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Declare aloud the wonders of Thy power.Nor would I have the Sceptic's gloomy mind For all the wealth and sway of humankind.

At the commencement of this critical notice, we denominated Robert Millhouse a singularly-pleasing Minstrel; and singular will he seem to those who have read but the extracts here given, when they are told "that the greatest portion of the work was composed in the loom, and written at such brief intervals as a close application to his employment would allow." With the present depressed state of his branch of trade, the public are well T. MAG. January, 1827.

acquainted; yet, in that branch, he has to support himself, his wife, and children. By encouraging his poetical pleasures we are not likely to abridge the labours of the plain weaver, as diligence in his calling and dictations of his Muse can go on together; therefore strongly do we deprecate that coldhearted criticism which would shed over his glowing mind the deadly mildews of discouragement; as it did over that of his amiable townsman, Kirke White; which well nigh wrought his depressed candidate for fame, and for ruin. Fortunately, however, for the

the cause of literature, the wounds occasioned by the clumsy strictures of critical ignorance were so far healed by the soothing balm of wisdom, as to enable the sensitive youth to resume pleased himself than he delighted those pursuits in which he not more others. Though not boasting White's acquirements. Millhouse is perhaps equally favoured with the inspirations of Nature. "The Song of the Patriot" will confirm every real patriot in honest English principles, and tend to correct the wrong bias of radicalism and disaffection; while the Sonnets (thirty-seven in number) will hereafter be regarded as models of that species of composition. A few poetic blemishes, and one prosaic word ("actuates," p. 21) were marked for observation; but

"Ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis Offendar maculis."

9.

HOR.

Researches into Fossil Osteology, partly abridged and re-arranged from the French. By the Baron Cuvier, M. 1. F. Part I. Whittaker.

BARON CUVIER is an Antiquary of a new kind, a decipherer of the monuments of the past revolutions of the globe. He collects and arranges, in their primitive order, their component fragments; he remoulds the ancient animals to which those fragments belonged, and he compares them with the animals which now exist. Thus he unfolds the mechanism of the world by facts, which lead to decisive conclusions. By rigorous methods of inquiry, he has attained to distinguish a genus or species by a single fragment of bone. In fact, the class, order, genus, and even species,

are determined by the mutual relations of forms, a principle of comparative anatomy found to be so invariable, that any part of an animal, taken separately, indicates all the rest. (pp. 51, 2, 3.) Cuvier demonstrates the deposition of fossil shells in the places where they are at present found. The sea rested long enough in those places to form these depositions, whilst its reservoir underwent great changes, both in extent and situation. This ancient sea, on its successive revolutions, deposited neither stones nor animal matter of a similar kind, but strata more uniform and extensive in the first instance, and more limited and

varied in the more recent.

"There has been in animal nature a succession of changes, occasioned by those of the fluid, in which the animal lived, or at least corresponding with them. These variations have conducted by degrees the classes of aquatic animals to their present state. Finally, when the sea quitted our continent for the last time, its inhabitants did not differ materially from those which exist in it at the present day.' p. viii.

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The soil which man now inhabits, and which the sea left in its last retreat, was then the seat of quadrupeds, and birds, and plants. The successive catastrophes have always been sudden. Previously climates underwent a complete revolution, and the animals were frozen at the instant of their destruction. The first sea was an unknown liquid, and uninhabited.

"There appears in those early times to have been a struggle between life and inert inanimate matter for the possession of that globe in which the latter had previously reigned without control." P. xii.“

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It is impossible to deny that the masses which constitute our highest mountains, have been originally in a liquid state; that for a long time they were covered with waters, which then supported no living beings." P. xii.

None of those agents which now operate on the surface of the earth, are adequate to the production of those revolutions, the traces of which we discover on its external crust." P. xxii.

Of the animals found amid the wrecks of former existence, 86 are unknown, 12 now exist; others remain undecided.

"Of 350 species about a fourth are oviparous quadrupeds, and all others mammiferous." lviii,

"Thus, as it is reasonable to believe that

shells and fishes did not exist at the formation of the primary strata, we must also believe that the oviparous quadrupeds commenced to exist along with the fishes, aud from the earliest periods of the formation peds did not appear, at least in any consiBut the land quadruof secondary strata.

derable number, for a long time after, when the coarse limestone was deposited, which contains most of our genera of shells, tho' quite of a different species from any now. existing." lx.

the alluvial, but never in rocky strata, It is in the latest strata only, viz. that animals at present known, as the elephant, are found together with those

that are extinct.

