"I am!" in a humiliated tone, replied the mortified, but affecting thing; "the dignity of creation is not mine *! My father compared me with a favourite foetus, and I seemed more lovely; a parent is so partial to his own progeny! Often has he told me, that in the glass, jar I was born handsome; but as 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 ! J "He was long puzzled to decide what to make of me; 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 be considered 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!". Some of the Philos 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 animalcula 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 most uninformed readers, will appear sufficient for calling in question this imaginary dignity of these animalcula "-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. What "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 hot out of a bottle? I have long sought for a Scotch metaphysician 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 masculine feminine, the late Princess DASHKOFF. 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 seientific society has ever retained that privilege though I could never: the ukase of Catherine reversed the grand distinction*. I do *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 having been violated by Neptune, at her own request, was changed into MASTER CONEUS! "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 do not approve of ladies as presidents of royal societies; their meetings will be consumed in awkward gallantries. "EULER gazed on the Princess DASHKOFF'S twinkling eye, as on those nebulæ 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 admirable candour, "that if naturalists are allowed to nurse up 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 *I acknowledge my favourite 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. 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 what is to be understood, is not said. According to Mr. TAYLOR, ARISTOTLE had his acroamatical and his exoterical doctrines. The latter were on the superficial . 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 its 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! THE DARING ROBBERY. THE annals of depravity have lately recorded a transaction which a feeling mind cannot contemplate without horror! Our immortal Bard has wisely observed, "Who steals my purse steals trash," which inculcates very strongly a contempt of the "auri sacra fames;" but what shall be said to palliate the following most atrocious burglary :-On Twelfth Night, Mr. Lanza, who composed The Deserts of Arabia, for the express purpose of displaying the vocal powers of Incledon, and who purposes taking the music to America, made a present to the Orchestra of a Twelfth, Cake, and a dozen of Port wine. The gentlemen of the band were extremely grateful, and no doubt each 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 had revelations, but my bookseller shakes his head at them: so the world is now informed of all I have to say!—BOBTAIL. individual individual privately determined to play the first fiddle, but it was resolved that the treat should be postponed, until the ensuing evening. They met in full band. The closet door in the hair dresser's room, in which, the dainties were deposited, was opened; when, horribile dictu! they had all vanished!-The cake and wine were stolen! The sharps had proved too many for the flats. To describe or delineate the consternation of the orchestra, requires the pen of Fielding, or the pencil of Hogarth. The bass grumbled, the hautboys squeaked, and the whole band, in mournful unison, struck up the dismal elegy of, Oh! cruel, cruel case!" and "My courage, is out."-Thus it was clearly proved that Procrastination is the thief of cake." The following persons were suspected of having perpetrated this most atrocious deed: Mr. Kemble, who proved that he sat up attempting to revive a dead tragedy. all night, Mr. Cooke, who sarcastically exclaimed, "I'm busy; thou troublest me; I'm not in the vein." Mr. Brandon, who immediately gave his accuser a Lox-on the ear. Mr. Munden, whom a Kentish-Town watchman proved to be in bed; as he mistook the tuneful accompaniment of his nose for a drove of swine. Mr. Liston, who was seized with a shivering fit; but discharged, on an alibi being proved by Mrs. Grim. It is strongly suspected, that by the activity of the Bow Street officers, who are no cakes, the theft will be traced to Mother Goose; in, which case it is supposed Simmons will lose his giblets, and turn out to be a luckless gander. Grimaldi, in the pantomime, very illiberally produces a piece of cake, and addresses the orchestra with I like twelfth cake!" It is ex-, tremely cruel-but what manners can be expected. from a clown? Mr. Ware, the leader of the orchestra, |