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if a villain with a smiling cheek, he compares him to "a goodly apple rotten at the heart ;" and, when old, his arms are "Like to a wither'd pine

That drops its sapless branches to the ground."

When Warwick dies, in what a fine strain of metaphor, drawn from natural objects, he makes him lament:

"Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,

Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept;

Whose top branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree,

And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind.

These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,
Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun,

To search the secret treasons of the world."

When Wolsey falls from his high state, how beautifully he moralises; comparing man to a tree that puts forth leaves, blossoms, and then is killed by frost when its fruit is ripening. These lines are too well known to present them here. In another passage he likens his fall to "a bright exhalation in the evening," which passes swiftly away and is no more seen; another phenomenon of nature, equally well selected with the former, to express the suddenness with which worldly glory and prosperity frequently disappear.

There are a few more passages regarding man which must yet be noticed; such as the accurate description of the appearances presented by one who had been strangled, and the sensations of one poisoned. They both contain that which, if all the rest were wanting, would prove Shakspeare to have been a most accurate and intense observer of nature, whether human or external.

"See! his face is black, and full of blood;

His eye-balls further out than when he lived;

Staring full ghastly like a strangled man:

His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling,

His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd

And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdued."

"Poison'd.

Henry VI., Part ii., act 3. sc. 3.

And none of you will bid the winter come
To thrust his icy fingers in my maw ;

Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
Through my burn'd bosom; nor entreat the North
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips,
And comfort me with cold."

King John, act 5. sc. 7.

The next quotations I shall insert, show that the existence of the goitre, incident to mountaineers, was known in this country in Shakspeare's time; and that credit was given to the inventions of travellers, too fertile in that age, concerning the human race. From these inventions we must except the cannibals, or anthropophagi, which, to the infamy of our nature, did some few years ago exist in New Zealand. See Pliny's Nat. Hist., lib. vii. cap. ii., for the fabulous varieties of the human race.

"When we were boys,

Who would believe that there were mountaineers,
Dewlap'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at them
Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men,
Whose heads stood in their hearts."

"The cannibals that each other eat,
The anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders."

Tempest, act 3. sc. 3.

Othello, act 1. sc. 3.

I now proceed with a more regular distribution of my subject. "Unicorns" are the subject next treated of; but these we pass, and take that which succeeds them: the stag.]

STAG.

"The wretched animal [a stag] heaved forth such groans,

That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat

Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase."
"Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends."

As you

like it, act 2. sc. 1.

"If we be English deer, be then in blood:
Not rascal-like to fall down with a pinch;
But rather moody mad, and desperate stags,
Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel,
And make the cowards stand aloof at bay."

Ibid.

Henry VI., Part i. act 4. sc. 2.

"Like the stag when snow the pasture sheets, The barks of trees thou browsedst."

Antony and Cleopatra, act 1. sc. 4.

The tears of the wounded stag, so pathetically described above, I find thus mentioned by Sir Philip Sydney (Arcadia, b. 1.) Kalander, "with a crossbow, sent a death to the poor beast [a deer], who with tears showed the unkindness he took of man's cruelty:" and Herrick makes a part of Oberon's feast to consist of" slain stag's tears."

In Jesse's Gleanings, p. 187., the fact of a wounded stag being abandoned by the herd is thus confirmed. "It is well known, that, when a hard-pressed deer tries to rejoin his companions, they endeavour to avoid and get away from him as much as possible, or try to drive him away with their horns." And in the same author it is, I believe, mentioned, that deer

feed upon the barks of trees in severe winters, unless fodder is supplied them, as is usual at that season.

[Received on Feb. 26. 1834.]

[THE subjects of the remainder of our correspondent's long essay are the following, and are disposed in the following order:

Lioness, mermaid, horse, bears, ass, weasel, ferret, monkey, Irish rat, squirrel, fox, dogs, mole, conies, mouse; phoenix, nightingale, wren, swan, swallow, starling, harpy, pigeon, kingfisher, cuckoo, barnacle, goose, osprey, quails, pelican, lapwing, raven, crow, parrot; basilisk, toad, dragon and griffin, eels, serpents, blindworm, viper, crocodile; bees, breezefly, glowworm, silkworm, locust, insect generation by the sun, flies, insect transformation, spider, beetle, wasps; pansy, cowslip, fairy rings, ivy, plantain, willow, yew, rosemary, oak, flowers of spring, flowers of summer, flag, pine, mandrake, fern seed; morning, evening, night.

