Much of our precious life-blood up is drunk, He then speaks of the observations he has made, By being fifteen years together tide (As by the leg) near London to reside, on the abominations of the times, the iniquitous delays of law, the denial of public debts, and the struggle for place and power, Nay, from ambition vermin are not free, The nasty body-lice would head-lice be, The servant rides, the master goes on foot, &c. We likewise (as of late that Parliament In virtues, by prophane or sacred story, And towards him ourselves oft so behaved As if by him alone we could be saved; Which peradventure did provoke God's wrath To do to him and us as done he hath, &c. Let us therefore weigh God's dealing with him, and not be deterred from the I know he was upon that day advis'd To somewhat which he should not have despised, And who knows what beside that was neglected? And lay the sceptre level with the spade? &c. Perhaps the death of the Protector was occasioned by the sins of the nation. So peradventure that storm, which did roar So unmercifully four days before He took hence our Protector, was intended To signifie that he is much offended With all this land, &c. He then writes his epitaph, to prevent those of the flatterer or the malevolent. THE EPITAPH. Here dead he lies, who living here Was Britain's greatest hope and fear, His predecessors' sins and our Made way for him to sovereign power, And justice, which had else been treason. So great; none lost so great a one. God's glory and the public peace. Then, after further discoursing of the times, and of the successor of the late Protector, he goes on to say: Thus, in plain language and in homely rhimes, You have a brief character of these times, Made on a slight occasion; to awake The drowzie, that more heedful it may make Men heedless; and him to be somewhat wiser To make a reconciling sacrifice. Unless we Sodom-like stand unreformed Untill with fire and brimstone we are stormed; These timely warnings, that they shall by none Some benefit, I have not lost my pain. The poet then ends with an allusion to Waller's poem, on which his own lines were written. Mine be the shame, if I hereby to him Intend disgrace, whose verses are my theam; I did but thus his mercury calcine For physick let him do as much by mine, He will return me thanks that I have used To no worse purpose that which he hath mused; The needful premonition did beget. Such is an abstract of a poem which, with one exception, is the scarcest of all Withers's pieces, and which is with difficulty to be procured. It derived its title of "Salt upon Salt " as being written on Waller's verses on the death of the Lord Protector, which Withers gives in the first page of his volume, and on which his poem may be considered as a moral commentary, offering to consideration the probable near approach of greater storms and more sad consequences." Though it is wanting in poetical merit, yet it derives an interest from the personal and political allusions. Of Waller's Poem Goldsmith remarks, that with respect to the times in which it was written, it was almost a prodigy of harmony; but a modern reader will chiefly be struck with the strength of the thinking, and the turn of the compliments bestowed on the Usurper." B-h-ll. J. M. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Scenes and Tales of Country Life. By but, as this cannot be, we can only Edward Jesse, Esq. WE think that the present volume is at once the most interesting and instructive of Mr. Jesse's publications, and in the variety of its information, and the justness of the reasoning, bears the marks of a matured knowledge of the subject, and a long cultivation of the delightful science of which he here imparts to us the latest acquisitions he has made. All sciences which have nature for their object, are to be improved, first by the accurate observation of facts, and, secondly, by proper deductions from them. In either branch of his work, Mr. Jesse, we think, is worthy of our confidence and praise; and if we ever think him erroneous in the conclusions which he forms, it is only in those cases where the warmth of his benevolence and the natural gentleness of his disposition perhaps induce him to bear a little too strongly on some favourite opinions, and to pronounce a little too decidedly on subjects that appear to us not to be altogether free from obscurity; but on the whole we must add, that any points in which we differ from him are trivial indeed compared with the large mass of information with which our present stock of knowledge has been enriched by him; nor can, nor ought we to overlook that tone of feeling which pervades the entire work, a feeling which turns knowledge into piety, which makes every acquistion of the mind a blessing to the heart, and which beholds in every object of nature an impress of that original fiat of the Almighty voice, that declared at the creation that everything which proceeded from his hands was "very good." Were we to speak of our own individual sentiments, we should pronounce the book to be one of the most valuable additions that have been recently made to our practical knowledge in the natural history of our own country. And were we to follow only our own feelings, we should transcribe a very large portion of it into our pages; GENT. MAG. VOL. XXII. point out one or two passages worthy of observation. This re " P. 12. "Heronshaw." minds us of another word of similar formation, Ravenshaw," now only preserved as a family name, but which shows how common that noble race of birds once was. P. 24. "The cuckoo's hollow note." Mr. Jesse might have remarked also how loud and incessant during the month of May is the monotonous