A quotation from Agathias clearly establishes a knowledge of the
applicability of steam to mechanical purposes so early as the reign of the
emperor Justinian, when the philosopher Anthemius most unphilosophically
employed its powerful agency at Constantinople to shake the house of a
litigious neighbour. It is also recorded, that Pope Sylvester II.
constructed an organ, that was worked by steam. As compared with recent
ingenuity, however, these applications may fairly bring to mind the
Frenchman's boast of his countryman's invention of the frill and the
ruffle; while his English opponent claimed for his native land the honour
of suggesting the addition of the shirt.

* * * * *


MEDICAL MUSIC.


Sharp, the surgeon, Sir Charles Blicke's master, was a great amateur of
music, but he never used it as a means of curing patients, only in
attracting them. It was said that he "fiddled himself into practice, and
fiddled Mr. Pott out of it;" certain it is Mr. Pott, not being a _flat_,
did not choose to act in _concert_ with _Sharp_, and made a quick movement
to the westward.

* * * * *


Boerhaave tells us, that one of the greatest orators of antiquity, Tiberius
Gracchus, when animated, used to cry out like an old woman; to avoid which,
he had a servant, who, at these periods, sounded a pipe, by way of hint, as