A French dancing master, on observing the uncouth gambols of some uninstructed clowns, said, with an oracular shrug of the shoulders, and a voice of much pathos, "Poor human nature! it cannot dance of itself; it must be taught.” This is equally true of ursine nature; bears, like men, must be taught ere they can dance. Bruin's fore legs were left in their natural state, but his hind legs were protected by a sort of boot or buskin made of leather, and having a wooden sole. Being thus shod, he was put upon a heated flagstone, with a charcoal fire underneath it; and then Bruin naturally raised his unprotected fore paws in the air, and moved his hind legs up and down, in order to avoid the heat of the flagstones, upon which he was kept by means of ropes and a circle of strong hoops. While he capered, his instructors blew their pipes and beat their drums or their tabors. After a few lessons of this sort, Bruin would stand upon his as soon as he heard the music. bear, it was necessary to take him Not only does not human nature dance of itself, but it is scarcely to be taught after it has attained to years of discretion. hind legs and cut capers But to make a Vestris * in hand in his early life. Some speculators of the duchy of Parma once made a great mistake, which was attended with very serious consequences. Being at Genoa, they heard of a very fine, big bear, that was on board a Baltimore schooner. They bargained with the Yankee skipper, who was very glad to get rid of so troublesome a passenger, but who, nevertheless, made them pay a good price for the monster. It was a beast of the very biggest size, and no doubt would have been very attractive if only he could have been tamed and taught; but he was an old bear, and had lived a long time in the republic of the United States. He had not been a day in the possession of the poor Italians before they wished him down the skipper's throat, or back at Baltimore. Great were the toil and trouble they had in getting Vestris was a celebrated French dancer . him across the Apennines from Genoa to their own secluded valley; he was sullen, morose, and at the same time snappish and petulant. up But it was not until they tried to give him his first dancing lesson (his education had been entirely neglected all the while he had been living under the stars and stripes) that they found what an untamable monster they had got. The flagstone being prepared, he was brought forth. With much difficulty and some danger, the boots or buskins were put upon his hind legs; but when they got him upon the stone, and stirred the charcoal beneath, there was no holding him. As soon as he felt the heat, instead of lifting his fore paws up in the air, and dancing on his hind ones, he uttered a fearful growl, made a still more fearful spring, and breaking hoops and cordage, and upsetting all the men that opposed him, he burst away, and made with all speed for the wooded side of the mountain, with some of the broken ropes hanging to him. The poor men, tearing their hair and cursing the day that they had seen him, followed as fast as they could; but though they might have shot him, they found it impossible to capture him alive; which, seeing the price they had paid for him to the Baltimore skipper, they were naturally anxious to do. The monster was thus allowed to gain the covert of the thick wood, where he abode for some time, to the great terror of the mountaineers, and to their no small loss, for he killed several of their sheep and goats. It was even said that he killed and ate up a child; while on the other side of the mountains, it was reported that he had killed and eaten not one child, but a whole family. The magistrates and other local authorities of all the neighboring towns and villages were alarmed by the reports they heard, and in their first anger an order was issued for throwing into prison the unlucky bear-wards who had brought such a perilous, unmannered, and unmanageable bear into the country. In the end, however, the justices of the peace did what was much better they sent out a company of soldiers, the whole posse comitatus, armed as sportsmen, and invited the peasantry to a grand hunt. The poor bear-wards received an invitation; but their hearts were sad; they were grieving for the hard dollars which the Yankee skipper had got from them, and so they declined attending, saying (which was true enough) that they were no sportsmen, and that it was their business to teach bears how to dance, not to shoot them. The hunt was had, and the bear, being surrounded, was finally killed, though not until he had almost as many balls in him as there are stars in the banner under which he had lived and sailed. We believe that since this time none of the bear teachers have ever dealt with an old American bear. CXXXVI.