to eat some and admire others; to prove to the birds that we are cleverer than they, inasmuch as we have reason:-heaven bless the mark-and, above all, we desire improvement-reform-because we are a discontented We.

But we quit the volant race at last, and arrive at quadrupeds.

In that long space of time which we have already named, we have brought under our dominion, in this country, the horse, the ass, the ox, the fallow deer, the sheep, the goat, the dog, and the cat. Five four-legged animals out of a thousand. We use the term we unjustly: We have not domesticated one animal in eighteen hundred and twenty-five years, unless it be the cockroach and bugs; the rest we have received as the legacy of antecedent nations.

Other lands have done somewhat more; since they have made companions of the elephant, and the camel, and the dromedary. There is a wide field before us, if we would but cultivate it. We have pointed out one kind of utility already; there are many other purposes to be served. There are quadrupeds to admire, quadrupeds to eat, and quadrupeds to labour for us. There are quadrupeds also to bear horns and wool, to make handles for our knives and coats for our backs. We talk now of cultivating the silk worm, and we forget that we might cultivate shawls.

We have noticed the reindeer already. It has been attempted, and it has failed, from ignorance and inattention. We introduced the Wapiti deer, and his Majesty's keepers suffered them all to die. Our own roe and red deer run wild, and are starved; we might keep them in our parks, as we do our fallow deer. We might cultivate the endless tribe of antelopes, ride upon zebras, and put elks into harness. We might grow rhinoceroses to make jackets for the Tenth dragoons; and dromedaries for M. Rothschild to send expresses to Dover and cheat the fund-holders. We might ride upon cameleopards, which would shortly produce a new patent saddle. We might turn lions loose into Leicestershire, to teach our dandies courage. Much better, we might educate wild boars, that we might have a boar's head with an orange in its mouth at Christmas.

If we could catch a mastodon or a megatherium in Wabash, it is probable that Mr. Birkbeck might make a better fortune by it at a shilling a head, than by living in a log-house and cooking his own dinner (poor man! it is said he is drowned in a ditch); and it is likely that his progeny would be made assistant professors of geology to Mr. Buckland and Mr. Sedgwick.

nas.

Heaven and earth only know what revolutions our empire might not undergo by feeding on kangaroo mutton chops and tame guaThe population of man himself, as well as of beast, might hereafter puzzle Mr. Malthus, and demand a new edition. At the assemblies we might hear, "Your ladyship's elephant stops the way."" Mrs. Coutts's baboons are next." The Derby might be run for by unicorns; the Herald's office might invent new beasts,

having pretty well worn out the old. Mr. Edmund Lodge would be obliged to study Linnæus instead of Gwyllim; Dr. Kitchiner would be compelled to write a new cookery book; we should have tigers a-la-daube, and rattlesnakes au bechamel. Even the British Museum might learn the names of the mammalia, and fill its empty cases.

It remains to be asked how all this is to be effected. Not by sitting still, and voting that it is impossible. Government might create a menagerie, as France has done. If that did not go further than it has in France, there would not be much gained. Government has a menagerie of its own to manage, and is fully employed, at least, if not better. The government tigers would be starved, and they would eat up the monkeys. The feeder's place would become a sinecure, and he would keep a curate. Mr. Hume would move for a return. The Methodists would vote it an interference with Providence. The Society for the Suppression of Viee would prosecute the blue-nosed baboons, and the dandy members would be jealous of the apes. The lawyers would be equally jealous of the vultures. The Chancellor might suppose the lion a libel on his wig. The Highland drovers would petition, and so would Mr. Polito, for loss of trade. The contractors would furnish bad beef; no, it is not a government matter. Establish a joint stock company, or a Royal Society of Beasts, and offer premiums.

It would be a matter for idle country gentlemen and fox hunters, if that race was good for any thing. But it will not be done, because it is Improvement; we, however, have done our duty; and secure in the approbation of a good conscience, we retire. Other generations will see it; and, perhaps, when we are dust and ashes, our bones will be dug up and invested with the Royal Guelphic order.

We have but one other improvement to propose, for the benefit of future generations, and we must recur to our original subject of fishes. Arion is our authority; and every body knows that he rode to shore upon a dolphin. It must have been a large dolphin indeed; but it might have been a seal.

