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stable. Whenever the widow was cruel, the foxes were sure to pay for it. In proportion as his passion for the widow abated and old age came on, he left off fox-hunting; but a hare is not yet safe that sits within ten miles of his house.

There is no kind of exercise which I would so recommend to my readers of both sexes as this of riding, as there is none which so much conduces to health, and is every way accommodated to the body, according to the idea which I have given of it. Doctor Sydenham is very lavish in its praises; and if the English reader would see the mechanical effects of it described at length, he may find them in a book published not many years since, under the title of Medicina Gymnastica.* For my own part, when I am in town, for want of these opportunities, I exercise myself an hour every morning upon a dumb-bell that is placed in a corner of my room, and it pleases me the more because it does everything that I require of it in the most profound silence. My landlady and her daughters are so well acquainted with my hours of exercise, that they never come into my room to disturb me while I am ringing.

abounds in; and which seem to be extremely well suited to that laborious industry a man may observe here in a far greater degree than in towns and cities. I have before hinted at some of my friend's exploits: he has in his youthful days taken forty coveys of partridges in a season; and tired many a salmon with a line consisting of but a single hair. The constant thanks and good wishes of the neighborhood always attended him on account of his remarkable enmity toward foxes; having destroyed more of these vermin in one year, than it was thought the whole country could have produced. Indeed the knight does not scruple to own among his most intimate friends, that in order to establish his reputation this way, he has secretly sent for great numbers of them out of other countries, which he used to turn loose about the country by night, that he might the better signalize himself in their destruction the next day. His hunting horses were the finest and best man aged in all these parts. His tenants are still full of the praises of a gray stone-horse that unhappily staked himself several years since, and was buried with great solemnity in the orchard.

When I was some years younger than I am at Sir Roger being at present too old for fox-hunt present, I used to employ myself in a more labo-ing, to keep himself in action, has disposed of rious diversion, which I learned from a Latin trea- his beagles and got a pack of stop hounds. What tise of exercises that is written with great erudition:† these want in speed, he endeavors to make amends it is there called the fighting with a inan's own for by the deepness of their mouths and the vashadow, and consists in the brandishing of two riety of their notes, which are suited in such a short sticks grasped in each hand, and leaden manner to each other, that the whole cry makes with plugs of lead at either end. This opens the up a complete concert. He is so nice in this parchest, exercises the limbs, and gives a man all the ticular, that a gentleman having made him a prepleasure of boxing, without the blows. I could sent of a very fine hound the other day, the knight wish that several learned men would lay out that returned it by the servant with a great many extime which they employ in controversies and dis- pressions of civility; but desired him to tell his putes about nothing, in this method of fighting master that the dog he had sent was indeed a most with their own shadows. It might conduce very excellent bass, but that at present he only wanted much to evaporate the spleen, which makes then uneasy to the public as well as to themselves.

To conclude, as I am a compound of soul and body, I consider myself as obliged to a double scheme of duties; and think I have not fulfilled the business of the day when I do not thus employ the one in labor and exercise, as well as the other in study and contemplation.

No. 116.] FRIDAY, JULY 13, 1711.
-Vocat ingenti clamore Citharon,
Taygetique canes.-VIRG. Georg. iii, 43.
The echoing hills and chiding hounds invite.

THOSE who have searched into human nature observe that nothing so much shows the nobleness of the soul, as that its felicity consists in action. Every man has such an active principle in him, that he will find out something to employ himself upon, in whatever place or state of life he is posted I have heard of a gentleman who was under close confinement in the Bastile seven years, during which time he amused himself in scattering a few small pins about his chamber, gathering them up again, and placing them in different figures on the arm of a great chair. He often told his friends afterward, that unless he had found out this piece of exercise, he verily believed he

should have lost his senses.

After what has been said, I need not inform my readers that Sir Roger, with whose character I hope they are at present pretty well acquainted, has in his youth gone through the whole course of those rural diversions which the country

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counter-tenor. Could I believe my friend had ever read Shakspeare, I should certainly conclude he had taken the hint from Theseus in the Midsummer Night's Dream:

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flu'd, so sanded;† and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew.
Crook'd-kneed and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls,
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouths like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tunable

Was never halloo'd to, nor cheer'd with horn.

Sir Roger is so keen at this sport, that he has been out almost every day since I came down; and upon the chaplain's offering to lend me his easy pad, I was prevailed on yesterday morning to make one of the company. I was extremely pleased, as we rode along, to observe the general benevolence of all the neighborhood toward my friend. The farmers' sons thought themselves happy if they could open a gate for the good old knight as he passed by; which he generally requited with a nod or a smile, and a kind inquiry after their fathers or uncles.

