re
fortunate than most of your neighbours, if he does not prepare for
himself a mausoleum behind your chimney-piece or under your
hearthstone, retire into it when he is about to die, and very soon
afford you full proof that though he may have lived like a hermit, his
relics are not in the odour of sanctity. You have then the additional
comfort of knowing, that the spot so appropriated will thenceforth be
used as a common cemetery or a family-vault.' In the same vein, homage
is paid to Rat's imitation of human enterprise: shewing how, when the
adventurous merchant ships a cargo for some foreign port, Rat goes
with it; how, when Great Britain plants a colony at the antipodes, Rat
takes the opportunity of colonising also; how, when ships are sent out
on a voyage of discovery, Rat embarks as a volunteer; doubling the
stormy Cape with Diaz, arriving at Malabar with Gama, discovering the
New World with Columbus, and taking possession of it at the same time,
and circumnavigating the globe with Magellan, and Drake, and Cook.

Few that have once read will forget the Doctor's philological
contributions towards an amended system of English orthography.
Assuming the propriety of discarding all reference to the etymology of
words, when engaged in spelling them, and desirous, as a philological
reformer, to establish a truly British language, he proposes
introducing a distinction of genders, in which the language has
hitherto been defective. Thus, in anglicising the orthography of
_chemise_, he resolves that foreign substantive into the home-grown
neologisms, masculine and feminine, of Hemise and Shemise. Again, in
letter-writing, every person, he remarks, is aware that male and
female letters have a distinct sexual character; they should,
therefore, be generally distinguished thus--Hepistle and Shepistle.
And as there is the same marked difference in the writing of the two
sexes, he proposes Penmanship and Penwomanship. Erroneous opinions in
religion being promulgated in this country by women as well as men,
the teachers of such false doctrines he would divide into Heresiarchs
and Sheresiarchs. That troublesome affection of the diaphragm, which
every person has experienced, is, upon the same principle, to be
called, according to the sex of the patient, Hecups and Shecups;
which, upon the above principle of making our language truly British,
is better than the more classical form of _Hicc_ups and _Hoe_ccups;
and then in its objective