To return to our muttons. This mode of progression

At length upon Spanking Bill made some impression.

"Hullo, messinate, what cheer? how queer you do steer,"

Cried Bill, whose short legs kept him still in the rear;

"Why, what's in the wind, Bo,-what is it you fear?"

For he saw in a moment, that something was frightning

His shipmate, much more than the thunder and lightning.

"Fear!" stammered out Waters, "why him, don't you see

What faces that Drummer Boy's making

We haven't got never no drummer-boy "Why, there don't you see how he's following me, [let me be? Now this way, now that way, and won't Keep him off, Bill-look here Don't let him come near:

Only see how the blood-drops his features besmear; [me! oh, dear!” What! the dead come to life again? bless Bill remarked in reply, "This is all very [well, I never;

queer; What! a drummer-boy-bloody too-eh-I can't see no drummer-boy here what

sumdever."

"Not see him?-why there-look-he's close by the post;

Hark! hark! how he drums at me nowhe's a ghost."

[flash, "A what?" returns Bill: at this moment a More than commonly awful, preceded a crash,

Like what's called in Kentucky "an almighty smash;"

And down Harry Waters went plump on his knees,

While the sound, though prolonged, died away by degrees;

In its last sinking echoes, however, were some, [drum. Bill could not help thinking, resembled a "Hullo! Waters," I says, quoth he in

amaze,

[days

"Why, I never see nuffin in all my born Half so queer as this here and I'm not [to fear.

very clear But that one of us two has good reason You, to jaw about drummers with nobody

Upon the newly frozen lake; Commander, comrade-all began To laud the soldier like the man,

"One morn-oh, may that morning stand Accursed in the rolls of fate

Till latest time-there came command
To carry forth a charge of weight
To a detachment far away-
It was their regimental pay.

"And who so fit for such a task

As trusty Matcham, true and tried, Who spurn'd the inebriating flask,

With honour for his constant guide? On Matcham fell their choice, and he, 'Young Drum,' should bear him company.

"And grateful was that sound to hear,

For he was full of life and joy;
The mess-room pet-to each one dear,
Was that kind, gay, light-hearted
boy--

The veriest churl in all our band
Had, aye, a smile for Andrew Brand.

"Enough: we journey'd on: the walk

Was long, and dull and dark the day; And still young Andrew's cheerful talk, And merry laugh beguiled the way; Noon came-a sheltering bank was there,

We paused, our frugal meal to share. "Then 'twas with cautious hand I sought

To prove my charge secure-and drew The packet from my vest, and brought

The glittering mischief forth to view; And Andrew cried. No, 'twas not he, It was THE TEMPTER spoke to me.

""Twas done-the deed that damns medone;

I know not how-I never knew-
And THERE I stood, but not alone,

The prostrate boy my madness slew, Was by side, limb, feature, name'Twas HE-another-yet the same.

"And now, when fifteen suns have each
Fulfilled in turn its circling year,
Thrown back again on England's beach,
Our bark paid off, he drives me here.
I could not die-in flood-or fight;
He drives me here"-

"And sarve you right. What! bilk your commander, desart, and then rob,

And go scuttling a poor little drummerboy's nob.

Why, my precious eyes, what a bloodthirsty swab,

There's old Davy Jones, who cracks sailors' bones,

For his jaw work would never, I'm sure, s'elp my Bob,

Have come for to go for to do sich a job. Hark ye, Matchem, or Waters, whichever's your purser name

(Tother your own is, I'm certain, the worser name),

Twelve years have we lived on like brother and brother,

Now your course lays one way and mine lays another."

And Matcham confessed, and made a clean breast

To the Mayor; but directly he'd had a night's rest,

And the storm had subsided-he poohpooh'd his friend,

Swearing all was a lie from beginning to end;

Said he'd only been drunk-that his spirits had sunk—

The storm in fact put him into a funk; But now one Mr. Jones comes forth and depones,

That fifteen years since he had heard certain groans,

The subjects of the legends are mostly taken from local traditions, furnished, in many instances, by Mrs. Hughes, to whom the whole of Ingoldsby's pieces were submitted previous to publication. The Dead Drummer is founded upon the narrative of an actual occurrence as related in Sir Walter Scott's work on 66 Demonology and Witchcraft ;" and the adventures of saints and holy friars, which form by far too large a portion of the legends, are derived from monkish chronicles and from other black letter sources, which Ingoldsby was fond of perusing. The manner in which the Romish church is ridiculed, its ceremonials made food for laughter, and its traditions converted into burlesque, is certainly objectionable in the highest degree. As a minister of religion Ingoldsby should have paused ere he launched arrows which might have recoiled upon himself; he should have paused and reflected that, although in his own mirthful mood, he was uttering words that would cause many smiles, that his language was also calculated to make the "judicious grieve." Religion is not a theme for the jester; the house of prayer is no place for the cap and bells; we want no grinning even in the temple of the Hindoo. Barham was rather too liberal in his use of street slang. The amount of latent wit contained in those expressions, which, at different seasons, are passed from mouth to mouth without regard to propriety or occasion, is not very large. Springing from the keunel, they are always charged, more

