The building rings-the building rocks- The elephant walk'd down, Daw, with his ugly face inclined Just over his tall rival's skirts, Bore, horizontally in mind His self-love's bruises, and ambition's hurts. Hating the man by whom he was disgraced, Who from his cap had pluck'd the choicest feather, He bit him in the part where honour's placed, Till his teeth met together. On this attack from the ferocious Daw, The man, unable to conceal his pain, Roar'd and writhed, Roar'd and writhed, Roar'd and writhed, and roar'd again'! That beasts should roar is neither new nor queer, How was the house electrified to hear The elephant say,-" Curse you, Daw, don't bite!" Daw persever'd:-unable to get out, The tall man faced about, And with great force the mighty Daw assail'd;- It was the strongest precedent, by far, And, in this civil brawl, like any other, Where every man in arms his country shatters, The two inhabitants thump'd one another, Till they had torn the elephant to tatters;— And, thus uncased, the rival actors Stood bowing to their generous benefactors. Uproar ensued!-from every side, Scene-shifters ran to gather up the hide; While the two bowels in dismay, Hiss'd, hooted, damn'd, and pelted-walk'd away. Reader, if you would further know, Of mortified Ambition, and of grief: For when live duadrupeds usurp'd the stage, And never, afterwards, held up his head. Awhile he languish'd, looking pale and wan; Then, dying, said,-" Daw's occupation 's gone!" If any one can read this extract without giving to its author his full tribute of laughter, we can only say we do not envy him his powers of forbearance. ་ The next poem is The Lady of the Wreck, or Castle Blarneygig, an exquisite and happy satire upon the tuneful, but unmeaning couplets of Mr. Walter Scott. It is, in fact, a rich and humourous parody upon his Lady of the Lake.' It is impossible, by any description, to convey an adequate idea of the manner in which this parody is carried on. They who would know it, must read the work; we can only attempt partially to gratify curiosity by the following admirable extract: "The egg is daintiest when 'tis swallow'd new,* "O butter'd egg! best eaten with a spoon, I bid your yelk glide down my throat's red lane,t * The tournure of thought, in this stanza, is, confessedly, indebted to that sweet commencement of the fourth canto in the Lady of the Luke, where a bridegroom" stands a wakeful sentinel,”—and then plucks a rose. What a happiness! what an elegant novelty in that idea!-to make the bridegroom perform the usual business of the bride!—to convert the expression of “ plucking a rose," which has hitherto been figuratively applied to the mystic garden irrigations of a lady, into a much more proper matter-of-fact operation of a gen. ilemon. "The rose is fairest when 'tis budding new," &c. &c. See Lady of the Lake,-4th Canto. Young Norman says to the Rose,-(how pretty to talk to a rose !) "I bid your blossoms in my bonnet wave.” If the weather were quite calm, he probably shook his head, with his bonnet on; otherwise it may be supposed he had much less chance of being obeyed by the rose, than Sir Tooleywhagg by the egg, who was popping it down his throat with a spoon. Thus spoke at breakfast the O'Shaughnashane, Conceits more fond than this he pour'd,* Revered by all was Murtoch's worth • "Such fond conceit, half said, half sung.” Lady of the Lake, 4th Canto. "O heavy lightness! serious vanity! Thus says Shakspeare of Love: but far be it from the author of this idle poem to speak thus, generally, of the Lady of the Lake! + See Brian, the priest, (Lady of the Lake, Canto 3d )-In a note, relative to this personage, proving that the idea of his origin arose from a traditional story, a curious passage is quoted from Macfarlane, who gives an account of one Gilli-Doir-Magrevollich. This tooth-breaking name signifies the Black Child, son to the Bones. The black child's mamma went to a hill, one day, on a party of pleasure, with "both wenches and youthes," to gather the bones of dead men!-and they made a fire on the spot. "At last, they did all remove from the fire, except one maid or wench: she being quietlie her alone, without anie other com panie, took up her cloaths above her knees, or thereby, to warm her; a wind did come, and caste the ashes upon her, and she was conceived of ane manchild." How much more appropriately than Æneas might Gilli-Doir-Magrevollich have invoked the "cineres et ossa parentis !" Her face grow long, her waist grow round, Soon as produced, amid the gloom, Whose but the corpse's can it be?" Proof that, when mooted whether shade The reader will judge from this specimen what the sort of irony is employed against the northern minstrel, but we must repeat that only a very inadequate idea can be formed of the excellence of the whole from the perusal of any of its parts. The volume concludes with the Two Parsons, or The Tale of a Shirt; the incidents of which are unfortunately too trite to please much, though decorated with all the humourous fancies of George Colman. FROM THE UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE. The life and administration of the Right Hon. Spencer Perceval; including a copious narrative of every event of importance, foreign and domestic, from his entrance into public life to the present time; a detail of his assassination, &c. with the probable consequences of the sudden overthrow of the remains of the adminstration, &c.; and a developement of the delicate investigation. Embellished with an accurate likeness, the only one ever taken. By Charles Verulam Williams, esq. 1 vol. 1812. THE death of this lamented statesman which, to use the words of Marquis Wellesley, threw around him all the lustre of martyrdom, would naturally be followed by some attempt to gratify curiosity as to his public life. The time is evidently too recent for any thing like an impartial estimate of his political character; but a detailed account of his ministerial acts was what would be eagerly sought, and what will be readily found in the present volume. Mr. Williams has collected together from various public documents, a sufficiently interesting mass of materials, well qualified also to meet the first and momentary wishes of the public. The career of Mr. Perceval as a minister, is distinctly marked; but it were desirable that his early life could have been more minutely exhibited. In addition to what relates specifically to Mr. Perceval, we have an account also of the trial, defence, and execution of Bellingham, some guesses at the delicate investigation, the correspondence between Mr. Canning, Marquis Wellesley, and Lord Liverpool, subsequently to the death of Mr. Perceval, the principal speeches on the first motion of Mr. Wortley in the house of commons, and some reflections upon the probable consequences of Mr. Perceval's death, and the overthrow of his administration. Upon the latter subject it is a pity the author's sagacity should be nugatory, for, mirabile dictu! Mr. Perceval's administation still stands, corpus sine pectore. The aristocratical haughtiness and the lofty pretensions of Lords Grey and Greenville have defeated themselves; in their eagerness to grasp at every thing they have gained nothing; and the country, we suspect, hardly laments to find itself rescued from the hands of an oligarchial faction. Let it never be forgotten, when the future historian shall relate the events of the present day, that two men, who professed to stand up for the dearest rights of their fellow subjects, who sounded from one end of the kingdom to the other the oppressed state of four millions of catholics, who maintained that our efforts in the Peninsula were calculated only to aggravate the evils of war rather than to redress them, who asserted that the whole policy of the government tended only to the ruin of |