It is not necessary to equitate on dolphins, particularly as Mr. Whippy might be troubled to contrive a saddle for one. We propose to drive them in a curricle. And here we claim the merit of a sublime discovery. As we teach leopards to hunt tigers, we might harness a pair of whales to a Greenland ship, for the purpose of blowing up their fraternity with Congreve rockets. We might sail our packets to Bombay with a team of sharks, instead of a couple of steam engines; and thus oranges would arrive from Smyrna before they were rotten, and the Custom-house would establish a new average.

All this is impossible, of course. It was once thought impossible to fly up in a balloon, to fly down in a parachute, to spend a thousand millions without having two, to carry light twenty miles under ground, to beat Buonaparte, or replace Louis le Desiré, ta bubble the people a second time by a South Sea scheme, to bring

Mrs. Coutts into the drawing-room, to prove Mr. Pitt a bad politician, to make a horse drink tea, or a turkey dance a minuet, and much more.

Times change, and "nos mutamur." If we live long enough, we will drive a pair of porpoises, in as good a coach as Lord Harborough's, except that it will not require wheels. Mr. Seppings shall be the constructor; and one of the idle lieutenants of the navy may be the coachman if he likes.

Why not? because fishes live in the water and we live in the air. That is a very valid reason, but it is not a good one. We know nothing about the docility of fishes, because we have never tried to know. But we do know that they are docile as far as they have been tried. They will lick our hands, and feed out of them; they will come at a call. Gold fish have drawn a light boat; whales might draw a man-of-war. We do not see the vast difficulty; not in keeping whales in a pond, but in taming porpoises and sharks at least. The man who first proposed to ride on the neck of an elephant, to make him fight in the ranks, and make a fool of himself for the cockneys at Exeter Change, would have been once thought as mad as the gentleman who now proposes to drive four porpoises in hand.

Let them be confined in a pond; let their young be produced there, if they can, or let them be introduced young. Let them be starved, and then fed with caresses, as other animals are, not flogged into their tasks like the boys at Eton; let them feel the bit gently, be put through the manege every day, taught to dance between the pillars, and if they cannot be rubbed down with a whisp of straw, let them be coaxed and patted. We have examined their craniological system, and find that they have the organ of traction. A fish is not a stupid, senseless, eating brute, like a New Hollander. He has difficult duties to perform in the world, and he is provided with brains accordingly. When he is perfect in his exercises, put him into harness; if he is inclined to run away, or dive, it is only to have Mr. What-d'ye-callum's patent traces, and let him slip his collar if he likes, till he is used to it. What a regale would this be for Brighton and Margate! and was there ever a race-course, ever a downs, like the Downs. The ocean wants no Macadamization. It is the highway of nations, and has neither trusts nor turnpikes. Our plan will succeed: it cannot fail. Mr. Bramah or somebody else will have a patent for it before next Monday. We shall soon rival Neptune and Amphitrite; and Albano's pictures will no longer be a problem. We shall make naval war in chariots, instead of frigates. There will be French sharks and English sharks, as if there were not enough of both already; we shall discover uniforms for them, which will give fresh occupation to his Majesty and the King of Prussia; the gilded trumpeters will clothe themselves in sea-green, and turn into tritons; and instead of laying in pickled beef and Irish horse for our crews, they will forage for themselves on living turbot and cod.

C. [London Magazine.

SELECTED FOR THE MUSEUM.

Babylon the Great: a Dissection and Demonstration of Men and Things in the British Capital. By the Author of "The Modern Athens." 2 Vols. Small 8vo. 18s. Knight. 1825. THIS account of Babylon the Great is sketched by no unworthy hand. But it is evident, even from a slight inspection, that the first title is a misnomer, and the second rather too ambitious. For a great part of the work is a panegyric on one part of the periodical press, or an invective against the other; and the remainder consists of a review of the talents and moral qualities of the leading members of the two Houses of Parliament, a description of a storm at sea, remarks on John Bull, and something about the city. If we except the first chapter, the two volumes afford to a stranger almost as little of the details of this metropolis as Pope's Essay on Man.

The introductory chapter excites such high hopes of a truly philosophical work, that, clever as it is on the whole, we were, nevertheless, disappointed, when we came to the end;-so dangerous is it for an orator or an author to have too splendid an exordium.

