They thirsted not like monsters since the flood
Begot the taste is ancient too—for blood !
Perchance, as Waterton a crocodile

Rode, they were ridden, though in length a mile!
Conjecture here-geologists advance

But sober truths-loves somewhat to romance.
The freeborn Sauri scorn'd a reigning lord,
Half-monkey and half-tiger, beast-abhorr'd
That rides, like tailors on their fluttering geese,
A many-headed hydra not with ease.
The steed will throw his rider if press'd sore,
As Spenser's dragon threw the gorgeous w
The Lithuanian fretting at the curb
Imperial may his master's seat disturb.
Proud of their igneous origin the tribe
Were self-important as a titled scribe;
Shallow as Trinculo deem'd Caliban,

Whether through fens they paddled, crept or ran;
Singing in chorus marshy songs, devouring
Fern salads, like our idlers bored and boring,

They lived-chronologists may guess the time-
And then returned to what they came from-slime.
Ere Alorus they lived; or, to go higher,

Ere lived forefathers of a Cambrian 'squire.
They may, sublimed into another sort

Of beings, through ethereal space transport
Themselves with a rapidity intense;

With tubes provided, every tube a sense.

Such Davy saw, or dream'd he saw, at Rome.
Philosophers have sober views at home;
At Rome sublimed their spirits now on fire
Be-luned to Ariosto's flights aspire.

Oh were these high-bred monsters now alive
In those famed gardens, where on Sunday drive
Ladies high-born as to a morning rout,

To laugh at apes with tails, and apes without,
Fashion might then revive Egyptian rites,
And in these non-descripts discern "new lights;"
Though some plebeian peer, whose pedigree
Would puzzle Heard, might not their merit see:
Pendent from gorgeous ceilings to amaze

The world, their forms in or-molu might blaze
Through grand saloons, where taste capricious links,
Alliance strange,—a griffin with a sphinx!
While pretty women lisp, "You have not seen
The plesiosauri! Where could you have been?"
Far more in fashion they than Namick Pasha-
A Brahmin-comet-or Lord Dudley's bashaw;
Or novel, of the season latest, best,

Yet so severe, it ought to be supprest.
Would they were now alive, consuming wheat,
And kept by rich zoologists, to eat!

They, like Napoleon, prices might exalt,
More than remission of the tax on malt;

And landowners would cease to grieve that they
With crippled means increased rent-charges pay.

Soon would they disappear on Erin's bogs, Cherish'd, as Isaac Walton cherish'd frogs, To be impaled by Orange seers, who hope To prove that monsters symbolise the Pope, Especially if their long tails emit

A phosphorescent light like-Irish wit!

NOTES TO "THE SAURI."

"Gigantic vegetables, more nearly allied to the palms of the equatorial countries than to any other plants, can only be imagined to have lived in a very high temperature; and the immense reptiles, the megalosauri, with paddles instead of legs, and clothed in mail, in size equal or even superior to the whale; and the great amphibia plesiosauri, with bodies like turtles, but furnished with necks longer than their bodies, probably to enable them to feed on vegetables, growing in the shallows of the primitive ocean,—seem to show a state in which low lands, or extensive shores rose above an immense calm sea, and when there were no great mountain chains to produce inequalities of temperature, tempests, or storms."-DAVY's Consolations in Travel, p. 145. See also the account of the gigantic Saurian tribe, in URE's Geology, pp. 219. 226.

"The crust of the globe was exceedingly slender, and the source of fire a small distance from the surface."-Davy, ut supra, p. 135.

The tepid primeval ocean gave marvellous development to all its productions, from the polyparia and shell-fish to the megalosaurus and iguanodon, (Ure.) See also LYELL'S Geology, vol. i. passim.

P. 345, 1. 8.

Had all the fiery particles of Kean..

"A fiery soul, that working out its way,

Fretted the pigmy body to decay,

And o'erinform'd the tenement of clay."-DRYDEN.

I saw Kean perform the character of Sir Giles Overreach, at Warwick, but a very short time before his death, with all his wonted ener

gies; though then "the flash and outbreak of his fiery mind" were "like the fitful light of a candle," to use his own expressions, "flickering in its socket."

Well do I remember, in my youthful days, the first appearance of Kean in the character of Sir Giles Overreach, when “the loveliest oligarchs of the gynocracy" crowded to the orchestra to see him; and the present of a piece of plate was voted to him by acclamation in the green-room.

They were glorious days of histrionic and poetical excitement, when the prolific genius of Byron produced poem after poem to delight the world, and Kean shone in a succession of such characters as Sir Giles Overreach, King Richard the Third, Shylock, Othello, (who that has seen, can forget his Othello !) &c. &c.

P. 345, 1. 9.

Or Byron, when a boy, whose name would spread,
Like Talbot's, among "clods" or cockneys, dread.

See Shakspeare's First Part of Henry the Sixth, acts 1 and 2, where the cry of "Talbot !" caused the flight of the French. The shout of "Here's Byron coming!" had much the same effect on the "clods:" a generic, and not very flattering term by which the young aristocracy at Harrow designated the lower orders there, with whom they had frequent rows, in which the noble poet shone pre-eminent.

When a row commenced, as Lord Byron was lame, he could not get to the scene of action as soon as other boys; but his fame went before him, and his name had almost as great effect as his personal prowess on the alarmed "clods."

66

The cockneys, too, had frequent engagements on a Sunday, (proh pudor!) with the Harrow boys, as they were often exposed to the insulting gibes of the young gentlemen. Some of these "cockneys" or Sunday bucks," as they were generally called, often proved themselves to be good men in the pugilistic contests. To the delicate appearance they sometimes united the science of "Dick Curtis," that "pet of the Fancy."

Lord Byron was a good, but somewhat stormy actor, when at school, and loved to perform such parts as that of Osmond in the Castle Spectre.