Joe Miller, (Mottley,) was such a favourite at court, that Caroline, queen of George II., commanded a play to be performed for his benefit; the queen disposed of a great many tickets at one of her drawing-rooms, and most of them were paid for in gold. * * * * * COLLINS' INSANITY. Much has been said of the state of insanity to which the author of the _Ode to the Passions_ was ultimately reduced; or rather, as Dr. Johnson happily describes it, "a depression of mind which enchains the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right, without the power of pursuing it." What Johnson has further said on this melancholy subject, shows perhaps more nature and feeling than anything he ever wrote; and yet it is remarkable that among the causes to which the poet's malady was ascribed, he never hints at the most exciting of the whole. He tells us how Collins "loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters;" how he "delighted to roam through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens." But never does he seem to have imagined how natural it was for a mind of such a temperament to give an Eve to the Paradise of his Creation. Johnson, in truth, though, as he tells us, he gained the confidence of Collins, was not just the man into whose ear a lover would choose to pour his secrets. The fact was, Collins was greatly attached to a young lady who did not return his passion; and there seems to be little doubt, that to the consequent disappointment, preying on his mind, was due much of that abandonment of soul which marked the close of his career. The object of his passion was born the day before him; and to this circumstance, in one of his brighter moments, he made a most happy allusion. A friend remarking to the luckless lover, that his was a hard case, Collins replied, "It is so, indeed; for I came into the world _a day after the fair_." * * * * * MOORE'S EPIGRAM ON ABBOTT. Mr. Speaker Abbott having spoken in slighting terms of some of Moore's poems, the poet wrote, in return, the following biting epigram: "They say he has no heart; but I deny it; He _has_ a heart--and gets his speeches by it." * * * * * NEGROES AT HOME. When Lord Byron was in Parliament, a petition setting forth, and calling for redress for, the wretched state of the Irish peasantry, was one evening presented to the House of Lords, and very coldly received. "Ah!" said Lord Byron, "what a misfortune it was for the Irish that they were not born black! they would then have had plenty of friends in both Houses"--referring to the great interest at the time being taken by some philanthropic members in the condition and future of the negroes in our West Indian colonies. * * * * * A STRING OF JERROLD'S JOKES.