as eggs;
His body, flexible and limber,
And headed with a knob of timber;
A being frantic and unquiet,
And very fond of beef and riot;
Rapacious, lustful, rough, and martial,
To lies and lying scoundrels partial!
By nature form'd with splendid parts
To rise in science--shine in arts;
Yet so confounded cross and vicious,
A mortal foe to all his species!
His own best _friend_, and you must know,
His own worst _enemy_ by being so!"[5]

ADDISON AND STEELE ON SOME OF THE PECULIARITIES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY
COLLECTORS OF THE DAY.

In one of the early volumes of _Chambers's Edinburgh Journal_, there was
a very curious paper entitled "Nat Phin." Although considerably
exaggerated, no one who had the happiness of knowing the learned,
amiable, and excellent Dr Patrick Neill, could fail to recognise, in the
transposed title, an amusing description of his love of natural history
pets, zoological and botanical. The fun of the paper is that "Nat" gets
married, and, coming home one day from his office, finds that his young
wife has caused the gardener to clear out his ponds of tadpoles and
zoophytes.

Addison or Sir Richard Steele, or both of them, in the following paper
of the _Tatler_ (No. 221, Sept. 7, 1710), has given one of those quietly
satiric pictures of many a well-known man of the day, some Petiver or
Hans Sloane. The widow Gimcrack's letter is peculiarly racy. Although
old books, the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ still furnish rare material to
many a popular magazine writer of the day, who sometimes does little
more than dilute a paper in these and other rare repertories of the
style and wit of a golden age. We meditated offering various extracts
from Swift and Daniel Defoe; but our space limits us to one, and the
following may for the present suffice.

"_From my own Apartment, September 6._

"As I was this morning going out of my house, a little boy in a black
coat delivered me the following letter. Upon asking who he was, he told
me that he belonged to my Lady Gimcrack. I did not at first recollect
the name, but, upon inquiry, I found it to be the widow of Sir Nicholas,
whose legacy I lately gave some account of to the world. The letter ran
thus:--

"'MR BICKERSTAFF,--I hope you will not be surprised to receive a letter
from the widow Gimcrack. You know, sir, that I have lately lost a very
whimsical husband, who, I find, by one of your last week's papers, was
not altogether