cellula communis sensus, cellula estimativa seu cogitativa et rationalis, cellula memorativa, &c. The fable is, therefore, as obsolete as it is absurd; and presents but the Organic Remains' of a craniology exploded more than three centuries ago. There is a good deal of ingenuity in Mr. Hamilton's pamphlet, which ought to be perused attentively by all admirers of the science. We have been informed, that Captain Ross is so inveterate a disciple of Spurzheim, that he never hires a servant whose sconce has not previously been subjected to his examination. There are some prejudiced people in the world, who may consider, that this is carrying the joke a little too far.

A Rotatory steam engine, so long considered a desideratum, has, we find been invented in Paris by a Monsieur Picqueur.

Mr. Pine, the well known author of "Wine and Walnuts," has, we see, lately commenced another series of papers in the Literary Gazette, entitled Sayings and Doings of artists and arts."

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A very spirited mezzotinto engraving has just been completed by Turner, of the "Earl of Leicester's visit to Amy Robsart, at Cummor Place," by Fradelle. The original picture, which has been much and deservedly admired, is the property of Lord Egremont.

A new edition, (being the fourteenth, we believe), of that admirable little volume, "Keeper's Travels in search of his master," has, we see, just issued from the press. It is incomparably the best work of combined amusement and instruction for young people, with which we are acquainted. It is attributed to the pen of Mr. Kendall, the author of a very able series of letters on Ireland, and the Roman Catholic Question, which we take great blame to ourselves for not having introduced to our readers long ago. It is gratifying to see men capable of such efforts, condescending to write books for the instruction and edification of the rising generation.

Some years ago, a poem was published by Messrs. Longman, under the title of "Guiseppino," which was attributed in the Literary Gazette, to the pen of Lord Byron. The same author has lately printed a volume, entitled the "Crazed Maid of Venice, and other Poems," which is altogether a very so so affair. The poetaster should be told that adding final letters to the orthography of modern words, does not give the character of antiquity to the language. This, however, is an absurdity, into which abler writers have fallen, witness, the Rev. Mr. Croly's imitation of old English poetry.

We are sorry to have to announce the death of Mrs. Jane Watts, formerly Mrs. Waldie, one of the most accomplished authoress' of this age of female talent. Her two principal works are, "Rome in the Nineteenth century," and "Continental Adventures;" the latter of which has only been published a few weeks. We may mention, as an addititional illustration of the half-andhalf system exposed in our remarks, entitled "Booksellers and Authors," that although one large edition, and part of a second of "Rome in the Nineteenth Century," (a work in three volumes,) have been disposed of, the authoress has received little more than fifty pounds, for her half share of its profits, whilst her next volume, (the copyright of which she had the good sense to dispose of previous to its publication), has realized more than six times that amount. Mrs. Jane Watts, who was the daughter of George Waldie, Esq., of Henderside, married, about three years ago, Captain Watts of the Royal Navy.

Thorwalsden, the celebrated Danish sculptor, has been appointed president of the Academy of St. Luke at Rome. He is expected at Warsaw to fuse the metals, and erect the monuments he has undertaken, to Copernicus, and Joseph Poniatowsky.

BOOK-BORROWERS.

They steal, and steal-ye Gods, how they do steal!

THERE is not a more pestilent class of nuisances on the wide surface of the globe than Book-Borrowers; various are the tribes, or orders, into which these destructive animals are divided and subdivided; but however they may differ in their minor characteristics, they are all beasts of prey whose appetites are insatiable as the grave. Your demure Book-Borrower, who usually dresses in black, and wears a shovel hat, has the eye of a lynx for all scarce volumes of Elizabethan poetry, plays, facetiæ, et cet.; in short, for copies of all descriptions of rare books of which he has ever caught a glimpse, through the glass-doors of your library bookcase; and of these he "ventures," from time to time, "to request the loan," with the calmest and most imperturbable assurance; always prefacing his application with, "I would not trespass upon your kindness, could I borrow the work at any cost, from a circulating library." To make bad worse, and the annoyance inevitable, this pest is commonly some insufferable bore, whom you cannot kick down stairs because he happens to have wriggled himself into the good graces of one or two influential persons, whose favourable opinion you are particularly anxious to obtain. Accordingly, having selected some twenty or thirty invaluable tomes from your shelves, he informs you, with the most provoking nonchalance, that he will save you the trouble of sending them to his house, (thus depriving you of the opportunity of here and there substituting an inferior copy, or of omitting as if accidentally some unique gem), and begins sliding them in pairs, or leashes, into his two capacious pockets; which, for breadth and profundity, rival those in which Dr. Kitchener is wont to warehouse his fish sauces. Having thus inhumed the very flower of your veteran literary forces, he replies to your ghastly and sardonic grin of ill-dissembled complacency, by a solemn inclination of his head, and buttoning up his surtout to the chin, stalks out of the room with the stealthy tread of a burglar making his retreat from the denuded scene of his depredations. The feelings of a doting mother whose children are kidnapped before her face, are blissful, when compared with the keen agonies with which the lover of books is harrowed, for the first ten minutes after the departure of such a cannibal. He regards the vacant niches where the Caxtons and Wynkins are not, with the settled and ominous calmness of despair.

