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The next show-up is the Dean "and Chapter of Westminster, for the fees they exact on opening to public view the great national temple of our "illustrious dead:"

Oh, very reverend dean and chapter,
Exhibitors of giant men,

Hail, to each surplice-back'd adapter
Of England's dead, in her stone den!
Ye teach us properly to prize

Two-shilling Grays, and Gays, and Handels,

And, to throw light upon our eyes,

Deal in Wax Queens like old wax candles.

Oh, as I see you walk along

In ample sleeves and ample back, A pursy and well-order'd throng, Thoroughly fed, thoroughly black! In vain I strive me to be dumb,

You keep each bard like fatted kid, Grind bones for bread like Fee faw fum! And drink from sculls as Byron did?

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Oh, licens'd cannibals, ye eat

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Your dinners from your own dead race, Think Gray, preserv'd,-a" funeral meat," And Dryden, devil'd,—after grace, A relish ;-and you take your meal From rare Ben Jonson underdone, Or, whet your holy knives on Steele, To cut away at Addison!

Oh say, of all this famous age,

Whose learned bones your hopes expect, Oh, have ye number'd Rydal's sage,

Or Moore among your ghosts elect?
Lord Byron was not doom'd to make
You richer by his final sleep-
Why don't ye warn the great to take
Their ashes to no other heap!

Southey's reversion have ye got

With Coleridge, for his body, made A bargain?-has sir Walter Scott,

Like Peter Schlemihl, sold his shade? Has Rogers haggled hard, or sold

His features for your marble shows, Or Campbell barter'd, ere he's cold,

All interest in his "bone repose?"

Rare is your show, ye righteous men!
Priestly Politos,-rare, I ween;
But should ye not outside the Den
Paint up what in it may be seen?
A long green Shakspeare, with a deer
Grasp'd in the many folds it died in,—
A Butler stuff'd from ear to ear,
Wet White Bears weeping o'er a Dryden.

Paint Garrick up like Mr. Paap,

A Giant of some inches high; Paint Handel up, that organ chap,

With you, as grinders, in his eye;
Depict some plaintive antique thing,

And say th' original may be seen;-
Blind Milton with a dog and string
May be the Beggar o' Bethnal Green!

Put up in Poets' Corner, near

The little door, a platform small;
Get there a monkey-never fear,

You'll catch the gapers, one and all!
Stand each of ye a Body Guard,
A Trumpet under either fin,
And yell away in Palace Yard

"All dead! All dead! Walk in! Walk

ין in

And still, to catch the Clowns the more,
With samples of your shows in Wax,
Set some old Harry near the door

To answer queries with his axe.-
Put up some general begging-trunk-
Since the last broke by some mishap,
You've all a bit of General Monk,

From the respect you bore his Cap!

The demanding of fees on admission to our public places is a national opprobrium, which it is high time we got rid of in some manner; but we should be sorry to join in the clamour against the Rev. Dean and his Colleagues; since they merely exercise an unquestionable privilege that they inherit from their predecessors in office, and which, in some measure, they are bound to maintain, and transmit unimpaired to their successors. The fault seems to be in the Legislature not granting some compensation in lieu of the privileges of those reverend gentlemen. That they will voluntarily surrender them is more than can be expect ed: especially when they have so many illustrious examples round them-of clergymen tenaciously clinging to their tithes, of statesmen to their sinecures, lawyers to their fees, and, in short, hardly any class in society making a gratuitous sacrifice on the altar of national honour and utility, without equivalent.

The last is a spirited and facetious "Öde to Secretary Bodkin," whose comic name has naturally made him obnoxious to the risible humours of our Satirist. From this we shall make no extract-having already selected abundant specimens of the fascinations of this pleasant little volume; which we dismiss with our sincere thanks to the writer for the entertainment it has yielded us. It forms an agreeable variety among the graver tomes constantly issuing on political economy, railways, and mining associations. It has only one striking blemish; and that is in the puns, which, among some of the best, contains some of the worst ever made.

A mask of sponge has been recommended as a preservative against the accidents arising from foul air in wells, &c. and the destructive effects of the noxious particles inhaled by workmen in manufactories.

A very important discovery for the French nation has lately been made near Paris, in a vein of excellent coal, with a large quantity of iron stone in its immediate vicinity.

The Quarterly Review is no longer under the superintendence of Mr. Gifford. The new editor is Mr. John Coleridge the barrister.

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THE oratorial performances of the past week, considering the allowance we have to make for a too long cherished predilection for heterogeneous diversity, consisted of as well-chosen pieces as we could reasonably expect. Generally speaking, an oratorio, properly so called, is out of view, with the modern conductors: to listen to our theatrical Lenten Music, is to lend our ears to strains, the subjects of which are as discordant, as unconnected with each other, as brevity can be with solemnity, or secular sentiments with sacred. But even in the province of impropriety, there is some scope for the exercise of discretion -a discretion that, in the concerto spirituale on which we shall first remark, was not wholly neglected.

