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BOJIESTIC MANNEBS OF THE PKUSSIASy.

first cultivated in this country in 1525; whilst currants, or" Corinthian grapes," as they were called, were not planted inEngland tili 1533 ; nor apricots tili 1540 ; neither didwe knowthe flavour of beans, peas, or lettuces, tili the year 1600.

Nor is it more than two centuries since tea was originallybrought to England, by my Lord Ossory, from Holland;wlien the flavour being admired by persons of rank, it beganto be regularly imported, the price at first being as much assixty Shillings the pound.

With respect to books, again, it should be rememberedthat the invention of typography dates only from the fifteentliCentury, the first book having been printed in England in1474, previous to which it was customary for copies of cele-brated works to fetch double or treble their weight in gold:a homily being exchanged for two hundred sheep and fivequarters of wheat; and King Alfred, in 872, having given, itis said, a largo estate for a copy of a treatise on cosmography.

Watcb.es, too, properly so called, (for that used by theEmperor Charles V. is said to have been a small table-clockrather than a pocket-timepiece), have been manufactured onlytwo hundred years: for one of the first ever made was pre-sented by Dr. Hooke, the inventor, to our Charles the Second,and tliis bears the date of 1658.

Carriages, we may add, are but a hundred years oldorthan watcb.es, for in tbe middle of the sixteenth Centurythere were but two coaches in Paris, one of which belongedto the Queen, whilst the first carriage seen in England wasmanufactured in 1553; previous to that period monarchstravelled on horseback, princesses were carried in litters, andladies rode a-pillion behind their squires. Hackney-carriages,however, were not introduced tili nearly a Century afterwards—the first having been licensed in 1662, and the earliest standset up at the Maypole in the Strand, by St. Clement's Church ;

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