I had just had time to recover my self-possession, after a visit, a few days ago, from one of these literary marauders, and was growing resigned, if not to the total loss, at least to the cruel mutilation of the beloved and venerated companions of my solitude, when

The wooden guardian of my privacy

Quick on its axle turned,

and my servant entered my study, and presented me with a perfumed epistle, written on salmon-coloured paper richly embossed, and bearing

T

a figure of Cupid riding on a lion upon its seal, from Lady Dorothea Dilletanti; who, in consequence of her barbarous treatment of sundry unprotected books in boards in my library, has been nicknamed by a wag of a boy of my mine, Doll Tearsheet. The contents of this billet

were as follow:

"I trust in heaven that Mrs. Bookworm and the dear children reached Caxton Lodge last evening without suffering any inconvenience from the extreme humidity of the air. I have not been able to close my eyes the whole night, so apprehensive have I been that my darling and delicate little Anna Maria would take cold. Pray relieve my anxiety by a line. My affectionate love to Mrs. Bookworm and your sweet children.

"Ever, my dear Mr. B.,

"Your very sincerely attached friend, DOROTHEA DILLETANTI."

Well, well, soliloquized I, here, at least, is a communication from one of the most destructive of her species, without any fresh assault upon my good-nature in the shape of a request for more books. The gentle reader will learn in due time how very premature was this self-gratulation. Lady Dorothea had, of late, imbibed a sudden and somewhat extraordinary penchant for literature, and the writings of modern authors more especially, from the circumstance of her having taken into her service, as cook, a brawny wench who once lived for a few months as scullion in the kitchen of the late Lord Byron. The girl teemed, of course, with interesting reminiscences of her deceased master; and having heard it more than once shrewdly hinted that he arose in the morning, shaved, dressed, ate, drank, walked out occasionally, blew his nose, breakfasted, dined, and supped, and usually retired to bed when he was weary of sitting up,—she profited by an early opportunity to communicate these very interesting suspicions to Lady Dorothea's maid; from whom they were not long in travelling, with many interesting embellishments, to her mistress; who once more retailed them with a little (just the least in the world) additional garnish to her literary acquaintance; and, among others, to an antiquated blue-stocking spinster, who was in the habit of giving what she called a conversazione once a month to a few select " persons of wit and honour about town." The old gentlewoman's eyes glistened with delight as Lady Dorothea recounted the strikingly-curious information which had been communicated to her by the ex-scullion of the noble author of Childe Harold.

"But my dearest Lady D. you must and shall write a book upon the subject," ejaculated Miss Puffemoff. "A book! oh, impossible," rejoined Lady Dorothea, "I never set eyes on Lord Byron in my life."

"What does that signify, love; your servant has, you know; and her facts conveyed in your own brilliant and flowing style of narrative, will make two very charming volumes of new conversations to match the smallest and prettiest edition of Captain Medwin's Journal."

"That, my dear Miss Puffemoff, would be utterly impracticable, if we proposed to adhere to matters of fact, since it happens, rather

unfortunately, that Lord Byron never spoke to my cook but once in his life, and that was when he desired her, in terms which it would be indecorous to repeat, to get out of his way."

"Well, but my sweet Lady D., you can have no objection to call the book Reminiscences of a confidential Female Servant of the late Lord Byron.' The title will be unexceptionable in all respects; for you know, my lovely friend, that cooks and their assistants can be considered in no other light than as confidential servants; since our very existence is in their hands; they can poison us half a dozen times a day if they feel disposed so to do. In what class of persons, therefore, can we repose more implicit confidence? Then, as to the publication of the book, it may, if you please, make its appearance under the most favourable auspices; for my friend, Mr. Colburn, to whom (I may whisper it in confidence) I have recommended several admirable works of a similar character, will, I can pledge myself, undertake its publication con amore; and will bestow upon you 'popularity,' literary distinction,' and heaven knows what beside, before a copy of your book has seen the light. His note of preparation' invests an author with comparative immortality."

