All this by syllogism true,

In mood and figure he would do.
For rhetoric, he could not ope

His mouth, but out there flew a trope:
And when he happen'd to break off
In th' middle of his speech, or cough,
H' had hard words ready to show why,
And tell what rules he did it by;
Else when with greatest art he spoke,
You'd think he talk'd like other folk;
For all a rhetorician's rules

Teach nothing but to name his tools.
But when he pleased to show 't, his speech,
In loftiness of sound, was rich;

A Babylonish dialect,

Which learned pedants much affect;
It was a party-color'd dress

Of patch'd and piebald languages;
'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin,
Like fustian heretofore on satin;
It had an odd promiscuous tone,
As if h' had talk'd three parts in one;
Which made some think, when he lid gabble
Th' had heard three laborers of Bavel,

Or Cerberus himself pronounce

A leash of languages at once.

HIS MATHEMATICS.

In Mathematics he was greater
Than Tycho Brahe' or Erra Pater;"
For hie, by geometric scale,

Could take the size of pots of ale;3
Resolved by sines and tangents straight
If bread or butter wanted weight;
And wisely tell what hour o' th' day
The clock does strike, by algebra.

HIS METAPHYSICS.

Beside, he was a shrewd philosopher,
And had read every text and gloss over;
Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath,
He understood b' implicit faith:
Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
For every why he had a wherefore;
Knew more than forty of them do,
As far as words and terms could go;
All which he understood by rote,
And, as occasion served, would quote;
No matter whether right or wrong;
They might be either said or sung.

1 Tycho Brahe was an eminent Danish mathematician.

By Erra Pater, it is thought that Butler alluded to one William Lilly, a famous astrologer o those times.

As a justice of the peace, he had a right to inspect weights and measures.

His notions fitted things so well,

That which was which he could not tell,
But oftentimes mistook the one

For th' other, as great clerks have done.
He knew what's what,' and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly:

He could raise scruples dark and nice,
And after solve 'em in a trice;

As if divinity had catch'd

The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd;
Or, like a mountebank, did wound,
And stab herself with doubts profound,
Only to show with how small pain
The sores of Faith are cured again;
Although by woful proof we find
They always leave a scar behind.

HIS APPAREL.

His doublet was of sturdy buff,
And though not sword, yet cudgel-proof,
Whereby 'twas fitter for his use,

Who feared no blows but such as bruise.
. His breeches were of rugged woollen,
And had been at the siege of Bullen;2
To old King Harry so well known,
Some writers, held they were his own:
Though they were lined with many a piece
Of ammunition bread and cheese,
And fat black-puddings, proper food
For warriors that delight in blood:
For, as we said, he always chose
To carry victuals in his hose,
That often tempted rats and mice
The ammunition to surprise;
And when he put a hand but in
The one or t'other magazine,

They stoutly on defence on't stood,

And from the wounded foe drew blood.

Sucl. are a few specimens of Butler's wit as displayed in his poetry. The same vein runs through his prose works, which were not published till a considerable time after his death. We can give but one specimen:

A SMALL POET

Is one that would fain make himself that which nature never cant him; like a fanatic that inspires himself with his own whimsies. He sets up haberdasher of small poetry, with a very small stock, and no credit. He believes it is invention enough to find out other men's wit; and whatsoever he lights upon, either in books or company, he makes bold with as his own.

This he

A niente on the senseless questions in the common systems of logic, as, quid est quid? whones Same the common proverbial expression of he knows what's what, to denote a shrewd man.

1 boulogne was besieged by King Henry VIII., July 14, 1544, and surrendered in September.

puts together so untowardly, that you may perceive his own wit has the rickets, by the swelling disproportion of the joints. You may know his wit not to be natural, 'tis so unquiet and troublesome in him: for as those that have money but seldom are always shaking their pockets when they have it, so does he, when he thinks he has got something that will make him appear. He is a perpetual talker; and you may know by the freedom of his discourse that he came lightly by it, as thieves spend freely what they get. He is like an Italian thief, that never robs but he murders, to prevent discovery; so sure is he to cry down the man from whom he purloius, that his petty larceny of wit may pass unsuspected. He appears so over-concerned in all men's wits, as if they were but disparagements of his own; and cries down all they do, as if they were encroachments upon him. He takes jests from the owners and breaks them, as justices do false weights, and pots that want measure. When he meets with any thing that is very good, he changes it into small money, like three groats for a shilling, to serve several occasions. He disclaims study, pretends to take things in motion, and. to shoot flying, which appears to be very true, by his often missing of his mark. As for epithets, he always avoids those that are near akin to the sense. Such matches are unlawful, and not fit to be made by a Christian poet; and therefore all his care is to choose out such as will serve, like a wooden leg, to piece out a maimed verse that wants a foot or two, and if they will but rhyme now and then into the bargain, or run upon a letter, it is a work of supererogation. For similitudes he likes the hardest and most obscure best; for as ladies wear black patches to make their complexions seem fairer than they are, so when an illustration is more obscure than the sense that went before it, it must of necessity make it appear clearer than it did; for contraries are best sort off with contraries. He has found out a new set of poetical Georgics-a trick of sowing wit like clover-grass on barren subjects, which would yield nothing before. This is very useful for the times, wherein, some men say, there is no room left for new invention. He will take three grains of wit, like the elixir, and, projecting it upon the iron age, turn it immediately into gold. All the business of mankind has presently vanished, the whole world has kept holiday; there has been no men but heroes and poets, no women but nymphs and shepherdesses; trees have borne fritters, and rivers flowed plum-porridge. When he writes, he commonly steers the sense of his lines by the rhyme that is at the end of them, as butchers do calves by the tail. For when he has made one line, which is easy enough, and has found out some sturdy hard word that wil! but rhyme, he will hammer the sense upon it, like a piece of hot iron upon an anvil, into what form he pleases.draThere is no art 123 East 50th Street,

