rhymes (_bouts rimés_) of all the sonnets I may have occasion to write."
This ludicrous story produced such an effect, that it became a fashionable
amusement to compose blank sonnets, and in 1648, a quarto volume of _bouts
rimés_ was published.

* * * * *


_Poisoned Arrows_ used in Guiana are not shot from a bow, but blown
through a tube. They are made of the hard substance of the cokarito tree,
and are about a foot long, and the size of a knitting-needle. One end is
sharply pointed, and dipped in the poison of worraia, the other is
adjusted to the cavity of the reed, from which it is to be blown by a roll
of cotton. The reed is several feet in length. A single breath carries the
arrow 30 or 40 yards.

* * * * *


_Sterling Applause_.--Lord Bolingbroke was so pleased with Barton Booth's
performance of _Cato_, at Drury Lane Theatre, in 1712, that he presented
the actor with fifty guineas from the stage-box--an example which was
immediately followed by Bolingbroke's political opponents.

* * * * *


_Claret_ has been accused of producing the gout, but without reason.
Persons who drench themselves with Madeira, Port, &c. and indulge in an
occasional debauch of Claret, may indeed be visited in that way; because a