After we had ridden about a mile from home, we came upon a large heath, and the sportsmen began to beat. They had done so for some time, when, as I was at a little distance from the rest of furze-brake almost under my horse's feet. I markthe company, I saw a hare pop out from a small ed the way she took, which I endeavored to make but to no purpose, till Sir Roger, who knows that the company sensible of by extending my arm; none of my extraordinary motions are insignificant, rode up to me and asked me if puss was mediately called in the dogs, and put them upon gone that way? Upon my answering yes, he im the scent. As they were going off, I heard one of the country fellows mittering to his companion, *Mouthed, chapped.

† Marked with small spots.

"that 'twas a wonder they had not lost all their sport, for want of the silent gentleman's crying, Stole away."

sports comes from the same reason, and is par ticularly severe upon hunting. "What," says he, "unless it be to drown thought, can make them This, with my aversion to leaping hedges, made throw away so much time and pains upon a silly me withdraw to a rising ground, from whence I animal, which they might buy cheaper in the could have the pleasure of the whole chase, with- market?" The foregoing reflection is certainly out the fatigue of keeping in with the hounds. just, when a man suffers his whole mind to be The hare immediately threw them above a mile drawn into his sports, and altogether loses himbehind her; but I was pleased to find that, instead self in the woods; but does not affect those who of running straight forward, or, in hunter's lan- propose a far more laudable end from this exercise, guage, "flying the country," as I was afraid she mean the preservation of health, and keeping might have done, she wheeled about, and de- all the organs of the soul in a condition to execute scribed a sort of circle round the hill where I had her orders. Had that incomparable person whom taken my station, in such a manner as gave me a I last quoted been a little more indulgent to himvery distinct view of the sport. I could see her self in this point, the world might probably have first pass by, and the dogs some time afterward enjoyed him much longer; whereas, through too unraveling the whole track she had made, and great an application to his studies in his youth, following her through all her doubles, I was at he contracted that ill habit of body, which, after the same time delighted in observing that defer- a tedious sickness, carried him off in the fortieth ence which the rest of the pack paid to each par-year of his age; and the whole history we have of ticular hound, according to the character he had his life till that time, is but one continued account acquired among them. If they were at fault, and of the behavior of a noble soul struggling under an old hound of reputation opened but once, he innumerable pains and distempers. was immediately followed by the whole cry; while a raw dog, or one who was a noted liar, might have yelped his heart out, without being taken notice of.

The hare now, after having squatted two or three times, and being put up again as often, came still nearer to the place where she was at first started. The dogs pursued her, and these were followed by the jolly kuight, who rode upon a white gelding, encompassed by his tenants and servants, and cheering his hounds with all the gayety of five-and-twenty. One of the sportsmen rode up to me, and told me, that he was sure the chase was almost at an end, because the old dogs, which had hitherto lain behind, now headed the pack. The fellow was in the right. Our hare took a large field just under us, followed by the full cry in view. I must confess the brightness of the weather, the cheerfulness of everything around me, the chiding of the hounds, which was returned upon us in a double echo from two neighboring hills, with the hallooing of the sportsmen, and the sounding of the horn, lifted my spirits into a most lively pleasure, which I freely indulged because I was sure it was innocent. If I was under any concern, it was on account of the poor hare, that was now quite spent, and almost within the reach of her enemies; when the huntsman getting forward, threw down his pole before the dogs. They were now within eight yards of that game which they had been pursuing for almost as many hours; yet on the signal before-mentioned they all made a sudden stand, and though they continued opening as much as before, durst not once attempt to pass beyond the pole. At the same time Sir Roger rode forward, and alighting, took up the hare in his arms; which he soon after delivered up to one of his servants with an order if she could be kept alive, to let her go in his great orchard; where it seems he has several of these prisoners of war, who live together in a very comfortable captivity. I was Lighly pleased to see the discipline of the pack, and the good-nature of the knight, who could not find in his heart to murder a creature that had given him so much diversion.

As we were returning home, I remembered that Monsieur Paschal, in his most excellent discourse on the Misery of Man, tells us, that all our endeavors after greatness proceed from nothing but a desire of being surrounded by a multitude of persons and affairs that may hinder us from looking into ourselves, which is a view we cannot bear. He afterward goes on to show that our love of

For my own part, I intend to hunt twice a week during my stay with Sir Roger; and shall prescribe the moderate use of this exercise to all my country friends, as the best kind of physic for mending a bad constitution, and preserving a good one.

