the one which he thinks most like himself; which is the handsomest. Yet he likes best perhaps the one most resembling his wife; and will sit with him on his lap, holding his hand in silence, for a quarter of an hour together. He plays most tricks with the former, and makes him sneeze. He asks little boys in general who was the father of Zebedee's children. If his grandsons are at school, he often goes to see them; and makes them blush by telling the master or the upper-scholars, that they are fine boys, and of a precocious genius. He is much struck when an old acquaintance dies, but adds that he lived too fast; and that poor Bob was a sad dog in his youth; "a very sad dog, Sir, mightily set upon a short life and a merry one.

When he gets very old indeed, he will sit for whole evenings, and say little or nothing; but informs you, that there is Mrs. Jones (the housekeeper,)" She'll talk."

DOLPHINS.

Our old book-friend the Dolphin used to be confounded with the porpus; but modern writers seem to concur in making a distinction between them. We remember being much mortified at this separation; for having, in our childhood, been shewn something dimly rolling in the sea, while standing on the coast at twilight, and told with much whis. pering solemnity that it was a porpus, we had afterwards learnt to identify it with the Dolphin, and thought we had seen the romantic fish on whom Arion rode playing his harp.

The Dolphin and porpus however have so many characters in common, such as shape, motion, general colour, the absence of gills, &c. that from a passage in Sandys, who was a traveller as well as a poet, we have some hopes the distinction may turn out to be unfounded, or only a variety owing to climate. "The porpus," he says, in his Commentary upon Ovid, (p. 64.) " is out of doubt our true Dolphin; wherein I am not only confirmed by the authoritie of Scaliger. For those that are called Dolphins by our East and West-Indian seamen (who likely give known names to things which they know not) are fishes whereof I have seen many, which glitter in the water with all varietie of admirable colours; and are hardly so bigge as our salmon-trouts; too little by farre to beare those burthens wherewith almost all ancient authors doe charge them; besides none of these were ever seene in the Mediterranean sea, the scene of those stories." Now Falconer, it is true, in his Shipwreck, Canto 2, speaks of Dolphins in the Mediterranean sea, as beaming "refulgent rays;" and describes them, in particular, as shifting into a variety of most brilliant colours, when dying. But this may only prove, that Sandys was wrong in excluding the fish in question from the Mediterranean; and it is remarkable that Falconer, notwithstanding his own poetical tendencies, does not take occasion of the appearance of what he calls Dolphins, to make the least allusion to ancient stories, nor speaks of their tumbling, nor otherwise seems to have recognized in them his

old poetical friends. The writers too, who distinguish the Dolphin from the porpus, make no mention of these brilliant colours; but describe both as pretty much alike in colour, which is of a dusky blue in the one, and of a dark blue or glossy black in the other. The word porpus means originally the same as Dolphin. It is a corruption of porcus piscis, or the hog-fish; so called from the curve of it's back, as it tumbles in and out of the water, for it is naturally straight. The root of the Greek word Delphin is the same as that of the word for a hog, Delphax.

