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Mr. EVELYN wrote a book, called "Fumifugium," and in it inveighs against our using coal instead of wood for fuel, deforming our noblest buildings, and bringing on consumptions. His mode of expression is remarkable: The City of London (says he) resembles rather the face of Mount Etna, the court of Vulcan, Stromboli, or the suburbs of hell, than an assembly of rational creatures, and the imperial seat of our incomparable monarch."-(Pages 18, 19, 21, 30.)

FALCONER, the author of the Shipwreck, did not shine in his first poetical effort, which was 'An Elegy, sacred to the Memory of Frederic, Prince of Wales' for, towards the close of it, there is the most ludicrous simile that ever blemished the serious page of an author. The rising fame of the young prince he compares to the curling volumes of sable smoke, which mount in the atmosphere, and blacken all the sky!-reminding us of Butler's comparing the changing of the morning from black to red, to the circumstance which takes place in the boiling of a lobster.-(See Hudibras, part 2, canto 2.)

THE REV. Mr. FAWKES, in the year 1739, being at that time curate of Doncaster, thought fit to preach a sermon on the erection of an organ in the church. After having wound up his imagination to the highest pitch in praise of church-music, he adds, addressing himself to the organ, "But, O what!-O what!--what shall I call thee by? thou divine box of sounds!" (Miller's History of Doncaster, p. 90.)

In the south aisle of the church at Tuxford, beneath a flowery arch, is a very rude relief of St. Lawrence placed on the gridiron. By him is a fellow with a bellows, blowing the fire; and the executioner going to turn him. The zealous Fox, in his Martyrology, has this very thought, and makes the martyr say, in the midst of his sufferings, This side is now roasted; turn me, O tyrant great !-(Pennant's Scotland, v. I, p. 8.)

This side enough is toasted;
Turn, tyrant, then, and eat;
And see, whether raw or roasted,

I make the better meat.

"The

Saint Foix, on the brutality of stag-hunting, adds, stag is mild and peaceable; he does not lie in ambush in the depths of a forest, to commit crimes; the more we view him, the more we admire his elegant shape, and the nobleness of his mien without disparaging man, he is a finer creature than he, and has none of his wickedness."-(Vol. 2, p. 245.)

According to the Peripatetics, the universe consisted of eleven spheres, inclosed within each other, as FANSHAWE has

familiarly expressed it by a simile, which he has lent to Camoens. The first of these spheres, says Fanshawe,

Doth (as in a nest

Of boxes) all the other orbs comprise.

FULLER, in his Church History, book 5, p. 197, tells his readers, “Mr. A. keeps a very hospital table," (i. e. hospitable.)

A FRENCH lady, who was fond of disputing, one day exclaimed, "Ma foi, c'est singulier, il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison."

The FRENCH Directory, in a letter to the Spanish Admiral Massaredo, were pleased to allude to us in these words :"From a small corner of the earth, which the sun seems to light with regret, England pretends exclusively to the sovereignty of the seas,"

The FRENCH people are singular in their love for expletives : there is no medium in their tones for pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow. Charmant and superbe is the least you can say of what is recommended to your approbation. If you say less than vilaine of what you dislike, you will be deemed phlegma. tic; if you are pleased, you must be ravi; if you are vexed, you must be desolé; if you are not in ecstacies, you must be au desespoir: to which may be added, the little million of prefixes, which are employed to great advantage, as très, fort, infiniment, which help to colour your expressions as far beyond nature as imagination extends. The French are inaccurate too, above all other nations, as to names. (Walpole says) Bassompierre calls York House, Jorchaux; and Kensington, Inimthort. Pillet, the French general, calls Mr. Wilberforce, Willeberforce; Mr. Whitbread, Whitebread, Withbread, and Withebread; Lancashire, Lancatsshire! A French journalist, quoting from our Gazette, "The Independent Whig," called it La Perruque Indépendante. Cibber's play of "Love's last Shift" was translated into La derniere Chemise de l'Amour. In the same manner, the French call our pugilists, or boxers, or, to speak more politely, the Fancy, Messieurs de l'Imagination. The French have also translated our Macbeth: it was adapted by M. Ducis, who substituted the odd name of Frédégonde for Lady Macbeth.

Mr. GODWIN, author of Political Justice, writes thus:-" To perceive that I ought to publish a certain discovery, is to perceive that publishing is preferable to not publishing it. But to perceive a preference, is to prefer; and to prefer, is to choose. The process is in this case complete." Now, to elucidate this,

с

we add, as a specimen, this, of "considering the causation of causes, in the causes of things."—(Political Justice, p. 352.) Again, in his Fleetwood' but he is always metaphysical, if not algebraical: thus, "The passion of the countess was an abstract propensity-a given quantity of personal merit would charm her," &c.

Mr. GALT, author of the Life of Cardinal Wolsey, in describing one of the monuments in St. Paul's, speaks of two cheesemongers, with wings, exhibiting a couple of double Gloucesters, on which two naval officers have been scratched!

Monsieur GROSSLEY published his Travels in England, in 3 vols. 12mo.; and the ingenious author told his readers, in speaking of The North Briton,' a publication of Wilkes, that this periodical work was called the Lord Byron, and was the first essay in fencing of the English Clodius, John Wilkes.(Grimm.)

Dr. GARTH, in the Dispensary, canto 1, shews a strong instance of the hyperbole, in these lines

So when the Cyclops o'er their anvils sweat,
And their swoln sinews echoing blows repeat.