I cannot do this better, than in the following lines out of Mr. Dryden:

The first physicians by debauch were made;
Excess began, and Sloth sustains the trade.
By chase our long-liv'd fathers earn'd their food;
Toil strung the nerves, and purifi'd the blood:
But we their sons, a pamper'd race of men,
Are dwindled down to three-score years and ten.
Better to hunt in fields for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise for cure on exercise depend;
God rever made his work for man to mend.
X.

No. 117] SATURDAY, JULY 14, 1711.

-Ipsi sibi somnia fingunt.-VIRG., Ecl. viii, 108. With voluntary dreams they cheat their minds. THERE are some opinions in which a man should stand neuter, without engaging his assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering faith as this, which refuses to settle upon his determination, is absolutely necessary in a mind that is careful to avoid errors and prepossessions. When the arguments press equally on both sides in matters that are indifferent to us, the safest method is to give up ourselves to neither.

It is with this temper of mind that I consider the subject of witchcraft. Whenever I hear the relations that are made from all parts of the world, not only from Norway and Lapland, from the East and West Indies, but from every particular nation in Europe, I cannot forbear thinking that there is such an intercourse and commerce with evil spirits, as that which we express by the name of witchcraft. But when I consider that the ignorant and credulous parts of the world abound most in these relations, and the persons among us, who are supposed to engage in such an infernal commerce, are people of a weak understanding and crazed imagination-and at the same time reflect upon the many impostures and delusions of this nature that have been detected in all ages, I endeavor to suspend my belief till I hear more certain accounts than any which have yet come to my knowledge. In short, when I consider the question, whether there are such persons in the world as those we call witches, my mind is divided between two opposite opinions, or rather

(to speak my thoughts freely) I believe in general king children spit pins, and giving maids the that there is, and has been, such a thing as witch-nightmare; and that the country people would be craft; but at the same time can give no credit to tossing her into a pond and trying experiments any particular instance of it. with her every day, if it was not for him and his chaplain.

I am engaged in this speculation, by some occurrences that I met with yesterday, which I shall give my reader an account of at large. As I was walking with my friend Sir Roger by the side of one of his woods, an old woman applied herself to me for my charity. Her dress and figure put me in mind of the following description in Ot-ado persuaded him to the contrary.

I have since found upon inquiry that Sir Roger was several times staggered with the reports that had been brought him concerning this old woman, and would frequently have bound her over to the county sessions, had not his chaplain with much

way:

In a close lane, as I pursu'd my journey,

I spied a wrinkled hag, with a e grown double,
Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself.
Her eyes with scalding rheum were gall'd and red;
Cold palsy shook her heal; her hands seem'd wither'd;
And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapt
The tatter'd remnant of an old striped hanging,
Which served to keep her carcass from the cold:
So there was nothing of a piece about her.
Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsely patch'd
With different color'd rags, black, red, white, yellow,
And seem'd to speak variety of wretchedness.

I have been the more particular in this account, because I hear there is scarcely a village in England that has not a Moll White in it. When an old woman begins to doat, and grow chargeable to a parish, she is generally turned into a witch, and fills the whole country with extravagant fancies, imaginary distempers, and terrifying dreams. In the meantime, the poor wretch that is the innocent occasion of so many evils, begins to be frighted at herself, and sometimes confesses secret commerces and familiarities that her imagination forms in a delirious old age. This frequently cuts off charity from the greatest objects of compassion, and inspires people with a malevolence toward those poor decrepid parts of our species, in whom human nature is defaced by infirmity and dotags-L

No. 118.] MONDAY, JULY 16, 1711.

