garded the first constitution as a colossal statue of Corinthian brass, formed by the fusion and commixture of all me. tals in the conflagration of the state.But there is a common fungus, which so exactly represents the pole and cap of Liberty, that it seems offered by Nature herself as the appropriate emblem of Gallic Republicanism... Mushroom patriots with a mushroom Cap of Liberty! 112. Ablactation... as our old Dictionaries call it. Old Beuther, in calculating the number of years necessary for replenishing the world after the Deluge, allows two years for suckling a child. This therefore must have been the customary time of lactation in Spain. The Spaniards perhaps received it from the Moors, for Mahommed enjoins mothers to give their infants the breast during two compleat years, if they will take it so long. Immediately after laying down this law, the Koran with its usual inconsistency, gives full permission to any body to break it. King Joam III. of Portugal was not weaned till he was three years and a half old, and then it was by an act of his own princely pleasure. In that same age it was a common custom in Germany to wean infants after the first month, feed them with cows-milk through a wooden tube, and administer the warm bath every third day. 113. Bulls. Novi ego aliquem qui dormitabundus aliquando pulsari horam quartam audiverit, et sic numeravit, una, una, una, una; ac tum præ rei absurditate, quam animâ concepiebat exclamavit, Na! delirat Horologium! Quater pulsavit horam unam. I knew a person who during imperfect sleep, or dozing as we say, listened to the clock as it was striking four, and as it struck, he counted the four, one, one, one, one; and then exclaimed, Why, the clock is out of its wits: it has struck one four times over. This is a good exemplification of the nature of Bulls, which will be found always to contain in them a confusion of (what the Schoolmen would have called) Objectively with Subjectivety, in plain English, the impression of a thing as it exists in itself and extrinsically, with the idea which the mind abstracts from the impression. Thus, number, or the total of a series, is a generalization of the mind, an ens rationis not an ens reale. I have read many attempts at a definition of a Bull, and lately in the Edinburgh Review, but it then appeared to. me, that the definers had fallen into the same fault with Miss Edgeworth in her delightful essay on Bulls, and given the definition of the genus, Blunder, for that of the particular species, Bull. I venture therefore to propose the following a Bull consists in a mental juxta-position of incongruous ideas with the sen sation, but without the sense, of connection. The psychological conditions of the possibility of a Bull, it would not be difficult to determine; but it would require a larger space than can be afforded in the Omaiana, at least more attention, than our readers would be likely to afford. There is a sort of spurious bull, which consists wholly in mistake of language, and which the closest thinker may make, if speaking in a language of which he is not master. 114. Wise Ignorance. It is impossible to become either an eminently great, or truly pious mar, without the courage to remain ignorant of many things. This important truth is most happily expressed by the eldeScaliger in prose, and by the younger in verse; the latter extract has an additional claim from the exquisite terseness of its diction, and the purity of its latinity. We particularly recommend its perusal to the commentators on the apocalypse. Quare ulterior disquisitio morosi atque satagentis animis est; humanæ enim sapientiæ pars est, quædam æquo animo nescire velle. Scal. Ex. 307. § 29. Ne curiosis quære causas omnium. Nec operta sacri supparo silentii Irrumpere ande; sed prudenter præteri ! Nescire velle que magister optimus Docere non vult, erudita inscitia est. Josep. Scalig. 115. Change of Climate. It is long since many, of whom I am one, says Lord Dreghorn, have maintained that the seasons are altered; that it is not so hot now in summer as when we were boys. Others laugh at this, and say, that the supposed alteration proceeds from an alteration in ourselves; from our |