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    NaxUrai . History is gaining xaore and more favour with the general public , and as an indication of this increasing favour we observe periodical writers more frequently choosing Natural History topics . In the Quarterly there are three articles on this many-branching subject—one on " Ferns , " one on " Salmon , " and one on . " Bats "—all interesting ; the last is unusually so , and will make even the gentle reader think of Rats with something less of horror , and more of sympathy than heretofore . Many of the details are very amusing ; e . cr . .-

    at a pinch—or rather in spite of innumerable pinches—I might bring myself to submit even to that nuisance , and enjoy ia comparative tranquillity the reallv salubrious air of the heritage of the Pharaoha , provided I were not perpetually nesL tered by jabbering about hieroglyphs , and monoliths , and Orus , and Osiris and the beetle ? , and the ibis , and the leeks , and the crocodiles , and Necho , and Psammis and Rhamaes < who was no relation of the Dalhousies ) , and other myths , reptiles , ve « e * tables , and divinities , who ati one time molested the Delta . Again : — Next conies an ecclesiastical monomaniac , maundering—O me—about the Council Chalcedon ! I thought -we really had done -with councils . Most of us of the Protestant of

    way thinking , are well pleased to be rid , once and for ever , of a controversy which was understood to have been settled at the Reformation ; and ve are entitled to object to it 3 revival .. So about Italian history . We don ' t want to hear about Duke Sforza this , or Count Paolo that ;—the record of their crimes , intrigues murders , rapes , and adulteries ought to have no manner of interest , and really has none , except to a few antiquarians with diseased appetites;—and if deeds of this kind are worthy of promulgation at this time of day , I am serious in thinking that we do injustice to such native heroes as Turpin and Abershaw , by giving the foreigners a decided quarterly preference . 3 S " ext I observe that an awful deal of drivel is current about Niebuhr and the Komanscc Ticket-of-Leave Men" are twice brought forward in this number of Blacfaoood—once too often , surely ? There is humour as well as good counsel in the following suggestion : — - Chains , bolts , and locks are of little use , except to make a noise . Bells are troublesome for the servants to put up , and give false alarms in windy nights . I propose three things . A little dog , a big dog , and a revolver . The little dog to wake the big one , who sleeps soundly , especially after dinner , and the big dog to wake the many-mouthed barker , and assist in a scuffle , if a scuffle ensues . As a further precaution , I would suggest some rather unintelligible notice , such as " Burglars decimated on these premises , " large enough to be read by moonlight ; if in liunic characters , so . much the better , for crime is naturally superstitious . Imagine Ticket-of-Leave spelling out the threat of " decimation , " and puzzling himself with its vague horrors !

    The second part of " Scenes of Clerical Life" closes the story of the " sad . fortunes of the Rev . Amos Barton , " and closes it with a pathos so exquisite that we do not remember anything in fiction more touching or more lifelike . There is a capital scene of half a dozen parsons dining together , a scene lambent with good-humoured satire ; and the ' flare-up of the rebellious maid-servant agaiust the intrusive Countess is also humorously written ; but nothing in the story approaches the quiet truth and beauty of Milly ' s death , and the desolation , which it leaves behind .

    Mr . Tjiotoe , in an admirable article inFraser , " Gleanings from the Record Office , " expresses the wonder he has felt , in . reading modern histories , at the facility with which men will fill in the chasms of their information with conjecture ; will guess at the motives which have prompted actions ; and will pass their censures , as if all secrets of the past lay out on an open scroll before them . Indeed , the facility of historical verdicts is only surpassed by the facility of journalist divinations into the ' intentions' of foreign statesmen .. In vacuo movement is easy . Strange also the harshness of our historical verdicts : ^—There are many reasons fox this harsh , method of judging . " VVe must decide of jnea by what we know , and it is easier to know faults than to know virtues . Faults arc specific , easily described , easily appreciated , easily remembered . And again , there is , or may be , hypocrisy in virtue ; but no one pretends to vice who is not vicious . The bad things which can be proved of a man we know to be genuine . He was a spendthrift , he -was an adulterer , lie gambled , he fought a duel . These are blots positive , unless untrue , and when uncorrected tinge the whole character . Moreover : — All men feel a necessity of being on some terms with their conscience , at their own expense , or at another's . If they cannot part with their faults , they will at least call them by their right name when they meet with Buch faults elsewhere . How inaccurate our judgments may be is well suggested in the following : — '

    Historians are fond of recording the supposed sufferings of the poor in the days ol serfdom and villanage ; yet the records of the strikes of the last ten years , when told by the sufferers , contain pictures no less fertile in tragedy . We speak of famines and plagues under the Tudors and Stuarts ; but tlie Irish famine , and the Irish plague of 1847 , the last page of such horrors which has yet been turned over , ia the most hoirible of all . We can conceive a description of England during the year which lias just closed over us , true in all ita details , containing no one statement -which enn be challenged , no single exaggeration which can be proved . And this description , if given without the correcting traits , shall make agea to come marvel why the Cities of the Plain were destroyed , aad England was allowed to survive . The frauds of trusted

    men , high in power and high in supposed religion ; the wholesale poisonings ; the robberies ; the adulteration of food—nay , of almost everything exposed for sale—the cruel usage of women—children murdered for the burial fees—life and property insecure in open day in the open streets—splendour such as the -world never saw before upon earth , with vico and squalor crouching under ita walla—let all this be written down by an enemy , or lot it bo ascertained hereafter by the investigation of a posterity which desires to judge us as we generally have judged our forefathers , and few years will show dnrkor in the English nnnnls than the year which has bo lately closed behind us . Yet wo know , in the honesty of our hearts , how unjust such a picture would be .