or less, with impurity, and coming too frequently in contact with the mind, they are apt to leave behind traces of their presence, which are not easily eradicated. Amid much genuine humour, tainted, however, in many instances by this leaven of vulgarity, it is gratifying to turn to passages of a different kind, which atone, in some degree, for minor faults, and which show, that Barham could sometimes throw off the motley and speak the emotions of his heart. What can be more musical and plaintive than the following lines upon

NIGHT.

Oh! sweet and beautiful is night, when the summer moon is high, And countless stars, like clustering gems, hang sparkling in the sky; While the balmy breath of the summer breeze comes whispering down the glen, And one fond voice alone is heard;-Oh! night is lovely then.

But when that voice in feeble moans, of But mocks the anxious ear that strives to sickness or of pain,

catch its tones in vain,

When silently we watch the bed by the taper's flickering light, Where all we love is fading fast-how terrible is night.

Again, his reflections on the fleeting nature of earthly happiness :—

Yet the sun shone bright on tower and

tree,

be,

And the meads smiled green as green may And the dear little dicky-birds carolled with glee;

Without, all was joy and harmony.
And thus 'twill be, nor long the day,
Ere we, like him, shall pass away!
Yon sun, that now our bosoms warms,
Shall shine but shine on other forms;
Yon grove, whose choir so sweetly cheers
Us now, shall sound on other ears;
The joyous lambs, as now shall play,
But other eyes their sports survey;
The stream we loved shall roll as fair,
The flowery sweets-the trim parterre,
Shall scent as now the ambient air,
The one loved name shall yet be there,
The tree whose bending branches bear;
But where the hand that carved it?-
where?

What solemn beauty there is in these lines from the "Execution," and what a painful picture they give us of

those scenes which are still acted under the authority of justice. Sweetly, oh! sweetly the morning breaks With roseate streaks, [cheeks, Like the first faint blush on a maiden's Seem'd as that mild and clear blue sky Smiled upon all things far and nighAll save the wretch condemned to die; Alack that ever so fair a sun

As that which his course has now begun, Should shine on such scene of misery, Should gild with rays, so light and free, That dismal, dark, frowning gallows tree. But hark! a sound comes, big with fate, The clock from St. Sepulchre's tower strikes eight.

List to that low funereal bell;

It is tolling, alas! a living man's knell.
And see from forth that opening door,
He comes-he treads that threshold o'er,
Who ne'er shall tread upon threshold

more.

God! 'tis a fearful sight to see
That pale wan man's mute agony;
The glare of that wild despairing eye,
Now fixed on the earth, now turned on
the sky,

As though it were scanning in hope and fear

The path of the spirit's unknown career; Those pinioned arms, those hands that

ne'er

Shall be lifted again--not even in prayer,
That heaving breast- enough; 'tis done;
The bolt has fallen, the spirit has gone,
For weal or for woe is known to but One.
Oh! 'twas a fearsome sight-ah me!
A thing to shudder at, not to see.

The apostrophe to Seville, from the "Auto da Fé," is a passage of considerable power and intensity. Though bordering upon the melo-dramatic, its earnestness is impressive and truthful.

Yes; thou art wonderful; the phrase
Befits thee well-the fearful blaze
Of yon piled faggots' lurid light,
Where writhing victims mock the sight,
The scorch'd limb shrivelling in its chains,
The hot blood parched in living veins,
The crackling nerve, the fearful knell,
Rung out by that remorseless bell;
Those shouts from human fiends that
swell,

That withering scream-that frantic yell,
All Seville, all, too truly tell
Thou art a MARVEL and a hell.

God! that the worm whom thou hast made,

Should thus his brother worm invade; Count deeds like these good service done, And deem thine eye looks smiling on.

Turning from this grim picture,

what a vein of excellent feeling is observable in the following lines upon a faithful dog.

Oh, where shall I bury my poor dog Tray,
Now his fleeting breath has passed away?
Seventeen years, I can venture to say,
Have I seen him gambol, and frolic, and
play.

