chef announced himself as the Messias, but in the sequel 580,000 of our nation were destroyed, and the name of Jerusalem was changed for that of Elia. The emperor Julian, usually called the Apostate, in his ambition for future fame, ordered the Temple of Solomon to be rebuilt. But the fathers of the Christian Church, as well as the contemporary author Ammianus Marcellinus, assert that a fire, which burst forth from the ground, suspended the operation at its commencement. ANATOMY OF SOCIETY. By J. A. St. John, Esq. THE title of this work leads the reader to expect a regular and connected series of illustrations of the constitution or frame-work of society, in which its scheme might be traced through the various ramifications. On the contrary, we have two volumes of essays of no consecutive interest, but well written, and in some cases abounding with turns of scholarly elegance. They seldom flag, or grow vapid, notwithstanding they are on subjects of common life and experience, upon which moralists have rung the changes of words for centuries past. Occasionally, however, there are some new positions and little conceits which have more of prettiness than truth to recommend them. To call Cowper's line " is no God made the country, but man made the town! "a piece of impious jargon proof of Mr. St. John's acumen or fair comprehension of the poet's meaning, but accords with his unproved assertion "The mark of man's hand is as visible in the country as in the town to all those who make use of their eyes.' Yet this sentiment is a fair specimen of the stern stuff of which Mr. St. John's creeds and opinions are made up. Nevertheless, the volumes are entertaining, and in proof we have carved out a few laconic extracts: Love of Pleasure. The cause why men visit each other and converse, abstracting all considerations of business, seems to be simply the love of pleasure. three and four years, when the very people who had supported him proclaimed him an impostor, and gave him the name Bar Cosifa, or the "* Son of a Lie." * One of Mr. St. John's lines in the Essay on the Influence of Great Cities (the worst in the volume,) is "The very name of London sounds sweetly to me." This is not a whit better than the man who thought "no garden like Covent Garden, and no flower like a cauliflower." Captain Morris's "sweet shady side of Pall Mall,?' compared to these sentiments, is a piece of delicious refinement. This is the pussion truly universal; this is the pivot upon which the world intellectual, as well as the world of sense, turns. Philosophers and saints feel it in their speculations and devotions, and yield to it too, in their way, as completely as the Sybaritish gourmand, whose stomach is his Baal and Ashtaroth. Nor is this at all surprising, in reality, for the gratification of this pas sion is happiness-a gem for which all the world search, and but few find. Conversation.-The persons who shine most in conversation are, perhaps, those who attack established opinions and usages; for there is a kind of splendid Quixotism in standing up, even in the advocating of absurdity, against the whole world. Love.-Do we imagine, when we open some new treatise on Love, that the author has discovered a fresh vein, and mined more deeply than all former adventurers? Not at all: we know very well that the little god has already usurped all beautiful epithets, all soft expressions, all bewitching sounds; and the utmost we expect from the skill of the writer is, that he has thrown all these together, so as to produce a new picture. Love is immortal, and does not grow wrinkled because we and our expressions fade. His heart is still as joyous and his foot as light as when he trod the green knolls of Paradise with Eve. He will be young when he sits upon the grave of the thousandth generation of our posterity, listening to the beating of his own heart, or sporting with his butterfly consort, as childishly as if he were no older than the daisy under his foot. His empire is a theme of which the tongue never grows weary, or utters all that seems to come quivering and gasping to the lips for utterance. We think, more than we curiosity when we first touch some eroever spoke, of love; and if we have a tic volume, it is to see whether the author has embodied our unutterable feelings, or divulged what we have never dared. Wit in Season.-The jest of an exminister is as flavourless as a mummy; as unintelligible as its hieroglyphical epitaph. Three days after his fall, his wit, under the sponge of oblivion, has grown as much a mystery as the name of him who built the pyramid, or the taste of Lot's wife. Read my book.