The merits of LODGE'S Peerage of the British Empire have
made it a Perennial Annual. Every year it comes forth anew, having, very unlike its subjects, improved upon the past; and here is the sixth edition, with the arms of each patrician now in- troduced for the first time, and a view of the Baronetage of the Three Kingdoms. When the Spectator, some five years ago, found it necessary for the public service to anatomize the members of the foul and feudal Polypheme, we were much in the habit of handling Peerages, and thought LODGE'S, upon the whole, the best. Since then, the nature of the " Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum,"
is pretty well apprehended ; and Mr. LODGE may not only outlive the subject of his labours, but perhaps even the types of his edi- tion, which he informs us are kept standing throughout the year, may have to be distributed some fine morning. We think, however, we can console the publishers with the hope of security for the next year; although an oracle has pronounced, as allegorically as re- sponses were wont to be made of yore, that " the pear will be ripe at Easter." The feast of the Passover falls very early, and March winds are ill adapted for ripening any thing, though they very often cut off things that have a superfine delicacy of nature. Unless we could get some Joshua to work his miracles upon the sun, the prophecy smacks more of a courtly astrology, than of precise astronomical calculation.
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