sent, if only our little Mary's fits do not recur."

Little Mary was Gelon's only child, & the darling & god-daughter of Empeiristes. By the application of galvanic influence, Empeiristes had removed a nervous affection of her right leg, accompanied with symptomatic epilepsy. The tear started into Gelon's eye, and he prest the hand of his friend, while Musaello half-suppressing, half-indulging a similar sense of shame, sportively exclaimed-" Hang it, Gelon! somehow or other these phi losopher-fellows always have the better of us wits, in the long run !"

90. Jeremy Taylor..

The writings of Bishop Jeremy Taylor are a perpetual feast to me. His hospitable board groans under the weight and multitude of viands. Yet I seldom rise from the perusal of his works withou repeating or recollecting the excellent observation of Minucius Felix:

"Fabulas et errores ab imperitis paren

tibus discimus; et quod est gravius, ipsis studiis et disciplinis elaboramus."

91. Criticism.

Many of our modern criticims on the works of our elder writers, remind me of the connoisseur, who taking up a small cabinet picture, railed most eloquently at the absurd caprice of the artist in painting a horse sprawling. Excuse me, Sir, (replied the owner of the piece) you hold it the wrong way: it is a horse galloping.

92. Public Instruction.

Our statesmen, who survey with jealous dread all plans for the education of the lower orders, may be thought to proceed on the system of antagonist muscles; and in the belief, that the closer a nation shuts its eyes, the wider it will open its hands. Or do they act on the principle, that the status belli is the natural rela tion between the people and the govern

ment, and that it is prudent to secure the result of the contest by gouging the adversary in the first instance. Alas! the policy of the maxim is on a par with its honesty. The Philistines had put out the eyes of Sampson, and thus, as they thought, fitted him to drudge and grind 46 Among the slaves and asses, his comrades,

As good for nothing else, no better service." But his darkness added to his fury without diminishing his strength, and the very pillars of the Temple of Oppression"With horrible convulsion, to and fro,

He tugged, he shook-till down they came, and drew
The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder,
Upon the heads of all who sat beneath,

Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, and priests,
Their choice nobility!

SAM. AGONISTES.

The error might be less unpardonable with the statesmen of the continent,... but with Englishmen, who have Ireland in one direction, and Scotland in another; in the one ignorance, sloth, and rebellion, in the other general information, indus

try, and loyalty; verily it is not error merely, but infatuation.

93. Tractors.

The Tractors are no new mode of quackery, witness this extract from one of the rogues of the days of old:

"How famous is that martial ring, which carried in some fit place, or rubbed on some such part, will allay and cure the pains of the teeth and head, the cramp, quartain ague, falling sickness, vertigo, apoplexy, plague, and other diseases! insomuch that the great captain of He. truria commanded the inventor thereof (a brother of St. Augustine's order) to sell none to any but himself for some years. If this same were formed of some long horse shoe nail, pulled out of a horse's hoof on purpose, in the hour Mars reigns, it would be ready to contract itself to fit the least, and amplify itself for the greatest finger as you would.

Tentzelius, 93.

94. Blackguard.

Johnson derives this cant term, as he calls it, from black and guard, without attempting to explain their combination. Cant-words, above all others, have their origin in some strong figure of speech, or striking metaphor, and I believe the etymology of this is accidentally given by that strangest of all strange writers Stanihurst, in his explanation of an analogeous word among his own countrymen. "Kerne, he says, signifieth (as noble men of deep judgement informed me) a shower of hell, because they are taken for no better than for rakehells, or the devil's black guard, by reason of the stinking stir they keep, wheresoever they be."

Holinshed, vol. 6. p. 68.

As Chaucer has been called the well of English undefiled, so might Stanihurst be denominated the common sewer of the language. He is, however, a very entertaining, and to a philologist, a very instructive writer. His version of the