and for your blunders in which you ought to be whipped with one of your own rods." MATHEWS OH HIS DEATHBED. A friend attending on Charles Mathews the Elder, the celebrated comedian, in his last illness, intending to give him his medicine, gave in mistake some ink from a phial on a shelf. On discovering the error, his friend exclaimed, "Good heavens! Mathews, I have given you ink." "Never--never mind, my boy--never mind," said Mathews, faintly, "I'll swallow a bit of _blotting-paper_." BISHOP BERKELEY'S BERMUDA SCHEME. Dr. George Berkeley, the Bishop of Cloyne--celebrated for his ideal theory, and by the praise of Pope, his stedfast friend, who ascribes "to Berkeley every virtue under heaven," as others ascribed to him all learning--in 1824 conceived and published his benevolent proposal for converting the American savages to Christianity, by means of a colony to be established in the Bermudas. The proposal was published in 1723, the year after he had been appointed Dean of Derry; and he offered to resign that opulent preferment, worth £1100 a year, and to dedicate the remainder of his life to the instruction of the Indians, on the moderate allowance of £100 a-year. The project was very favourably received, and persons of the highest rank raised considerable sums by subscription in aid of it. Berkeley having resigned his preferment, set sail for Rhode Island, to make arrangements for carrying out his views. Such was the influence of his distinguished example, that three of the junior Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, abandoned with him all their flattering prospects in life in their own country, for a settlement in the Atlantic Ocean at £40 a-year. The Dean, not meeting with the support the ministry had promised him, and after spending nearly all his private property and seven of the best years of his life in the prosecution of his scheme, returned to Europe. This, however, he did not do, until the Bishop of London had informed him, that on application for funds to Sir Robert Walpole, he had received the following honest answer: "If you put this question to me as a minister, I must and I can assure you, that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid as soon as suits with the public convenience; but if you ask me as a friend, whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America, expecting the payment of £10,000, advise him, by all means, to return home to Europe, and give up his present expectations." A HOME-THRUST AT STERNE. Sterne, the reverend author of the _Sentimental Journey_, had the credit of treating his wife very ill. He was one day talking to Garrick, in a fine sentimental strain, in laudation of conjugal love and fidelity. "The husband," said he, "who behaves unkindly to his wife, deserves to have his house burnt over his head." "If you think so," replied Garrick, "I hope _your_ house is insured." THE GOSPEL A NOVELTY.