in breaking its peace.

_Progress of Life_.

When man full thirty years has spent,
The road at times both rough and stony,
To clear life's vapour, and repent
He seeks the stream of Matrimony!

_Caught at last_.--Sir Jervis Elwayes, lieutenant of the Tower, being
much addicted to gaming, used to say, in his prayers, "Lord, let me
hanged, if ever I play more." He broke this serious prayer a thousand
times, and at last was hanged on Tower Hill, in 1615, for the murder
of Sir Thomas Overbury.

Edward the Confessor took great delight in Haverley Bower, in Essex,
it being woody, solitary, and fit for devotion; but it so abounded
with warbling nightingales, that they disturbed him in his devotions.
He earnestly prayed for their absence, since which time it is
superstitiously said, never nightingale was heard to sing in the park,
though occasionally the warbler is heard outside the pales.

_Wages_.--In 1352, (25th Edward III.) the wages paid to haymakers was
1d. a-day; a mower of meadows, 3d. a-day, or 5d. an acre; reapers of
corn in the first week of August, 2d., in the second 3d. per day, and
so on till the end of August, without meat, drink, or other allowance;
finding their own tools. For threshing a quarter of wheat or rye,
2-1/2d.; a quarter of barley, beans, peas, and oats, 1-1/2d. A master
carpenter, 3d. per day, other carpenters 2d. A master mason 4d. per
day, other masons 3_d_., and their servants 1-1/2d. per day. Tilers