TABLE-TALK AXD VARIETIES. 



linens per diem for bis expenses: 

 "'Then, madam," said he, "I will 

 spend nineteen shillings a-day." 

 *' What will you do with the odd 

 shilling?" the queen replied. "I 

 will reserve that for my Kate, and 

 for Tom and Dick;'" meaning his 

 wife and children. This induced 

 the queen to enlarge his allowance. 

 (Epistolse floelinoe.) 



SOUNDS INAUDIBLE BT CERTAIN 



EAB& 



Dr. Wollaston says that in the 

 natural and healthy state of the 

 human ear, there seems to be no 

 limit to the power of discerning 

 low sounds, whereas acute ones 

 are often inaudible by persons not 

 otherwise deaf. His attention was 

 called to this circumstance by find- 

 ing a person insensible to the sound 

 of a small organ-pipe, which was 

 far within the limits of his own 

 hearing. This person's hearing 

 terminated at a note four octaves 

 nbove the middle E of the piano- 

 forte. Others again cannot hear 

 the chirping of the grasshopper, 

 the cricket, the sparrow, and the 

 Tmt ; the latter being about five 

 octaves above the middle E of the 

 piano. The limit of Wollaston's 

 own hearing was about six octaves 

 above the middle E. The range of 

 human hearing includes more than 

 nine octaves, the whole of which 

 are distinct to most ears, though 

 the vibrations of a note at the 

 higher extreme are six hundred or 

 seven hundred times more frequent 

 "than those which constitute the 

 .gravest audible sound ; and as vi- 

 brations incomparably more fre- 

 quent may exist, we may imagine, 

 says Wollaston, that animals like 

 the grylli, whose powers appear to 

 commence nearly where ours ter- 

 minate, may hear still sharper 

 sounds which we do not know to 

 exist; and that there may be in- 

 sects hearing nothing in common 

 with us, but endued with a power 



of exciting, and a sense that per- 

 ceives, the same vibrations which 

 constitute our ordinary sounds, but 

 so remote that the animal who per- 

 ceives them may be said to possess 

 another sense, agreeing with our 

 own solely in the medium by which 

 it is excited, and possibly wholly 

 unaffected by those slower vibra- 

 tions of which we are sensible. 



[If there be no limit to the power 

 of discerning low sounds, the " grav- 

 est audible sound" is a nonentity, 

 and we ought to read " the gravest 

 known sound."] 



THE WISE KING AND HIS COURT FOOL. 



In his account of the court of 

 King James the First, Sir Anthony 

 Weldon describes the peculiar func- 

 tion of Archie Armstrong, the 

 royal jester, as follows : " For now 

 began to appeare a glimering of 

 a new favourite, one Mr. George 

 Villiers, a younger son (by a second 

 venter) of an ancient knight in 

 Leicestershire as I take it; his father 

 of an ancient family, his mother but 

 of a meane, and a waiting gentle- 

 woman, whom the old man fell in. 

 love with and married, by whom ho 

 had three sons, all raised to the 

 nobility by meanes of their brother 

 favourite. This gentleman was 

 come also but newly from travell, 

 and at that time did beleeve it a 

 great fortune to marry a daughter of 

 Sir Roger Astons, and in truth it 

 was the highest of his ambition, and 

 for that only end was an hanger-on 

 upon the court; the gentlewoman 

 loved him so well, as could all his 

 friends have made her (for her great 

 fortune) but an hundred markes' 

 joynture, she had married him pre- 

 sently, in dispight of all her friends; 

 and no question would have had 

 him without any joynture at all. 



'' But, as the Fates would have it, 

 before the closing up of this match, 

 the king cast a glancing eye towards 

 him, which was easily perceived by 

 such as observed their prince's 