call of the cuckoo's mate (the wryneck), extending through the whole day, and giving to the hearer something of the same unpleasant sensation which is felt at the unceasing call of the cicala in a hot noonday sun of Italy. P. 23. "The golden hues of the beech." It is singular that one of the most beautiful of all forest trees is seldom cultivated by us, we mean "the Norway maple.' In spring it is covered with long tassels of the brightest yellow; in autumn its foliage dies away in rich golden hues, unequalled by any other tree; it also stands the sea-gales better than any other tree. P. 29. As regards the passage quoted in a note written by a friend of Mr. Jesse's, (J. M.) we have only further to observe, that Cæsar wrote his Commentaries in a very hurried manner; that in some cases both in style and matter they are incorrect; and that he may have been mistaken in the instance before us, that the beech-tree was not to be seen in Britain. P. 35. A mole may be, as Mr. Jesse says, useful to a farmer; but he is very destructive to a gardener, and he creeps from the fields into the garden, to the destruction of the crops and the total ruin of the lawn. P. 88. "List of the trees on which the mistletoe has been found "—a very curious and valuable little calendar. We must make one observation on the subject of the mistletoe on the oak. It was because of its being rarely found on this tree, that, when it was, it was H reckoned sacred by the Druids. It is rare in our days, and their worship of it shows that it was also rare in theirs. P. 77. The notes of the black-cap are certainly not on equality with the nightingale's, whatever Mr. Symes may say. P. 87. "We find such men as Dr. Johnson, Lord Hailes, Dr. Home, and others, anxious for the elucidation of Walton's Lives," &c. Walton's Lives differ so much in the various editions, that a collation ought to be made, and the result given. P. 117. There is no doubt but that the increase of rats is much owing to the destruction of their natural enemies, the stoat, owl, polecat, &c. but there is also no doubt but that by vigilant attention, and the use both of traps and poison, these disgusting and destructive animals might be thinned, and the numbers much diminished. No one ever enters our garden that is not caught or destroyed in two days; but farmers are careless, and ratcatchers dishonest. P. 118. In this chapter some beautiful instances are given of the gratitude, attachment, and affection of animals, to which we refer our readers. When we consider these examples of "love strong as death" showing itself in the animal creation; instances of attachment as independent of any selfish motives as it is possible to imagine, as pure, as strong as are either to be met with in reality, or feigned in fable; and when we compare such feelings with the kindred ones that we meet with among mankind; when we acknow, ledge their strong resemblance, and then add that it is for the possession and exercise of such feelings that we raise our humble claim to be formed in likeness of the Divine image; when we add that in his worst and lowest form, in his most brutal, degraded, dishonest, selfish character, man still claims to himself to have sprung from an immortal seed,-how can we wish to deny the same gift of mercy to the lowlier servants of the Deity, to the humbler tenants of his love, to the grateful and contented pensioners on his paternal charity? For man there is appointed a future world, in which the spirits of the just may rejoice, and the remorse of the godless and im. penitent may be the sole subject of their eternal shame; but can there be supposed no other worlds in the countless multitudes of the heavenly hosts, that may be the future habitation of the innocent creatures that have spent their little lives in this? May not there "the half-reasoning elephant" be found, who has had his faculties so much improved and enlarged by his acquaintance with mankind? May not there the noble horse, man's servant, or the dog, his faithful and sagacious companion, be permitted to prolong their lives, which have been so elevated and improved by their fellow-creatures here upon earth? Is it wrong to suppose that there can be no future compensation for the inflictions of cruelty, no enjoyment of freedom after a tyrannous and incessant bondage, no blessings of repose after a wretched life worn out under the oppression of creatures far lower, far more brutal and bestial than themselves? Who would not wish this to be, and, wishing, who would not believe it true? The Creator seems, by bestowing on some animals an instinct to attach themselves to man, to have intended through this to improve and soften and elevate their nature. They learn to look to man as their protector and also their teacher; they watch his movements, they even anticipate his desires; they partake his enjoyments; they share his sorrows; they rejoice in his presence, they grieve for his departure; they feel for him in sickness, and they lie down by him in death. The longer we associate with men (the confession is sad but true) the larger we must spread the landscape that is to exhibit them to us in those various points of view that call out our surprise, our sor row, or our indignation; the more knowledge we possess, and the more familiarity we cultivate with the animal creation, the more we are delighted with their instinctive virtues, and the more we are invited to train them to a wider sphere of usefulness, and to call forth their dormant powers into activity. We have long, very long, considered that there is no stronger and surer token of an amiable and good disposition than the love of the company of children. As age advances, |