be forgiven. But, were there a doubt of it, sweet penitent! (the captain adds,) I should die distracted."-(Tour up the Streights, p. 277.)

SYLVESTER, describing the Lord's coming to Judgment, expresses it thus:

Mercy and justice, marching cheek by joule,
Shall his divine triumphant chariot roll.

SIMPSON, in his Plea for Religion, speaking of Bishops, says, "A very serious attempt was made to remove the things objected to in our church, soon after the Revolution, under the auspices of those excellent men, TILLOTSON, PATRICK, TENNison, Kidder, STILLINGFLEET, BURNET, and others; but, being opposed by a large number of old-wifely bishops, all their efforts came to nothing. They had been accustomed to read mumpsimus all their lives, and mumpsimus it should be, they were determined; and the two Houses of Parliament were disposed to acquiesce in their papistical and superstitious views. We shall rarely have again, at one time, such a constellation of learned, pious, and liberal-minded bishops as then adorned the English church."

The SPANISH ladies seem almost as fond of the sanguinary effects of bull-feasts, as the Romans were of the scenes in their amphitheatres. When a bull, that has got a character in some of the former feasts, has been passing by, I have heard some of the ladies cry, "O the dear creature!" and others, "Blessed be the soul of the mother who bore thee! thou hast killed thy six men." Beneditta sia l'alma della madre, che lo pario! matto sei uomini.-(SPENCE.)

"I would," said Lord SHELBURNE, speaking on the American war,-"I would," said his lordship, (after prophesying that England's sun would set for ever, if independence was granted to America.)—“ keep up a little twilight, to light up another and another-and another-sun." The twilight which his lordship recommended England to keep in her pocket for future use, was, (it has been observed,) perhaps, prophetically allusive to Botany Bay, the Hottentot settlement, and future Pargas.

SALMASIUS attacked Milton, and wrote an apology for Charles I., beginning it in this remarkable way :-"O ye English, who toss about the heads of kings as if they were tennisballs, and play at bowls with crowns, and treat sceptres with no more respect than if they were toys!"

Mr. SOUTHEY, in his Travels in Spain and Portugal, p. 63, says. "Three people passed us with wens, and I puzzled myself in vainly attempting to account for the connection between wens and mountains." The same writer demonstrates the stupidity of mankind." Every body (says he) now believes in the merit of Paradise Lost, as they believe in their creed; and, in ninety and nine instances out of a hundred, with as little comprehension of the mysteries of the one as of the other!" (Specimens of the English Poets.)

Dr. SMOLLETT, who felt his heart softened at the sight of the famous statue of the Venus de Medicis, says, her limbs and proportions are so elegantly formed, "and the back parts, especially, are executed so happily, as to excite the admiration of the most indifferent spectator." He exclaims, with Lucian, Ut exuberantes lumbi amplexantes manus implent, &c. -(Works, vol. 5, p. 446.)

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Sir JOHN SINCLAIR, in his Code of Health, thus expresses himself about pork :-" Pork is a savoury food; and, as this animal is of no use to man when alive, it is therefore properly designed for food; and besides, from its loathsome appearance, it is killed without reluctance.' 99 The same author is so kind as to make an apology for the unsightliness of the human stomach. "The stomach (says he) is far from recommending itself by any elegance of appearance; on the contrary it is generally considered an unsightly membraneous pouch; but the delicacy of its texture, the consideration of its extraordinary powers, and the importance of its functions to the health and existence of the human frame, must create a salutary reluctance to hazard any practice by which it can be injured."— (Sinclair's Code of Health, vol. 1. p. 515.)

Of wit and humour, STERNE decides thus :-"It is not in the power of every one to taste humour, however he may wish it; it is the gift of God! and a true feeler always brings half the entertainment along with him."-(Letter 125.)

SAILORS say, we carried away our mizen-mast, a thing they are no way inclined to do, particularly in a storm.

The gentle Doctor SOUTH could, in argumentative allusion, use such a term as, "hell and damnation proof;" which is going as far as a point could be urged.

STATESMEN and lawyers are sometimes peculiar in their modes of expression. The reverend commissary, Blair, who projected the college in the province of Virginia, and was in England to solicit benefactions and a charter, relates that, the

queen, (Mary,) in the king's absence, having ordered the attorney-general (Seymour) to draw up the charter, which was to be given, with two thousand pounds in money, he opposed the grant, saying that the nation was engaged in an expensive war, that the money was wanted for better purposes, and he did not see the least occasion for a college in Virginia. Blair represented to him, that its intention was to educate and qualify young men to be ministers of the Gospel, much wanted there; and begged Mr. Attorney-general would consider, that the people of Virginia had souls to be saved as well as the people of England. Souls! said he, damn your souls! make tobacco! -(Franklin's Correspondence, vol. 1, p. 158.)

JEREMY TAYLOR, in his Holy Living and Dying, p. 73, says, "Virgins must contend for a singular modesty; whose first part must be, an ignorance in the distinction of sexes."

