removed to Salisbury, and died in 709.*

He turned a sunbeam into a clothespeg; at least, so say his biographers: this was at Rome. Saying mass there in the church of St. John de Lateran, he put off his vestment; the servant neglecting to take it, he hung it on a sunbeam, whereon it remained, " to the wonderful admiration of the beholders."+

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FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Common Avens. Geum Urbanum.

Dedicated to St. Urban

May 26.

St. Philip Neri, A. D. 1595. St. Augustine, Abp. of Canterbury, A. d. 604. St. Eleutherius, Pope, A. D. 192. St. Quadratus, Bp. A.D. 125. St. Oduvald, Abbot, A. D. 698.

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St. Philip Neri.

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He was born at Florence in 1515, became recluse when a child, dedicated himself to poverty, and became miraculously fervent. "The divine love," says Alban Butler, so much dilated the breast of our saint, that the gristle which joined the fourth and fifth ribs on the left side was broken, which accident allowed the heart and the larger vessels more play; in which condition he lived fifty years." According to the same authority, his body was sometimes raised from the ground during his devotions some yards high. Butler relates the same of St. Dunstan, St. Edmund, and many other saints, and says that "Calmet, an author still living, assures us that he knows a religious man who, in devout prayer, is sometimes involuntarily raised in the air, and remains hanging in it without any support; also that he is personally acquainted with a devout nun to whom the same had often happened." Butler thinks it probable that they themselves would not determine whether they were raised by angels, or by what other supernatural operation. He says, that Neri could detect hidden sins by the smell of the sinners. He died in 1595: the body of such a saint of course worked

miracles.

St. Philip Neri founded the congregation or religious order of the Oratory, in 1551. The rules of this religious order savour of no small severity. By the "Institutions of the Oratory," (printed at Oxford, 1687, 8vo. pp. 49.) they are required to mix corporal punishments with their religious harmony:-"From the first

of November to the feast of the resurthings shall be heightened by a concert of rection, their contemplation of celestial music; and it is also enjoined, that at certain seasons of frequent occurrence, they all whip themselves in the Oratory. After half an hour's mental prayer, the officers distribute whips made of small

cords full of knots, put forth the children, if there be any, and carefully shutting the doors and windows, extinguish the other lights, except only a small candle so placed in a dark lanthorn upon the altar, that the crucifix may appear clear and visible, but not reflecting any light, thus making all the room dark: then the priest, in a loud and doleful voice, pronounceth the verse Jube Domine benedicere, and going through an appointed service, comes Apprehendite disciplinam, &c.; at which words, taking their whips, they Scourge their naked bodies during the recital of the 50th Psalm, Miserere, and the 129th, De profundis, with several prayers; at the conclusion of which, upon a sign given, they end their whipping, and put on their clothes in the dark and in silence."

Oratorios.

The Oratorio commenced with the fathers of the Oratory. In order to draw youth to church, they had hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs, or cantatas, sung either in chorus or by a single favourite voice. These pieces were divided into two parts, the one performed before the sermon, and the other after it. Sacred stories, or events from scripture, written in verse, and by way of dialogue, were set to music, and the first part being performed, the sermon succeeded, which the people were induced to stay and hear, that they might be present at the performance of the second part. The subjects in early times were the good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, Tobit with the angel, his father, and his wife, and similar histories, which by the excellence of the composition, the band of instruments, and the performance, brought the Oratory into great repute; hence this cies of musical drama obtained the general appellation of Oratorio.

St. Augustine.

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This was the monk sent to England by St. Gregory the Great, to convert the English; by favour of Ethelbert, he became archbishop of Canterbury. Christianity, however, had long preceded Augustine's arrival, for the queen of Ethelbert, previous to his coming, was accustomed to pay her devotions in the church of St. Martin just without Canterbury. This most ancient edifice still exists. Not noticing more at present concerning

his historical character, it is to be observed that, according to his biographers, he worked many miracles, whereof may be observed this:

St. Augustine came to a certain town, inhabited by wicked people, who "refused hys doctryne and prechyng uterly, and drof hym out of the towne, castyng on hym the tayles of thornback, or lyke fysshes; wherefore he besought Almyghty God to shewe hys jugement on them; and God sent to them a shamefull token; for the chyldren that were born after in the place, had tayles, as it is sayd, tyll they had repented them. It is said comynly that this fyll at Strode in Kente; but blyssed be Gode, at thys daye is no such deformyte.' It is said, however, that they were the natives of a village in Dorsetshire who were thus tail-pieced.†

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Another notable miracle is thus related. When St. Augustine came to Compton, in Oxfordshire, the curate complained, that though he had often warned the lord of the place to pay his tythes, yet they were with" and therefore I." said the curate, held, "have cursed hym, and I fynde him the more obstynate." Then St. Augustine demanded why he did not pay his tythes to God and the church; whereto the knight answered, that as he tilled the ground, he ought to have the tenth sheaf as well as could not bend this lord to his purpose, the ninth. Augustine, finding that he then departed and went to mass; but before he began, he charged all those that were accursed to go out of the church. Then a dead body arose, and went out of the church into the churchyard with a white cloth on his head, and stood there till mass was done; whereupon St. Augustine went to him, and demanded what he was; and the dead body said, "I was formerly lord of this town, and because I would not pay my tithes to my curate, he cursed me, and then I died and went to hell." Then Augustine bade the dead lord bring him to where the curate was buried, which accordingly he did, and Augustine commanded the dead curate to arise, who thereupon accordingly arose and stood before all the people. Then Augustine demanded of the dead curate if he knew the dead lord, who answered, "Would to God I had never known him, for he was a withholder of his tythes, and, moreover, an evil-doer." Then Augustine delivered to the said curate a rod, and

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