"It is a bad thing for cough to supervene upon dropsy."—§ vi. 35.

(Because it probably proceeds from the fluid collected in the abdomen pressing upon and irritating the diaphragm.)

LXV. STRAITS OF THERMOPYLE.

THERE was a vast assembly at Marlborough-house, and a throng in the doorway. My Lady Talbot said, "Bless me! I think this is like the Straits of Thermopylæ!" My Lady Northumberland replied, "I don't know what Street that is, but I wish I could get my through here.”—H. Walpole's Letters to the Earl of Hertford.

LXVI. TRANSLATABLE PUNS

ADDISON has given an excellent test by which we may know whether a piece of real wit has been achieved, or merely a pun perpetrated. We are to endeavour to translate the doubtful production into another language: and if it passes through this ordeal unharmed, it is true wit; if not, it is a pun. Like most tests, however, this fails occasionally; for there are some few puns that, in spite of the prohibitory law, can smuggle themselves into the regions of true wit,-just as foreigners, who have perfectly learned the language of a country, can enter as natives, and set alien acts at defiance.

We will give two or three examples of these slippery fellows, who, to use a modern phrase, have succeeded in driving a coach-and-six through Addison's Act.

The lectures of a Greek philosopher were attended by a young girl of exquisite beauty. One day, a grain of sand happened to get into her eye, and, being unable to

extricate it herself, she requested his assistance. As he was observed to perform this little operation with a zeal which, perhaps, a less sparkling eye might not have corumanded, somebody called out to him, Mŋ τηy кopný diapDeipns, i. e. Do not spoil the pupil.

Cicero said of a man who had ploughed up the ground in which his father was buried, Hoc est verè colere monumentum patris-This is really cultivating one's father's

memory.

A punster, being requested to give a specimen of his art, asked for a subject. "The King." "The King is not a subject," he replied. This holds good in French likewise-(Le Roi n'est pas un sujet).

The last two cases belong to a class which is, perhaps, more extensive than is commonly supposed; where the two senses of the word are allied by an easy metaphor, and may consequently be found in more than one language. We will give another of the same kind.

Erskine was reproached with his propensity of punning, and was told that puns were the lowest kind of True," said he," and therefore they are the foundation of all wit."

wit. "6

Madame de Lamotte was condemned to be marked with a hot iron on both shoulders, as well as to perpetual imprisonment, for her frauds in the affair of Marie Antoinette's diamond necklace. At the end of ten months, however, she made her escape from l'Hôpital, where she was confined, by the aid of a sœur, who said, when quit ting her, "Adieu, madame, prenez-garde de vous faire re-marquer." (Farewell, madam; take care not to be re-marked.)

A French editor, when quoting this, observes, "Nous ajouterons qu'il faut bien avoir la fureur de dire de tristes bons-mots pour en faire sur un pareil sujet."

At a time when public affairs were in a very unsettled state, M. de G--, who squinted terribly, asked Talleyrand how things were going on.

"Mais, comme vous voyez, monsieur." (Why, as you see, sir.)

Another pun, attributed to the same great master, is

not only translatable, but is much better in English than in French. During the reign of Bonaparte, when an arrogant soldiery affected to despise all civilians, Talleyrand asked a certain general what was meant by calling people pequins. "Nous appelons pequin tout ce qui n'est pas militaire," said the general. (We call everybody who is not a soldier, a pequin,—a miserable creature.) "Eh! oui," replied Talleyrand, 66 comme nous autres nous appelons militaires tous ceux qui ne sont pas civiles." (Oh! yes! as we call military all those who are not civil.)

LXVII.

DIALECTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

BALBI, a learned Venetian, has written a work containing some account of all the languages in the world, which he divides according to their varieties and dialects. He expatiates on the dialects of the Turks, Abyssinians, Laplanders, and a hundred others, and comes at length to the English, of which he speaks in the following

terms:

"The English language has the four following dialects, subdivided into several subdialects and varieties.