-Hæret lateri lethalis arundo.-VIRG, En. iv, 73.
-The fatal dart

As I was musing on this description, and comparing it with the object before me, the knight told me, that this very old woman had the reputation of a witch all over the country; that her lips were observed to be always in motion; and that there was not a switch about her house which her neighbors did not believe had carried her several hundreds of miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found sticks or straws that lay in the figure of a cross before her. If she made any mistake at church, and cried amen in a wrong Sticks in his side, and rankles in his heart.-DRYDEN. place, they never failed to conclude that she was saying her prayers backward. There was not a THIS agrecable seat is surrounded with so many maid in the parish that would take a pin of her, pleasing walks, which are struck out of a wood, though she should offer a bag of money with it. in the midst of which the house stands, that one She goes by the name of Moll White, and has can hardly be weary of rambling from one labymade the country ring with several imaginary ex-rinth of delight to another. To one used to live in ploits which are palmed upon her. If the dairy-the city, the charms of the country are so exquisite inaid does not make her butter come so soon as that the mind is lost in a certain transport which she would have it, Moll White is at the bottom of raises us above ordinary life, and yet is not strong the churn. If a horse sweats in the stable, Moll enough to be inconsistent with tranquillity. This White has been upon his back. If a hare makes state of mind was I in-ravished with the muran unexpected escape from the hounds, the hunts-mur of waters, the whisper of breezes, the singman curses Moll White. "Nay," says Sir Roger, "I have known the master of the pack, upon such an occasion, send one of his servants to see if Moll White had been out that morning."

sure;

ing of birds; and whether I looked up to the heavens, down on the earth, or turned to the prospects around me, still struck with new sense of pleawhen I found by the voice of my friend, This account raised my curiosity so far, that I who walked by me, that we had insensibly strolled begged my friend Sir Roger to go with me into into the grove sacred to the widow. "This wo her hovel, which stood in a solitary corner under man," says he, "is of all others the most unintel the side of the wood. Upon our first entering, ligible: she either designs to marry or she does not. Sir Roger winked to me, and pointed to something What is the most perplexing of all is, that she that stood behind the door, which, upon looking doth not either say to her lovers she has any resthat way, I found to be an old broom-staff. At olution against that condition of life in general, the same time he whispered me in the ear to take or that she banishes them; but conscious of her notice of a tabby cat that sat in the chimney cor- own merit, she permits their addresses, without ner, which, as the old knight told me, lay under fear of any ill consequence, or want of respect, as bad a report as Moll White herself; for beside from their rage or despair. She has that in her asthat Moll is said often to accompany her in the pect against which it is impossible to offend. A same shape, the cat is reported to have spoken inan whose thoughts are constantly bent upon so twice or thrice in her life, and to have played sev-agreeable an object, must be excused if the ordinary eral pranks above the capacity of an ordinary occurrences in conversation are below his atten

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tion. I call her indeed perverse, but, alas! why do I call her so?-because her superior merit is such, that I cannot approach her without awethat my heart is checked by too much esteem: I am angry that her charms are not more accessible, that I am more inclined to worship than salute her. How often have I wished her unhappy, that I might have an opportunity of serving her! and how often troubled in that very imagination at giving her the pain of being obliged! Well, I have led a miserable life in secret upon her account but fancy she would have condescended to have

some regard for me, if it had not been for that watchful animal her confidant.

will interpose in this matter, and hasten the wedding. Kate Willow is a witty, mischievous wench in the neighborhood, who was a beauty; and makes me hope I shall see the perverse widow in her condition. She was so flippant in her answers to all the honest fellows that came near her, and so very vain of her beauty, that she has valued herself upon her charms till they have ceased.— She therefore now makes it her business to pre vent other young women from being more discreet than she was herself: however, the saucy thing said the other day well enough, Sir Roger and I must make a match, for we are both despised by those we loved.' The hussy has a great deal of power wherever she comes, and has her share of cunning.

