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ting down the mayors as holding the office for the year fubfequent to that Michaelmas at which they were elected: for I know, that Sir Thomas Abney, who is defcribed as mavor for 1701, was elected at Michaelmas 1700; and that Sir R. Hoare, who is fet down for 1746, was elected at Michaelmas 1745; and fo onward. The fame may be faid of the theriffs, of whom I have an uninterrupted catalogue, copied from Strype's edition of Stow, entitled, "The names of the firit Bailiffs, "(or Officers) entering into their office 66 at the feaft of St. Michael the Arch

:

angel, in the year of Chrift 1189. "Henry Cornehill, Richard Reynere;" and ending with Sir John Eyles, and Sir John Tafh, in 1719, i. e. elected at Midfummer, and entering upon their office 28th September, 1719 next to them follow Sir George Cafwall, and Sir William Billers, 1721, i. e. elected at Midfummer 1720, and continuing in office till 28th September, 1721: but, were it not for this explanation, it would feem as if there were an omiffion of the fheriffs for one year. If thefe elucidations afford any fatisfaction to you, or any of the numerous readers of your useful mifcellany, they are at your service.

As to the perfon who was the proprietor of the fword in the Arms of the Worfhipful City, whether St. Paul or Sir William Walworth, I leave it to your correfpondent, and other abler antiquaries than myself, to determine, and am, Yours, &c. E.

MR. URBAN,

Cambridge, Dec. 17. IN my tour through Denbighshire laft

fummer, I had the opportunity of vifiting thofe much admired woods of Gwaynynog, the feat of Colonel Myddelson; under whofe hofpitable roof the late Dr. Johnfon, in 1776, paffed a happy fortnight.

In memory of his moft refpectable friend, and in a part of his woods that the Doctor ufed to vifit with peculiar delight, the Colonel intends to erect a handfome urn, with the following infcription:

This pot

Was often dignified by the
Prefence of Samuel Johnfon, L.L.D.
Whofe moral writings,
Exactly conformable
To the precepts of Chriftianity,

Give ardour to virtue,
and
Confidence to truth.
By inferting the above in your most
ufeful Magazine, you will much oblige
YOUR CONSTANT READER.

I

MR. URBAN,

November 14.

HAVE long been defirous of recording the memory of one of the most ingenious men that ever lived, and one of the best that ever died; and I think your Magazine a proper place. where fo many good men, now WITH GOD, are registered. The gentleman whofe genius and virtues I mean to fpeak of, was Paftor to the congregation of Diffenters at Henley upon Thames, his name Gainsborough, brother to the ingenious artift whofe pencil will immortalize him, while a brother, his equal in another line of genius, might have been forgotten. Perhaps of all the mechanical geniufes this or any nation has produced, Mr. Gainsborough was the first. I have a clock of his making in my poffeffion, and which I have feen go with accuracy, though all the parts were not finished, (for, if it had, it would have been a perfect perpetual motion), that is a wonderful piece of mechanism, every part of which was made by his own hands. It is a pendulum clock, in which a tin box is charged with a certain number of muf- 、 ket bullets. When the clock goes, a little ivory bucket appears loaded with one of them, and,, having, flowly defcended to the bottom of the cafe, it is fo received there as to open a valve and difcharge the load. It then afcends empty to the clock, and there receives a fresh charge, and thus goes till it has expended the whole of the original ammunition; and had the ingenious artist lived, I perceive there are inactive wheels which were defigned to fetch up the bullets, and do what muft now be done by hand. Another curious and most expenfive work of his, I had the honour to prefent to the British Mufeum, in hopes of depofiting it where it may remain as long as brafs can endure; and, as it may be feen there, I will not attempt to defcribe what I had not capacity to conceive, the manner of perfectly ufing; it is, however, a fundial, on a brafs claw, which points the time to a fecond in every part of the globe. But if I were to give you a lift of the various pieces of curious mechanifin produced by this extraordinary man, it would fill your Magaine. I fhall therefore conclude with the ftill brighter parts of his character. His genius as a man, his picty as a Chriftian, and his univerfal philanthropy was fuch, that at Henley, where he was known, he was univerfally beloved and refeed, and fome men, of Ligh rank in