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But, my indefatigable friend, if Sally were really put to the question,' after the manner of the inquisitorial torture, it would be impossible to extract from her enough of the raw material of anecdote to enable me to make even one volume, to say nothing of two."

"To be sure not! What then? Are there not newspapers and magazines, and Byron Memoirs without end, which may be turned to excellent account? Again, to save trouble, for it is better to incur one weighty obligation than a dozen small ones, you can borrow all you want in this way of our urbane and estimable friend Mr. Bookworm. He has to my certain knowledge a closet entirely filled with Byroniana. Here, my dear, is some note paper and a crow-quill, pray write to him immediately. He will receive your application as a compliment, and will be delighted to assist in the advancement of literature by the loan of a few of his books."

Upon this hint, as I was subsequently informed, did Lady Dorothea sit down to indite the note with which I have already favoured my readers, and which, by dint of long-tailed letters and liberality of margin, occupied the three first pages of the sheet most effectually. Under the last line of the epistle, however, was written the word volti; and on obeying the injunction thus classically conveyed, I found the following postscript, traced in small but legible characters, within one of the folded compartments of the paper.

"P. S. As I am engaged in superintending the arrangement of a volume of Reminiscences of poor dear Lord Byron, which will tend to throw great light upon his domestic history, I know I may ask of you the favour of the loan of all the works you possess, that contain memoirs, anecdotes, memoranda, or in short allusions of any kind to the noble but wayward Childe. To save you unnecessary trouble, I shall drive over to Caxton Lodge some time this morning, look the books out myself, and take them home with me in the carriage. I need scarcely add that I shall be proud to acknowledge my obligations to your valuable and extensive library in my preface. D. D."

Her ladyship was certainly as good as her word; for I had scarcely laid down her odoriferous missive, ere she tapped at my study door, and after exchanging with me the compliments of the morning, and one or two common place remarks about the weather, commenced a conscription among my books, almost as warm as that levied by Buonaparte ere he set out on his ill-timed expedition to Russia. In a couple of short months they were, it is true, all returned to me, with lots of compliments and thanks, but in a state of the most afflicting dilapidation, with here and there a page, (from which her ladyship's printer had copied some paragraph_suited to the purposes of her original work), as black as the river Styx. Some of the books were torn and creased in all directions, and embellished with copious marginal memoranda; others, were broken-backed, lobsided, or altogether divested both of back and sides; and not a few were so exceedingly rich in the attributes of her ladyship's literary cook, that they might literally have been fried in their own grease. Of course I will "favour" her ladyship with the loan of no more of my books if I can possibly avoid it; but alas, she is godmother to my eldest daughter, and as there is little chance of her entering again into the marriage state, (although she is a rich widow, "without any incumbrance"), my wife considers that it would be the height of folly and short-sightedness, to prejudice her child's expectations for the value of a few "trumpery books." I must therefore, for the sake of domestic peace, as well as domestic policy, gulph down my vexation, and strive to emulate the patience of the great endurer of Holy Writ; although I am persuaded that Job himself was never exposed to the description of torment of which I have so frequently been the victim.

But the gentleman in black, apostrophizes the reader, would of course take especial care of volumes he must have known so well how to appreciate. He returned the books he borrowed no doubt! Yes, he did, it must be admitted; after having exchanged three or four of my raræ aves, tall and graceful as poplars, for little dumpty copies of the same editions, cut down almost to the quick; abstracted several curious portraits, not included in his own impressions of the same works; and perfected his deficient letter-press with leaves, and in one instance with an entire chapter, from my martyred volumes. On communicating my chagrin to my wife, for I dared not vent it upon the person who had the best title to listen to it, she greatly increased my exacerbation, by insisting that I must have purchased them in that condition; for that Dr. Prigabit (who had not been backward in complimenting her upon her own youthful appearance, and the beauty and intelligence of her children) was by far too scrupulous a gentleman to levy such unceremonious contributions on his friends' libraries. Beside, was he not a man of family, and the lineal descendant of Lord Borrowdeal? and, who with noble blood in his veins, would manifest so obvious a disregard of the laws which govern decent society, as I had desired to impute to the worthy Doctor! She positively blushed for my injustice and ingratitude! Neither her blushes nor her arguments were, however, of any avail, to persuade me that I was in error. There lay the books, tangible paper and print evidence of the justice of my complaint. The grief of Niobe, when she saw her children gradually harden into stone, could