Punch takes the Press, and checks the Albert Hat. Albert Hat retires, and Punch checks the Queen. Times' Thunderbolt checks Railway Engine, surrounded by Stags. Church makes a move towards O'Connell. Corn League retires one square. Albert Hat mates the Crown. MISCELLANEA CURIOSA. SELECTED FROM THE "MISCELLANIES" OF J. AUBREY, ESQ., CONTAINED IN THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, AT OXFORD. Shoes came into Englande with Henry the Fourth his wife, Joan of Navarre. Before that time the nobles did wear dried flat fish, cunningly tied on with thongs of hide. And hence the name of _soles_ as used to this day, and by alle men. In 1580, a shower of potatoes did fall in Lancashire, at which the husbandmen were sorelie afraid. They were sayde to have been brought from America in a whirlwind, and, being hitherto unknown, became directly common. The Polka is a measure danced by salvage men and women in Hongrie. _Item._—Sir Francis Drake assures me he hath seen it kept up for twenty minutes and more, until the salvages were like to drop; the reason whereof is difficult to tell; but he takes it to be a religious ceremony, as the whirling dervishes in the Indies doe practise. Tobacco is a plant growing in China on inaccessible mountains, whence it is plucked by people in balloons made of fish-skin, and preserved in red leather bottles underground. Sir Walter Raleigh did use it first. Its vapour inhaled is an admirable narcotic; and one Master Aytoun, deprived of it, did, in its stead, smoke strips of Blackwood's Magazine; but this well nigh coste him his life. The first drinking glasse used in Englande had no foote whereon to stand (to encourage drinking), but fell alway; and was hence called a tumbler. A Bristow man, living at Castile, did learn the art of making soap, which he set up here: and straightway upon this it became common to wash one's self twice and thrice in the week. Nay, Mrs. Gregoire, the commissioner his wife, did cleanse her hands, and eke her face each daie. Soe that it was soon the rage; and people before they went to stay with such and such a one would saie to him, "How are you off for soape?" meaning therebye that if he had not good store, they would none of him; and soe went on their way betymes. I do remember when they did call cats _Tomassins_, which, being corrupted to Tom, is still in use with the vulgar; but the etymologie thereof I could never learn, save that the word came from Flanders. _Item._—My good friend, Mr. Marmy, assures me that he heard them shriek and cry like infants, beneath his chambers; such as could only be frighted by tossing the fire-irons and fender about their ears. But he verilie believes they were devils' imps and familiars. _Item._—Mr. Glanville gave him a charm to exorcise them, which is as follows, writ on fayre parchment:— "Tomassin, tomassine, alabra, Parlak vak abracadabra."