"The literature of England, of Europe, of the world, at any place or for any time, contains not a page, a volume, or a book, so mighty in import, or so magnificent in explanation, as the single word LONDON. That is the talisman which opens the book of nature and of nations, and sets before the observer the men of all countries and all ages, in respect both to what they are and what they have done. Whatever is profound in science, sublime in song, exquisite in art, skilful in manufacture, daring in speculation, determined in freedom, rich in possession, comfortable in life, magnificent in style, or voluptuous in enjoyment, is to be found within the precincts of that great Babylon; and there, too, are to be found every meanness, every vice, and every crime, by which human nature can be debased and degraded.

"Elsewhere one may contemplate a single feature or lineament of the great picture of man; but here they are all together and at once upon the canvas, singularly blended and even confounded together, but still strong, graphic, and perfect in all their peculiarities. The direct contemplation of this vast picture is, perhaps, too great a labour for any one man; and the details, if minutely given, would form a work from the perusal of which the most voracious reader would turn aside; and therefore a sketch, which shall exhibit the great features, physical and intellectual, must, with however light and hasty a pencil it is touched, be fraught with interest.

"London may be considered, not merely as the capital of England or the British empire, but as the metropolis of the world,-not merely as the seat of a government which extends its connexions and exercises its influence to the remotest points of the earth's surface-not merely as it contains the wealth and the machinery by which the freedom and the slavery of nations are bought and sold-not merely as the heart, by whose pulses the tides of intelligence, activity, and commerce, are made to circulate throughout every land-not merely as possessing a freedom of opinion, and a hardihood in the expression of that opinion, (unknown to every other city-not merely as taking the lead in every informing science, and in every useful and embellishing art, but as being foremost and without a rival in every means of aggrandizement and enjoyment, and also of neglect and miseryof every thing that can render life sweet and man happy, or that can render life bitter and man wretched."

The second chapter is occupied with an account of the author's

voyage (from Scotland we suppose). Besides being too long, it has little or nothing to do with Babylon the Great. Moreover, it tells us that the person, who is about to give an ample and accurate account of this metropolis of the world, with a Dissection and Demonstration of the Men and the Things which it contains, (subjects demanding, at least, some length of experience,) is, in fact, a comdarative stranger. No sooner does he land, than he gives as broad, and we had almost said as dogmatical, an account of the society of London, to which, it is evident, he has not been very widely introduced, as if he had lived in that great mart of good living more than half a century.

There are many points, in which the good citizens will be ready to go hand in hand with him: but whether they will feel equally well pleased with his accusations, that they possess vulgar manners, and are in possession of scarcely one human sympathy, is more than we can determine. There are, nevertheless, many remarks in this and the succeeding chapter exceedingly true, amusing, and pointed as for instance,

"Every where you meet with that perfect frankness and civility to which I have adverted, and which, as it is the result of frequent casual intercourse, makes that intercourse pleasing. But if you have come from a little society where external courtesy is the sign of cordiality of heart, you will be sadly out in Babylon. The Babylonian smile, and bow, and welcome, are the genuine smile, and bow, and welcome of the counter. They are levelled, not at you, but at your purse. The man varnishes his speech for the same purpose that he varnishes his sign-board, and arranges his smiles just as he arranges the goods in his shop-window-for the purpose of attracting customers; and he who is so very fair with you in the purchase of what you require, and so polite when you are paying him for it, cares no more for you than the gown or the gallipot upon its shelves, and would look with all the complacency in the world upon you taking the air upon the little platform in front of Newgate."

The fourth chapter contains some very sprightly remarks on the elements of that character, so much talked of by the world, and so much applauded by himself-JOHN BULL, and on the various modifications which have been made in the constitution of that character by the Irish, Welsh, and Scotch, who form so large a part of the London population. In spite of all these associations, however, John Bull, according to this author, is in no degree altered from his original character.

"The imprint upon John is as deeply stamped as upon a Greek medal; and wherever you find him, whether in London or Calcutta, whatever be his rank, and whether he commands or obeys, he never can be mistaken. Every where he is a blunt matter-of-fact sort of being, very honest, but cold, and repulsive withal. He has the solidity of a material substance all over; and you can never fail to observe that wherever he is, or with whoever he associates, John always considers himself the foremost man,-nor will he take an advice or a lesson from any body that previously gives him a hint that he needs it. Wherever he is, too, you can perceive that his own comfort-his own immediate personal comfort-is the grand object of all his exertions and all his wishes."

The fifth chapter treats of the corporation; and the astonishment of the author at the grandeur of the Lord Mayor's personal appearance; the splendour of his coach, harness, and barge; his