When Dr Carpenter tells us, in exemplifying this law of unity of composition, that "the skull is but an expansion of the three highest vertebrae, modified to afford space for the development of the contained brain and of the organs of sense," p. 191--is he much wiser than those entomologists whom he had been previously criticising for "maintaining that the wing of an insect is a modification of its leg?" Verily we suspect that if Martinus Scriblerus had had his attention drawn to this manner of viewing things, it would have greatly excited his learned ingenuity; he would probably have begun to apply this scientific method to a variety of things, and found a unity of composition never before dreamt of. What should have prevented him from casting a philosophic glance upon the furniture of his room? With less ingenuity than certain physiologists, he would easily detect a marvellous unity of plan. He would have probably taken the table with its four legs, and the disk they support, as his great type of joinery, and would have traced a modification of this type in all the articles around him. The chair is manifestly nothing else than the table, with a development of the hinder legs commonly called the back. From the chair to the sofa the transition would be ridiculously easy; indeed the sofa can only be considered as a variety of the chair, produced by a high state of cultivation. In the footstool, or ottoman, the disk of the table has become thick and pulpy, while its legs have dwindled into small globular supports. This exaggeration of the upper portion at the expense of the lower, is carried a step further in the chest of drawers, where the small globular supports bear a singular disproportion to the corpulent figure they sustain. In some varieties even these knob-like legs are wanting; but precisely in these cases, he would observe, the knobs invariably re-appear in the shape of handles, which are still a sort of paw. What is the fire-screen, he would say, but a table with the disk in a vertical position? What the four-post bedstead but a reduplication of the original type, a table placed on a table, the upper one being laid open? If he had had the advantage of reading Mr Dickens, he would have mentioned, in confirmation of this view, that young Mr Weller, when sleeping under a table, congratulates himself upon enjoying the luxury of a four-post bedstead. The coal-scuttle might perhaps present some difficulties; but if he might be allowed to approach it through the loo-table, he would doubtless succeed in tracing here also the unity of composition. In the loo-table the four legs have collapsed into a central column! The coal-scuttle is only a _loo-table_ with the edges of the disk curled up--assuming a bonnet-like shape, the result, perhaps, of its long domesticity. In short, we believe the only insuperable difficulty Martin would encounter, would be, when, after having completed his survey, he