At DRURY-LANE, the selection of Wednesday the 2d instant commenced with a repetition of WEBER'S Kempf und Seig, (Camp and Siege,) the score of which has been graciously lent to this house, for the liberal purpose of communicating its beauties to the British public; and the piece was again very spiritedly executed, and as warmly applauded as in the previous week. The overture to the opera of Guryanthe, composed by the same master,

7 BELLAMY, 8 MRS. BEDFORD, 9 MISS LOVE.

succeeded the Kempf und Seig. It is written with all his native fire, exhibits much of his habitual eccentricity, and, with the pleasure its occasional brilliancy afforded, mixed sensations of surprise, excited by the uncommon transitions of its melodial ideas, and the strange and unexpected evolutions of its harmony. The chief novelty of the evening, however, consisted of selections from the opera of Preciosa, in which the same composer has evinced, not only a just conception of the true style of dramatic music, but the power of producing such music: and when brought before the public in its own operatic and natural form, (in the preparation for which the managers of Covent-garden are now actively engaged,) it will, we doubt not, prove a high treat to the lovers of the genuine musical drama. All the airs were applauded, and some of them encored; but of the selected beauties of the piece, the most prominent were the chorus, "Now, all that love daylight are sleeping," and another, accompanied with eight horns, the general management of which was signally effective. To these pieces were added selections from HANDEL's Dettingen Te Deum, the lofty no

bleness of which was followed and relieved by a variety of more or less interesting melodies, among which were "Total eclipse," from the oratorio of Sampson, most impressively given by BRAHAM, and "Bonnie Lassie," in which we found him as electrical as ever. MADAME CARADORI, MISS LOVE, MR. HORN, MASTER EDMONDS, and most of the principal sing ers, acquitted themselves with considerable taste and judgment.

At COVENT GARDEN, on the following Friday, the most sublime offspring of HANDEL'S mighty genius, the Messiah, was performed; that production, the inspired magnificence of which so ill accorded with the false and puerile taste of the fine gentlemen of 1741, as to be very coldly received, and to reduce the great composer to the necessity of quitting England-of allowing Irish judgment the honour of discovering its unparalleled merits! It was, on the whole, very judiciously executed, and, in many parts, attended to with ravished ears.' Our favourite, BRAHAM, in "Comfort ye, my people," was admirably pathetic, and gave the plain bold air of "Thou shalt break them," with a vigour and firmness of intonation felt and applauded by the whole audience, BELLAMY delivered "Why do the nations," and "The trumpet shall sound," in a style surpassing his usual manner, both in spirit and in judgment. With MISS LOVE'S "O thou that tellest good tidings," we were much pleased; and MISS M. TREE and MISS HAMMERSLEY, in "He shall feed his flock," were truly excellent. MADAME CARADORI gave the sweetly simple air " Thou didst not leave," with the purest and most unaffected taste; and in the fine melody of MOZART's "Laudate Dominum," introduced between the first and second acts, convinced us of her just conception of the composer's sentiment and meaning. On account of Miss PATON's indisposition, MISS GRADDON, at a very short notice, undertook the per formance of the songs that had been allotted to that lady, and acquitted herself with an address that, throughout, was applausively noticed.

MR. SAMUEL WESLEY'S concerto, founded on a fugue of SEBASTIAN BACH, in D major, and originally prepared for the Naval Pillar concert, projected by DR. BUSBY, and performed at the King's theatre, in 1800, was a truly fine composition, and executed in the most masterly manner. The choruses were performed with energy and precision; and "For unto us a child is born," and "Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth," were enthusiastically encored. The house was most respectably and crowdedly filled.

A GRIEVANCE.