The same author, in his Dispensary, has two lines, alluding to
Querpo, (Dr. Howe,)-

A conventicle flesh'd his greener years,

And his full age th' envenom'd rancour shares.

Which, to read poetically, we must say convent-tickle.

Dr. ALEXANDER GRANT, in his Sermons, vol 3, p. 191, breaks out-"Let us hope in God that the time is not far distant, when this human miscreant (Buonaparte) shall be convinced of his mistake, by the signal notoriety of the just vengeance of Heaven in his punishment." Does not Dr. G's Master instruct him to love his enemies? and did not he pray, even for his murderers, upon the cross?

In the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, vol. 86, p. 596, is the following extraordinary piece of information: "By the Jewish law, as to adultery, the woman was put to death as well as the man, so that the parties could neither of them marry again."

Lord GARDENSTONE has an odd way of expressing himself; as thus, "I shall consider of it; (i. e. travelling to Avignon by water;) if I cannot find a proper horse for my use, which is difficult: a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse !"-Vol. I, p. 56. The same lord, when travelling, saw, at Marseilles, a soapery,' as he calls it; and, in describing the process of the manufacture of soap, says, " At the last boiling, which requires a great force of heat, the liquid stuff rises in a surprising manner above the cauldron, and resembles, in this state, a jet d'eau

-a more amusing object than the king's jets d'eau at St. Cloud or Marly. It is necessary to add, that these jets do not play during the dog-days, or the hot months." Again, we find Lord GARDENSTONE saying, "I have remarked that the men and women, and also the horses, are larger and handsomer in Champaigne and Burgundy than elsewhere."-Vol. 1, p. 42.

HAWKE (Admiral,) who, in 1747, gained a victory over the French, taking seven ships out of eight, in his despatch to the Admiralty Board, informed the lords-commissioners, "that the French ships, being large, took a great deal of drubbing."

Dr. HARRINGTON wrote a song, beginning-" Ah! how Sophia?" which unquestionably sounds exactly like—a house a fire.

Sir RICHARD COLT HOARE, in his Antient Wiltshire, talks of "maiden downs," i. e. untouched by the plough, not broken up.

HOME, the celebrated auther of Douglas, seemed to have been very partial to alliteration; as, for example,

My father feeds his flock, a frugal swain.
But when the matter match'd his mighty mind.
But with the froward he was fierce as fire, &c.

We have not seen the inscription, but we have read, that the HABERDASHERS' Company once put over their hospital, or alms-house, a new specimen of a mixed Latinity, in-SOCIETAS HABERDASHErorum.

HUTTON, of Birmingham, has given, in his Life, some account of all his family; and, among the rest, of his daughter Catharine, who, "came into the world before her time, and perhaps was the smallest human being ever seen. Curiosity led me, (says he,) when a month old, to shut her up for a moment in the small draw of a bureau, with all her habiliments," &c. "This dear little animal (since the author of the Miser Married) had been two days in the world before I took the least notice of her, &c."—(Life, p. 63.) This is a new system of minute biography, which deserves record. The same Birmingham HUTTON, in detailing the life of his father, writes exactly thus: "After a miserable life, pressed down by affliction, he departed, December 13, 1758, at the age of sixty-seven, five feet seven, corpulent, weighing about sixteen stone."(Hutton's Life, p. 28.)

That was a very calm and sedate speech of IGNATIUS, Bishop of Antioch, in the reign of Trajan, who, when his martyrdom drew near, and was about to be thrown into a den of lions,

said, "Let me be ground in the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found fine flour in the house of my father."-(Eusebius, 1. 3, c. 36.)

Dr. JORTIN, speaking of those sectarians who rely too much upon the efficacy of works of supererogation; and of the other side, who go to a contrary extreme, consider good works as a bugbear, and hate the very sound of the words; punningly adds, "Some writers of this sort contracted such a superstitious dread of relying on good works, that they would not even make a good book, or employ the carnal weapon of hu

Dr. JOHNSON, in his pamphlet, 'Taxation no Tyranny,' had a passage no way soothing to the Americans; it was, in fact, ludicrous as well as exasperating. It was this: "That the colonists could with no solidity argue, from their not having been taxed while in their infancy, that they should not now be taxed: We do not put a calf into the plough: we wait till he is an ox. Being a ministerial pamphlet, however, one of the state secretaries put his pen across this passage. The same author, in his Dictionary, gave us this definition of excise :-"A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid." He also describes a commissioner of excise as one of the two lowest of all human beings!" But the best of the joke is what Mr. Boswell adds, in his Life of Dr. Johnson, vol. 1, p. 275, viz. that the Board of Excise pro tempore, thus aggrieved, laid a case before the attorney-general for his opinion he deemed it libellous; but advised the commissioners to take no farther steps. Mr. Mansfield, afterwards Lord Mansfield, was the attorney-general! Dr. JOHNSON also defined net-work as "any thing reticulated, or decussated, with interstices at equal distances between the intersections.”—(Dictionary.)

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Cherries in brandy." It is a singular quality of brandied cherries, that they exchange their flavour for that of the liquor in which they are immersed."-(KNIGHT's Progress of Civil Society)

KILLED OFF! was an expression once unhappily made use of in the British senate, by some cold-blooded metaphysician; but, to shew how easily military men are reconciled to the thing itself, Mr. LABAUME has given us an anecdote of the campaign against Russia by Buonaparte. It appears that, towards the extreme right, the Russians had a redoubt, which, by its destructive fire, spread consternation through the French line.