On a famous evening Mr. Boffin called on his literary man in ordinary, Mr. Silas Wegg. He was in a cab, blocked up with books, and he called excitedly:

“Here! lend a hand, Wegg, I can’t get out till the way is cleared for me. This is the Annual Register, Wegg, in a cabful of wollumes. Do you know him?”

“Know the Animal Register, sir,” said the Impostor, who had caught the name imperfectly. “For a trifling wager, I think I could find any Animal in him, blindfold, Mr. Boffin.”

I shall never pretend to the minute knowledge affected by Mr. Wegg; but I have been glancing through an odd volume of the Register, and have certainly come across some very queer animals.

And the first of them is a literal animal, the swallow. The account quoted in the Register is from Barrington’s Miscellanies. It seems that during the winter the swallow hides itself under water. This is a well-known fact, and Linn?us is quoted in support of it, with many other witnesses. For example, Mr. Stephens, A.S.S.— there seems to me something ominous about these letters — used to pick up bunches of swallows or martins from a pond at Shrivenham, where his father was vicar. “The birds were carried into the kitchen, on which they soon afterwards flew about the room, in the presence of his father, mother, and others, particularly the Rev. Dr. Pye.”

I find it very hard to resist the Rev. Dr. Pye. There is something orthodox, comfortable and full-bodied in his style. I wish I could have seen him as he walked abroad, in wig, cassock, gown and bands, round of speech, I am sure.

But, indeed, a host of witnesses to the submersive habit of the swallow are cited, including a Brentford man and Sigismond, King of Poland. The Brentford man said he had caught specimens in the eyt opposite the town, and the King affirmed on his oath to Cardinal Commendon that he had frequently seen swallows which were found at the bottom of lakes.

And before we laugh, let us remember how many of us saw Russians, thousands of them, in England, in the year 1914. The Annual Register from which I am quoting is dated 1781.

And then there are the other Animals, the featherless bipeds. There is a full account of the trial of Lord George Gordon for High Treason on February 5, 1781, with a very vivid description of the scene at the doors of the House of Commons (see “Barnaby Rudge,” Chapter XLIX). And here I came across a very odd animal. There is a well-known passage in Boswell’s “Johnson” in which Johnson and Boswell decide that Fleet Street (or the town) is better than Greenwich Park (that is, the country). Boswell fortifies himself in this opinion “by the authority of a very fashionable baronet in the brilliant world, who, on his attention being called to the fragrance of a May evening in the country, observed, ‘This may be very well; but for my part, I prefer the smell of a flambeau at the playhouse.’” A footnote informs us that Mr. Boswell’s smart friend was Sir Michael Le Fleming. I have never heard more of him, and never expected to hear more of him. A learned Boswellian surmises that, on the evidence given, Sir Michael was probably an unprofitable friend for Boswell, and so the matter ended, as I thought. And here, to my amazement, the fashionable, brilliant and — may one surmise?— somewhat sophisticated baronet, makes his appearance in the Gordon trial. The Rev. Thomas Bowen was officiating as Chaplain to the House of Commons on June 2, 1780. Giving evidence, he says that, prayers ended, he sat under the gallery, near the door. In and out of the House comes Lord George, telling his supporters in the lobby what was going on within. This intelligence comes in gusts to the Chaplain, thus:

Lord George: “Mr. Burke, member for Bristol (the Burke) has said ——” and then the door was shut, and no more was heard.

Again: “Lord North calls you a mob”: “Mr. Rous has just moved............