The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832.

Singular distribution of common land in Somersetshire.—In the parishes of Congresbury and Puxton were two large pieces of common land, called East and West Dolemoors (from the Saxon word dol, a portion or share,) which were occupied till within these few years in the following manner:–The land was divided into single acres, each bearing a peculiar mark, cut in the turf, such as a horn, an ox, a horse, a cross, an oven, &c. On the Saturday before Old Midsummer Day, the several proprietors of contiguous estates, or their tenants, assembled on these commons, with a number of apples marked with similar figures, which were distributed by a boy to each of the commoners from a bag. At the close of the distribution, each person repaired to the allotment with the figure corresponding to the one upon his apple, and took possession of it for the ensuing year. Four acres were reserved to pay the expenses of an entertainment at the house of the overseer of the Dolemoors, where the evening was spent in festivity.—Ibid.

Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury.—At Avington Park, in Hampshire, resided the notorious and infamous Anna-Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, who held the horse of the Duke of Buckingham while he fought and killed her husband. Charles II frequently made it the scene of his licentious pleasures; and the old green-house is said to have been the apartment in which the royal sensualist was entertained.—Ibid.

Erratum—In the lines, by J. Kinder, on a Withered Primrose, in our last, verse ii. line 2—for "gust of the storm" read "jest of the storm."

1

It may be as well here to quote the formation of Cataracts and Cascades, from Maltebrun's valuable System of Universal Geography. "It is only the sloping of the land which can at first cause water to flow; but an impulse having been once communicated to the mass, the pressure alone of the water will keep it in motion, even if there were no declivity at all. Many great rivers, in fact, flow with an almost interruptible declivity. Rivers which descend from primitive mountains into secondary lands, often form cascades and cataracts. Such are the cataracts of the Nile, of the Ganges, and some other great rivers, which, according to Desmarest, evidently mark the limits of the ancient land. Cataracts are also formed by lakes: of this description are the celebrated Falls of the Niagara; but the most picturesque falls are those of rapid rivers, bordered by trees and precipitous rocks. Sometimes we see a body of water, which, before it arrives at the bottom, is broken and dissipated into showers, like the Staubbach, (see Mirror, vol. xiv. p. 385.); sometimes it forms a watery arch, projected from a rampart of rock, under which the traveller may pass dryshod, as the "falling spring" of Virginia; in one place, in a granite district, we see the Trolhetta, and the Rhine not far from its source, urge on their foaming billows among the pointed rocks; in another, amidst lands of a calcareous formation, we see the Czettina and the Kerka, rolling down from terrace to terrace, and presenting sometimes a sheet, and sometimes a wall, of water. Some magnificent cascades have been formed, at least in part, by the hands of man: the cascades of Velino, near Terni, have been attributed to Pope Clement VIII.; other cataracts, like those of Tunguska, in Siberia, have gradually lost their elevation by the wearing away of the rocks, and have now only a rapid descent."—Maltebrun, vol. i.

2

May we not, however, say the friendless Sheridan?

3

Communicated by M.L.B., Great Marlow, Bucks.

4

Vide Mirror, vol. xviii. p. 343.—Note.

5

A Collection of Poems of the Sixteenth Century.—Communicated by J.F., of Gray's Inn. We thank our Correspondent for the present, and shall be happy to receive further specimens from the same source.

6

Philadelphia, Carey and Lea, 1832.

7

Cuvier.

8

Nat. Hist. Molluscous Animals, Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. iii. p. 527.

9

Manual Comp. Anat. p. 263.

10

In all other worms the eyes are entirely wanting, or their existence is very doubtful. Whether the black points at the extremities of what Swammerdam calls the horns of the common snail, are organs which really possess the power of vision, is still problematical.

11

Blumenbach, Man. Comp. Anat. p. 305.

12

According to Cuvier, the Indian ink, from China, is made of this fluid, as was the ink of the Romans. It has been supposed, and not without a considerable degree of probability, that the celebrated plain, but wholesome dish, the black broth of Sparta, was no other than a kind of Cuttle-fish soup, in which the black liquor of the animal was always added as an ingredient; being, when fresh, of very agreeable taste.—Shaw's Zoology.

13

Mr. Hatchett, in Philos. Trans.

14

May it never come out of his body!