* * * * * "Booshoh he!"--as, at the conclusion of an hour, some object at the extremity of the rope became indistinctly visible--"Booshoh he!"--was the exclamation which burst from the lips of Ben-Levi. "Booshoh he!--for shame!--it is a ram from the thickets of Engedi, and as rugged as the valley of Jehosaphat!" "It is a firstling of the flock," said Abel-Shittim--"I know him by the bleating of his lips, and the innocent folding of his limbs. His eyes are more beautiful than the jewels of the Pectoral--and his flesh is like the honey of Hebron." "It is a fatted calf from the pastures of Bashan"--said the Pharisee--"the Heathen have dealt wonderfully with us--let us raise up our voices in a psalm--let us give thanks on the shawm and on the psaltery--on the harp and on the huggab--on the cythern and on the sackbut." It was not until the basket had arrived within a few feet of the Gizbarim that a low grunt betrayed to their perception a _hog_ of no common size. "Now El Emanu!"--slowly, and with upturned eyes ejaculated the trio, as, letting go their hold, the emancipated porker tumbled headlong among the Philistines--"El Emanu!--God be with us!--it is the unutterable flesh!" "Let me no longer," said the Pharisee wrapping his cloak around him and departing within the city--"let me no longer be called Simeon, which signifieth 'he who listens'--but rather Boanerges, 'the Son of Thunder.'" Lucian calls unmeaning verbosity, _anemonæ verborum_. The anemone, with great brilliancy, has no fragrance. LEAVES FROM MY SCRAP BOOK. I. "I think Homer, as a poet, inferior to Scott." _T. C. Grimckè--Pamphlet_. The gentleman whose words I have just used, maintained on all occasions the superiority of modern over ancient literature. He prefers the better portions of Milman's "Samor, Lord of the Bright City," to the better portions of the Odyssey; and contends that "Scott's description of the battle of Flodden Hill, the midnight visit of William of Deloraine to Melrose Abbey, &c., are unequalled by anything in the Iliad or Æneid." Now such comparisons are plainly unreasonable. "To read Homer's poems, is to look upon a brightly colored nosegay whose odor is departed," or, if not departed, at least lost to our dull and ignorant sense. The subtle odor of idiom and provincial peculiarity--the stronger odor of association are entirely lost to us. I may better illustrate my idea. Every one will recollect the following couplet in the description of William of Deloraine: "A stark moss-trooping Scot was he, As e'er couched border lance by knee."