For this effort of wit, Voltaire was paid with thirty lashes on his bare
back, administered by the king's sergeant-at-arms, and was compelled to
sign the following curious receipt for the same:--

"Received from the righthand of Conrad
Backoffner, thirty lashes on my bare
back, being in full for an epigram on
Frederick the Third, King of Prussia."


I say received by me, VOLTAIRE.

_Vive le Roi_!

* * * * *


The church at Gondhurst, in Kent, is a fine old building, and remarkable
for several reasons; one of which is, that thirty-nine different parishes
may be distinctly seen from it, and in clear weather the sea, off
Hastings, a distance of twenty-seven miles and a half.

* * * * *


SPECULATION.


Sir William Adams, afterwards Sir William Rawson, which name he took in