Notes On Literature, Science, And Art.

aged poets for stones . Ancl 3 'et who would not be made the subject of so innocent a p iece of fiction for his name to be remembered kindly among men 2334 years after his poor Avorn-out carcase had 3 ueldcd up tho noble spirit which it once enshrined' ? I am afraid animals ivhoin Ave consider much higher developed than the eagle—noble bird though he bo—have mistaken the heads of their more thinking fellows for stones , judging by the hard manner in which they have treated them .

I am glad to obseri'e that Mr . J . Tom Burgess , F . S . A ., Avhose literary aud antiquarian labours I hai'e alreach / noticed in the Masonic Magazine , has not been alloAved to leave Leamington for Worcester without a substantial Testimonial , consisting of a handsome gold watch and chain , witli a purse containing . £ 150 , presented by the Slayor < .- _ Leamington , on behalf of a large number of subscribers , including a great number of the neighbouring nobility , clerg 3 'and gentryof all parties . Mr . Burgess has been for

, , thirteen years editor of the Royal Leamington Spa Courier , and has noiv become editor of Burrow ' s Worcester Journal . The literary staff of the Leamington Courier also presented him with an illuminated address , and a valuable pocket aneroid barometer ; whilst others gai'o silver-gilt inkstands , books , draAvings , and I knoAv not what besides , to mark their sense of his abflity , industiy , ancl geniality . Surely Mr . Burgess might ivell exclaim , in Shakspere ' s native county , with Juliet to Romeo : —

" Good-night I Good-night 1 Parting is such sweet sorrow , That I shall say good-night , till it be morroiv . " Or Avith Posthuinus to Imogen , in Cymbeline : — " Should Ave . be taking leave As long a term as yet we have to five , The loathness to depart ivould groAV . "

May Mr . Burgess be spared to devote as much careful study to the wild floivers and antiquities of Worcestershire as he has clone to those of Warwickshire , and may the people of Worcestershire equally appreciate his labours : for in the midland counties , as elsewhere , all ranks of citizens may say ivith Wordsworth : — " The world is too much Avith us ; late and soon , Getting and spending , Ave lay ivaste our poivers : Little Ave see in nature that is ours ; We have given our hearts away , a sordid boon I "

Tea , even among English Freemasons there are men ii'ho are totally ignorant of all Masonic Literature , and never so much as saw , much less bought or read , a single Masonic publication ! That excellent society , the Royal Archaiological Institute , is just issuing to subscribers of a guinea each a General Index to the first twenty-five volumes of their valuable Journal . To this and kindred societies Ave OAve much of that taste for

antiquities which , in spite of the Mammon-worship of society , is daily increasing with the education of the people . Kilmarnock , is a place familiar , b 3 name at least , to all the readers of Bro . Burns ' s poems , ancl the sum of . £ 2 , 140 has been already subscribed towards the erection there of a monument to the memory of our g ifted brother . A grandson of the bard , mean-Avhile , it is said , is an inmate of the Dundee workhouse .

Mr . C . Roach Smith , F . S . A ., is publishing a third edition of his genial little treatise on The Rural Life of Shalcspere , as Illustrated by his Worlcs . "I submit , " he writes of the great bard , " it is apparent and conclusive , that he must hai'e had , in early life , unusual facilities for observing the phenomena of nature , agriculture , farms , and all the details of the entire range of rural life . Men with poetic feeling and power have depicted pastoral lifeand havivritten of it speciall Shakspere did not

; some e y . set himself to do this : he took a loftier theme ancl a wider range ; he worked to depict men and manners , not to write pastorals ; ancl it is in his portraiture of human nature that he constantl y uses the country with such wonderful knowledge and with such exquisite effect ; far , in short , beyond ' any other writer in his OAA ' or any other age . "