Evermore happy, and frisky, and gay,
As though every one of his months was
May,
[day:
And the whole of his life one long holi-
Now he's a lifeless lump of clay;
Oh! where shall I bury my faithful Tray?
I am almost tempted to think it hard
That it may not be there in yon sunny
churchyard,

Where the green willows wave
O'er the peaceful grave

[brave,

Which holds all that once was honest and Kind, and courteous, and faithful, and true,

Qualities, Tray, that were found in you;
But it may not be. Yon sacred ground,
By holiest feelings fenced around,
May ne'er within its hallowed bound
Receive the dust of a soulless hound.

We could wish that the author of such lines as these had more frequently allowed the higher powers of his mind to have sway: we could wish that his devotion to genealogical and archæolo gical studies had been less constan and that the society of such hilarious spirits as Theodore Hook and Sidney Smith had not been so often frequented. We might have hoped that the loss, in 1840, of a beloved son-a blow which fell with deepest anguish upon his heart, would have calmed and tempered his after imaginings and elevated them to another sphere. But no; his elasticity of mind was great; and although he never thoroughly recovered from the effects of his bereavement, he regained that cheerful, happy disposition which through life had rendered his path so pleasant. He died calmly on the 17th of June, 1845, in the 57th year of his age.

As a comic poet Barham possessed many excellencies and many faults, but the latter almost pass away at the recognition of the former. There is a want of steadfastness, however, in the whole of his writings-a want of that quiet innate wit, which seeks not to astonish us by sudden and startling flights, the effect of which is transient though bright, but rather to appeal to that sense of the humorous which we

all possess in different degrees, and which views impressions long-living in the memory.

As a writer in the Athenæum remarks, "Purpose, which implies earnestness of mind, goes far towards that individuality of style which makes an author acceptable to another generation, than those who with him have sat at good men's feasts, and heard the chimes at midnight." As a poet, Ingoldsby seems to us to stand at the precise distance from Hood, which separates Theodore Hook as a prose wit from Sidney Smith. The sincerity makes the difference. Like Ingoldsby, Hood loved to alternate the serious, nay, the terrible with the most familiar. It was his nature. He played with fantasies even on his death bed, and took leave of his friends with pathetic pleasantries natural to him, though strange to duller bystanders. But in his most reckless and wildest extravaganzas, embracing the extremest discrepancies, there was for the most part a motive-some truth to be driven home-some sympathy to be awakened -some abuse to be annihilated. In the school to which Thomas Ingoldsby may well be called poet Laureate, such motives of composition were less universally recognized. The hoax, the surprise, the piecing together of tissues the most discordant, for the momentary production of bizarre effect-the passing shot at folly as it flew-exchanged for the passing flight with folly, however far it flew furnished mirth for its table-talk, and matter for its literary effort. Hood is sure to go down among the poets to our children's children, and commentators to come will probably wrangle about his freaks and allusions and conceits: such a positive prophecy with regard to Ingoldsby would be somewhat too presumptuous.

Had Thomas Ingoldsby done justice to his own powers he would have occupied a prouder position amongst the names of the illustrious than he now holds. But it might not be.

BLUMENBACH.

TOWARDS the end of the last century, Europe witnessed the birth of a new era of philosophy and physics. The accumulated materials of many ages of progress were sifted and arranged,

and while many dogmas were exploded for ever, their place was supplied by a new growth of fundamental prin ciples. In physics especially was the change apparent. Bacon had long before dealt a death-blow to the school of the Latins, and the inductive method had achieved some brilliant triumphs. Flamstead, Halley, and Newton followed up the work so well begun, and placed the philosophy of the world on the basis of a broad induction. At the time of Ray, who lived nearly a century after Bacon, the philosophy of anima ted nature was in a most vague condition, and much of the teaching of the European schools required to be untaught. Ray made the first definite attempts to reduce zoology into the form of a science, and abolish for ever those crude reasonings which had been formed on isolated facts. The classification of Ray was, as might be expected, very far from perfect, and amongst the anomalies, the class of quadrupeds stand prominently forward. The classification which brought a cow and a tortoise together was broken up by Linnæus, who instituted a system founded on more accurate generalities. But Linnæus left zoologists much to do; and twenty years afterwards, Brisson made a new march in this direction, and prepared the world for a higher appreciation of the analogies subsisting between the powers of life. Brisson saw the absurdity of classing whales with fishes, and so far influenced Linnæus in favour of a stricter method, that the latter went even farther than Brisson, and instituted the class Mammalia, which was the grand corner stone of the system of Zoological classification which followed.

Up to this time external form had had more influence than internal organization in determining the methods of arrangement. Cuvier appeared upon the scene and effected a complete revolution, the result of which was that the animal kingdom was built up anew on the basis of its structure and comparative anatomy was made the key to the chief zoological secrets. There were two workers in this field. Cuvier, the great arranger and classifier, the seer in all matters of analogy: and Blumenbach, the investigator of details, the anatomist of minute facts. The foundations established by these co