546 NOTES OF THE MONTH 



he goes he must have his head fumbled all over, and examined inside 

 and outside, to ascertain of what stuff it was made of what capacity 

 it is, that the quantity of its contents may be gauged. If he descended 

 there thirty years ago, and he can be got at, to work goes our phre- 

 nological professors' pickaxe, down goes his spade, and up again 

 comes all that he wants to see of the dear departed out come his 

 calipers, and by the size of the premises he philosophically infers the 

 capacity of the tenant. Pleased with his new feather, tickled with his 

 amusing straw, he has lately paid a scientific visit to Dumfries, to 

 superintend the disturbing of the sacred bones of Scotland's noblest 

 poet, ROBERT BURNS. Poor Burns ! neglected in his life and at his 

 death, he has had abundance of attention since : he wanted bread, 

 and wanted it in vain, but he has had given him a quarry of stone: 

 his living lips hungered for the manna of sustenance no one offered 

 it to him ; they closed for ever and wanted it no more, and those 

 who might have fed them have the hardihood to look in the fleshless 

 face of him they famished. " Thus runs the world away." The re- 

 mains of the luckless bard, which, when first bared to the light, looked 

 as fresh as though the breath had but newly left the body, as if 

 scorning the idle curiosity of these poking fools,, crumbled in a minute 

 into dust. But there was a feast still left in his bones : the head fell 

 to the share of our phrenological friend with the bells, who very soon 

 ascertained that it was much too large for his cap, and for the caps of 

 his ten or eleven accompanying friends, though one of that number 

 was no less a person than a baillie that embodiment of all that is 

 wise and grave. Folly has therefore made a discovery that a man 

 may have a large intellect and a large head. Previously to this, the 

 little heads were carrying all before them. Lord Byron died in 

 Greece, and none of the European friends about him could get his 

 hat upon their heads. Sir Walter Scott died at Abbotsford, and not 

 "a head in a* Scotland" could pull his bonnet over their brows. 

 Large heads immediately hid themselves, and wished them dimi- 

 nished ; the little ones poked themselves up in all public places ; and 

 hats of the bigness of a tolerable-sized tinder-box were all the fashion 

 a small hat becoming the outward and visible sign of an inward 

 and significant head. But large heads, in consequence of this new 

 light, begin to look up again; and we should not wonder very shortly 

 to see hats increase and magnify to the size of sentry-boxes. The 

 present age wants a present Erasmus to praise thee again, O most 

 sweet Folly ! 



THINGS THEATRICAL. 



THE commencement of the season, at the KING'S THEATRE, was 

 not altogether such as we could have wished, or indeed had antici- 

 pated. If indeed we except the Rosina of Madame Caradori, and the 

 Figaro of Tamburini, the rest of the performances scarcely rose above 

 a respectable mediocrity. Still, however, we cannot withhold our 

 thanks from Mr, Laporte for his exertions. In the first place he or- 