    In the same Magazine , Swedenboiig is made the subject of mi enthusiastic article by a writer who declares , in all the emphasis of italics , that Swkdbnborg is the greatest psychological observer that } the world has yet produced perhaps so ; but the writer has , strangely enough , refrained from citing even one specimen of this psychological sagacity , although hecitos several specimens of his pretended clairvoyance . " The Three Numbers" is a translation from the French , not acknowledg ed , but betrayed by its badness as a translation . " Little Lessons for IntUc Poets is an admirable and well-timed criticism of the main defects in the volumes ol verse wInch claim the rank of poetry . We must ; find room for the followuafi remarks on criticism : —

    When rats have once found their way into a ship they are . secure as long as the cargo is on board , provided they can command the great necessary—water . If this is well guarded , they will resort to extraordinary expedients to procure it . In a rainy night they will come on deck to drink , and will even ascend the rigging to sip the moisture which lies in the folds of the sails . When reduced to extremities they will attack the spirit-casks and get so drunk that they are unable to walk home . The land-rat will , in like manner , gnaw the metal tubes which in public-houses lead from the spirit-store to the tap , and is as convivial on these occasions as his nautical relation . The entire race have a quick ear for running liquid , and they constantly eat into leaden pipes , and much to their astonishment receive a douche-bath in consequence . . Nor is the rat without a toxieh of Christian , feeling , as a Sussex clergyman testifies in the following : —

    Walking out in some meadows one evening , he observed a great number of rats migrating from one place to another . He stood perfectly still , and the whole assemblage passed close to him . Has astonishment , however , -was great when he saw amongst the number an old blind rat , which held a piece of stick at one end in its mouth , while another had hold of the other end of it , and thus conducted its blind companion . A kindred circumstance was witnessed in 1757 by Mr . Purdew , a surgeon ' s mate on board the Lancaster . Lying awake one evening ia his berth , he saw a rat enter , look cautiously round , and retire . He soon returned leading a second rat , who appeared to be blind , by the ear . A third rat joined them shortly afterwards , and assisted the original conductor in picking up fragments of biscuit , and placing them before their infirm parent , as the blind old patriarch was supposed to be . Then , as to sagacity , what think you of this ?—

    Incredible as the story may appear of their removing lens' eggs by one fellow lying on his back and grasping tightly his ovoid burden -with his fore paws , whilst his comrades drag him away by the tail , we have no reason to disbelieve it , knowing as we do that they will carry eggs from the bottom to the top of a house , lifting them from stair to stair , the first rat pushing them up on its hind and the second lifting them with its fore legs . They will extract the cotton from a flask of Florence oil , dipping in their long tails , and repeating the manoeuvre until they have consumed every drop . We have found lumps of sugar in deep drawers at a distance of thirty feet from the place where the petty larceny was committed : and a friend saw a rat mount a table on which a drum of figs was placed , and straightway tip it over , scattering its contents on the floor beneath , where a score of lis expectant brethren sat watching for the windfall .

    But the writer is guilty of a strange oversight when he adds that the rat ' s " instinct is no less shown in the selection of suitable food . " There is nothing in the selection of food more intelligent than in the union of an acid with a base . Rats are worth three shillings a dozen for " sporting purposes ; " consequently rat-catching is a branch of human industry . — The underground city of sewers becomes one vast hunting ground , in which men regularly gain a livelihood "by capturing them . Before entering t"he subterraneous world the associates generally plan -what routes they will take , and at what point they will meet , possibly with , the idea of driving their yrey towards a central spot .

    They go in couples , each man carrying a lighted candle with a tin reflector , a bag , a sieve , and a spade ; the spade and sieve being used for examining any deposit which promises to contain some article of value . The moment the rat sees the light he runs along the sides of the drain just above the line of the sewage water ; the men follow , and speedily overtake the winded animal , which no sooner finds his pursuers gaining » pon him than ho sets up a shrill squeak , in the midst of which he is seized with the bare hand behind the ears , and deposited in the bag . In this manner a dozen will sometimes be captured in as many minutes . When driven to bay at the end of a blind sower , they will often fly at the boots of their pursuers in the most determined manner .

    In Paris there is an annual hunt of the rats : — We are informed that they have established a company in Paris , upon the Hudson's Bay principle , to buy up all the rats of the country for the sake of their skin . The Boft nap of the fur when dressed is of the most beautiful texture , far exceeding in delicacy tuat of the beaver , and the hatters consequently use it as a substitute . The hide is employed to make the thumbs of the best gloves , the elasticity and closeness of ita texture rendering it preferable to kid . Wo must not draw further from this amusing paper , which no reader should pass over in scorn . He may turn from it , if he please , to the more dignified literature of " Homer aavd his Successors in Epic Poetry ; " to the gossip of county history in the article on " Northamptonshire ; " to biography in that ?? « -if ,, , , P icr" or to politics in the closing article ; but after all the " Hats will probably remain longest in his mind .

    A lively writer m Blatfcioood deplores in Ms "Letters from a Lighthouse " the dulnoss of our periodical literature , contrasting it with the piquancy and stirring interest of the literature formerly contributed to Reviews and Magazincs : — . ^ SJ ^ -aBStSSSSBSSSK mwm ^ mmi

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    ?¦¦¦¦' CritifeJf tf ** - *< yfctte legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not mafce la « cs—therinterpret and try to enforce them . —E&inburgh Hevtevt-. — - •¦ .

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• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 7, 1857, page 134, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2179/page/14/