MORE DONATIONS
A Chinese merchant of this city has left a superb Chinese lantern at the Mechanics' Fair, to be sold for the benefit of the Sanitary Fund, and certain young ladies are in the pleasant habit of leaving handsome bouquets on the big cheese daily, to be disposed of for the same charity. By far the most interesting curiosity of all, however, has lately been added to the collection in the Floral Tower. It is a voluminous and very musty old book, printed in London two hundred years ago, in the reign of Charles II., and is rich with the quaint language, spelling, and typography of the olden time. It is a "Chronicle" of the Kings of England, and is carried down to the year 1664, the second of Charles' reign. The chapter which gives the names of the members of the High Commission before which Charles I. was tried and condemned to death, is racy with comments upon the bad character, the ignominious pursuits, and the former social obscurity of those gentlemen, and must have occasioned great discomfort to such of them as were still living at the time of its publication. During the trial of the friendless monarch, "his staff fell to the floor, and seeing that none moved to take it up, he put forth his hand and took it up himself." The chronicler seemed to feel that no comment was needed there to show the deep humiliation into which the poor King had fallen, and he made none. At another stage of the trial, the head of the King's staff fell off, and a sense of the dreadful omen flitted across the countenances of the superstitious multitude around him. The old book contains the genealogy of the reigning monarch and that of all the nobility of England.
Quotations | Newspaper Articles | Special Features | Links | Search