than the pig. But they refuse to mention at the same time, that in
_birds_ the number varies from nine to twenty-three, and in _reptiles_
from three to eight. Sometimes the merest fancy is indulged. We are told
that in the pulpy substance of a certain mollusk there are lines drawn
presenting a sketch of a vertebrated animal, and it is gravely intimated
that nature seems to have made a rough design of the next work of art she
was about to produce.

When Dr Carpenter tells us, in exemplifying this law of unity of
composition, that "the skull is but an expansion of the three highest
vertebrae, modified to afford space for the development of the contained
brain and of the organs of sense," p. 191--is he much wiser than those
entomologists whom he had been previously criticising for "maintaining
that the wing of an insect is a modification of its leg?" Verily we
suspect that if Martinus Scriblerus had had his attention drawn to this
manner of viewing things, it would have greatly excited his learned
ingenuity; he would probably have begun to apply this scientific method to
a variety of things, and found a unity of composition never before dreamt
of. What should have prevented him from casting a philosophic glance upon
the furniture of his room? With less ingenuity than certain physiologists,
he would easily detect a marvellous unity of plan. He would have probably
taken the table with its four legs, and the disk they support, as his
great type of joinery, and would have traced a modification of this type
in all the articles around him. The chair is manifestly nothing else than
the table, with a development of the hinder legs commonly called the back.
From the chair to the sofa the transition would be ridiculously easy;
indeed the sofa can only be considered as a variety of the chair, produced
by a high state of cultivation. In the footstool, or ottoman, the disk of
the table has become thick and pulpy, while its legs have dwindled into
small globular supports. This exaggeration of the upper portion at the
expense of the lower, is carried a step further in the chest of drawers,
where the small globular supports bear a singular disproportion to the
corpulent figure they sustain. In some varieties even these knob-like legs
are wanting; but precisely in these cases, he would observe, the knobs
invariably re-appear in the shape of handles, which are still a sort of
paw. What is the fire-screen, he would say, but a table with the di