The 10th of May being appointed to be observed as a Day of Thanksgiving, c Account of the peace lately concluded between Great Britain, France, and Spain; when it is faid his Majefly will go to St. Paul's Church; the following Ceremonial may not be unentertaining to our Readers. Mafter of the Requests Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber and Bed Chamber in Ordinary Knights of the Bath Chancellor of the Duchy, and Chancellor Viscounts eldest Sons, Earls younger Sons Marquiffes youngest Sons, Earls eldest Sons Viscounts, Dukes younger Sons Marquiffes eldest Sons, Marquiffes Dukes, Lord Privy Seal Clarenceux Norroy Lord Chancellor, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Gentlemen Ushers, Garter principal King at Arms Lord Mayor The King and Queen's Serjeant at Arme The Sword carried by the Earl of The KING's Majesty' The Mafter of the Horfe leading a fpare Horfe Vice Chamberlain, Captain of the Guards, The Guard, Footmen, and Equerries on each Side The Penfioners with their Axes on each Side. The following is the Order in which Queen Anne and ber Attendants were feated in St. Paul's Cathedral on the Thanksgiving Day The queen feated in an armed Chair upon the Throne, erected near the Weft End of the Choir, and another, armed Knights Embaffadors, Lord Prefident and Chair was fet on her Left Hand for Prince George of Denmark, who being indifpofed, was not prefent : Behind these Chairs were Stools for the Dutchefs of Marlborough and Lady Fretchville, Ladies of the BedChamber in Waiting: The Captain of the Guard, Lord-Chamberlain, Vice Chamberlain, and Clerk of the Closet, were all upon the Throne: The Ladies of the Bed-Chamber in the Seats before the Stalls on the South Side, and the Maids of Honour and Bed-Chamber Women before them; them; Garter Principal King at Arms, and the other Heralds, &c. with their Maces, and the Gentlemen Penfioners, with their Axes, waited on each Side the Throne, and behind stood the Yeomen of the Guards, &c. &c. The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Lord Archbishop of York, the Great Officers of State, the Dukes, Marquides, Earls, Viscounts, Bifhops, and Barons, fat in the Body of the Choir in the fame Manner as they do in the House of Lords; the Judges, the Mafters in Chancery, placed as ufual; the Speaker of the House of Commons fat in the Lord May or's Seat, and the Members in the Stalls on each side of him, and alfo in the op pofite Stalls and in the upper Galleries on both Sides of the Choir; the Peereffes fat in the lower Galleries on the South Weft Side; and the Foreign Ministers, with their Ladies, in the oppofite Galleries North; and at the Eaft End of that Gallery were feated the Lady Mayorefs and Aldermens Ladies; and oppofite, on the South Side, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, Recorder, and Sheriffs. The Refidentiaries and Probends fat on Chairs within the Rails of the Altar; and without the Rails of the Altar on both Sides, other eminent Divines. The Choir, and other Muficians, filled the Organ Gallery, and each Side of it. The Pulpit ftood near the Bishop of London's Throne, The Miracles of St. Januarius's Blood explained. (From M. de la Condamine's Journal of a Tour to Italy.) TRavellers 'Ravellers ufually choose to make the tour of Naples at the time of the feaft of St. Januarius, when they are defirous of being made eye-witnesses of a fact as extraordinary as it is true; and which is held in that country for fupernatural. They expofe then, on the principal altar of the cathedral, the head of St. Januarius, bifhop of Naples. They place near this relique a phial of chriftal, fet in a very rich mounting, and which, according to tradition, contains the blood of St. Januarius. This phial is fhook for fome time, and ordinarily, after feveral fhakings, the matter contained in it appears to liquefy before the eyes of all prefent; I fay ordinarily, because it does not happen fo always, and at fuch times the people of Naples are thrown into the greatest confternation. I lamented that I had quitted Naples without having been, prefent at this folemnity, when chance, in fome measure, made me 2 amends for it. Being gone one evening to pay my court to her royal highnefs the margravine of Bareith, a phial was brought to that princefs, fet in a circle of brafs, or filver gilt and mounted on a pedestal very: richly ornamented, which was furmounted again with a caduceus, in order to diftinguish the mounting of this from that of the phial kept in the cathedral. All this apparatus was put in the hands of the princefs, from whence it paffed into thofe of the margrave, and feveral other perfons, as well as into mine; and the following is a true account of what we all faw. The phial appeared to be half filled with a grey-coloured fixed mafs or patte, and its fides tarnished with duit. On inclining it alternately feveral ways, and fhaking it for about half a minute, more or lefs, the pafte became liquid and melted: fometimes only partially; at other times it grew fixed again and on fhaking it anew, it was either a shorter fhorter or longer time in liquefying. All this was done before our eyes; and, what was still more deferving of notice, in fuch a manner that neither the will nor defire of the perfon who shook the phial could promote or produce either the one or the other at his difcretion. This is what I have been an eye-witnefs to on feveral occafions, not only the evening I mentioned, in prefence of their highneffes, but fince more particularly, and in broad day, at the keeper's of the machine, where 1 had all the neceffary time to examine it. I obferved beneath the phial two fmall cones, I know not of what material, with their points opposed to each other, which he informed me were perforated with a fmall opening. He further added, that they were hollow, and that the tower cone was moveable, in fuch a manner that its orifice fometimes met with that of the upper cone, and at other times did not; all this was purely accidental, and