whatever it may be; and as soon as it has recruited you, have done.

Though vouched by no less authority than that of Mr. Locke, I am not about to advert to the well-known story of Prince Maurice's Brasilian parrot. Spite of his feathered garments, he appears to have been too much of the animal bipes, implume, for me to venture on incorporating with my theories, such a tale.* But, in supposing that it cannot ever, nor in any degree, link an idea with a word, I suspect that we underrate the powers of even an ordinary parrot. It certainly knows its name: which is in other words to say, that to a certain sound it attaches the idea of itself. In showing that it can thus connect one word with one idea, do we not prove that it can connect another sound with another idea? Is any rational ground of distinction between the cases to be found? Or can it, without absurdity,

Yet it is taken from a writer of some celebrity; the author of memoirs of what passed in Christendom, from 1672, to 1679; and if the story is devoid of foundation, Prince Maurice, who took pains not to be deceived, must have been deceived; for there is not the least doubt, that he believed it. -Bingley's Annual Biography.

be maintained, that while he can annex an idea to a sound, if uttered by another, he cannot do so, if it be articulated by himself? Probably the parrot's powers of combination are inconsiderable and slow; nor are his ideas likely to be numerous or distinct; and proportioned to these defects will be his inability to make a long, ideafreighted, and coherent speech. But est quodam prodire tenus; si non datur ultra.—I was once acquainted with a cockatoo; who, without being a prodigy, was a very clever (as he certainly was a very amiable) creature of his kind. He never said 'good-by,' when his friend was entering, nor how you do? when he was leaving the room; and when weary of your company, was not unlikely to hint his feeling, by a 'good by. He never said I can't get out,' when he was at liberty; and seldom omitted to say it, when impatient of restraint. My feathered friend, I must confess, was un peu Aristocrate; and had learned to address the Tiers Etat with 'get out you ragged fellows.' On one occasion he stole a march; and got into a scrape, as truants are apt to do. He had made his way to a field of ripe corn; and in the

intricacies of this (to him) strange labyrinth, was very soon bewildered;

And found no end, in endless mazes lost.

His situation resembled that, in which, in Brobdingnag, Gulliver had once been; but his course was different from that which Gulliver pursued. He began to shout-if not manfully, at least parrotfully, I can't get out. Attracted and guided by the sounds, a labouring man came up, and proceeded to extricate Cockatoo. He was at first repulsed with the usual 'get out you ragged fellow !'-but in the end his services were accepted or endured; and our hero reconducted to his friends. On his return, he was lavish of his salutations and self-caresses. It was nothing but how d'you do? How d'you do? Poor, pretty Cockatoo! In short, the poor bird seemed delighted with the meeting, and conscious that it followed on a somewhat perilous separation.-I forget was it Catullus who addressed a poem to a parrot. Be this as it may, without meaning to disparage the Psittacus of ancient times, I will venture to say, that my friend Cockatoo deserved such a compliment as well; and that

L

(bating the knowledge of Greek and Latin) he was in no way inferior to-for any thing we know-his forefather.

POSTSCRIPT.

Here end the rambles of poor Cockatoo, who long since winged his flight to that Elysian aviary, from which, alas!

No cockatoo returns.

Here too terminates my RAMBLE ONE. Whether it be followed by a RAMBLE ON, may depend partly on the public, and partly on myself. If vel duo, vel nemo of that public, read what I have already written, why should I be at the trouble of writing more, which would be sure to share the fate of the charte ineptæ that had gone before?

But suppose these pages to find readers, still I should have to apply to my Indolence for leave

of absence, before I could venture upon RAMBLES FARTHER; and that

soft, salutary power*

might be, perhaps, disposed to answer my application with an ill-omened yawn.

But the sheets which are now (I just recollect in time to say) being printed, how can I expect a line of them to be read? Poor Warner Christian Search is not one of that swarm of visitor savans, which has been so lately illustrating our shores. At home too, in vain would you seek for him, amongst the Vice-Presidents of the Dublin Society, or Royal Irish Academy, or even amongst the sage council of this latter. Yet if he had any pretensions to literature, or to science-nay, if he were endowed with propensities, which Edie Ochiltree could quiz, he might smuggle himself up to some sort of elevation;

* Gray, I think, so entitles Indolence, or Ignorance.

† Oh! the pedantic and ungrammatical coxcombry of modern phraseology! If we find a verb with both an active and a neutral meaning, (and there are many such in English, French, and Greek,) we at once, to the impoverishment of our language, abolish the latter signification. Who would now dare to say, "while the King's speech was reading?" No; no: we must say, while it was "being read."—The time