IMITATIVE talent is, I believe, as common, as creative genius is rare. When Columbus had once broken the egg, there were plenty of gentlemen who could all do it.

The imitative poems, good in their kind, which are continually produced by persons incapable of producing any thing good of their own, prove this.

Thus too we have mimics, who can per sonify the best actors, but would be utterly incapable of acting any one of their parts.

Avellaneda's Don Quixote is perhaps the best example of a good imitative work ;-as to conception I mean, for what the style may be, I have no means of judging, never having seen the original. It shows also what not unfrequently accompanies this talent, a base mind, a low vile envious desire of depreciating his original; having beyond all doubt its root in a consciousness of inferiority, and an ambition with no worth to support it. Lord Byron is another instance of this.

It is very much to the credit of the Spaniards that Avellaneda's talents have not in any degree saved him from the disgraceful fame that he deserves.

TOMFOOLITES, Or Noodelitarians.

THE new press gang.

A black fellow, who had been in the

An old waterman.

Smearing them with printer's ink, and tossing them in wet sheets.

OLD Cob, sometimes called the sergeant, and sometimes the bone-stealer, having once been engaged in the resurrection trade, is now, in consequence, employed as bully in the house of an infamous old woman, well known by the name of Mother Scarlet.

THE Jerry Bedlamites. These fellows have the same sort of dislike to black that bulls have to scarlet.

COLBURNE'S gang, who go about with bel

lowses.

And Jeremy B., with his riff-raff. And there is the mill, that grinds nothing but chaff.

There is Jamie the great, and Jeffrey the small.

And there is Lord

all.

MR. Cut-and-come-again, the surgeon. Dr. Drastic, and his apothecary, Mr. Doseum.

"BUT I am proof against their flashy stuff; And for their scornings, I have scorn enough.”—WITHER, To the King. B. Remembrancer.

"AND I am willing to be thought A fool, that they more wisdom may be taught."-Ibid.

"I AM no statesman ;

But being set on such a middling height, When I (by God's permission) have the sight

Of many things, which they shall never

see,

Who far above, or far below me be. What I observe, I ponder and compare; And what I think may profit, I declare."

Ibid.

THEY have a good fashion in Valencia of

know not whither.

Dor. Why then he will come home I know not when.

You shall pardon me, I will talk no more of

This subject, but say the gods be with him
Where'er he is, and send him well home
again.

For why he is gone, or when he will return,
Let them know that directed him."

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, Cupid's
Revenge, act ii. sc. 3.

"They say that we tailors are

Things that lay one another, and our geese Hatch us."-Ibid. act iv. sc. 3.

to accommodate persons of different statures.

NEVER trust the heart of any man who wears it on the outside of his waistcoat; for what he has within his sternum or its stead, is sure to be either as hard as a pippin, or as hollow as a pumpkin.

THE morality and duty of merriment.— TH. JACKSON's Works, vol. 3, p. 125.

RABBA saith a man is bound to make himself so mellow on the feast of Purim, that he shall not be able to distinguish between "Cursed be Haman," and "Blessed be Mordecai."

The Rabbis say "they were sweetened,"

p. 376.

They say a demon called Cordicus possesses them, who are drunk with new wine. -Ibid. p. 377.

AN odd thought concerning Lord Byron came into Bertha's head, "that there was in him two pounds of devil to one pound of

man."

AKBAR'S seal, "I never saw any one lost on a straight road." But a man may be lost there if he travel on snow, or in the dark.

"NONUMQUE prematur in annum." HORACE, A. P. v. 388.

DEKKER uses to wihy, for neigh.—Wonder of a Kingdom, p. 15.

Ir may, perhaps, not be known to the generality of readers, that the following twenty-two occupations are engaged to produce a single book :-"The author, the designer, the rag-merchant, the paper-maker, the stationer, the type-founder, the pressmaker, the ink-maker, the roller-maker, the chase-maker, the reader, the compositor, the pressman, the gatherer, the folder, the stitcher, the leather-seller, the binder, the coppersmith, the engraver, the copper-plate printer, and the bookseller!"

There are more than these:-the smel

"NOT a letter but what is fair: in technical language no pick, blot, bur, friar or monk is to be seen in the work."-ISAIAH THOMAS, Vol 1, p. 54.

"CONJECTURE is all that one can go upon here; and it is better to conjecture at Satan's mind, in such a thing as this, than to be acquainted in it."-LIGHTFOot, vol. 9, p. 365.

"O thou vinegar, the son of good wine!” a Rabbinical expression for "O thou wicked son of a good father."—Ibid. vol. 12, p. 407.

"WHO would marry a woman, though of a comely and well-proportioned body, who had the head of an ugly dragon? Certainly, although she had a great dowry, none would covet such a bedfellow."-J. TAYLOR, vol. 3, p. 445.

"APOLLINIS simulachrum quatuor olim auribus Lacedæmonii donarunt, ut sapientiam ostenderent, cujus imaginem Apollo referebat, multarum auditione rerum enutriri."-Orationes, Jo. ALOYSII CERCHIARII, p. 76.

ad instar adherentibus, stuporis et imperitiæ signum eliciunt; quæ si paulisper promineant et extent, mentem ad omnia compositam arguunt, et in studiis mirificè profuturam."-Ibid. p. 71.

"THE circle is oλoywvia, a totangle: it is also ισογώνιος ἰσόπλευρος, as well as ¿λóñλevρoç.”—JACKSON, vol. 2, pp. 103-4.

ONE in merriment proposed this question in the schools, “An Chimera, calcitrans in vacuo terat calceos?"— Ibid. p. 152.

"ALPHABET de l'imperfection et malice des femmes"-par J. OLIVIER, Rouen, 1635.

WHY he would have liked a deaf and dumb wife, not meaning any reflection upon

p. 785.

Will it do so? and if so, is the same effect produced by bell-ringing?

A NOTION Said to be confirmed by gravediggers, that the earth which is dug out of a grave will not fill it after the coffin is put in!-Ibid. p. 795.

OLD NICK said to be so called from Nic Machiavelli!-Ibid. p. 822.

HARCOURT (Longeville), " Histoire des personnes qui ont vecu plusieurs siècles, et qui ont rajeuni."—A.D. 1715.

I KNEW a man to whom all the middle walks of life were open in his youth, and yet in spite of all dehortation he would be nothing but a tailor. He was not, as might perhaps be supposed, either effeminate in disposition or fractional in person, but an absolute integer in form, stature, appearance, and in heart also. Inclination, however, for an art is no more a proof of aptitude or genius for it in a sartorian aspirant than in a stage-struck youth, or votary of the muses. The person in question made me one pair of breeches, and they did not fit.

"AN aged saying, and a true,
Black will take no other hue."
PEELE, vol. 1, p. 13.

SOME one was asked which of Cicero's orations he liked best, and he answered"eas sibi videri optimas quæ essent longissimæ."-LANGUET. Epist. p. 175.

THE Scotchman who said men were divided into those who preyed upon others and those who were preyed upon.

But neither all men nor all animals can thus be classed.

The elephant, which is the noblest of quadrupeds, neither preys nor is preyed

upon.

"MUCH matter decocted into few words." This is Fuller's definition of a proverb.

"A CONTINUAL emanation of unsavouriness, so that the stink doth never cease or give over."-BISHOP REYNOLDS, vol. 4, p.

203.