the mutual agitation of their tails which, though they did not expand with anger, could not be kept still for suspense, and lastly the manner in which Hurly retreated, like Ajax still keeping his face toward his old antagonist, were worthy to have been represented by that painter who was called the Rafaelle of Cats. The overture I fear was not accepted as generously as it was made; for no sooner had Hurly burlybuss recovered strength than hostilities were recommenced with greater violence than ever; Rumpel, who had not abused his superiority while he possessed it, had acquired mean time a confidence which made him keep the field. Dreadful were the combats which ensued, as their ears, faces and legs bore witness. Rumpel had a wound which went through one of his feet. The result has been so far in his favour that he no longer seeks to avoid his enemy, and we are often compelled to interfere and separate them. Oh it is aweful to hear the "dreadful note of preparation" with which they prelude their encounters!-the long low growl slowly rises and swells till it becomes a high sharp yowl, and then it is snapped short by a sound which seems as if they were spitting fire and venom at each other. I could half persuade myself that the word felonious is derived from the feline temper as displayed at such times. All means of reconciling them and making them understand how goodly a thing it is for cats to dwell together in peace, and what fools they are to quarrel and tear each other, are in vain. The proceedings of the Society for the Abolition of War are not more utterly ineffectual and hopeless. All we can do is to act more impartially than the Gods did between Achilles and Hector, and continue to treat both with equal regard. And thus having brought down these Memoirs of the Cats of Greta Hall to the present day, I commit the precious memorial to your keeping, and remain Most dissipated and light-heeled daughter, Your most diligent and light-hearted father, ROBERT SOUTHEY. Keswick, 18 June, 1824. -- FRAGMENT OF INTERCHAPTER. [The following playful effusion was likewise, as the "Memoirs of Cat's Eden," intended for "THE DOCTOR, &c.," but how it was to have been moulded, so as to obscure the incognito, I do not know. It will tend, if I mistake not, to show the easy versatility, - the true εὐτραπελία, of a great and a good man's mind. "Fortune," says Fluellen, "is turning and inconstant, and variations, and mutabilities," but one who, in the midst of constant and laborious occupations, could revel in such a recreation as this " Chapter on the Statutes" was Fortune's master, and above her wheel. ARS UTINAM MORES ANIMUMQUE EFFINGERE POSSET: PULCHRIOR IN TERRIS NULLA TABELLA FORET. It may be added that there was another very curious collection of Letters intended for "THE DOCTOR, &c.," but they have not come to my hand. They were written in a peculiar dialect, and would have required much mother wit and many vocabularies to have decyphered them. She who suggested them, -a woman "of infinite jest,— of most excellent fancy,"-a good woman, and a kind,—is now gathered to her rest!] or from a dignified consciousness that it was unnecessary to set any mark upon them, the works themselves sufficiently declaring from what hands they came. I undertake this becoming task with the more pleasure because our friend Mrs. Keenan has kindly offered to illustrate the intended account by drawings of both Statues, having, as you may well suppose, been struck with admiration by them. The promise of this co-operation induces me not to confine myself to a mere description, but to relate on what occasion they were made, and faithfully to record the very remarkable circumstances which have occurred in consequence; circumstances I will venture to say, as well attested and as well worthy of preservation as any of those related in the History of the Portuguese Images of Nossa Senhora, in ten volumes quarto, - - a book of real value, and which you know I regard as one of the most curious in my collection. If in the progress of this design I should sometimes appear to wander in digression, you will not impute it to any habitual love of circumlocution; and the speculative notions which I may have occasion to propose, you will receive as mere speculations and judge of them accordingly. Many many years ago I remember to have seen these popular and rustic rhymes in print, God made a great man to plough and to sow, they were composed perhaps to make some little man contented with that office, and certain it is that in all ages and all countries it has been an object of as much consequence to preserve the seed from birds when sown, as to sow it. No doubt Adam himself when he was driven to cultivate the ground felt this, and we who are his lineal descendants, (though I am sorry to say we have not inherited a rood of his estates,) have felt it also, in our small but not unimportant concern, the Garden. Mrs. L., the Lady of that Garden, used to complain grievously of the depredations committed there, especially upon her pease. Fowls and Ducks were condemned either to imprisonment for life, or to the immediate larder for their offences of this kind; but the magpies (my protegées) and the sparrows, and the blackbirds and the thrushes, bade defiance to the coop and the cook. She tried to fright them away by feathers fastened upon a string, but birds were no more to be frightened by feathers than to be caught by chaff. She dressed up two mopsticks; not to be forgotten, because when two youths sent their straw hats upon leaving Keswick to K. and B., the girls consigned the hats to these mopsticks, and named the figures thus attired in due honour of the youths, L. N., and