48 



KIDD'S LONDON JOURNAL. 



confessed that King James at St. Germain in 

 the presence of the queen, had engaged him to 

 shoot King William. Four years later, James 

 had contrived another plot. At the head of this 

 were Sir George Barclay and Sir William Per- 

 kins, and under their guidance twenty men were 

 engaged to assist in the assassination- of King- 

 William. The plan was as follows: — It was the 

 custom of the king to hunt near the house of Mr. 

 Latten, in the neighborhood of Brentford, and 

 they designed to surprise the king on his return 

 at a hollow part of the road between Brentford 

 and Turnham Green, one division of them being 

 placed behind some bushes and brushwood at 

 the western end of the Green. Some of your 

 correspondents may perhaps fix the spot ; but as 

 the Green extended then far beyond what it now 

 does, I suspect it was about the road leading to 

 Gunnersbury ; the road itself I recollect as a boy 

 seeing much elevated and improved. The design 

 failed, two of the gang betrayed the rest — Bar- 

 clay escaped, but Perkins and some others were 

 hung. Jeremy Collier attended them on the 

 scaffold, and publicly gave them absolution in 

 the name of Christ, and by imposition of hands, 

 for all their sins. I need not describe to you the 

 excitement caused by this plot of Barclay and 

 Perkins; the event connected with their names, 

 as at our later period — 



" Was a theme of all conversation; 

 Had it been a pillar of church and state 

 Or a prop to support the whole dead weight, 

 It could not have furnished more debate 

 For the heads and tails of the nation." 



James closed the drama becomingly ; he pub- 

 lished a defence of his conduct in a paper, the 

 style of which has been well described as the 

 "euphemism of assassination." The road be- 

 tween Turnham Green and Kew was long after 

 associated with the names of " Barclay and Per- 

 kins." — S. H. — Notes and Queries. 



"Pickings up and Bettings Down." 



Vegetable Diet.-— As recent discoveries in 

 chemistry have shown that vegetables contain 

 the same elements as flesh, Ave need not be sur- 

 prised that man may live and thrive on a diet 

 almost or altogether vegetable. The same gluten, 

 albumen, fibrin, and oily matters that exist in a 

 beef-steak or mutton-chop are also found in our 

 esculent vegetables, the difference only amount- 

 ing to a pecularity of taste, or a slight diversity 

 in the arrangement of particles. The starch and 

 sugar, or the farinacea, are soon manufactured by 

 the digestive apparatus into oil, and the albumen 

 into animal muscle. Experience proves that a 

 vegetable diet is lighter, and less liable to bring 

 on diseases, than one in which animal food 

 largely prevails. It is affirmed to be equally 

 nutritious, and equally capable of sustaining the 

 strength even of the hardest-laboring men. We 

 have undoubted evidences of this in the robust 

 Irishman, fed on potatoes, and the hardy Scot- 

 tish peasant, who rarely indulges in a flesh diet. 

 Prom a very early period, the philosophers of 

 Greece advocated, and even practised, an exclu- 

 sively vegetable diet, as being more conducive to 



clearness of intellect and mental activity. The 

 Pythagorean sages inculcated the same; hence 

 the prevalence of the rice diet over the vast and 

 densely-peopled regions of Asia. It is related 

 that Newton, while writing his great work on 

 optics, lived entirely without animal food; while 

 Descartes, Haller, Hufeland, Howard the phil- 

 anthropist, Byron, Shelley, and a host of other 

 men of genius, were the advocates of a vegetable 

 diet. The tendency of a full diet of animal food 

 to bring on various complaints — such as gout, 

 scurvy, liver disease, and calculous disorders — is 

 not more clearly ascertained than that a contrary 

 regimen of vegetable food is decidedly efficacious 

 in their cure. To children, too, a farinaceous, 

 combined with a milk diet, is found by univer- 

 sal experience to be that which is least exciting, 

 and most conducive to their health and full 

 development. — Chambers' Journal. 



Things Lost for Ever. — Lost wealth may 

 be restored by industry, — the wreck of health 

 regained by temperance, — forgotten knowledge 

 restored by study, — aleniated friendship smooth- 

 ed into forgetfulness, — even forfeited reputation 

 won by penitence and virtue. But who ever 

 looked upon his vanished hours, — recalled his 

 slighted years,— stamped them with wisdom, — 

 or effaced from heaven's record the fearful blot 

 of wasted time} — Mrs. Sigourney. 



SELECT POET&Y, 

 The Violet. 



A violet blossom' d on the lea, 

 Half hidden from the eye, 



As fair a flow'r as you might see ; 

 When there came tripping by 



A shepherd maiden fair and young, 

 Lightly, lightly o'er the lea ; 



Care she knew not, and she sung 

 Merrily ! 



" were I but the fairest flower 

 That blossoms on the lea ; 



If only for one little hour, 

 That she might gather me — 



Clasp me in her bonny breast! " 

 Thought the little flower, — • 



" O that in it I might rest- 

 But an hour! " 



Lack-a-day! Up came the lass, 



Heeded not the violet ; 

 Trod it down into the grass; 



Though it died, 'twas happy yet ! 

 " Trodden down although I lie, 



Yet my death is very sweet — 

 For I cannot choose but die 

 At her feet T 



London:— Published by George Berger, Holywell 

 Street, Strand (to whom all Letters and Communica- 

 tions for the Editor, and Books for Review, are to be 

 forwarded), and Procurable, by order, of every Book- 

 seller and Newsvendor in the Kingdom. 



London ; Myers & Co., Printers, 22, Tavistock Street, Co vent Garden. 