"There has been one succession, and very probably two successions in the class of quadrupeds, previous to that which exists at the present day on the surface of the earth." liii.

"I do not mean to say that a new creation was necessary to produce the species which now exist; I only say that they did not exist in the places where we see them at present, and that they must have come from some other quarter.' Ixix.

"The overwhelming inundation of any country could destroy the species of all those genera peculiar to that country, because none of them exist elsewhere." lxix.

With respect to the human species:

Every thing then leads us to believe that the human species did not exist in the countries where the fossil bones have been discovered, at the period of that revolution which overwhelmed those bones.

Per

"I do not mean to conclude that man did not exist at the period I allude to. He might have inhabited some countries of small extent, from whence he re-peopled the earth after these terrible events. haps, also, the places which he then inhabited may have been covered by the waters, and his bones may have been buried under the existing seas, with the exception of a small number of individuals who have continued the species. Be that, however, as it may, the establishment of mankind in those countries where the fossil remains of land animals have been found, that is, in a great part of Europe, Asia, and America, must of necessity be posterior not only to the revolutions which overwhelmed these bones, but also to those by which the strata which con

tained those bones were laid bare, and which are the last which this globe has suffered. It is easy to see that this last revolution, and consequently the establishment of our present societies, cannot be very ancient." P. lxxiv.

There is nothing genuine or histo-

rical which refers back the origin of
the present world to many thousands
of ages.
All authentic documents
confirm what natural monuments had
previously announced.

Every nation commences their traditions with an account of a particular deluge, because each of them had preserved some remembrance of a general deluge. (xciii.) But the authentic testimonies of all countries agree in the relation of the one great Deluge, and its occurrence about the period of Noah's. The successive epocha of the prior changes, it is by no means possible to discover.

tiful engravings illustrate the whole. We assure the publishers that they may avail themselves of our best endeavours to display the successive parts of this grand work.

6. An Attempt at a Glossary of some Words used in Cheshire, communicated to the Society of Antiquaries, by Roger Wilbrahain, Esq. F.R.S. and S.A. From the Archeologia, vol. XIX. 12mo. pp. 117.

WE have often, as Antiquaries, smiled at the arraignment of the humble classes for speaking bad English; whereas they are the only persons who speak English at all. Ax, thilk, peasen, housen, postes for posts, the double negative, &c. &c. are pure Anglo-Saxon words or idioms, while the language of the gentry is a mongrel collection from the vernacular tongue, Latin, Greek, French, &c. &c. As knowledge is amplified, words are amplified also, but the poor are retentive of archaisms, because their habits of living are stationary, their reading, if any, very limited, and their avocations uniform. It is much more difficult to account for the various pronunciations of the same word, eg. acorn being articulated aitchorn. If we presume that the cause was originally owing to the adoption of the word by a foreigner, who misnomered (if we may so say) the right sound, and propagated it among his descendants, we might get at one partial cause; for it is certain that a colony of Germans would change thirty into dirty, because they cannot articulate th.

We have placed our miscellaneous readers in possession of the leading points of Cuvier's discoveries with extreme gratification, in circulating knowledge of such transcendant interest, and with sentiments of superior pride, that one exists who so elevates the real dignity of human nature by the magnificent operations of his intellect. A few years since, "the cosmogony of the world" would have set us talking with Ephraim Jenkinson of the "medley of opinions broached by philosophers:" but Cuvier, by studying the laws and operations of nature, instead of vainly conjecturing causes and systems, has raised a solid structure, where stood the baseless fabrics of Leibnitz, Burnet, Woodward, Whiston, Descartes, Dernaillet, &c. men who "never took into consideration all the conditions of the problem." Those who will not think for themselves are apt to think whatever every crafty and zealous pretender impresses upon them. Dr. Gregory ascribed the weakness and superstition of the English to their being governed by opinions instead of observation. Much depends upon people and books, by It is also true that various accents whom and which the mind is biassed. are owing to the organs of speech beThe sublime views which we acquire ing formed by habit to tones approfrom the astronomy of Newton and priate to particular nations. Herschel, the geological science of Welch, Irish, Danes, Scotch, Nor Cuvier, the chemistry of Black, Lavoi- mans, &c. have introduced a variety sier, Priestley, and Davy, incline the of words into the old Anglo-Saxon; mind to look for its principles of judg- but as to the pronunciation, the quesment, on abstract points, to the great tion is, whether there did not obtain standards of intellect, instead of the among them, as among us, provinmean, vague, and enthusiastic. At cialisms (as we now call them), that least, after such reading, we can con- is to say, different articulation of the ceive a man of ordinary understanding same word in different districts. The much less likely to become a dupe.custom, as society advances in civilizaThe translation is ably executed, tion, and ideas flow more rapidly, is and the language