C. K. These mopsticks, however, were well dressed enough to invite thieves from the town, and too well to frighten the birds. Something more effectual was wanted, and Mrs. L. bespoke a man of Joseph Glover. Such is the imperfection of language that, write as carefully and warily as we can, it is impossible to use words which will not frequently admit of a double construction; upon this indeed it is that the Lawyers have founded the science of the Law, which said science they display in extracting any meaning from any words, and generally that meaning that shall be most opposite to the intention for which they were used. When I say that your Aunt L. bespoke a man of Joseph Glover, I do not mean that she commissioned him to engage a labourer: nor that she required him actually to make a man, like Frankenstein, though it must be admitted that such a man as Frankenstein made, would be the best of all scarecrows, provided he were broken in so as to be perfectly manageable. To have made a man indeed would have been more than even Paracelsus would have undertaken to perform; for according to the receipt which that illustrious Bombast ab Hohenheim has delivered to posterity, an homunculus cannot be produced in a hotbed in less than forty weeks and forty days; and this would not have been in time to save the pease; not to mention that one of his homunculi had it been ready could not have served the purpose, for by his account, when it was produced, it was smaller even than Mark Thumb. Such an order would have been more unreason able than any of those which Juno imposed upon Hercules; whereas the task imposed by Mrs. L. was nothing more than Glover thought himself capable of executing, for he understood the direction plainly and simply in its proper sense, as a carpenter ought to understand it. have been called youth than man, the form and stature being juvenile. The limbs and body were slender, though not so as to convey any appearance of feebleness, it was rather that degree of slenderness which in elegant and refined society is deemed essential to grace. The countenance at once An ordinary Carpenter might have hesi- denoted strength and health and hilarity, tated at undertaking it, or bungled in the and the incomparable carpenter had given execution. But Glover is not an ordinary it an expression of threatful and alert deterCarpenter. He says of himself that he should mination, suited to the station for which he have been a capital singer, only the pity is, was designed and the weapon which he bore. that he has no voice. Whether he had ever The shape of the face was rather round than a similar persuasion of his own essential but oval, resembling methinks the broad harvest unproducible talents for sculpture or paint- moon; the eyes were of the deepest black, ing I know not:-but if ever genius and the eyebrows black also; and there was a originality were triumphantly displayed in blackness about the nose and lips, such as the first effort of an untaught artist, it was might be imagined in the face of Hercules, on this occasion. Perhaps I am wrong in while he was in the act of lifting and strancalling him untaught; - for there is a super-gling the yet unsubdued and struggling Annatural or divine teaching; - and it will tæus. On his head was a little hat, low in the appear presently that if there be any truth crown and narrow in the brim. His dress in heathen philosophy, or in that of the was a sleeved jacket without skirts,—our Roman Catholics, (which is very much the ancestors would have called it a gipion; jubon same in many respects,) some such assist- it would be rendered if ever this description ance may be suspected in this case. were translated into Spanish, gibao in PorWith or without such assistance, but cer-tuguese; jupon or gippon in old French. It tainly con amore, and with the aid of his own genius, if of no other, Glover went to work ere long shouts of admiration were heard one evening in the kitchen, so loud and of such long continuance that inquiry was made from the parlour into the cause, and the reply was that Mrs. L.'s man was brought home. Out we went, father, mother and daughters, (yourself among them,-for you cannot have forgotten that memorable hour,) My Lady and the Venerabilis,—and Mrs. L. herself, as the person more immediately concerned. Seldom as it happens that any artist can embody with perfect success the conceptions of another, in this instance the difficult and delicate task had been perfectly accomplished. But I must describe the Man,-calling him by that name at present, the power, aon or intelligence which had incorporated itself with that ligneous resemblance of humanity not having at that time been suspected. was fastened from the neck downward with eight white buttons, two and two, and between them was a broad white stripe, the colour of the gipion being brown: whether the stripe was to represent silver lace, or a white facing like that of the naval uniform, is doubtful and of little consequence. The lower part of his dress represented innominables and hose in one, of the same colour as the gipion. And he carried a fowlingpiece in his hand. Great was the satisfaction which we all expressed at beholding so admirable a man ; great were the applauses which we bestowed upon the workman with one consent; and great was the complacency with which Glover himself regarded the work of his own hands. He thought, he said, this would please us. Please us indeed it did, and so well did it answer that after short trial Mrs. L. thinking that a second image would render the whole garden secure, and moreover that it Yet methinks more properly might he was not good for her Man to be alone, |