-ACCOUNT OF TWO TAME RAVENS. [In Dickens's novel of Barnaby Rudge, a tame raven is introduced, which is possessed of much intelligence, and plays many tricks. Apparently, some doubts had been expressed as to the possibility of a raven's being capable of such a degree of training, and in the last edition of the novel, the author makes the following introductory statement.] * As it is Mr. Waterton's opinion that ravens are gradually becoming extinct in England, I offer a few words here about mine. The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom I have been, at different times, the proud possessor. The first was in the bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest retirement in England by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne Page, "good gifts," which he improved by study and attention in a most exemplary manner. He slept in a stable, generally on horseback, and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural sagacity, that he has * Mr. Waterton is a well-known English naturalist. been known, by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off unmolested with the dog's dinner, from before his face. He was rapidly rising in acquirements and virtues, when, in an evil hour, his stable was newly painted. He observed the workmen closely, saw that they were careful of the paint, and immediately burned to possess it. On their going to dinner, he ate up all they had left behind, consisting of a pound or two of white lead; and this youthful indiscretion terminated in death. While I was yet inconsolable for his loss, another friend of mine in Yorkshire discovered an older and more gifted raven at a village public house, which he prevailed upon the landlord to part with for a consideration, and sent up to me. The first act of this sage was, to administer to the effects of his predecessor, by disinterring all the cheese and halfpence he had buried in the garden- a work of immense labor and research, to which he devoted all the energies of his mind. When he had achieved this task, he applied himself to the acquisition of stable language, in which he soon became such an adept, that he would perch outside my window, and drive imaginary horses with great skill all day. Once I met him unexpectedly, about half a mile off, walking down the middle of the public street, attended by a pretty large crowd, and spontaneously exhibiting the whole of his accomplishments. His gravity under these trying circumstances I never can forget, nor the extraordinary gallantry with which, refusing to be brought home, he defended himself behind a pump, until overpowered by numbers. It may have been that he was too bright a genius to live long, or it may have been that he took some pernicious substance into his bill, and thence into his maw; which is not improbable, seeing that he new-pointed the greater part of the garden wall by digging out the mortar, broke countless squares of glass by scraping away the putty all round the frames, and tore up and swallowed, in splinters, the greater part of a wooden staircase of six steps and a landing; but after some years, he, too, was taken ill, and died before the kitchen fire. He kept his eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over on his back with a sepulchral cry of "Cuckoo." Since then I have been ravenless. CXXXVII.-GATHERING OF THE FALLEN ANGELS. MILTON. [JOHN MILTON was born in London, December 9, 1608, and died November 8, 1674 His is one of the greatest names in all literature; and of course it would be impossible In the compass of a brief notice like this to point out, except in the most cursory manner, the elements of his intellectual supremacy. His Comus, Lycidas, L' Allegro, Il Penseroso, and Arcades were written before he was thirty years old; Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes were all published after his fifty-ninth year, and many years after he had been totally blind. His prose works were the growth of the intermediate period. Milton's early poetry is full of morning freshness, and the spirit of unworn youth; the Paradise Lost is characterized by the highest sublimity, the most various learning, and the noblest pictures; and the Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes have a serene and solemn grandeur, deepening in the latter into austerity; while all are marked by imaginative power, purity and elevation of tone, and the finest harmony of verse. His prose works, which are partly in Latin and partly in English, were for the most part called forth by the ecclesiastical and political controversies of the stormy period in which he lived. They are vigorous and eloquent in style, and abound in passages of the highest beauty and loftiest tone of sentiment. Milton's character is hardly less worthy of admiration than his genius. Spotless in morals; simple in his tastes; of ardent piety; bearing with cheerfulness the burdens of blindness, poverty, and neglect; bending his genius to the humblest duties, — he presents an exalted model of excellence, in which we can find nothing to qualify our reverence, except a certain severity of temper, and perhaps a somewhat impatient and intolerant spirit. Addison's criticism on the Paradise Lost, which appeared originally in the Spectator, and the admirable essays of Macaulay and Channing, are recommended to those who are desirous of learning more about the genius and writings of this great poet. A very good edition of his poems is that published by Messrs. Lippincott, Grambo, & Co., of Philadelphia, under the editorial charge of Mr. C. D. Cleveland. It contains a life, a good selection of notes, and an excellent verbal index. The following passage is from the first book of the Paradise Lost.] HE scarce had ceased, when the superior fiend Behind him cast; the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders, like the moon, whose orb |