448 
to the blessing of God, who, by his pro- 
phet had declared, that the generation 
of the upright should be blessed. From 
which position these two corollaries ma- 
nifestly arise, first, that exaltation to a 
peerage is a blessing from Heaven ; and 
secondly, that this blessing may be ob-' 
tained by justice and uprightness in the 
profession of the law. If this honest 
chancellor’s reasoning be good, we must 
be led ‘to think very highly of our present 
chiefs in the law, since it is plain that 
the practice of it is, in our times as it 
was heretofore, frequently the road to 
peerages and preferment. 
ASSIMILATION. 
Anaxagoras, ove of the most celebra- 
ted philosephers of the antient world, 
was especially noted for teaching, that 
all individual beings, or bodies, originate 
out of one another, "Ex rn¢ ‘ojoroueptas, 
by homeomery, or assimilation. Our li- 
thologists would do well to revive this 
name of an occult cause; in every clay- 
pit, in every chalk-pit, in every coal-pit, 
it may be observed, that the domineering 
féssil is constantly occupied in trans- 
muting, digesting, or assimilating, into 
substance like itself, the organic, the ve- 
getable, or the mineral materials, which 
have fallen within its line of influence. 
In some places, one observes flint turning 
into chalk, in others chalk turning into 
flint; in some, clay turning into chalk, 
and in others, chalk turning into clay. 
The like is true of more complex trans- 
tnutations. Now, if this digestive, or 
metamorphosing, power in fossils had a 
name, some laws might be predicated 
concerning it; as for instance: 1. That 
it is exerted by meas of an atmosphere, 
since it extends beyond the visible limits 
of the digesting body; 2. That it is more 
easily exerted perpendicularly than ho- 
rizontally ; since the progress of petrific 
conversion maybe traced to a consider- 
able depth in contiguous superincumbent 
strata, but can be traced a very little way 
Original Poetry. : 
[June 1; 
sideways, where there is'a trapping down 
of the strata, and an opportunity for la- 
teral digestion: 3. That fossil life prin- 
cipally consists in the presence of the 
assimilating power ; for a fossil fragment 
of whatever kind, when removed from 
its native bed, dies, and begins to obey 
that assimilating force, which domineers 
in the place whereinto it is thrown: 4. 
That light counteracts the assimilating 
power; the accretion of stalactites and 
of several crystals being retarded by it. 
The transplantability of fossils, if they 
have a peculiar sort of life, might per- 
haps be effected, so as to cause coals to 
begin to vegetate, or silver,in mines not 
yet provided with these substances, 
Has the assimilating power a predilection 
for a peculiar pabulum ?, 
‘THE DEVIL’s DINNER. 
In Milton’s Paradise Regained, the 
devil offers a tempting dinner, which is 
described in these words : 
A table richly spread, in regal mode, 
With dishes pil’d, and meats of noblest sort 
Andsavour; beasts of chase, or fowl of gamey 
In pastry, built, or from the spit, or boil’d, 
Gris-amber-steam’d: all fish from-sea or 
shore, 
Freshet or purling brook, of shell or fing 
And exquisitest name. 
Probably this is a faithful description 
of some of those cabinet dinners, of 
which, while Milton pects of 
state, he partook at th bm a or 
‘ 
elsewhere. It differs fro: modern 
dinner in the order of viands, the fish 
occurring last. It also differs in the sin- 
gular circumstance, that the pastry was 
perfumed with ambergris. No doubt 
those tall goose-pies, built in standing 
crust, which last so long as to smell of 
the cupboard, were still in vogue ; and 
might well require fumigation, when 
about to be presented before company. 
And whatisambergris? Is it the drug 
we now call spermaceti, mingled with 
some aromatic ? 
a eae 
ORIGINAL POETRY. 
a 
FROM POEMS IN THE PiEss. 
BOCONNOE in CORNWALL, 
Seat of Lord Grenville. 
By Mr. POLWHELE, 
BOWERED in Boconnoc’s gloomsy as erst 
IT trod 
Its quiet vale, I woo'd the dim retreat, 
Of sweet Elfrida’s bard, his mossy seat ! 
His coy Lerina’s brook, and kiss’d the sod: 
But, whilst I wandered, visions of the greats 
Beam’d round, to chase, as wav’d some 
wizard rod, 
My sylvan muse.—And shall not glory beat, 
In generous bosoms, ’midst the bright 
abode. 
Where 
* 
