Saint Will o' th' Wispe (of no great bigness),
But alias call'd here Fatuus ignis.

Saint Frip, Saint Trip, Saint Fill, Saint Fillie.

Neither those other saintships will I

Here goe about for to recite,

Their number almost infinite;

Which, one by one, here set down are,

In this most curious calendar."

Common consent seems to have nominated Herrick the Laureat of the Fairies; and it must be acknowledged, that the quaint beauty of his verses well merited for their author the distinction. Herrick evidently took delight in fairy-sounding monosyllabic names. Those which occur in his epigrams furnish no inconsiderable list, as we find in them the following formidable muster-roll.

GOLDSMITH, AND THE AMANUENSIS.

A VOLUMINOUS author was one day expatiating on the advantages of employing an amanuensis, and thus saving time, and the trouble of writing. "How do you manage it?" said Goldsmith.

Why, I walk about the room, and dictate to a clever man, who puts down very correctly all that I tell him, so that I have nothing to do, more than just to look over the manuscript, and then send it to the press.”

Goldsmith was delighted with the information, and desired his friend to send the amanuensis

the next morning. The 'scribe accordingly waited upon the Doctor, with the implements of pens, ink, and paper placed in order before him, ready to catch the oracle. Goldsmith paced the room with great solemnity, several times, for some time; but after racking his brains to no purpose, he put his hand into his pocket, and, presenting the amanuensis with a guinea, said, "It won't do, my friend, I find that my head and hand must go together.”

POETICAL REPLY OF AN EDINBURGH

SPURZHEIMITE.

In April, 1821, a medical gentleman in Edinburgh, aided by a landscape painter, fashioned a turnip into the nearest resemblance to a human skull which their combined skill and ingenuity could produce. They had a cast made from it, and sent it to Mr. George Coombe, requesting his observations on the mental talents and dispositions which it indicated,-adding, that it was a cast from the skull of a person of uncommon character. Mr. C. instantly detected the trick, and returned the cast, with the following parody, pasted on the coronal surface.

"There was a man in Edinburgh,
And he was wondrous wise;

He went into a turnip field,

And cast about his eyes.

And when he cast his eyes about,
He saw the turnips fine;

'How many heads are there,' said he,
"That likeness bear to mine!

So very like they are, indeed,
No sage, I'm sure, could know
This turnip-head that I have on
From those that there do grow.'
He pull❜d a turnip from the ground,
A cast from it was thrown;

He sent it to a Spurzheimite,
And pass'd it for his own.
And so, indeed, it truly was
His own, in every sense;
For cast and joke alike was made
All at his own expense!"

COMPOUND EPITHETS.

THE custom of using hard compounds, furnished Ben Jonson with an opportunity of shewing his satire and his learning together. These are the words of which he speaks sometimes as "un-in-one-breath-utterable." Redi mentions an Epigram against the Sophists, which is preserved in Athenæus, and is made up of compounds. He presents us with a Latin Translation, by Joseph Scaliger, which may be thus rendered into English:

"Lofty-brow-flourishers,

Nose-in-beard-wallowers,

Bag-and-beard-nourishers,

Dish-and-all-swallowers,

Old-cloak-investitors,

Barefoot-look-fashioners,

Night-private-feast-eaters,

Craft-lucubrationers,

Youth-cheaters, word-catchers, vain-glory-osophers, Such are your seekers of virtue Philosophers."

POETICAL FLATTERY.

IN a poem, addressed to Queen Isabel, of Castille, in the Cancioneiro of Resende, there is an exquisite specimen of prophane flattery in this conceit, that had she been living in the days of the Virgin Mary, Christ would have chosen her in preference to be his mother.

Boileau, in his "Ode on Namur," is adulatory enough to turn a feather into a star. Such incense was enough to turn Lewis the Fourteenth's head. These are Boileau's words:"Il a fait un astre de la plume blanche que le roy porte ordinairement à son chapeau, et qui est en effet une espece de comete, fatale à nos ennemis."

Dr. Donne paid the Countess of Bedford the most violent homage in his poems. (p. 82.) "Leaving that busie praise, and all appeale

To higher courts, senses decree is true;
The mine, the magazine, the common-weale,

The story of beauty, in Twickham * is, and you,
Who hath seen one, would both, as who had bin
In Paradise would seek the cherubim."

The Countess had great taste in gardening.