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 atility 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 ickled beef and Irish horse for our crews, they will forage for selves 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

SELECTED FOR THE MUSEUM.

An Inquiry into the present State of the Civil Laws of England. By John Miller, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn. 8vo. pp. 533.

18s.

GREAT and silent revolutions-revolutions in principle-distinguish the time in which we live. Our leading public men have been bred up amid the toils of a protracted war, abounding in difficulties which demanded all their energies, and habituated their minds to gigantic operations. Called upon to resolve, as a quick succession of emergencies would permit, few of them, fortunately for the country, have had time left to imbue themselves with the prejudices of former ages, or to train themselves to a servile admiration of those deformities which encumber the fabric of our constitution. When the excitement of the war subsided, minds thus formed naturally applied themselves to the examination of those principles of political economy, upon which the country had acted for centuries without any change. It was soon found that the intellect and enterprise of the community had outgrown many of those antiquated principles, and that new interests had arisen, which sought a wider sphere of action. Novel doctrines (the beneficial effects of which had been occasionally proved, during the anarchy which had so long vexed Europe,) were seen emerging from the confusion, like morning from the womb of night, and all that remained to be done was to acknowledge their utility, and to adapt them to our institutions.

In twelve years of peace we have seen the true principles of commerce analysed, and brought into operation with so much vigour, that it is to be hoped they will not be overthrown, or again obscured. Impolitic taxation has been abolished or reduced, as far as the necessities of the state would allow. Industry, in almost every possible manner, has been released from trammels, and suffered to glide into its natural channel. By the more enlightened, strenuous exertions have been made to remove religious disabilities, in order that, by allaying that sectarian animosity, which divides one part of the empire from the other, the strength of the whole might be augmented.

At a time when so many liberal objects have been accomplished, and others are fast approaching to their completion, how happens it that the law stands alone in "barbaric pride," as if it were superior to the reforming hand of time? Why is it that law proceedings are still overrun with unintelligible jargon, attended with expense which often amounts to a denial of justice, and involved in machinery which is productive only of uncertainty and delay; whilst all other abuses are yielding by degrees to the influence of enlightened opinion?

When the difficulties and extent of the subject, and the adherence of the profession to precedent, are considered, we do not