breviated, that is, the pattern and image of the soul; her escutcheon with many quarters, representing the collection of all her titles of honour, planted and placed in the gate and fore front, to the end that men may know that here is her abode and her palace. It is as the hand of a dial, which noteth the hours and moments of time, the wheels and motions themselves being hid within:-to be brief, it is the throne of beauty and love, the seat of laughter and kissing, two things very proper and agreeable unto man.

4. Steam engines.

Silvester II. (who is commonly called pope Silvester, being the most notorious of the name) made clocks and organs which were worked by steam. The old historian expresses intelligibly to us what he did not understand himself: fecit arte mechanica orologium, et organa hydraulica, ubi, mirum in modum, per aqua calefacta violentiam, implet ventus emergens concavitem barbiti, et permulti foratiles tractus arcæ fistulæ modulatos clamores emittunt.

Prideaux (an older author than the biographer of Mahomet, but resembling him in blind and brutal bigotry) classes Silvester among the Egyptian Magicians, by no means the worst of the orders into which he has distributed the popes.

5. Aristotle.

Aristotle has been libelled in all ages. The antient calumniators said of him that he spent his patrimony in riotous gluttony, then turned soldier, and proving a coward, betook himself to the safer method of destroying men as an apothecary. He has been accused of poisoning Alexander, for which reason a Frenchman, of more Greek learning than usually falls to the share of a learned man in France, calls him equally a poisoner of soul and body. Martin Luther was of opinion that he was certainly dead and damned. There is a scurvy jest of him in the Gesta Romanorum, how his mistress saddled and bridled him like an ass, and rode upon his back. In our own country he meets with still worse usage from those dirty booksellers, who fall under the notice of the Society for the suppression of vice. I was once in a shop when a fellow from the country came in with a written order for Harry Stottel's Master-Piece.

6. A Bishop and his Beard.

Guillaume Duprat, bishop of Clermont, who assisted at the council of Trent, and built the college of the Jesuits at Paris, had the finest beard that ever was seen. It was too fine a beard for a bishop, and the Canons of his Cathedral in full chapter assembled, came to the barbarous resolution of shaving him. Accordingly, when next he came to the choir, the dean, the prevot, and the chantre approached with scissars and razors, soap, bason and warm water. He took to his heels at the sight and escaped to his castle of Beauregard about two leagues from Clermont, where he fell sick for vexation, and died. During his illness he made a vow never again to set foot in Clermont,

where

where they had offered him so villainous an insult; and to revenge himself he exchanged the bishoprick with cardinal Salviati, nephew to Leo X. who was so young that he had not a hair upon his chin. Duprat, however, repented of the exchange before his death, and wrote to Salviati, quoting these lines of Martial,

Sed tu nec propera, brevibus nec crede capillis,
Tardaque pro tanto munere barba veni.

7. Arrow-headed letters.

About half way between Bassora and Aleppo, near a place called Argia, are, or were two centuries ago, some ruins containing inscriptions in the character which has of late excited so much attention among our oriental scholars. Some of these letters are described as resembling a pyramid on its side, evidently the arrow-headed letter; others like a star, with eight rays. They were, like those from Babylon, upon bricks, and also upon black marble.

8. Free-masonry.

The Gnostics had a method of making themselves known to each other by shaking hands. This favours the opinion of those who derive the Free-masons from persecuted heretics. Si peregrinus acces serit de ipsorum dogmate, signum est apud ipsos, virorum ad fæminas, et fæminarum ad viros in extendendo manum, ad salutationem videlicel, subter palmam contractionem quandam titillationis per hoc se indicare ostendentes, quod ejusdem religionis sit qui accessil.Hinc igitur mulua cognitione accepta, statim ad epulationem convertuntur.

9. Shenstone.

Shenstone used to thank God that his name was not liable to a pun: it has proved, however, obnoxious to a Frenchman's rhyme, which is something worse. M. Girardin has placed this inscription to his memory at Ermenonville.

This plain stone

To William Shenstone.

In his writings he display'd
A mind natural,

At Leasowes he laid

Arcadian greens rural.

10.

In a schedule of the offices, fees, and services, which the Lord Wharton had with the Wardenry of the West Marche and Captain ship of the city and castle of Carlisle, about 1547, a trumpeter is rated at 16d. per diem and a surgeon only at 12d.

The second sentence in Robertson's History of Scotland is unphilosophical. "Nations," he says, "as well as men, arrive at maturity by degrees; and the events which happened during their infancy

or

or early youth, cannot be recollected, and deserve not to be remembered." He is ill qualified for the office of historian or biographer, who supposes that the circumstances of a nation can be understood unless the history of its infancy is known, or the character of an individual explained, if the occurrences of his childhood be not considered.

12. Three methods of lessening the number of Rals.

I. Introduce them at table as a delicacy. They would probably be savoury food, and if nature hath not made them so, the cook may. Rat pye would be as good as Rook pye; and four tails intertwisted like the serpents of the delphic tripod, and rising into a spiral obelisk, would crest the crust more fantastically than pigeon's feet. After a while they might be declared game by the legislature, which would materially expedite their extirpation.

II. Make use of their fur. Rat-skin robes for the ladies would be beautiful, warm, costly, and new. Fashion requires only the two last qualities; it is hoped the two former would not be objectionable. The importance of such as a fashion to our farmers ought to have its weight. When our nobles and gentlemen feed their own pigs; perform for a Spanish tup, the office of Pandarus of Troy, and provide heifers of great elegance for bulls of acknowledged merit; our ladies may perhaps be induced to receive an addition to their wardrobe from the hands of the Rat-catcher, for a purpose of less equivocal utility.