"I. The English, properly so called, which, polished by Chaucer in the fourteenth century, became the written and general language of the whole nation. Its principal subdialects are the Cockney of the city of London, the Oxford, the Somerset, the Welsh, and the Irish; also the Jowring, spoken in Berkshire, and the rustic idiom of Suffolk and Norfolk.

"II. The Anglo-Northumbrian, which might be also called the Dano-English, from the great number of Danish words it has preserved, in which must be distinguished the three subdialects of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and of Cumberland and Westmoreland.

"III. The Scotch, or Anglo-Scandinavian, in which must also be distinguished the Scotch, properly so called,

or Lowland Scotch, spoken formerly at the courts of the Scottish kings, in which James the Fifth wrote some pretty poems; in which Ramsay has composed a pastoral whose artless grace sometimes recalls all the charm of the Aminta of Tasso; and which Burns has recently ennobled by songs full of nerve and originality: the Border tongue, a mixed idiom, spoken in the frontier provinces of the south of Scotland, remarkable for its ballads and popular songs: and the idiom of the Orkney Islands, which is mingled with many Norwegian words.

"IV. The ultra-European English, spoken in all the English colonies and in the United States. It is the idiom spoken by the greatest number of the inhabitants of the New World."

After this very learned account of the dialects of our own tongue, the information upon the Esquimaux and other strange tongues may be supposed to be rather suspicious.

LXVIII. HUMAN FECUNDITY.

HALLER tells that it is not unusual for a woman to produce two children at a birth, that three are somewhat rarer, and the number never exceeds five. ("Non raro femina geminos foetus parit; rarius paulo tres, neque unquam supra quinque."-Physiologia, 929.

This eminent physiologist should certainly have said multo instead of paulo; for in truth triplets are so rare, that no successful attempt has hitherto been made to calculate the average frequency of their occurrence.

With twins the case is different; they probably occur about once in eighty times. Thus we learn from Dr. Merriman that the average of twin-births has been stated,

By Dr. Clarke, at the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, 1 in 56

as

By Dr. Bland, at the Westminster Dispensary 80

By Professor Boer, in the Vienna Lying-in
Hospital

By Dr. Denman, at the British Hospital
By Dr. Denman, at the Middlesex Hospital
By Mr. Burns, in his own practice

1 in

80

91

By M.Tenon, surgeon to the Salpetrière at Paris,, 96 By Madame Boivin, at the Hospice de la Maternité

132

The greater the number of children, the smaller is the chance of their surviving; but there is one well-known instance of quadruplets living for several years. The wife of a pauper, near Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, bore four girls at a birth (in 1819, we believe), and we recollect seeing them when they had attained the age of six years. It was the common practice for the stages to stop at the cottage-door; and the passengers showered their sixpences or shillings on the fortunate parents, raised from pauperism to comfort by their singular fertility.

The second wife of Dr. Rigby, an eminent writer on uterine hemorrhage, bore him four children at a birth; but we do not recollect whether they survived; probably

not.

Borellus (quoted by Dr. Merriman) tells of the wife of a nobleman in Languedoc, who bore eight children at a birth. But Borellus has a taste for the marvellous. (Anno 1650 Uxor nobilis D. Darre unico puerperio octo fœtus enixa est probè conformatos, quod valdè in his regionibus insolens est: tres enim tantum vitales simul enixos videram.)

"Quod valdè in his regionibus insolens est."-Which is extremely unusual in this part of the country !

There is a story of a countess in Holland who bore three hundred and sixty-five children at a birth; and we are assured, in the true Munchausen style, that the fact is engraved upon her tombstone. A poor woman with twins had asked charity of the countess; and being harshly refused, and even reproached for her fertility, had prayed that the lady might bear as many children as there were days in the year. The countess fulfilled the malediction, and died. The explanation of the tale (as