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We have heard that the delivery of the Royal speeches by George II. was ridiculous. The late Queen Caroline called trouble troble.

The

ity abbreviation; whereas, in low life, elongation and the drawl retain their

primary hold. An instance in the work before us will show this. Anend, to set upright, is a common word with us; in Cheshire it is pronounced aneend, a manifest result of the drawl, common in rustic enunciation. But there is also infinite licentiousness ensuing from ignorance and the non-obligation, as in polished life, to observe a standard. For instance, tantrums is a common colloquy; but in this Glossary it is converted into antrims and tantrells, which conversions could only originate in ignorance of the right original. That such ignorance gives birth to endless corruptions is evident, from the daily errors of the poor, who, as Shakspeare says, call the prodigal son the prodigious son. We know an instance where a female servant being employed to read the Litany to a religious mistress, read "all the dissolute and oppressed" for "all the desolate," &c. In glossaries of this kind, therefore, a distinction is to be made between words merely corrupted, and words of foreign root, utterly unknown in the parent language. With regard to these, vicinity will have much concern. Thus the Northern counties may be presumed to have more Scotch terms, and the Western more Welch.

It is useful, however, to know all these variations, because intercourse is necessary, and if so, mutual understanding, as the sole means of intercourse, is necessary also.

The striking feature of this (and probably other Provincial Glossaries) Is the extreme rarity of French words. In Tyrwhit's Glossary of Chaucer, they on the contrary abound. It was an ancient proverb, "Jack would be a gentleman if he would speak French; but the necessity of speaking in a language universally understood, baffled all the efforts to make French the general language of the nation, because it necessarily implied first teaching it to the poor, who otherwise could know only their mother-tongue. Hence it follows, as a corollary, that from these Provincial Glossaries we gain much knowledge of the original language of the nation.

But the signification of words may be very remarkably extended, by applying them in senses which the original word would by no means bear. Our use of the word get is a remarkable proof of this; the A. S. Letan

geatan, being confined to obtinere, confirmare. See Lye, in voce.

In the work before us is a similar instance. In an octavo Dictionary in our possession, the title of which is lost, but apparently of the end of the last century, is the following word: "Agate. Che[shire], just a going," from which definition it might be inferred that the original is merely a corruption of [just] at [the] gate, but more probably it is taken from the A. S. get (get) adhuc, modo, usque, with the frequent initial augment of a, as in a-going, for going, and so forth. How this word agate has been amplified, appears by the article in the work before us.

"AGATE, adverbial expression, means not only a person up and recovered from a sick bed, but also one that is employed; he is agate marling or ploughing. A convalescent is said to be on his legs again [query agäte]. Agate is also used in the sense of, employed with, or setting about, a work. 1 have been agate a woman directing her in the road. I am agate a new cart, I am P. 14. making a new cart.'

BIGHT OF BOUGHT is used for any thing folded or doubled. (p. 15.) Boughts are circular folds or windings in Gloss. Spenser.

There are points of opinion which we should conceive to be universal. Every man might justly think, that to be lark-heeled is a beauty in the leg of a female, but it seems that

"The Cheshire farmer, who holds that

the perfect form of female beauty consists more in strength than in elegance of limbs, often uses this contemptuous appellation BRID-LEGGED, i. e. bird-legged, to any female whose limbs happen to ve somewhat slenderer than he has in his own mind fixed

upon as the criterion of symmetry and taste." P. 23.

DADDLE, Mr. Wilbraham thinks only the diminutive of DADE. It means to walk with short steps. Mr. Wilbraham seems to be correct, for Drayton has

"No sooner taught to dade, but from their mother trip."-Polyolb. Song i. ESHIN or ASHIN, a pail, (p. 36.) This is also a Norfolk word.