-When Hobbes was at any time at a loss for arguments to defend his unsocial principles, vivá voce, he always used to say-" I have published my opinions; consult my works; and, if I am wrong, confute me publicly." To most persons this mode of confutation was by far too operose; but they might have confoundedly puzzled the philosopher in verbal disputation. In "Vino Veritas,"-Horace speaks with commendation of kings who never chose a friend Till with full bowls they had unmasked his soul, And seen the bottom of his deepest thoughts. But much dependence cannot be placed upon what is wrung out of a man under the influence of wine, which does not so much unveil as it disarranges our ideas; and, therefore, whoever contemplates the character from the combination of ideas produced by intoxication, views man in a false light. Violent anger has nearly the same effect as wine. Cupid was painted blind by the ancients, to signify that the affections prevent the sight, not so much from perceiving outward as inward defects. Character. Whoever would study the characters of those with whom he lives or converses, must keep up the appearance of a kind of recklessness and frivolity, for the mind closes itself up like the hedgehog, at the least sensible touch of observation, and will not be afterwards drawn out. Men have been known in the middle of a discovery of their character, to be stopped short by a look, which brought them to them selves, and traced before them in an in stant the danger of their position and the methods of escape. A keen ob server, indeed, may always adjust the temperature of his discourse by the faces of his auditors, which are saddened or brightened, like the face of the sea in April, as more or less of the sunshine of rhetoric breaks forth upon them. Greatness.-What renders it difficult for ordinary minds to discover a great man before he has, like a tree, put forth his blossoms, is the manner, various and dissimilar, in which such persons evolve their powers. For as in nature the finest days are sometimes in the morning overclouded and dark, so the developement of genius follows no rule, but is hastened or retarded by position and circumstance. But to a keen eye there always appear, even in the first obscurity of extraordinary men, certain internal commotions and throes, denoting some magna vis animi at work within. Physiognomy.-When Atticus advised Cicero to keep strict watch over his face, in his first interview with Cæsar after the civil wars, he could not mean that he might thereby conceal his character from Cæsar, who knew well enough what that was; but he meant, that by such precaution he might conceal from the tyrant his actual hatred and disgust for his person. Yet for the character and secret nature of a man, fronti nulli fides. No Writing. It was Addison, we believe, who observed of the schoolmen, that they had not genius enough to write a small book, and therefore took refuge in folios of the largest magnitude. We are getting as fast as possible into the predicament of the schoolmen. one knows when he has written enough; but, like a player at chess, still goes on with the self-same ideas, merely altering their position. This must arise from early habits and prejudices, from having been taught to regard with veneration vast collections of common-places, under the titles of this or that man's works. Tacitus may be carried about in one's pocket, while it will very shortly require a wagon to remove Sir Walter Scott's labours from place to place. Voltaire's facility was his greatest fault; better he had elaborated his periods, like Rousseau; who, notwithstanding, wrote too much. The latter, however, of all modern writers, best knew the value of his own mind. His prime of life was passed in vicissitude and study. He did not set himself about writing books for mankind, until he knew what they possessed and what they wanted. It was his opinion that a writer who would do any good should stand upon the pinnacle of his age, and from thence look into the future. The Naturalist. SIR-Observing in the Literary Gazette of last week, a notice of Mr. Young's account of the change of colour in the plumage of birds from fear, I have been induced to mention some circumstances which, among others, fell under my own observation, and from which I am led to conclude that such changes among the volatile tribes are not so rare as may be imagined, and are often produced by disease, as well as by other mental passions besides terror. Without referring to the celebrated Jacobite goldfinch of Miss Cicy Scott, which the good old maiden of Carubber's Close affirmed became of a deep sable hue on the day of Charles's martyrdomthough doubtless the natural philosopher would have discovered in this some more efficient cause than respect for the royal sufferer!-I myself recollect a partial change in the colour of a fine green parrot, belonging to Mr. Rutherford, of Ladfield. Like Miss Scott, the laird of Ladfield was a stanch adherent of the house of Stuart, and to his dying day cherished the hope of beholding their restoration to the throne of Britain. In the meantime, Mr. Rutherford amused his declining years by teaching Charley to whistle "The king shall hae his ain again," and to gibber "Send the old rogue to Hanover;" for which he was always rewarded by a sugar-plum or a dole of wassail (Scotch short-bread). Those epicurean indulgences at length induced a state of obesity; and so depraved became the appetite of the bird, that, rejecting his natural food, he used to pluck out the feathers from those parts of the back within his reach, and bruise them with his bill, to obtain the oily substance contained in the quills.. The mavis evinced no corresponding feeling of attachment-neither, so far as I recollect, missing its companion, nor rejoicing at its restoration. A. C. HALL. SPIRIT OF THE Public Journals. BATTLE OF THE CATS. (From the "Noctes" of Blackwood.) Tickler.