CIRCULATING DEPARTMENT

in the world so rich in terms as poetry; a whole dictionary is scarce able to contain them; for there is hardly a pond, a sheepwalk, or a gravel-pit in all Greece, but the ancient name of it is become a term of art in poetry. By this means, small poets have such a stock of able hard words lying by them, as dryades, hama dryades, aönides, fauni, nymphæ, sylvani, &c., that signify nothing at all; and such a world of pedantic terms of the same kind, as may serve to furnish all the new inventions and “thorough reformations" that can happen between this and Plato's great year.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 1605-1682.

ONE of the most original as well as learned men of the reign of Charles II., was Sir Thomas Browne. He was born in London in 1605, and in 1623 ne entered Oxford, intending to devote himself to the study of medicine. Having taken his degree, he practised physic for some time in Oxfordshire. He then went abroad, and travelled in France, Italy, and Holland; and a Leyden he took the degree of doctor of physic. Returning to England u 1634, he settled at Norwich, and on account of his great reputation as a phy sician, he was, a few years after, made honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London. He was knighted in 1671 by Charles II., in his progress through Norwich, with singular marks of consideration; and died in 1682.

The following are the principal productions of Sir Thomas Browne:1. "The Religio Medici, or the Religion of a Physician." It is divided into two parts; the first containing his confession of faith, that is, all his curious religious opinions and feelings; the second, a confession of charity; that is, all his human feelings.1 2. His "Pseudodoxia Epidemica," more generally known by the title of "Browne's Vulgar Errors." This is the most popular of all his works. He treats his subject very methodically, dividing the whole into seven books, considering the various errors as they arise from minerals and vegetables, animals, man, pictures, geography, philosophy, and history. Notwithstanding the singularity and quaintness which pervade this work, it is one that displays great learning and penetration, and is very interesting. 3. Another production was entitled "Hydriotaphia, Urn-Burial; or a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk." "In this work," says an able critic, Sir Thomas Browne hath dared to take the grave itself for his thenie. He deals not with death as a shadow, but as a substantial reality. He dwells not on it as a mere cessation of life-he treats it not as a terrible regation but enters on its discussion as a state with its own solemnities aud pomps." Dr. Johnson has described Browne's style with much critical acumen. "It 18," says he, "vigorous, but rugged; it is learned, but pedantic; it is deep, but

1 of this, Dr. Johnson, in his life of Browne, thus remarks: "The Religio Medici was no sooner published, than it excited the attention of the public by the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of senament, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse allusions, the subtiety of disquisiHon, and the strength of language."

For an interesting notice of this singular work, see Retrospective Review, i. 84. Read, also, some rewarks on our author in Hazlitt's "Age of Elizabeth."

obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not allure: his tropes are harsh, and his combinations uncouth. He fell into an age in which our language began to lose the stability which it had obtained in the time of Elizabeth; and was considered by every writer as a subject on which he might try his plastic skill, by moulding it according to his own fancy. His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of heterogeneous words brought together from distant regions, with terms originally appropriate to one rt, and drawn by violence into the service of another." 1

THOUGHTS ON DEATH AND IMMORTALITY.

In a field of Old Walsingham, not many months past, were digged up between forty and fifty urns, deposited in a dry and sandy soil, not a yard deep, not far from one another: not all strictly of one figure, but most answering these described; some containing two pounds of bones, distinguishable in skulls, ribs, jaws, thigh-bones, and teeth, with fresh impressions of their com bustion; besides, the extraneous substances, like pieces of small boxes, or combs handsomely wrought, handles of small brass instruments, brazen nippers, and in one some kind of opal.

That these were the urns of Romans, from the common custom and place where they were found, is no obscure conjecture; not far from a Roman garrison, and but five miles from Brancaster, set down by ancient record under the name of Brannodunum ; and where the adjoining town, containing seven parishes, in no very different sound, but Saxon termination, still retains the name of Burnham; which being an early station, it is not improbable the neighbor parts were filled with habitations, either of Romans themselves, or Britons Romanised, which observed the Roman customs.

*

What song the sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture. What time the persons of these ossuaries entered the famous nations of the dead, and slept with princes and counsellors, might admit a wide solution. But who were the proprietaries of these bones, or what bodies these ashes made up, were a question above antiquarianism: not to be resolved by man, not easily perhaps by spirits, except we consult the provincial guardians, or tutelary observators. Had they made as good provision for their names, as they have done for their relics,

1 But Dr. Johnson himself did not scruple to transfer to his own pages many of Brɩ wne's ponder ous words; for, as Cumberland truly says of him,

"He forced Latinisms into his lines,

Like raw, undrill'd recruits."

"Sir Thomas Browne is among my first favorites. Rich in various knowledge, exuberant in con. ceptions and conceits; contemplative, imaginative, often truly great and magnificent in his style and diction, though, doubtless, too often big, stiff, and hype:~lati visti"."— Coleridge.