the

the neighbourhood, offered him very good preferment in the Etablished Church, if he would have taken ordination; but nothing could prevail upon him to leave his own little flock I now come to that period which deprived them of an excellent teacher, and the world of a moft ingenious artist. His wife had a cancer on her breaft; and fuch was his affection and care for her, that, left the fhould want his fpiritual and corporal affiftance, he would not quit either her apartment or her bed; the confequence was, that it proved fatal to both. I lately lengthened my journey, to pay the tribute of a tear over his remains; and I was shocked to find, that the afhes of fo great and fo good a man lay in the fable-yard of a paltry inn under the walls of his meeting houfe at Henley, for unfortunately fuch is the fituation of that building. However, a ftone is fixed against the wall, to tell us where the mortal part of this affectionate couple were depofited. What a man to be loft! what an example to follow! Reader, judge what my feelings were, when I read "the "frail memorial" over this departed Chriftian, and the fculptured marble to a felf-degraded gentleman in Weftminster Abbey. POLYXENA.

MR. URBAN, City Road, Dec. 24.

wonder. confidering how young the was when her Father died, efpecially, if the did not know the difference between a Tory and a Jacobite; which may likewife have been the cafe with Mr. Badcock's friends, if not with Mr. Badcock himself. 3. Mr. W. fays, "He never publifhed any thing political." This is strictly true: "He never wrote, much lefs published, one line against the King." He never published one. But I believe he did write thofe. verfes, intitled, The Regency; and therein, "by obliquely expofing the Regents, expoled the King himself."

In this my Brother and I differed in our judgments: I thought, expofing the King's minifters was one way of expofing the King himself; my Brother thought otherwife; and therefore, without fcruple, expofed Sir Robert Walpole and all other evil minifters. Of his writing to Sir Robert I never heard before, and cannot easily believe it now.

4. From the moment that my mother heard my brother and me antwer for ourfelves, fhe was afhamed of having paid any regard to the vile mifreprefentations which had been made to her after our return from Georgia. She then fully approved both our principles and practice, and foon after removed to my houfe, and gladly attended all our

IF you will infert the following in miniftrations, till her fpirit returned to

your Magazine, you will oblige your humble fervant, JOHN WESLEY.

GOD.

This morning a friend fent me the Gentleman's Magazine for laft May, wherein I find another letter concerning I

my Eldest Brother. I am obliged, to Mr. Badcock for the candid manner wherein he writes, and wifh to follow his pattern, in confidering the reafons which he urges indefence of what he wrote before-1. Mr.B.fays, "His Brother cannot be ignorant, that he always bore the character of a Jacobite; a title to which I really believe he had no diflikę."

Moft of those who gave him this title, did not diftinguish between a Jacobite and a Tory; whereby I mean,

One that believes GOD, not the Peo ple, to be the origin of all Civil Power." In this fenfe he was a Tory; fo was my Father; fo am I. But 1 am no more a Jacobite than I am a Turk; neither was my Brother. I bave heard him over and over difclaim that character. 2. "But his own daughter affirmed it." Very likely the might; and doubtlefs The thought him fuch. Nor is this any

MR. URBAN,

JOHN WESLEY.

London, Dec. 12.

N the Gent. Mag. Sept. p 682. Ximenes informed the public of the following fuppofed fact; viz. "It may "perhaps deferve mention, thet Dr. "C's library fold for 51. and the li 661 quors in his cellar for 1501." To fhew that the above account is erroneous. malicious, and cowardly, I need only certain events and fact, viz. Dr. Mvies Cooper died at Edinburgh, March 20, 1785.-Ximenes' letter is dated at Cre mond, August 15, 1785. The execucutors proved Dr. Cooper's will at the Commons, Oct. 8, 1785. Hence it appears, that if Ximenes wrote the truth, Dr. Cooper's library and liquors were fold before his will was proved; a tuggeftion repugnant to common feafe and law. "But it may perhaps deferve men"tion," that the library, which Dr. C. collected fince his return to England in 1775, is now at Sulhamfled Abbas, Beiks, not yet difpoled of by his execu

to19.