III. Inoculate some subjects with the small-pox, or any other infectious disease, and turn them loose. Experiments should first be made, least the disease should assume in them so new a form as to be capable of being returned to us with interest. If it succeeded, man has means in his hand which would thin the Hyenas, Wolves, Jackals, and all gregarious beasts of prey.

N. B. If any of our patriotic societies should think proper to award a gold medal, silver cup, or other remuneration to either of these methods, the projector has left his address with the Editor.

13. Translations.

It has been well said, that to translate a book is like pouring honey from one vessel into another,-something must always be lost.

Both the Dutch and the French words for translated, will bear to be literally rendered; overgezet, and traduit. Milton may more truly be said to be overset in one language, and traduced in the other, than translated into either. Done into English was not so happy a phrase, for many a book was undone by the operation.

14. Hell.

In the early part of the last century an enquiry was published by the Rev. Tobias Swinden, into the nature and place of Hell. The former, according to this Divine, had been accurately understood, burning being the punishment, and the duration without end; but as to the local habitation" of the reprobate, all opinions had been er

roneous

66

roneous. Drexelius had estimated the sum total of the damned at one hundred thousand millions, all of whom he calculated might be coutained within a square German mile, and not stowed closer than negroes in a Liverpool slave ship: but this appeared to the English Theologian "a poor, mean, and narrow conception, both of the numbers of the damned, and of the dimensions of Hell;" for if their immateriality and compressibility were to be alleged, you might as well, he said, squeeze them at once into a common baker's oven. His ideas were upon a grander scale. There was not room enough, according to him, in the centre of the earth for "Eternal Tophet." Burnet's absorpt sun he thought a much more noble idea of such a furnace of fire. But his opinion was, that Tophet was the sun, which must be acknowledged by all to be capacious enough for the purpose. The time of the sun's creation is a strong reason for admitting the hypothesis, being just after the fall of the Devil and his angels. It is true that the sun is said to have been made on the fourth day; but light, and evening and morning, are mentioned as having previously existed; now these, as proceeding from the sun, could not have been before it; making on the fourth day therefore can only mean putting it in motion. The darkness which is predicated of Tophet may at first seem an objection, but it exists in the macula, the spots of the sun, which may be deep caverns and dens, proper seats of the blackness of darkness. Upon this hypothesis, the reason why sun-worship has been found so widely extended becomes manifest; it would be as peculiarly acceptable to Satan, as serpent-worship is known to have been.

This was indeed making the souls of the wicked of some use, as Nero did the Christians when he rolled them up in tow, dipt them in pitch, and set fire to them, as torches to light up the streets of Rome. They were so many living wicks of Asbestos, fed with the inextinguishable oil of divine vengeance, that they might be burning and shining lights to the world. If Jonathan Edwards had seen the book he might have adopted its hypothesis as a new proof of " the glory of God in the damnation of sinners."

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With what feelings could this man have looked at the setting sun?

15. Transplanting Trees.

The King of the Adites, in Thalaba, removes a full grown forest to his garden of Irem.

Should the King

Wait for slow Nature's work?

Vol. i. p. 23.

Where romancers and novelists stopt short of positive miracle, their most extraordinary inventions are paralleled or exceeded by the history of real life. The Czar Peter did the same thing as Shedad, and his method may be recommended to our Nabobs who want trees about their mansions, and can afford to pay for the removal of live timber. They were dug up in winter with plenty of earth about their roots, which being frozen did not drop off. It would be advisable to dig

round

round them before the frost set in. Care should be taken to replant the tree in the same position as that in which it grew; if its southern side be turned to the north, it will have new habits to learn, and may die before it has acquired them.

Daily experience shews us, says a Spaniard, that if a lamb is suckled by a goat, the wool becomes hard and hairy; and on the contrary, if a kid is suckled by a ewe, the hair becomes soft.

17. St. Andrew's Cross.

St. Andrew's Cross is, as is well known, always represented in the shape of the letter X; but that this is an error, ecclesiastical historians prove by appealing to the Cross itself on which he suffered, which St. Stephen of Burgundy gave to the Convent of St. Victor, near Marseilles, and which, like the common Cross, is rectangular. The cause of the error is thus explained; when the Apostle suffered, the Cross, instead of being fixed upright, rested on its foot and arm, and in this posture he was fastened to it; his hands to one arm and the head, his feet to the other arm and the foot, and his head in the air.

18. Cervantes.

The name Cervantes is a corruption of Servandus, a saint and martyr, son of S. Marcellus, the Centurion. It is remarkable that Cervantes and Shakespear died on the same day.

19. Mill.

About the middle of the 16th century, Frey Rodrigo de Corcuera, invented a mill which worked like a clock : a model of which he laid before Charles Vth. It was considered as an invention of considerable importance in a country where running streams are scarce, and calms frequent, and the Emperor ordered him to erect one at Aguilar de Campos. He died before it was compleated. This same Monk presented Maximilian with a sword, which by means of a spring, shot out a point of diamond with such force as to pierce the strongest breast-plate.

CLASSICAL DISQUISITIONS.

Sketch of the literary History of Greece, being an Introduction to an account of ils principal Writers,

(Continued from page 35.)

REGULAR comedy, as committed to writing, may be considered as originating with Epicharmus, a Sicilian poet, who flourished about

the

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