just as the motion impreffed on the phial caufed, or not, the axes of the two cones to concur. As for the duft which I saw in the phial, they told me it was an amalgama of mercury, lead, tin, and bismuth; that the bismuth, which mingles but very imperfectly with the other ingredients, prevented the mixture from becoming an abfolute fixed paste, and gave it the form of a powder, too thick to pass through the little opening which communicated with the two cones, Laftly, they add, that in a circular channel, concealed in the mounting, was contained fome running quick-filver; that by fhaking the phial irregularly, when the orifices of the two cones met, this mercury infinuated itself in a greater or lefs quantity, and liquefied the amalgama; that it came to pass fometimes, that by the variety of motions impreffed in the machine, the mercury, fo intro duced, returned again by the fame opening, and that then the amalgama ceafed to be fluid. I relate, with all poffible exactness, what the poffeffor of this ingenious machine told me, and which I also fet down in writing the fame day: all that I can certify for fact is, that it performed its operations extremely well. He promised me at that time an exact description of it, together with a draught of all its parts, to be communicated to the academy. He has fince renewed the fame promife to me in writing, but has not yet fulfilled it *. • Mr. Addifon calls this whole affair the liquefying of the blood of St. Januarius one of the most bungling tricks he ever faw. Mr. Addifon's word would have gone as far as any man's; yet I must confefs, for my own part, that I have never read the fhort account he gives of it, but I have always withed, that he had fhewn wherein it was bungling. M. de la Condamine, with that happy curiofity for which he is so remarkably distinguished, has here explained the whole juggle, upon fuch mechanical principles, as, though they entirely destroy the credit of the miracle, yet, at the fame time, prove the means by which this wonderful feat is effected to be very ingenious. On this occafion, one cannot bur admire the candour of the writer, who, tho' no doubt a violent Papift, yet is fo far from being bigotted to any peculiar mode of - thinking, that we owe to him the detection of one of the greatest impositions of the Church of Rome. The reader must not be offended, if I go one step further, and charge Mr. Addifon, on the other hand, with an over-weening zeal against the Roman Catholic Religion, in calling that trick bungling, which, it is plain, even from his own account of the matter, he knew nothing at all of, A De A Defeription of two very curious Machines, taken from Condamine's Tour to Italy.. : Saw at Turin, fays our author, fome ex periments that were new to me, relative to the effects of gun-powder; and likewife two machines, which appeared to me very ingenious: the first was a windgun, which they loaded by fetting fire, by means of a touch-hole, to two ounces of powder enclosed in a very thick cylinder of brafs this train, in communicating the fire through a very narrow channel, burns a thread which shuts up with a trigger the entrance of the chamber where the powder is put the latter thereon takes fire with out any explofion, and the air being dilated by this inflammation, preserves its spring for feveral months. They caufe alfo a fmall portion of it to pafs into a fecond chamber, by opening a partition which fhuts up again immediately, and this little portion of the flame is fufficient to drive, on pulling down a trigger, a leaden ball fixty Account of Berkshire; with an BERKSHIRE is bounded on the fouth by Hampshire; on the weft, by the counties of Wilts and Gloucestershire; on the east, by Middlesex and Surry; and, on the north by the Thames, which divides it from Buckingham and Oxfordsfhire... It is about thirty-nine miles in length, twenty-nine in breadth, and one hundred and twenty in circumference. It contains twenty hundreds, fixty-two vicarages, fix hundred and feventy-one villages, a hundred and forty parishes, twelve market towns, and fends nine members to parliament: viz. two for the county, two for NewWindfor, two for Reading, two for Wallingford, and one for Abington. The air is in general healthy and fweet, the foil fertile where it is cultivated, and the whole country, which is one of the most plea paces off. They can fire eighteen times fucceffively in this manner, but each time with a diminution of its force. The other machine is defigned to meafure the strength of the powder, which ftill keeps on burning in the clofed cylinder of brafs. The dilatation of the air produced by this inflammation, causes the water continued in the bottom of the cylinder to afcend to a certain height in a glafs tube fitted thereto. They then fuffer the air to enter again, by applying to the cylinder a treading pump; and we thus fee how much of the inflamed fpirit is neceffary to condense the air contained in the cylinder, in order to make the water afcend, in the tube of graduated glass, to the fame degree as the firing of the powder had raised it. The inventor of thefe machines is M. Mathi, penfionary of the king of Sardinia. accurate Map of that Country. fant in England, is well stored with cattle and timber; particularly oak and beech in the western parts, and in Windfor-Foreft. The principal rivers are the Thames and Kennet, the one washing the north, and the other the fouth fide of the country, falling into the Thames, a little below Reading. The principal manufactures are woollen-cloth, fail-cloth, and malt; there being great crops of barley in the western part of the country; particularly in the vale of White-horse, so called from the fide of a chalky hill representing that animal. Some are of opmion, that the ground was formed into that figure by the Saxons, who had a White-horfe for their arms. The ecclefiaftical jurifdiction of this county belongs to the bishop of Salisbury, and it gives title of earl, to the honourable family of Howard. 5 |