Notes On Literature, Science, And Art.

That both rats and mice occasionally " take in" ( to their stomachs ) both , ¦ when hungry , there can be no doubt , and if some of the said weeklies afford as little nourishment to the bodies of rats as to the minds of their readers , the poor rats are to be pitied for not receiving fair remuneration for their useful scavingering . Notwithstanding Mr . Buckland ' s high estimate of the rat ' s intelligence , I have somewhere read that he is really a very stupid animal .

Leaving naturalists to settle this question among themselves as best they may , and honestly acknowledging myself no very great admirer of the rat tribe generally , nor of the Norway rat in pai-ticular ( though having strong sympathies with the poor water-vole so perseveringly persecuted at the hands of the ignorant , who don ' t know the difference between it and the savage Scandinavian ) , I am in love with Bro . Hoskins' Sewer Rat , because he has made him " discourse "—not like the " pipe " Hamlet offers to Polonius ,. " most eloquent music "—but certainly "full of wise saws and modern instances , "

such as a shrewd old observant rodent that runs up and around our drains would be sure to remark if he had Bro . Hoskins' gift of utterance , and knew that Bro . Bailey would publish them . As the whole book may be bought for eighteen-pence , it is not fair to " gut " it , but I must try to show my readers that in these days of penny-catch bookmaking the little volume really has something in it . "Our town is a pleasant town , " says Bro . Hoskins in his opening" a clean town with picturesque surroundingsand on the whole a

, , healthy town . The local authorities of our town have a way of their ovm . in doing things , and if their way is not quite what every one could wish it to he , it is very much better than the way adopted by the like authorities in some of our neighbouring towns . One of the chief characteristics of the aforesaid authorities of our town is a penchant for the formation of new roads , the repairing of old ones , and the almost immediate breaking up of both ! for

some cause or other in connection with the sewerage , gas , or waterworks . Whenever we see new material laid down , or hear the snorting of the steam roller , we may almost safely predict that a chasm will very soon be opened , barricaded during the day by rough timbers and earth from the excavation , and dimly illuminated at night by a monster coke fire , presided over by a superanuated navvy . Not very long ago something was wrong with the main

sewer opposite my offices . We had had , I think , the road repaired and neatl y rolled about a week before , but now picks and shovels were at work , barricades erected , and as night came on , the inevitable coke fire and watchman (?) made their appearance . Having a press of work at this time , I had returned to my office after the usual hours , with the object of making a push . Preparatory to resuming workI sauntered to the window . There was the coke fire

, crackling away , and there the superanuated navvy , smoking his pipe , and resting his back against an inverted wheelbarrow , the fire throwino- a red glare on the ridges of the heaps of earth thrown up from the excavations . Suddenl y I saw a large rat cross one of these ridges and disappear into the

surrounding gloom on my side ot the road . 1 left the window , poke . ! up my fire , and fell to work . A quarter of an hour had perhaps passed when I had occasion to look up from my work to get an instrument . " At the same moment my eyes met two others , small , black , and piercing . On the top edge and on the left-hand corner of my drawing-board , sat a rat , a fine , well-conditioned , intelligent looking fellow , with a self-satisfied air , and a fierce moustache a la Empereur .

" A well-fed rat , rotund and liale , Not knowing either Fast or Lent . " If I had been surprised by his appearance on my drawing-board , imagine my utter astonishment when he spoke . 'Road up again , ' said he . " And thev at once enter into the instructive conversation recorded in tho liirie book bel ' ore me . Cowper , in his " Pairing-Time Anticipated , " opens by singing : —