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"Of all persons under the sun" (continued he, calling me by my name), “be sure to set a mark upon confidants: they are of all people the most impertinent. What is most pleasant to observe in them is, that they assume to themselves the merit of persons whom they have in their custody. Orestilla is a great fortune, and in wonderful danger of surprises, therefore full of suspicions of the least indifferent thing, particularly careful of new acquaintance, and of growing too familiar with the old. Thermista, her favorite woman, is every whit as careful of whom she speaks to, and what she says. Let the ward be a beauty, her confidant shall treat you with an air of distance; let her be a fortune, and she assumes the suspicious beha- However, when I reflect upon this woman, I vior of her friend and patroness. Thus it is that do not know whether in the main I am the worse very many of our unmarried women of distinction for having loved her: whenever she is recalled to are to all intents and purposes married, except the my imagination. my youth returns, and I feel a consideration of different sexes. They are directly forgotten warmth in my veins. This affliction in under the conduct of their whisperer; and think my life has streaked all my conduct with a softthey are in a state of freedom, while they can ness, of which I should otherwise have been incaprate with one of these attendants of all men in pable. It is owing, perhaps, to this dear image in general, and still avoid the man they most like. my heart that I am apt to relent, that I easily forYou do not see one heiress in a hundred whose give, and that many desirable things are grown fate does not turn upon this circumstance of choos-into my temper, which I should not have arrived ing a confidant. Thus it is that the lady is ad- at by better motives than the thought of being dressed to, presented, and flattered only by proxy, one day hers. I am pretty well satisfied such a in her woman. In my case, how is it possible passion as I have had is never well cured; and that—” Sir Roger was proceeding in his ha- between you and me, I am often apt to imagine it rangue, when we heard the voice of one speaking has had some whimsical effect upon my brain: very importunately, and repeating these words, for I frequently find, that in my most serious dis“What, not one smile?" We followed the sound course I let fall some comical familiarity of speech till we came to a close thicket, on the other side of or odd phrase that makes the company laugh. which we saw a young woman sitting as it were However, I cannot but allow she is a most excelin a personated sullenness just over a transparent lent woman. When she is in the country, I warfountain. Opposite to her stood Mr. William, Sir rant she does not run into dairies, but reads upon Roger's master of the game. The knight whis- the nature of plants: she has a glass hive, and pered me, "Hist, these are lovers." The hunts- comes into the garden out of books to see them inan looking earnestly at the shadow of the young work, and observe the policies of their commonmaiden in the stream-"O thou dear picture, if wealth. She understands everything. I would thou couldst remain there in the absence of that give ten pounds to hear her argue with my friend fair creature whom you represent in the water, Sir Andrew Freeport about trade. No, no, for all how willingly could I stand here satisfied forever, she looks so innocent as it were, take my word for without troubling my dear Betty herself with any it she is no fool."-T. mention of her unfortunate William, whom she is angry with! But alas! when she pleases to be gone, thou wilt also vanish-yet let me talk to thee while thou dost stay. Tell my dearest Betty thou dost not more depend upon her, than does her William; her absence will make away with me as well as thee. If she offers to remove thee, I thought resembled this our humble town.-WARTON. I will jump into these waves to lay hold on thee— herself, her own dear person, I must never em- THE first and most obvious reflections which brace again. Still do you hear me without one arise in a man who changes the city for the counsmile-It is too much to bear." He had no soon-try, are upon the different manners of the people er spoken these words, but he made an offer of throwing himself into the water: at which his mistress started up, and at the next instant he jumped across the fountain, and met her in an embrace. She, half recovering from her fright, said And here in the first place I must observe a very in the most charming voice imaginable, and with great revolution that has happened in this article a tone of complaint, "I thought how well you of good breeding. Several obliging deferences, would drown yourself. No, no, you will not condescensions, and submissions, with many outdrown yourself till you have taken your leave of ward forms and ceremonies that accompany them, Susan Holiday." The huntsman, with a tender- were first of all brought up among the politer part ness that spoke the most passionate love, and of mankind, who lived in courts and cities, and with his check close to hers, whispered the softest distinguished themselves from the rustic part of vows of fidelity in her ear, and cried, "Do not, the species (who on all occasions acted bluntly my dear, believe a word Kate Willow says; she is and naturally) by such a mutual complaisance spiteful, and makes stories, because she loves to and intercourse of civilities. These forms of conhear me talk to herself for your sake." "Look you versation by degrees multiplied and grew troublethere," quoth Sir Roger, "do you see there, all mis- some; the modish world found too great a conchief comes from confidants! But let us not inter-straint in them, and have therefore thrown most rupt them; the maid is honest, and the man dare of them aside. Conversation, like the Romish, not be otherwise, for he knows I loved her father: 1 religion, was so encumbered with show and cere

No. 119.]

TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1711.

Urbem quam dicunt Roman, Melibre, putavi
Stultus ego huic nostræ similem-VIRG., Ecl. i, 20.
The city men call Rome, unskillful clown,

whom he meets with in those two different scenes of life. By manners I do not mean morals, but behavior and good-breeding, as they show themselves in the town and in the country.

mony, that it stood in need of a reformation to retrench its superfluities, and restore it to its natural good sense and beauty. At present, therefore, an unconstrained carriage, and a certain openness of behavior, are the height of goodbreeding. The fashionable world is grown free and easy; our manners sit more loosely upon us. Nothing is so modish as an agreeable negligence. In a word, good-breeding shows itself most, where an ordinary eye it appears the least.

If after this we look on the people of mode in the country, we find in them the manners of the last age. They have no sooner fetched themselves up to the fashions of the polite world, but the town has dropped them, and are nearer to the first state of nature, than to those refinements which formerly reigned in the court, and still prevailed in the country. One may now know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding. A polite country esquire shall make you as many bows in half an hour, as would serve a courtier for a week. There is infinitely more to do about place and precedency in a meeting of justices' wives, than in an assembly of duchesses.