Honest old angling loving ISAAC WALTON must not be forgotten. He thus instructs his piscatory pupils to handle a frog: "Put your hook into his mouth, which you may easily do from the middle of April till August, and then the frog's mouth grows up, and he continues so for at least six months without eating, but is sustained-none but He, whose name is Wonderful, knows how. I say, put your hook through his mouth, and out at his gills, and then, with a fine needle and silk, sew the upper part of his leg, with only one stick, to the arming-wire of your hook; and, in so doing, use him as though you loved him."

Mr. WYNDHAM, in expressing his disapprobation of the volunteer system, which was thought necessary in 1803, (and since,) maintained, "that the volunteer corps were not only undisciplined, but were characterised by a total incapacity for discipline; they never could be capable of that discipline necessary to make them useful; it was as impossible, as to make a silk purse of a sow's ear. He entered his protest against the system."--(Morning Herald, Dec. 13, 1803.) And again, "Let the volunteers consider themselves, not as soldiers, but as armed citizens. What I am anxious for is, not that the same men should continue long in arms, but that the whole population should take this duty in their turn. I should like to have them hot and hot in the service."-(Morning Chronicle, Dec. 10, 1803.) Speaking of the recruits put into the second battalions, they (said he) have not yet got rid of their grass-flesh, the beer is hardly out of their bellies."-(Morning Chronicle, Dec. 10, 1803.) Other such unlucky slips of the tongue, in the senate, have caused the utterers more baiting than a hundred bulls for instance, acquitted felons, applied to men who

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have been tried by a jury of their country, and found innocent. Perish commerce, let our constitution live; a mere senseless flourish, really spoken by Mr. WYNDHAM, though Mr. Hardinge fathered those words. A vigour beyond the law; and this uttered in England, not at Berlin, where the practice exists. Cheese-parings and candles' ends; i. e. snug places, of two to seven thousand a year, thought of as such. Cold economy, a thing scouted by ministers, and therefore only to be scored. Indemnification for the past, and security for the future; a pompous phrase, once used under existing circumstances; the meaning since explained.

Sir NATHANIEL WRAXALL, (in his Own Time Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 173,) speaking of Buonaparte, says, " A Corsican adventurer has conscribed the country." And, in page 336, "London must have been fundamentally overturned." The following mode of expression, used by Sir N. WRAXALL, (vol. 2, p. 177,) is very fine :--" The clerks of the board of green cloth diffused over the throne a Gothic grandeur, calculated to protect and perpetuate the sanctity of the monarchical office!"

A worse prince than King John scarce ever disgraced the English throne; and the historian may save himself the odious task (it has been observed) of drawing up his character, by referring to the annals of his life, as son, uncle, and king, by a contemporary writer, who says, " Hell felt herself defiled by his admission. Fædatur Johanne Gehenna.

"I have heard (says WALPOLE) of a general officer, who may be classed with the Archbishop of Grenada. When he was about ninety years of age, he was disturbed with the noise of some young officers, diverting themselves with some girls.'Is this, gentlemen, the example I give you ?" "

At the quarter-sessions at Doncaster, one of the high-constables of Osgoldcross was indicted for extorting, by virtue of his office, money to the amount of £1250, to which he pleaded guilty.-(Dodsley's Register, 1766.) This expression, "by virtue of," has very often an odd effect: We remember reading, in the Annals of France-" This morning the king's counsel quashed two arrêts; one of the parliament of Grenoble, and the other of that of Rouen; by virtue of which, two persons have been broken on the wheel, who have since been found to be innocent, by the confession of the real criminals."

An Englishman is not only fond of sights, but he is also fond of expressing himself in his own peculiar and independent style. One of our countrymen applied, when at Berlin, to the lord

marechal, to present him to the king, Frederic the Great. His lordship told him, that it was not such an easy matter, and that many great noblemen had been refused. "Faith! (said the Englishman,) it is not that I care much about it; but, as I have already seen five kings, I should have been glad to make up the half dozen."

Military commanders, in their bulletins, report so many men as missing! a word of extreme odd meaning. A small fight they have baptised as an affair!

A thing being done in no time, is a common expression, but against all chronology.

"Kneeling on your knees" may be found in one part of the Prayer-book.

Our old translators of the Bible often insert-" He answered and said"—a redundancy.

How came the strange expresssion of enjoying a bad state of health? Of all the enjoyments, this is one that we are most anxious to get rid of. Giles Jobbins said, his wife had enjoyed a bad state of health for many years.

We often hear this expression-" High words passed between them;" but the parties using them being of the most vulgar and illiterate description, they must have been low words in a high tone.

In a poetical epistle to a young lady, with a present of a pen-knife, the following odd couplet commences it:

Accept my present undeterr'd,

And leave the proverb to the herd.

By the by, one of the most common queries of all, made in the way of salutation, is very uncouth, however idiomatic it may be; we mean that of-How do you do?

It would be whimsical, though not ungrammatical, were we

to hear a person say, "that that that that that person laid an emphasis upon, is not that that that should have been used."

REPUBLICS.-REPUBLIC OF BABINE.

A FRENCH writer asks, Which would you have your country to be a monarchy, or a republic? This is a question which has been bandied to and fro for thousands of years. Ask the rich which is best, and they will unanimously vote for an aris