(To the Editor of the Circulator.) SIR,-I beg leave, through the medium of your popular paper, to give circulation to my case, which may be that of others, to state to you my grievance, and to hope that my example will deter other honest citizens from allowing their children and families to get so Frenchified as to render themselves ridiculous, and to make their homes uncomfortable. I flatter myself that I am a plain, honest man; the former epithet none of my neighbours will dispute with me, the latter must speak for itself: my name is Place very common-place, I assure you-but my conceited wife and daughter want to make as queer a fish of me as if I were a plaice coming from the fishmonger's shop to be served up with some high sauce. Indeed, in one point of view, I am like a fish out of water for since Madam, my spouse, has been over to the French coast, with Mademoiselle, (for she will no longer an swer to Miss,) I have not only not a will of my own, but not a place that I can call my own; my counting-house is crammed with foreign packages,my diningroom is called a saloon, my lumber-room is turned into a boudoir, and my old family name changed into nonsense. Madam and Miss have taken to studying heraldry, and fain would persuade me that I am of French extraction, and that my surname (or rather my nickname) is De la Place, and that I belong to some of those highwaymen, and invading, pillaging chaps who came over with that son of a gun, William the conqueror, who was called by his own nation William the bastard :now pray what have I to do with him? Nevertheless they have got a pedigree made out, and a copperplate for their visiting cards, and it is Madame de la Place in every place they go to; save me, if this don't find me a place in the bankrupt list at last; but I can't get in a word edgeways for French parley and French foolery. I am smoked out of my room by Ned Place, my son, and stunned in my parlour by Mademoiselle's piano-forte, on which she will play nothing but her foreign airs-indeed it would be well if she only played these airs off at home,— and then at night she must have her young friends practising waltzes, and a French dancing-master with his kit-hang the whole kit of them, and I can't get "Rule Britannia," or any decent tune, to amuse me and to keep me from sleeping after dinner, but off Miss must go to the French strollers of Tottenham-court-road theatre, and it will be well if all ends well. My Madame is dressed like an opera-dancer, and

GEOLOGY.

she vows that if ever we have another son he shall be named Childeric, there's a name for you; however, I hope we shall not increase and multiply in this way. Childeric de la Place! indeed, a pretty name, instead of old Bob Place, and Roger Place, my industrious father. Would you believe it? Madame calls me Robert-mon ami, in honour of the Norman robbers of the conquest; and all this comes from passing three weeks at Boulogne, in France: I wish they had never left the Bull-and-Mouth, where I had to pay for their places. Master Ned, too, forsooth, has become a proper Neddy, with papers in his hair like a Miss Molly, and his snuff box pulled out at every word, or his hat on one ear as if he was drunk, and occasionally a straw full of tobacco in his mouth, he looks exactly like the sign of the monkey that has seen the world, and I see no sign of his getting better. The liberty of the press is a noble thing, and I trust that this public exposure may shame my incurables, and lower their French fever; in the hope, therefore, that Madame Place may keep her proper place-and that Miss de la Place may change her name for some honest English one, like plain fish or flesh -that my Neddy may cease to be thus over head and ears in love with French beauties and French fashions, and, like his old father, be once more all for liberty and a straight head of hair.

Geology.

SURFACE OF THE EARTH.

How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns. Milton.

IN our last geological article we illustrated the economy of primitive rocks, inasmuch as their importance entitles them to the first claim on our attention in considering the actual structure of the earth. We shall now proceed to the second division of our subject, viz. Intermediate, or as Werner has denominated them, Transition Rocks, which generally, in this country, occupy a higher level than the secondary, but a lower one than the primitive formations. Most of these rocks are, in some degree, crystalline, being, according to the inferences of geologists, formed from a state of solution during the transition of the world from a chaotic to a habitable state. Hence, being the lowest in which fossil remains of animals or vegetables are found, they become the indexes to the natural history of the first inhabitants of the globe, and by this means we arrive at the important fact, that zoophites and shell

171

fish, the lowest link in the scale of animal creation, were the first that received the gift of life. In the secondary, or rocks above these, we meet with the remains of animals of a more complex organization, with the faculties of sight and locomotion, Here the student of nature may contemplate the secret but simple train of being with which our Creator first stocked the earth, and here he may view the parent relics of all animated nature, and fathom the very springs of life :

The antique world, in his first flowing youth,
Found no defect in his Creator's grace;
But with glad thanks and unreproved truth,
The gifts of sovereigne bounty did embrace.
Spenser.

This may be considered as the most important feature in the history of transition rocks. Although not rich in gems, they abound in various veins of ores; as for instance, the mining districts of the Leadhills and Wanloch-head near Edinburgh, those immense deposits of galena, or the black ore of lead.

The rich lead and

silver mines in Hartz, in Germany, and many of those in Mexico, which are now rousing the avarice of mankind, are in similar rocks. They likewise contain extensive beds of variegated limestone, and fine granites and porphyries, and occasionally coals are found in them, similar to those in primitive rocks.

The principal of Transitive Rocks are slate, flinty-slate, greywacke, which is a coarse kind of slate, sub-crystalline limestone, or common marble, which, being formed of various fragments, is termed brecciated, as the Egyptian breccia, which contains large pebbles of jasper, granite, and porphyry. Few persons visit Lewes, in Sussex, without noticing the fossil marble with which it is paved, which consists of shells and fragments, brecciated, or When these several united by cement. bodies are rounded, they are called pudding-stone. The celebrated pudding-stone, found only in Hertfordshire, and of which there are some very fine specimens near Hemel Hempstead, is, however, supposed to be an original rock, on account of the coloured circlets being always entire, and parallel with the surface. Trap, sienite, porphyry, gneiss, and serpentine and quartz, are also among the transitive rocks, and they for the most part resemble those of the primitive class.

