At first I was so light I vibrated in waves, and whirled about in a living wheel, as DARWIN describes at length. More quiescent, I had more consistency; and in a more solid shape, he gently poured me out into sunshine and freedom! I was nursed amidst the children of experimental philosophy; I swam with subnatant tadpoles, I frisked with volatile newts: my first companions of any size were frogs; and while I wrestled with slippery eels like an infant Hercules, I grappled the innocent serpents, and triumphed in my cradle !" My uncle was nearly stifled by his excessive politeness, and retaining his gravity, he exclaimed, "You are an homunculus !" "I am!" in a humilitated tone, replied the mortified, but affecting thing;-" the dignity of creation is not mine!" Some of the philosophers differ widely among themselves, whether these homunculi are to be considered with that respect which some do. BLUMENBACH says, "I am at a loss to imagine how another set of philosophers have been induced to dignify these animalculæ of a stagnant animal fluid, to the high rank of the organized germ of successive generations." Again, "I shall add a few reflections, which to the uninformed readers will appear sufficient for calling in question this imaginary dignity of these animaleulæ !" Essay on Generation, p. 9. Dr. DARWIN even suspects whether these embryons are "gentlemen born;" for, says he, "if these animalculæ, as seen by the microscope, be rudiments of homunculi, &c." Again, " I do not assert that these moving particles, visible by the microscope, are homunciones; perhaps they may be no creatures at all! but if they are embryons, &c." Zoonomia, vol. ii. p. 209. Svo edit, My father compared me with a favourite fœtus, and I seemed more lovely; a parent is so partial to his own progeny! Often has he told, that in the glass jar I was born handsome; but soon as he landed me in atmospheric air, I caught cold! the moisture af fected my constitutional delicacy, and monstrous changes took place in my limbs!" of me; "He was long puzzled to decide what to make I seemed like those vegetable monsters, a columbine with a triple nectary, or a primrose with a triple petal;' meanwhile I kept shooting out like the roots of a tulip. He now lamented that he had given me exuberant nutriment, which had diffused into a luxuriance of legs, and no arms! He took fright when he considerated he had actually produced a chimera of the ancients, a sphinx or a centaur ; and he was long anxious whether the rector of the parish would not insist to burn the only child my father cared for !" "What pangs of care, what anxieties of curiosity, you must have cost your father!" observed my uncle. "His affection increased at every new twist in my mishapen body; and every day he had hopes I should assume a new form. I received an excellent private education; but of what aid is philosophy to a man cooked out of veal broth, and poured out of a bottle. I have long sought for a Scotch metaphysi、 cian to still the tempest of my soul! I am in the creation, but I do not belong to it. "Once I cherished a fatal passion for that mascu fine feminine, the late princess DASIKOFF. She sat in the president's chair in the Royal Society at Petersburg; yet I considered her as an imperfect president: for though she had a beard, she wore no breeches. Surely the president of a scientific society has ever retained that privilege-though I could never: the ukase of Catherine reversed the good distinction*. I do not approve of ladies as presidents *The manly portrait of this philosophical Amazon has been lately engraved in the Philos. Mag. She was one of the miracles of a female and despotic reign, a LADY presiding in a Royal Society! She signed letters on all subjects. I have seen several on map-making, new comets, on logarithms, &c. subjects, which must have made her Highness's brain as dry and as hard, as the last remaining biscuit in a voyage round the world. I am surprised the late empress had not a Lord Chamberlain petticoated: a Russian ukase could have converted a lady into a lord; as Ovid relates of Miss Cenis, who had been violated by Neptune, at her own request, was changed into MASTER CENUS! "Give me no more to suffer such a shame, But change the woman for a better name! And while she spoke, A stern, majestic, manly tone she took, &c." Dryden's Ovid The princess DASHKOFF, and many of the INSTITUTION LADIES, ought to undergo the same metamorphosis. I acknowledge my favorite author much resembles HOMER; I frequently catch him nodding. But I can assure the reader, that his obscurest passages are pregnant with divinest conceptions; in the present one, nothing seems expressed, but it is an Iliad in a nut-shell! I could write a very saleable volume, taking the above line for my text. of royal societies; their meetings will be consumed in aukward gallantries. EULER gazed on the princess DASHKOFF's twinkling eye as on those nebula scarce to be seen at an almost incalculable distance: her capacious bosom PALLAS contemplated as a mountain of snow; and Linnæus would have considered her as an hermaphrodite flower!-But you seem cogitating, Mr. Jacob!" "I am thinking," replied my uncle "that a marriage with you would be a philosophical experiment!" "I own," replied the homunculus, with admir In respect to the philosophy of this supernatural production,. (I mean our author's book) our author resembles ARISTOTLE, How few possess the golden key to the concealed treasures so deeply buried in these volumes! The diction of our profound genius is allegorical and mystical, and all which appears "flat and unprofitable," is full of instruction. I am indebted for this hint to Mr. T. Taylor, the Platonist. Our author frequently gives into the dark spirit of the ACROAMATICAL philosophy, where every thing is to be explained in an occult way; so that what is said is not to be understood, but was to be understood, is not said. According to Mr. TAYLOR, ARISTOTLE had his acroamatical and his exoterical doctrines. The latter were on the superficial parts of learning, and any one might hear him lecture, as at the Royal Institution; but the former were kept for his particular friends, abstruse flim flams! Now in respect to the acroamatical doctrines of our author, he is to me, what, PLATO is to Mr. TAYLOR.-I have heard revelations, but my bookseller shakes his head at them: so the world is now informed of all I have to say! BOBTAIL. nurse up able candour, "that if naturalists are allowed to all the homunculi and the homunciones, they imagine they see floating before their microscopes, the world has reason to be alarmed at an invasion of living filaments. SPALLANZANI positively made a dog, and it is rumoured JOHN HUNTER made a lord! The creation is in some danger! I wish I was out of it!" My uncle considered the wish of the homunculus to be reasonable enough, and that if he were to get rid of himself, it would hardly amount to suicide! However, the homunculus was extremely civil: it requested my uncle would assist in concealing its tail; sighed as its hat was fastened to his head, and slowly paced with a sweet and melancholy air! After the departure of this extraordinary personage, my uncle and I stared each other in the face, but never a word was spoken. He sat with his philosophical cap on, cogitating on germs, eggs, fluids, animalculæ, Adam and Eve, and veal broth, during the whole month! LOVER'S OATIIS DECEPTIVE. "Perdition catch my soul but I do love thee, I DO confess, in many a sigh, SHAKSPEARE, My lips have breath'd you many a lie; Would loose them for a lie or two? |