It is easy to see how the Dolphin became such a favourite with antiquity. It was owing to his frequency in the Greek seas, the vivacity of his motions, his gregariousness, the presages which he brings respecting the weather, and the familiarity with which he approaches the shore. He was the fish friendly to man, as the horse was among beasts, and the swallow among birds; or as the dog and the redbreast are with us. One of the earliest and most beautiful fictions is a story told in Homer's Hymn to Bacchus of the transformation of a crew of pirates into Dolphins. It was a fine lesson of good treatment to strangers in those times, and perhaps written by the poet to serve travellers like himself, who had occasion to throw themselves on the generosity of the masters of vessels. Bacchus is sitting with his black locks and white shoulders by the seashore, in appearance like a young mortal. Some pirates coming towards the shore, and seeing the splendour of the purple cloak that wraps him round, take him for a young prince, and agree to kidnap him. They do so, take him on board, and put him in chains. He extends his hands, and breaks the chains asunder like thread, but still remains quietly sitting. The piety of the helmsman is roused at this piece of supernatural strength, and calling the others aside, he earnestly exhorts them to let the stranger go. But the captain ridicules his fears; and they persist; when all of a sudden, a gush of wine comes pouring over the deck; the oars of the rowers are hampered with garlands; and a vine runs up the mast and throws out it's arms full of grapes over the top. The pirates turn pale, and cast their eyes upon the divine stranger, who now starts up, and glares at them from under the hatches in the shape of a lion. He then turns himself into a bear and other frightful figures, and ramping about the vessel, the pirates, all but the helmsman, jump overboard, and are changed as they leap into Dolphins. When the galley is cleared, the god resumes his own shape, and tells the pilot to be of good cheer, for he is Bacchus, the roaring god of wine; and that day shall be a happy one for him and his. The same story has been told, but in a much inferior taste, by Ovid. Nonnus, in his luxuriant poetical history of the god, (Dionysiaca, B. 45) describes the pirates as visited with the hallucination of mind, called a calenture, in which people at sea fancy that they are among meadows, and other rural scenery, and "babble of green fields." There was a picture in mosaic, perhaps yet to be seen, in the church of St. Agnes at Rome, formerly a temple of Bacchus, in which the story of the transformation of the pirates was represented. The more famous frieze upon the same subject on the

building at Athens, called the Lantern of Demosthenes, has been well known to our countrymen through the medium of Stuart's Antiquities of that city. Milton beautifully follows up Homer's story, by making Bacchus sail onward," as the winds listed," till he fell upon Circe's island, where, in the joviality of his triumph, he begot Comus, the god of delirious feasting.

Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape,
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transformed,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe's island fell.

This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks,
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son,

Much like his father, but his mother more,

Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named.

The two Plinys have each a story of a Dolphin. The Elder says, upon the authority of three grave writers, Mecenas among them, that there was a boy, who by alluring a Dolphin with bread, at last became so intimate with him, that he would ride to school to and fro on his back from Baia to Puteoli. The boy died, and the fish pining after him, died also, and was buried in the same tomb. The Younger Pliny gives an account of another at Hippo in Africa, where a boy venturing to swim farther out than his companions, was met by a Dolphin, who after playing about him a little, slipped under him, and taking him on his back, carried him out still farther, to the great terror of the young delphinestrian. Luckily however, he soon returned to shore, and landed his rider safely. The next day the shore was crowded with people, waiting to see if the Dolphin would appear again; and the boys went as usual into the water. The fish did reappear, and came among the younkers, who swam back as fast as they could. It then played all sorts of inviting gambols about the coast, till the people, ashamed of their timidity, gra dually got nearer, and at length touched and stroaked it. The boy then, losing his fear like the rest, and vindicating his first privilege, swam by his side, and at length leaped upon his back, when the Dolphin carried him about as before, and landed him as safely. Unfortunately, the deputy-governor of the province took it into his head that the goodnatured fish must be a god; and seizing his opportunity, when the creature had got upon shore, poured some precious ointment upon it. The ointment happened not to be to the Dolphin's taste; it absented itself for some days; and when it returned appeared sick and feeble. However, it recovered it's spirits; but the novelty by this time had drawn such a concourse of high visitors to the place, whom it was the little town's business to entertain gratis, that it is supposed the poor fish was secretly killed, to save further expenses. Alexander the Great is said to have been so struck with the attachment evinced by a Dolphin to a youth, that he inade the latter a priest of Neptune.