Our next division consists of Secondary, Stratified Rocks, which rest immediately on the transition class. These are likewise distinguished by their abundance of fossil organic remains, principally in limestone. The older formations contain oviparous quadrupeds or lizards, and in the newer are found remains of true quadru

peds, as of opossums. Secondary rocks are highly interesting to the mineralogist: they also contain the greatest coal-mines in all countries; the richest lead-mines in England; the great iron-mines in England and Scotland; the salt of Cheshire, Cracow, and other countries; and vast quarries of sandstone and limestone. Of these, the Rock-salt is not the least worthy of notice, and many persons on seeing a piece of this substance, have failed to identify it with the salt used for culinary purposes. The preparation of salt by evaporation is highly curious. According to our indefatigable chemist, Henry, the insoluble portion of sea-salt is a mixture of carbonate of lime, with carbonate of magnesia, and a fine silicious sand; and in the salt prepared from Cheshire brine, it is almost entirely carbonate of lime. Some estimates of the general proportion of this impurity, may be formed from the fact, that government in levying the duties, allows 65lbs. to the bushel of rocksalt instead of 56lbs., the usual weight of a bushel of salt. That kind of salt which is hardest, most compact, and perfect in its crystals, is best adapted for packing fish, but the smaller-grained varieties answer equally well for pickling or striking meat.‡ Mr. Henry's experiments show that in compactness of texture, the largergrained British salt is equal to the foreign bay salt, and that their antiseptic or preservative qualities are the same.

Varieties.

Ar a meeting of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, a notice was read by professor Cumming, on the subject of the conversion of cast-iron into plumbago, by the action of sea water: a specimen of plumbago formed in this manner was furnished by Mr. Alderson, of Pembrokecollege, which formed part of the iron groove of a patent log belonging to the ship Zoroaster, of Hull. A very interesting paper was read by Mr. Airy, of Trinity-college, on a mal-conformation of the eye, the refraction in a plane nearly vertical, being greater than in the others:

What is generally termed the Coal Formation consists of an alternation of grey and white sandstone, bituminous shale, and slate-clay, clay

ironstone, limestone, and coal. The whole form together a group or set of rocks, which rests on the mountain limestone.

Pegwell Bay, on the Kentish coast, is an interesting representation of this process, and a

morning may be advantageously and amusingly

passed in their inspection.

+ Philos. Transactions, 1810.

the distortion of the images produced by this cause, the eye being naturally shortsighted, was corrected by a lens, with one surface concave and spherical, and the other concave and cylindrical; its axis, being at right angles to the plane of greatest refraction.

Shoes made of Indian-rubber have been imported into Philadelphia from South America, and are likely to come into general use there.

The late lord Courtney, who was of one of the oldest families in Great Britain, having married to a Miss Clack, who was much inferior in point of birth, a conversation took place (at which the late bishop of Exeter was present) on the disparity of the connection. "What is your objection?" said the bishop to a lady, who took the principal part in the conversation."Want of family, my lord." "Want of family!" echoed the bishop, "why I'll prove her of better family than his lordship's. He, perhaps, may trace his ancestors as far back as the conquest, but the family of Clacks' are as old as Eve!"

SUBSIDENCE OF THE BALTIC.-It was suspected that the waters of the Baltic were gradually sinking, but a memoir, published in the Swedish Transactions for 1823, has put the change beyond a doubt. Mr. Buncrona has examined the Swedish coast with great care from lat. 56 to 62, and Mr. Halstrom has examined that of the gulf of Bothnia. At the lat. of 55, where the Baltic unites with the German ocean through the Cattegat, no change seems to be perceptible; but from lat. 56 to 63, the observations show a mean fall of 1 foot 6 inches in 40 years, or 4-tenths of an inch annually, or 3 feet 10 inches in a century. In the gulf of Bothnia the results are more uniform, and indicate a mean fall of 4 feet inches in a century, or rather more than an inch annually. The Baltic is very shallow at present; and if its waters continue to sink as they have done, Revel, Abu, Narva, and a hundred other ports, will by and by become inland towns: and the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, and ultimately the Baltic, will be changed into dry land.

HEIGHTS OF THE HIGHEST EDIFICES.
Tower of Babel....
Pyramid of Gezeh, in Egypt.
St. Peter's, at Rome...
Steeple of the Cathedral at Co-
logne

Tower at Strasburg

Steeple of the Cathedral at Antwerp

Cupola of the Cathedral at Flo

rence...

feet.

680

543

518

501

474

476

384

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