ATTENTUS.

MR.

MR. URBAN,

THE

Kafanka,

May 2, O. S. 1785. HE laft place I wrote to you from was Schurafka, when I fent you a drawing of the Slepetz (fee p. 761); to the account of which I might have added, that Mr. Laxmann, in the year 1764, found an animal in the parts about Barnaul, in many refpects very like it, to which he gave the name of The Rat mole; it being a rat by the head, hinder feet, and teeth, but is a mole by the fore paws, by the fmallness of its eyes, by its fhort ears, and its manner of living. It is called, in the Ruffian language, Zemlenoi Medved, the earthbear. But that animal has a tail, which the Slepetz has not. Notwithstanding the bulk of his body, Mr. Laxmann fays, there is no animal like him for burrowing in the earth All the fields of Siberia, in the latitudes about Barnaul, are covered with the hillocks he throws up. They fpoil all the roads and paths, by undermining them with their fubterraneous paffages.

If we

may judge of their numbers, fays he, by the quantity of mole-hills, there must be many hundreds of thousands of thefe rat-moles in Kolivan alone. But, notwithstanding the prodigious detriment they do to the fields and highways, the boors leave them in perfect liberty, and you meet with many who have never given themselves the trouble to fee one.-I fhall take up no more of your precious moments, Mr. Urban, about rats and mice. But as, by this time, I fuppofe you may be a little intercfted in what relates to me, allow me just to inform you, that I left Schurafka about the middle of last month, and, after paffing through Bitfchok and Gorelofka, arrived here at Kafanka, which is about 130 verfts from Pavlofsk. I broke down, as ufual, on the way; but the travelling in a cabitka is attended with one very great advantage, which is, that, let what will happen to it, it is next to impoffible but I am able to repair it the first tree I come to; efpecially as I always fling a couple of fpare axeltrecs under it, and put a rope in the bottom, with a small axe. I think, if you were once to travel in a cabitka, you would never use a poftchaife again.

fenfible difference is apparent in the country; not that the foil is not always the fame, but because every thing is wild and uncultivated, and, in fhort, prefents nothing but a frightful defert. Hitherto you fec mankind turning the various advantages of nature to account. The inhabitants of the Greater and the Leffer Ruffias earn their bread by the fweat of their face; but in this country of the Kofacs all is arid and bare; and this inhofpitable, uncultivated defert extends, without interruption, from Kafanka to Tfcherkafk. Excepting, therefore, the obfervations that natural objects demand, I can find but little, or rather nothing at all, to excite my at~ tention.

Kafanka is the firft ftanitza of the Kofacs of the Don, fituated in an open plain, and has a fiarfchina for commandant. Immediately on arriving, a GENT. MAG. December, 1785.

To make amends for this, I will fend you the manner of managing bees among the Bafchkirians, from my portfolio, which I fhall be glad to empty a little, that I may adminifter a needle and thread to it; for, by having been jolted fo often under my head, and fo often under my feet, I will venture to affirm no beggar's wallet in all London is half fo ragged.

About four years ago I was at Bogorodfkoe, on the banks of the river Ufa, where I paid fome attention to the manner in which the Ruffians of those parts, excited by the example of their neighbours the Baschkirians, who are famous in this way, apply themselves to the cultivation of bees, and were then applauding themfelves exceedingly on the rich ftore of wax and honey they had got the preceding year. They excavate their hives in the trunks of different trees, giving the preference to fuch as are of the hardest wood; and confequently chufe for this purpofe the ftrongest and the loftieft trees of the forest. The hive is about five and twenty or thirty feet high from the ground, frequently even higher, if the length of the trunk allows it. They hollow them out length-ways, with fmall narrow hatchets, and tools of a peculiar form, a fort of chiffels and gouges, with which they complete their work. The longitudinal aperture of this hive is ftopped by a cover of two or more pieces, which are exactly fitted to it, and pierced with fmal! holes, to give ingrefs and egrefs to the bees.

