362 A RAPID GLANCE AT FRENCH LITERATURE. 



Dare I look at her strata, their dip, and position. 



And call her my primitive, gem, and all that ; 

 Dear crater ! she smokes, and in angry transition, 



Deranging my strata-gems, dubs me ajtat. 



If, by Neptune or Vulcan (old cronies at Warwick),* 



I swear my love's pure as pure silex or chalk, 

 And chaste as the silver that's tried by caloric, 



The trap she discovers ; and calls it mere talc. 

 Hard asjtint is my destiny : for since I may no 



More evolve of my love, either lava or fume, 

 The fire burns within like a slumbering volcano : 



In internal combustion, my bowels cons\ime. 



My skeleton quakes as though antediluvian / 



My hearVs full of fractures ; and faulfi/ my veins : 

 I crumble to fragments. Deep, deep in alluvion, 



Ah, soon shall recline my organic remains. 

 Yet dear to my heart is sweet Mistress Geology, 



More precious than mine of coal, copper, or tin ; 

 Than Zoo, — Astro, — or Concho, — or e'en Cranio-logy : 



O loveliest of Ologies, Uueen of her kin ! 



For the information of such of our readers, as may not be conversant 

 with the slang of Geology and Mineralogy, we deem it proper to state 

 that all the words of the preceding song, printed in Italics, are either the 

 names of mineral substances, or terms employed in geological writings. 

 All rocks, we believe, either are, or formerly were, distinguished, by 

 Geologists, into the primitive, the transition, and the jioetz or fiat. 

 Much difference of opinion has, however, long prevailed, among them, 

 as to the mode of production of the phenomena at present exhibited by 

 the earth's crust. Some contend that they are the result of the agency 

 of water : others, with equal confidence, assert that these mighty changes 

 have been ejfifected by the operation oi jire. Hence the appropriate title 

 of Neptunists and Vulcanists has been conferred on the respective advo- 

 cates of the opposing theories. Profoundly as we admire the happy 

 facility with which our Author wields these harsh and unmanageable 

 terms, and the skill with which he reduces them into tolerably harmoni- 

 ous and orderly verse, we can hardly forgive his negligence in not 

 having subjoined a Glossary for the benefit of those less highly-gifted 

 and erudite than himself. In consequence of this defect, one or two of 

 the other songs, especially that, entitled the ** Loves of the Lobsters,'* 

 are scarcely intelligible. Mr. Walter Wagstaff, if that be the 

 Author's real name, will not fail, under pain of our heavy displeasure, 

 to remedy this fault in his third edition ; which, as we are informed in 

 the Times paper, is expected to appear, with the addition of several new 

 songs, in January next. 



A RAPID GLANCE AT FRENCH LITERATURE. 



Tribune des femmes.f — The she-editor of this journal is gone to the 

 East, for what purpose is not known — perhaps in search of Pere Enfantin. 

 **The Tribune" suffers, however, no interruption on that account, and 

 continues, as before, to labour on the Palingenesia of woman, as fully 

 appears from some recent numbers, in which divorce is treated of as the 

 complement to marriage. 



* We have heard whispered that the Author of the Songs of Sciknck is a gentleman 

 residing: at Leamington ; and this admission of his having passed his school-boy days 

 at or near Warwick,— we shrewdly suspect, at Ifa/^ora,— imparts a certain air of proba- 

 bility to the rumour. — Rev. 



t This is the Journal for the female followers of Pfere L'Enfantin. 