-A Battle of Cats. "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon the slates! " Miss Tabitha having made an assignation with Tom Tortoiseshell, the feline phenomenon, they two sit curmurring, forgetful of mice and milk, of all but love! How meekly mews the Demure, relapsing into that sweet under-song the Purr! And how curls Tom's whiskers like those of a Pashaw! The point of his tail-and the point only is aliveinsidiously turning itself, with serpentlike seduction, towards that of Tabitha, pensive as a nun. His eyes are rubies, hers emeralds-as they should be-his lightning, hers lustre-for in her sight he is the lord, and in his, she is the lady of creation. North. The feathers which grew on the denuded parts were whitish, and never re'sumed their natural hue. I often saw Charley long after the death of his master, and he looked as if Nature, in one of her sportive moods, had created him half parrot, half gosling so strangely I've paced much this weary mortal round, did his whitish back and tail contrast with his scarlet poll and brilliant green neck. A still more remarkable change of colour in a lark, belonging to Dr. Thos. Scott, of Fanash, occurred under my own eye, and which, I have no doubt, was produced by grief at being separated from a mavis. Their cages had long hung side by side in the parlour, and often had they striven to out-rival each other in the loudness of their song, till their minstrelsy became so stunning, that it was found necessary to remove the laverock to a drawing-room above stairs. The poor bird gradually pined, moped, and ceased its song; its eyes grew dim, and its plumage assumed a dullish tint, which, in less than a fortnight, changed to a deep black. The worthy physician watched with the eye of a naturalist this phenomenon ; but, after awhile, fearing for the life of his favourite, he ordered it to be replaced alongside its companion. In a short time it resumed its spirits and its song-recommenced its rivalry with the mavis; but, after every moulting, the new feathers were always of the same coal-black colour. "O happy love! when love like this is found. And sage experience bids me this declare- Shepherd. The last line wanna an swer *Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale" Tickler.Woman or cat, she who hesitates, is lost. But Diana, shining in heaven, the goddess of the Silver Bow, sees the peril of poor Pussy, and interposes her celestial aid to save the vestal. An enormous grimalkin, almost a wild cat, comes rattling along the roof, down from the chimney-top, and Tom Tortoiseshell, leaping from love to war, tackles to the Red Rover in single combat. Sniff-snuff-splutter-squeaksquall-eaterwaul-and throttle! North.- Where are the following lines? "From the soft music of the spinning purr, To that unearthly throttling caterwaul, Shepherd-Wheesht, North, wheesht. Tickler.-Over the eaves sweeps the hairy hurricane. Two cats in one-like a prodigious monster with eight legs and a brace of heads and tails-and through among the lines on which clothes are hanging in the back-green, and which break the fall, the dual number plays squelch on the miry herbage. Shepherd.-A pictur o' a back-green in fowre words. I see it and them. . Tickler. The four-story fall has given them fresh fury and more fiery life. What tails!-each as thick as my arm, and rustling with electricity like the northern streamers. The Red Rover is generally uppermost-but not always, for Tom has him by the jugular like a very bulldog—and his small, sharp, tigerteeth, entangled in the fur, pierce deeper and deeper into the flesh-while Tommy keeps tearing away at his rival, as if he would eat his way into his wind-pipe. Heavier than Tom Tortoiseshell is the Red Rover by a good many pounds;but what is weight to elasticity-what is body to soul? In the long tussle, the hero ever vanquishes the ruffian-as the Cock of the North the Gander. North (bowing).-Proceed. Tickler-Cats' heads are seen peering over the tops of walls, and then their lengthening bodies, running crouchingly along the copestones, with pricked-up ears and glaring eyes, all attracted towards one common centre-the backgreen of the inextinguishable battle. Some dropping, and some leaping down, from all altitudes-lo! a general melée! For Tabitha, having through a skylight forced her way down stairs, and out of the kitchen-window into the back-area, is sitting pensively on the steps, "And like another Helen fires another Troy." Detachments come wheeling into the field of battle from all imaginable and unimaginable quarters;-and you now see before you all the cats in Edinburgh, Stockbridge, and the suburbs-about as many, I should suppose, as the proposed constituents of our next city member. Shepherd.-The Town-Council are naething to them in nummers. back-green's absolutely composed o' cats. The Tickler.