HUMAN PARROTS.

THERE are persons deficient in the stuff which nakes intellect, just as there are individuals born without some particular sense. Incapable of originating ideas, because impenetrable to the impressions whence ideas come, they have memories instead of minds. They retain words: and, in giving them utterance, depend upon accident for the justice of their application.

One of these human parrots was present the other day, when Mr. C said, "Such a one cannot last; his physical force is quite gone." A few days afterward, the parrot, in quoting the observation. remarked, "C. says he cannot live much longer, for his physic is out."

It is truly astonishing how little talent suffices to get on in the world. The instinctive cunning observable in children and animals, is equal to the wants and desires of the individual; and the unideal babble and animal vivacity of the parrot, pass for information and agreeableness: while genius and feeling, obstructed at every step by dulness and prejudice, or revolted at the meanness and littleness which thwart them, stop short in the first stage of their route, and recoiling on themselves, too often live unknown and unbenefited by the world they enlighten and amuse.

CATS.

IN old family portraits, the ladies are painted with birds or animals as the accessories of the picture. Such playthings were, in fact, the great resources of our female ancestors, whose uneducated minds, and unsocial position (when there were neither books nor assemblies) threw them upon dogs, monkeys, parrots, and cats, as a refuge from ennui. Fondness for animals arises out of the idleness of barbarism, as the tolerance of the various nuisances they occasion does from its coarseness. It is not,

however, the less true, that the playful kitten, with its pretty little tigerish gambols, is infinitely more amusing than half the people one is obliged to live with in the world.

I have observed, that all domestic animals are more amiable and intelligent on the continent, than with us: it may be they are better treated; for nothing tames like kindness. The fine breed of Angola cats, so common in the South of Italy, is a proof of the assertion; they are much caressed and attended to, and are as intelligent and as attachable as dogs. The first day we had the honour of dining at the palace of the Archbishop of Taranto, at Naples, he said to me, "You must pardon my passion for cats (la mia passione gattesca), but I never exclude them from my dining-room, and you will find they make excellent company."

Between the first and second course, the door opened, and several enormously large and beautiful cats were introduced, by the names of Pantalone,

Desdemona, Otello, and other dramatic cognomina They took their places on chairs near the table, and were as silent, as quiet, as motionless, and as well behaved, as the most bon ton table in London could require. On the bishop requesting one of the chaplains to help the Signora Desdemona to something, the butler stepped up to his lordship and observed, Desdemona will prefer waiting for the roasts.' After dinner they were sent to walk on the terrace, and I had the honour of assisting at their coucher, for which a number of comfortable cushions were prepared in the bishop's dressing-room. The Archbishop of Taranto, so well known through Italy as the author of many clever works, has also produced one on cats, full of ingenuity and pleasantry.

On my return from Naples, and during our second happy residence in Milan (the remembrance of which is now clouded and imbittered by the horrible fate of those superior beings, who were the cause of that return and that residence), I happened to mention my observation on the sensible character of the animals of the south of Italy, and of the douceur and intelligence of the Archbishop's beautiful Desdemona; when the young and gifted author of "Francesca da Rimini" (who now lies buried in his living tomb-an Austrian carcere duro), related to me the story of a "passione gattesca," which had recently occurred in a neighbouring village, perfectly illustrative of my hypothesis-here it is:

"Il Gatto del Cimitero."

THE CAT OF THE CEMETERY.

A BEAUTIFUL peasant girl of the village of Monteorsano, in the Brianza, had obtained a sort of melan

choly celebrity by an infliction, which frequently struck her down to the earth, in the midst of the village festival, or church ceremony, where her beauty and piety were the boast and the edification of her village friends. Every physician in Lombardy, every saint in the calendar, had been applied to, on behalf of Clementina; and vows and offerings had been made in vain, to cure, what was incurable, a confirmed epilepsy. If the saints, however, were negligent, Clementina had one friend, whose vigilance never slumbered. It was her cat; which not only shared her bed and her polenta, but followed her in her walks and devotions, from the vineyard to the altar.

The first time that Mina saw her young mistress fall in a fit, and wound herself against a tomb in the village cemetery, she exhibited the most extraordinary emotion. She soon acquired the habit, from a frequent recurrence of the infirmity, of watching its approach; and at last seemed to have obtained such a knowledge of the change of countenance and colour, which preceded the attack, that she was wont, on the first symptom, to run to the parents of Clementina, and, by dragging their clothes, scratching at their persons, or mewing in the most melancholy manner, ("Miagolando in tuono mesto ed affannoso,") she succeeded in awakening their attention, and trotted out before them, mewing them on to the spot, where her young mistress lay lifeless. Mina at last obtained such confidence for her warnings, that, on the first cry of the faithful cat, the friends of Clementina flew to her assistance before she incurred any injury from her sudden fall.

At fifteen, the malady of the beautiful Clementina. brought her to the tomb. Her cat walked after her hier, on which she was exposed, (as is the custom in E 2

Italy), and covered with flowers. During the funeral service, she sat at the head of the bier, gazing with an intent look on the lifeless features of her young mistress; and when the grave was filling, she made a vain endeavour to jump in, but was withheld by the bystanders, who carried home this chief mourner after the melancholy ceremony. Mina, however, was seen the next morning stretched upon the new made grave, which she continued to visit daily, until she visited it for the last time, a few months after her friend's death; when she was found dead upon the green mound that covered her remains.

The celebrity of the " Gatto del Cimitero," has not yet passed away from the village of Monte-orfano. I dedicate this little history of the faithful Mina, to my young friend Ina; whose "passione gattesca," entitles her to the distinction. Kindness to animals is but a form of sensibility, and in youth is always the harbinger of higher and deeper-seated feelings. It should not be confounded with the misplaced instinct of maternity in childless old maids, or the capricious fondness of adults for the brute creation, which is unaccompanied by any touch of kindness for their biped dependants, or any manifestation of sympathy for human misfortune.

TRADES, PROFESSIONS, AND SCIENCES.

TRADES, professions, manufactures, even the sciences, the divine sciences themselves, come in and go out of fashion with times and circumstances; and