FASHONS. Unfortunate. If from the French fascheux, the only French etymon which we have yet seen.

FORTHOUGHT. The A. S. pop-den can is perperam cogitare de, dedignari, diffidere. In Johnson and Steevens

(viii. 217)," forthink is to repent." In our 8vo Dictionary, to be grieved in mind. Mr. W. very properly notes (p. 41) that FOR-THOUGHT and FORETHOUGHT have distinct meanings. GAWM is to comprehend. Query? if the slang word, he has no gumtion" was not formed from gawm.

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GUFFIT, Shrove tide, supposed by Mr. W. a corruption of "Good tide." In our Dictionary is "Gut-tide, Shrovetide. From being the last day before the Lent fast, we give a coarser meaning to the first syllable gut, than good.

OSSE, to offer, begin, &c. Ash calls it local. (page 62.) Our Dictionary has-osse, Che. (audere) to offer, intend, or dare.

RAPPIT IT or ROT IT. A trivial exclamation, expressive of dissatisfaction. p. 67. We have seen an etymon of it from the French Dieu le rabat; God prevent it.

REGATT. Here is another French word, rigols. p. 68.

An obsolete custom is alluded to in the following item:

"STOCKPORT COACH OF CHAISE; a horse with two women riding sideways on it, is so called; a mode of travelling more common formerly than at present."

p. 80.

STELE for the handle of a rake, &c. is not local, as Ash makes it. (p. 80.) It is common in the West of England. TIT is not merely an inferior horse (as p. 84); it means, in Lord Herbert's History of Henry VIII. as we think, one of the poney kind.

UNCO. Cockeram has "unknown." (p. 87.) We think it a corruption of the French "incognu," by which Sherwood renders it. Our Dictionary has Uncuth, s. unknown, also the guest of one night, for whose offence the landlord was not answerable."

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Here we must take our leave. As education spreads, these words will disappear; and therefore Glossaries of this kind, independent of other consi. derations, are very valuable.

11. Observations upon Hawking. By Sir John Saunders Sebright, Bart. M. P. Describing the mode of breaking and managing the several kinds of Hawks used in Falconry. Harding. 1826. FALCONRY was once considered among those recreations necessary as an accomplishment of the prince, the nobleman, or the gentleman, forining the common appanage of birth, wealth,

and grandeur. That it fell into disuse. in this country, probably arose from the too great prevalence the diversion obtained among the courtly train of the gallant Prince Henry, or their dependants. At least we find the pursuit generally lampooned by the wits of that age, who usually give a waspish strength to satire by attacking the amusements or folly of the gay and fashionable. With Charles the Second it formed an occasional diversion, his hawks being under the management of the immortalized "William Chiffinch, Esq. Master-falconer to his Majesty." The sport from that time gradually decreased, and has only lately found a partial revival, obtained new interest, and is again, to a limited circle, refreshened with curiosity. flowever prevalent in olden days, nearly a century and an half have gone by with only one treatise published upon the subject. This was by James Campbell the falconer to the Earl of Eglintown, who, following the system of ancient treatises, collected much indifferent matter and elaborate study fit to be learnt by the underling attendant on the hawks, with scarcely an equal proportion of useful or amusing materials for the Gentleman Falconer.

The author of the present treatise, who has been distinguished as an ardent reviver of the sport, gives his practical knowledge and the fruits of his experience in a simple and brief form, no further loaded by technicalities than is incidentally required, and shows a perspicuity of subject that will make his few pages valuable to the general reader, and a manual of authority to the sportsman.

A short dedication to the eminent naturalist, John Dawson Downes, esq. acknowledges the author's obligations to him for instructions as to reclaiming and managing Hawks; and the diversions of Partridge, Magpie, and Heron Hawking, &c. are very clearly and succinctly described. We shall limit

our extracts to the author's account of the hired falconer :

"Hawking, the favourite diversion of our ancestors, is now so fallen into disuse, that the Art of Falconry is in danger of being entirely lost. Conceiving, however, in whatever estimation we may hold it as an amusement, that the method of reclaiming a wild bird must always remain an object of curiosity, I have been induced to commit to paper the following observations on the

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