-Up fly a thousand windows from ground-flat to attic, and what an exhibition of night-caps! Here elderly gentlemen, apparently in their shirts, with head night-gear from Kilmarnock, worthy of Tappitoury's self,- behind them their wives-grandmothers at the least-poking their white faces, like those of sheeted corpses, over the shoulders of the fathers of their numerous progeny-there chariest maids, prodigal enough to unveil their beauties to the moon, yet, in their alarm, folding the frills of their chemises across their bosoms-and lo! yonder the Captain of the Six Feet Club, with his gigantic shadow frightening that pretty damsel back to her couch, and till morning haunting her troubled dreams. "Fire! Fire!" "Murder! Murder!" is the cry-and there is wrath and wonderment at the absence of the policeofficers and engines. A most multitudinous murder is in process of perpetration there-but as yet fire is there none; when lo! and hark! the flash and peal of musketry-and then the music of the singing slugs slaughtering the Catti, while bouncing up into the air, with Tommy Tortoise clinging to his carcass, the Red Rover yowls wolfishly to the moon, and then descending like lead into the stone area, gives up his nineghosts, never to chew cheese more, and dead as a herring. In mid-air the Phenomenon had let go his hold, and seeing it in vain to oppose the yeomanry, pursues Tabitha, the innocent cause of all this woe, into the coal-cellar, and there, like Paris and Helen, "When first entranced, in Cranae's Isle they lay, Lip press'd to lip, and breathed their souls away," entitled but not tempted to look at a king, the peerless pair begin to purr and play in that subterranean paradise, forgetful of the pile of cat-corpses that in that catastrophe was heaped half-way up the currant-bushes on the walls, so indiscriminate had been the Strages. All undreamed of by them the beauty of the rounded moon, now hanging over the city, once more steeped in stillness and in sleep! FROM THE SPANISH. "THAT much a widowed wife will moan, When her old busband's dead and gone, I may conceive it; But that she won't be brisk and gay, But that she has not often sent "That Celia will accept the choice I may conceive it: "That when she sees her marriage gown, Inez will modestly look down, I may conceive it; THE SLAVE SHIP, A GALLEY YARN. COME all you gallant sailors bold, that to the seas belong, Oh listen unto me, my boys, while I recount my song; 'Tis concerning of an action that was fought the By the saucy little Primrose, on the coast of One evening, while we the deep with gentle A sail is seen from our mast-head, hard on the weather bow; The gloom of night now coming on, of her we soon lose sight, But down she bears, about five bells, as if prepared for fight. Yet here she overreach'd herself, and prov'd she was mistaken, Thinking by passing in the dark, that she could save her bacon; For British tars don't lose a prize, by fault in looking out, So we brought her to, with much ado, at eleven o'clock about. All hands were call'd to quarters, our guns were clear'd away, And every man within the ship, was anxious for the fray : Our first lieutenant went on board, her hold to overhaul, And found them training of their guns, to the boatswain's pipe and call. To get near the main hatchway, our officer contrives, But some ruffian-looking rascals surrounded him with knives; For well they knew we peace must keep, unless that we could tell That slaves were actually on board, detecting them by smell. Striving this object to attain, he firm resistance met, So then return'd on board in haste, fresh orders for to get; Says he, "It is a spanking ship, I'm sure that she has slaves. And bears from sacred house and home, the wretches o'er the waves." "Oh! very well!" our captain cries, we will lie by, " for her And on the morrow's coming dawn, a palaver we will try ; For should we now attempt to make a pell-mell night attack, I fear our fight would heavy fall upon the harmless black." So early the next morning, we gently edged Although you bear the flag of Spain, into your hull I'll fire." The Slaver swore that all our threats should not his courage scare, And that th' assault of such a sloop was quite beneath his care: Our captain_calls, "Stand by, my lads! and when I give the word, We slap off two smart broadsides, and run her right on board." The signal then was given, a rattler we let fly, Aud many a gloomy Spaniard upon her decks did die : "Now fire again! my British boys, repeat the precious dose, For round and grape, when plied so well, they cannot long oppose " Now peals the roar of battle strife, now British hearts expand, And now the anxious sailor pants to combat hand to hand; With grapnels and with hawsers, we lash'd her to our beam, Although the muzzles of our guns did o'er our bulwarks gleam. "Away, my men!" the captain cries, 'tis just the time to board," Upon her decks we jump'd amain, with toma-, hawk and sword; The conflict now was sharp and fierce, for clemency had fled, And streams of gore mark'd every blow-the Our captain beads the daring band, to make the But soon received a dangerous thrust, from a We thought 'twas all "clue up" with him, although he cheered us on, And we determined, every man, the Slaver should be won. We beat them on the main deck, till they could no longer stand, When our leader sings out " Quarter!" some mercy to command; But now the sherry which we made, with panic fill'd the horde, For some dived down the hatchways, and some leap'd overboard. Close to their scudding heels our lads did their attentions pay. Cutlass in hand, to hold their own-to capture more than slay; Through slippery gore we fought our way, the quarter deck to gain, And in loud cheers her inizen peak soon lost the flag of Spain. Our prize we found was frigate-built, from Whydah she sail'd out, With near six hundred slaves on board, and eight score seamen stout; Equipp'd with stores of every sort, the missile war to wage, And twenty long guns through her ports seem'd frowning to engage. Of those that were made prisoners, they all were put abaft, And we with well-arm'd sentinels paraded fore |