operation. The latter end of September Dr. Oliver again visited him, and a gentleman present ran a large pin into his arm to the bone, but he gave not the least sign of feeling. In this manner he lay till the 19th of November, when his mother hearing him make a noise ran immediately to him, and asked him how he did, and what he would have to eat? to which he replied, “very well, I thank you; I’ll take some bread and cheese.” His mother, overjoyed, ran to acquaint his brother that he was awake, but on their going up stairs they found him as fast asleep as ever. Thus he continued till the end of January, at which time he awoke perfectly well and very little altered in his flesh, and went about his business as usual.[34] NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Mean Temperature 37·35. [33] See vol. i. p. 141. [34] Phil. Trans. ~January 22.~ _St. Vincent._ In the church of England calendar.[35] [Illustration: ~Skating on the Serpentine.~] The Hyde-park river--which no river is, The Serpentine--which is not serpentine When frozen, every skater claims as his, In right of common, there to intertwine With countless crowds, and glide upon the ice. Lining the banks, the timid and unwilling Stand and look on, while some the fair entice By telling, “yonder skaters are quadrilling”-- And here the skateless hire the “_best_ skates” for a shilling. * A hard frost is a season of holidays in London. The scenes exhibited are too agreeable and ludicrous for the pen to describe. They are for the pencil; and Mr. Cruikshank’s is the only one equal to the series. In a work like this there is no room for their display, yet he has hastily essayed the preceding sketch in a short hour. It is proper to say, that however gratifying the representation may be to the reader, the friendship that extorted it is not ignorant that scarcely a tithe of either the time or space requisite has been afforded Mr. Cruikshank for the subject. It conveys some notion however of part of the doings on “the Serpentine in Hyde-park” when the thermometer is below “freezing,” and every drop of water depending from trees and eaves becomes solid, and hangs “like a diamond in the sky.” The ice-bound Serpentine is the resort of every one who knows how or is learning to skate, and on a Sunday its broad surface is covered with gazers who have “as much right” to be on it as skaters, and therefore “stand” upon the right to interrupt the recreation they came to see. This is especially the case on a Sunday. The entire of this canal from the wall of Kensington-gardens to the extremity at the Knightsbridge end was, on Sunday the 15th of January, 1826, literally a mob of skaters and gazers. At one period it was calculated that there were not less than a hundred thousand persons upon this single sheet of ice. * * * * *