This rural politeness is very troublesome to a man of my temper, who generally take the chair that is next me, and walk first or last, in the front or in the rear, as chance directs. I have known my friend Sir Roger's dinner almost cold before the company could adjust the ceremonial, and be prevailed upon to sit down; and have heartily pitied my old friend, when I have seen him forced to pick and cull his guests, as they sat at the several parts of his table, that he might drink their healths according to their respective ranks and qualities. Honest Will Wimble, who I should have thought had been altogether uninfected with ceremony, gives me abundance of trouble in this particular. Though he has been fishing all the morning, he will not help himself at dinner till I am served. When we are going out of the hall, he runs behind me; and last night as we were walking into the fields, stopped short at a stile until I came up to it, and upon my making signs to him to get over, told me with a serious smile, that sure I believed they had no manners in the country.

will come too late to them, and they will be thought a parcel of lewd clowns, while they fancy themselves talking together like men of wit and pleasure.

As the two points of good-breeding, which I have hitherto insisted upon, regard behavior and conversation, there is a third which turns upon dress. In this, too, the country are very much behindhand. The rural beaux are not yet got out of the fashion that took place at the time of the revolution, but ride about the country in red coats and laced hats, while the women in many parts are still trying to outvie one another in the height of their head-dresses.

But a friend of mine, who is now upon the western circuit, having promised to give me an account of the several modes and fashions that prevail in the different parts of the nation through which he passes, I shall defer the enlarging upon this last topic till I have received a letter from him, which I expect every post.-L.

No. 120.] WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 1711.
-Equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis
Ingenium-
VIRG., Georg. i, 415.

-I deem their breasts inspir'd With a divine sagacity.My friend Sir Roger is very often merry with me upon my passing so much of my time among his poultry. He has caught me twice or thrice looking after a bird's nest, and several times sitting an hour or two together near a hen and chickens. He tells me he believes I am personally acquainted with every fowl about his house; calls such a particular cock my favorite; and frequently complains that his ducks and geese have more of my company than himself.

I must confess I am infinitely delighted with those speculations of nature which are to be made in a country life; and as my reading has very much lain among books of natural history, I cannot forbear recollecting upon this occasion the several remarks which I have met with in authors, and comparing them with what falls under my own observation: the arguments for Providence drawn from the natural history of animals being in my opinion demonstrative.

The make of every kind of animal is different from that of every other kind; and yet there is not the least turn in the muscles or twist in the fibers of any one, which does not render them more proper for that particular animal's way of life than any other cast or texture of them would

There has happened another revolution in the point of good-breeding, which relates to the conversation among men of mode, and which I cannot but look upon as very extraordinary. It was certainly one of the first distinctions of a wellbred man to express everything that had the most remote appearance of being obscene, in modest terms and distant phrases; while the clown, who had no such delicacy of conception and ex-have been. pression, clothed his ideas in those plain, homely The most violent appetites in all creatures are terms that are the most obvious and natural, lust and hunger. The first is a perpetual call This kind of good manners was perhaps carried upon them to propagate their kind; the latter to to an excess, so as to make conversation too stiff, preserve themselves. formal, and precise: for which reason (as hypo- It is astonishing to consider the different decrisy in one age is generally succeeded by atheism grees of care that descend from the parent to the in another) conversation is in a great measure re-young, so far as it is absolutely necessary for the lapsed into the first extreme; so that at present sev-leaving a posterity. Some creatures cast their cral of our men of the town, and particularly those who have been polished in France, make use of the most coarse, uncivilized words in our language, and utter themselves often in such a manner as a clown would blush to hear.

This infamous piece of good-breeding, which reigns among the coxcombs of the town, has not yet made its way into the country: and as it is impossible for such an irrational way of conversation to last long among a people that make any profession of religion, or show of modesty, if the country gentlemen get into it, they will certaiuly be left in the lurch. Their good-breeding

eggs as chance directs them, and think of them no farther; as insects and several kinds of fish. Others, of a nicer frame, find out proper beds to deposit them in, and there leave them; as the serpent, the crocodile, and ostrich: others hatch their eggs and tend the birth till it is liable to shift for itself.

What can we call the principle which directs every different kind of bird to observe a particular plan in the structure of its nest, and directs all the same species to work after the same model? It cannot be imitation; for though you hatch a crow under a hen, and never let it see any of the works

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