To F. D. L.

Love comes and goes with music in his feet,

And tunes young pulses to his roundelays;

Love brings thee this will it persuade thee, Sweet, That he turns proser when he comes and stays?

DRYDEN.*

BENVENUTO CELLINI tells us that when, in his boyhood, he saw a salamander come out of the fire, his grandfather forthwith gave him a sound beating, that he might the better remember so unique a prodigy. Though perhaps in this case the rod had another application than the autobiographer chooses to disclose, and was intended to fix in the pupil's mind a lesson of veracity rather than of science, the testimony to its mnemonic virtue remains. Nay, so universally was it once believed that the senses, and through them the faculties of observation and retention, were quickened by an irritation of the cuticle, that in France it was customary to whip the children annually at the boundaries of the parish, lest the true place of them might ever be lost through neglect of so inexpensive a mordant for the memory. From this practice the older school of critics would seem to

*The Dramatick Works of JOHN DRYDEN, Esq. In six volumes. London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, in the Strand. MDCCXXXV. 18mo.

The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose-Works of JOHN DRYDEN, now first collected. With Notes and Illustrations. An Account of the Life and Writings of the Author, grounded on Original and Authentick Documents; and a Collection of his Letters, the greatest Part of which has never before been published. By EDMUND MALONE, ESQ. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, in the Strand. 4 vols. 8vo.

The Poetical Works of JOHN DRYDEN. (Edited by MITFORD.) London: W. Pickering. 1832. 5 vols. 18mo.