No means can be devised more ingenious or more convenient for climbing the highest and the fmootheft trees than those practised by this people, for the

conftruction

'conftruction and vifitation of their hives. For this purpose they need nothing but a very fharp axe, a leather frap, or a common rope. The man places himself against the trunk of the tree, and paffes the cord round his body and round the tree, juft leaving it fufficient play for cafting it higher and higher, y jerks, towards the elevation which he wants to attain, and there to place his body, bent as in a fwing, his feet refting against the tree, and preferying the free ufe of his hands. This done, he takes his axe, and at about the height of his body makes the first notch or ftep in the tree. Then he takes his rope, the two ends whereof he takes care to have tied very faft, and throws it towards the top of the trunk. Placed thus in his rope by the middle of his body, and refting his feet against the tree, he afcends by two fteps, and cafily enables himfelt to put one of his feet in the notch: he now makes a new step, and continues to mount in this manner till he has reached the intended height. The Batchkirians perform all this with incredible speed and agility. Being mounted to the place where he is to make the hive, he cuts more convenient fteps, and, by the help of the rope, which his body keeps in diftension, he performs his neceffary work with the abovementioned tools, which are fuck in his girdle.

They carefully cut away all the boughs and protuberances beneath the hive, to render all accefs as difficult as poffible to the bears, which ftill abound in vaft numbers throughout the forefts of the Ural, and, in fpite of all imaginable precautions, do confiderable damage to the hives. On this account they put in practice every kind of means, not only for defending themfelves from thefe voracious animals, but for their destruction too. The method most in ufe confifts in fticking in the trunk of the tree old blades of knives, ftanding upwards, fcythes, and pieces of pointed iron, difpofed circularly round it, when the tree is ftrait, or at the place of bending, when the trunk is crooked. The bear has commonly dexterity enough to avoid these points in climbing up the tree; but when he lets himtelf down, his pofteriors foremost, he gets on thefe harp hooks, and gives himfelf fuch deep wounds in the belly, that he ufually dies. It frequently happens that old bears take the precaution to bend down

thefe blades with their fore-paws, ai they mount, and thereby render all this offenfive armour ufclefs.

Another deftructive apparatus is ufed with more fuccefs, which bears fome fimilitude to the catapulta of the ancients, and is fixed in fuch a manner that, at the very inftant the bear prepares to climb the tree, he pulls a ftring that lets go the machine, whofe elafti city ftrikes a dart into the animal's breaft.

Others fufpend, by long ropes to the fartheft extremity of a branch of the tree, a platform, which they difpofe in fuch a manner that they can bring it horizontally before the hive, and there tie it faft to the trunk of the tree with a cord made of bark. The bear, whe finds the feat very convenient for proceeding to the opening of the hive, be gins by tearing the cord of bark which holds the platform to the trunk, and hinders him from executing his purpafe. Upon this the platform immediately quits the tree, and fwings in the air with the animal feated upon it. If, on the first shock, the bear is not tumbled out, he must now refolve either to take a very dangerous leap, or to remaiu patiently in his fufpended feat. If he take the leap, either involuntarily, or by his own good will, he falls on tharp points, placed all about the bottom of the tree; and if he refolves to remain where he is, he furely dies by arrows or mufket balls. For explaining to you more fentibly this ingenious contriv ance, I have annexed as good a drawing as I could make of it. (See the plate annexed.)

They go likewife, at the beginning of the night, to watch the bears from the top of fome high tree, at a small diftance from the flocks thefe animals have begun to moleft, or within the fcent of fome carrion. Laftly, during. the winter, they trace them by the fmell, and after having roufed them by their dogs, they kill them with their pikes. As this chace can only be carried on in pretty numerous parties, they agree upon certain times for that purpofe.

The hives have fill another enemy in the black pie, or black wood pecker of Aibinus, which the Bafchkirs keep off as much as poitibic by furrounding the aperture with all forts of thorns and brambles, and twigs of briar. In fhort, the Tartars have the weakness to imagine that the very look of particular

perfons

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