It is not easy to pronounce how much of truth there may be in stories

of this nature. Knowledge, so often deceived by superstition, is inclined to reject the whole of them at once; but on second thoughts, it remembers how often it has been misled by incredulity also; and leaves the more peremptory judgment to those whom less information has rendered less diffident. The exaggerations which there may be in the stories of Dolphins, are probably owing to the celebrated fable of Arion, which seems to have been written with the same view as that of Bacchus and the Pirates. Arion was a lyric poet of Lesbos, and went to live with Periander, king of Corinth; from which place he visited Italy, where his talents procured him great wealth. On taking ship to return to Corinth, the sailors resolved to murder him for his riches. He begged that they would at least allow him to make a swan-like end befitting his divine profession, and at the same time gave them some money; hoping that the gift, followed by the song, would soften their hearts. They consented to hear his harp and his poetry, but told him at the same time that they were resolved he should either be thrown into the sea, or kill himself and so obtain a sepulchre ashore. Resolving however to try what his art could do, he put his purple robe over his shoulders, and his musician's crown on his head; and taking his lyre upon his knee, sang to it a pathetic song. But finding, as he proceeded, that they were bent on their purpose, he suddenly changed his strain, and sang the cruel Orthian Law, by which boys were scourged to death at the altar of Diana. Having finished this hymn of despair, he cast himself, all robed and crowned as he was, into the sea; and the sailors pursued their voyage to Corinth. A little time afterwards, they were sent for to court, and asked news of Arion by the king. They said they had landed him safely in Italy, and taken leave of him at Tarentum. Upon this, a door opens, and they are struck dumb at beholding Arion himself, whom they believed dead, enter the room, dressed exactly as he was when he leaped into the sea. Their guilt was not to be disputed; and they were put to death. As to Arion's return, it was owing to a Dolphin, who having been attracted with others by the music of his harp, had taken him upon his back, and borne him safely after the guilty ship; the poet playing out of gratitude, as he went.

Spenser introduces Arion most beautifully, in all his lyrical pomp, in the marriage of the Thames and Medway. He goes before the bride, smoothing onwards with the sound of his harp, like the very progress of the water.

Then there was heard a most celestiall sound
Of dainty musicke, which did next ensue
Before the Spouse. That was Arion crowned:
Who, playing on his harp, unto him drew
The eares and hearts of all that goodly crew;
That even yet the Dolphin, which him bore
Through the Ægean seas from pirates' view,
Stood still by him astonished at his lore;
And all the raging seas for joy forgot to roar.
So went he, playing on the watery plain.

Perhaps in no one particular thing or image, have some great poets shewn the different characters of their genius more than in the use of the Dolphin. Spenser, who of all his tribe lived in a poetical world, and saw things as clearly there as in a real one, has never shewn this nicety of realization more than in the following passage. He speaks of his Dolphins with as familiar a detail, as if they were horses waiting at a door with an equipage.

A team of Dolphins ranged in array

Drew the smooth charett of sad Cymoënt.
They were all taught by Triton to obey
To the long reins at her commandement:

As swift as swallows on the waves they went,

That their broad flaggy finnes no foam did reare,

Ne bubbling roundell they behind them sent.

The rest of other fishes drawen were,

Which with their finny oares the swelling sea did sheare.

Soon as they been arrived upon the brim

Of the Rich Strand, their charets they forlore;
And let their teamed fishes softly swim

Along the margent of the foamy shore,

Lest they their finnes should bruise, and surbeat sore
Their tender feete upon the stony ground.

There are a couple of Dolphins like these, in Raphael's Galatea. Dante, with his tendency to see things in a dreary point of view, has given an illustration of the agonies of some of the damned in his Inferno, at once new, fine, and horrible. It is in the 22nd book, “Come i delfini,” &c. He says that some wretches, swimming in one of the gulphs of hell, shot out their backs occasionally, like Dolphins, above the pitchy liquid, in order to snatch a respite from torment; but darted them back again like lightning. The devils would prong them as they rose. Strange fancies for maintaining the benevolence of religion!

Hear Shakspeare, always at once the noble and the good-natured. We forget of what great character he is speaking; but never was an image that more singularly yet completely united superiority and playfulness.

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