The citations and remarks relative to the horse, the ass, the lioness, and the dog, we have taken the liberty to append in the form of notes, to the following communication by Dr. Turton upon these and kindred subjects, as its spirit is so congenial with that of our present correspondent's communication as to make the association, we think, congruous, and hope pardonable. To print, at once, the whole of the citations and remarks upon all the subjects named above would give us, in our own feeling, much pleasure; but the pressure of more technical matter forbids the doing of this at present, and may prevent our recurring to it. The portion given above, with the four notes, identified as our author's, to the communication placed after this, is an indication of his ingenious intentions, and a specimen, though scarcely a just one, of his plan of fulfilling them. His object and plan must be viewed with the welcome of sympathy by every student of natural history who is, at the same time, a lover of poetry; and who can there be, as our correspondent has, in effect, asked above, that, loving the one, loves not the other also? Of the lovers of nature, and these must be all who love their "intellectual being," those who are most intimate with the qualities and wonders discoverable in nature, will be those who will most concur in the delighting sentiment (delighting because true, and justly complimentary to the object of our pursuit), that "in nature is the only fund of great ideas;' and we know not any subject nearer our heart than the one

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which these words bespeak, or one which could form a fitter theme for the thoughts, and essay in proof, of every naturalist. It is one upon which we have long, ourselves, cherished hopes of attempting something, as we had purposed instancing on the present occasion; but we find ourselves precluded by the want of time, of space of page, and, more than all, by the want of the requisite power of comprehension to grasp such a subject. We have found ourselves quite in the case of Simonides, when he strove to answer the question of Hiero; and the two attempted objects are, truly may it be said, so similar as to be almost identical. We would, however, notwithstanding our own inability, cherish the hope that some accomplished correspondent will attempt it. In V. 114, 115, there are "samples and a taste" of the fruits of this land of promise.

In connection with our correspondent S. H.'s elucidation of Shakspeare's mentions of objects of nature and natural history, we may cite a reference to IV. 425, note t; and may add, for we have obtained permission to do so, that Mr. James Fennell, a correspondent of this Magazine, has been, as we had known, " for some time occupied in collecting and arranging all Shakspeare's dramatic and poetical mentions of objects in natural history, with a view to the publication of them [in a separate work], together with such explanatory and descriptive notes as" he may deem "requisite." Mr. Fennell has informed us that he purposes adding "an essay on Shakspeare's knowledge of science in general, including chemistry, medicine, phrenology, &c."; his object, like that of our correspondent S. H., "will not only be to explain and illustrate Shakspeare's allusions and mentions, but also to diffuse a taste for the study of natural history, and to show the importance and advantage of such study to poets, dramatists, and others who write from imagination."]

ART. III. Origines Zoologicæ, or Zoological Recollections.
By WILLIAM TURTON, M.D. &c.

THE HORSE.

THIS majestic quadruped, whose prowess and might, familiarly known to us all, are poetically stated in the book of Job (xxxix. 19-25.), gives his name to many circumstances charged with more than common force and strength; as horseradish, horse-chestnut, horse-play, horse-kiss, horse-laugh. His age is known by the teeth; whence the saying, as applied

to green old age, or elder gaiety, that he has still a colt's tooth in his head: and, of a present which may not exactly meet the wishes of the receiver, it is observed, that we must not look a gift horse in the mouth. The common term course, as the first course or match, second course, &c., may be taken from the sport of racing; and so the course, or bent of a man's studies, whence stud. Formerly, in horseraces, the prize was a gold or silver bell; whence we say of any successful adventurer, that he bears the bell; and of a haughty person, we observe, that he rides a high horse, or the fore horse. Small bells were, anciently, an essential part of the gaudy trappings of a horse, both from their musical jingle, and that notice might be given of his approach in narrow lanes. "A horse trapped with silver bells," says Stowe, "was given by the citizens of London to King Richard the Second, on his entrance into the city." At the coronation of one of the Edwards, five hundred horses were turned loose, as a largess to such as could catch them. The horseshoe was of old considered as the emblem of good luck, and as having power to avert witchcraft, and drive off evil spirits; and it is still sometimes seen on the threshold of the peasant, and nailed against the masts of vessels. To ride the wooden horse, or the horse that is foaled of an acorn, was once a severe mode of military punishment, called picketing; inflicted by placing the miserable culprit across some oaken planks, brought to a sharp edge or angle, with a carbine or heavy weight fastened to each foot, to render his seat more exquisitely painful and from this circumstance may have originated the expression of horsing a boy in a public school.

Darius was chosen king by the neighing of his horse; and Caligula made his horse a senator. One of Hector's horses, called Xanthus, was a conjuror, whose prophecies are recorded in Homer; and Troy was taken by a horse. Pliny relates that the chariot of Nero was drawn by four hermaphroditical mares. In derision of conjugal pusillanimity, we say, that the grey mare is the better horse; and, as a joke upon preposterous mirth, it is said that a mare's nest is found.

The phrase of a man's hobbyhorse originates from the circumstance of boys riding upon sticks, or cock-horses.

By Aristotle, and the older writers on comparative anatomy, he is said, in common with all those quadrupeds which have solid hoofs, to have no gall. Accurate enquiry, nevertheless, will demonstrate that, although there will be found no distinct gall bladder, there is a thin membranous substance, under which is contained the gall, branching itself into the lobes of the liver, and diffusing itself into the intestines; and this

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