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highest hills; at other times you see the clouds involv ing their summits, resting on their sides, or descending to their base, and rolling among the vallies, as in a vast furnace. When the winds are high, they roar among the cliffs and caverns, like peals of thunder: then, too, the clouds are seen in vast bodies, sweeping along the hills in gloomy greatness, while the lake joins the tumult and tosses like a sea. But in calm weather, the whole scene becomes new; the lake is a perfect mirror, and the landscape in all its beauty; islands, Gelds, woods, rocks and mountains, are seen inverted, and floating on its surface. I will now carry you to the top of a cliff, where if you dare approach the ridge, a new scene of astonishment presents itself; where the valley, lake and islands, seem lying at your feet; where this expanse of water appears diminished to a little pool, amidst the vast and unmeasurable objects that surround it; for here the summits of more distant hills appear beyond those you have already seen; and, rising behind each other, in successive ranges, and azure groups of craggy and broken steeps, form an immense and awful picture, which can only be expressed by the image of a tempestuous sea o mountains. Let me now conduct you down again to the valley, and conclude with one circumstance more; which is, that a walk by a still moon light (at which time the distant water falls are heard in all their variety of sound) among these enchanting dales, opens such scenes of delicate beauty, repose and solemnity, as exceed all descrip

tion.

IN

VIII.-Pity, an Allegory-AITKIN.

TN the happy period of the golden age, when all the celestial inhabitants descended to the earth, and sonversed familiarly with mortals, among the most cherished of the heavenly powers, were twins, the offspring of Jupiter, Love and Joy. Wherever they appeared, the flowers sprung up beneath their feet, the sun shone with a brighter radiance, and all nature seemed embellished by their presence.

They were inseparable companions; and their grow ing attachment va favoured by Jupiter, who had decreed, that a lasting on should be solemnized between

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them, so soon as they were arrived at maturer years.— But, in the mean time, the sons of men deviated from their native innocence; vice and ruin overran the earth with giant strides; and Astrea, with her train of celes tial visitants, forsook their polluted abodes. Love alone remained, having been stolen away by Hope, who was his nurse, and conveyed by her to the forests of Arcadia, where he was brought up among the shepherds. But Jupiter assigned him a different partner, and commanded him to espouse SORROW, the daughter of Ate. He complied, with reluctance; for her features were harsh and disagreeable, her eyes sunk, her forehead contracted into perpetual wrinkles, and her temples were covered with a wreath of cyprus and wormwood

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From this union sprang a virgin, in whom might be traced a strong resemblance to both her parents; but the sullen and unamiable features of her mother, were so mixed and blended with the sweetness of her father, that her countenance, though mournful, was highly pleasing. The maids and shepherds of the neighboring plains gathered round, and called her PITY. breast was observed to build in the cabin where she was born; and while she was yet an infant, a dove, pursued by a hawk, flew into her bosom. The nymph had a dejected appearance; but so soft and gentle a mien, that she was beloved to a degree of enthusiasm. Her voice was low and plaintive, but inexpressibly sweet, and she loved to lie, for hours together, on the banks of some wild and melancholy stream, singing to her lute. She taught men to weep, for she took a strange delight in tears; and often, when the virgins of the hamlet were assembled at their evening sports, she would steal in among them and captivate their hearts by her tales, full of charming sadness. She wore on her head a garland, composed of her father's myrtles, twisted with her moth er's cyprus.

One day, as she sat musing by the waters of Helicon, her tears by chance fell into the fountain, and ever since, the Muse's spring has retained a strong taste of the infusion. Pity was commanded by Jupiter to follow the steps of her mother through the world, dropping balm. into the wounds she made, and binding up the hearts

she had broken. She follows with her hair loose, her bosom bare and throbbing, her garments torn by the briar, and her feet bleeding with the roughness of the path. The nymph is mortal, for her mother is so; and when she has fulfilled her destined course upon the earth, they shall both expire together, and Love be again united to Jor, his immortal and long betrothed bride.

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IX.-Advantages of Commerce.-SPECTATOR.

HERE is no place in town which I so much love to frequent, as the Royal Exchange. It gives me a secret satisfaction, and in some measure gratifies my vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an assembly of my countrymen and foreigners, consulting together upon the private business of mankind, and making this metropelis a kind of emporium for the whole earth, I must confess I look upon High Change to be a grand council, in which all considerable nations have their representatives. Factors in the trading world, are what ambassadors are in the political world. They negociate affairs, conclude treaties, and maintain a good correspondence between those wealthy societies of men, that are divided from one another by seas and oceans, or live on the dif ferent extremities of a continent. I have often been pleased to hear disputes adjusted between an inhabitant of Japan and an alderman of London; or to see a subject of the Great Mogul entering into a league with one of the Czar of Muscovy. I am infinitely delighted in mixing with these several ministers of commerce, as they are distinguished by their different walks and different languages. Sometimes I am jostled among a body of Armenians; sometimes I am lost in a crowd of Jews; and sometimes make one in a group of Datchmen. I am a Dane, Swede or Frenchman, at different times, or rather fancy myself like the old philosopher, who, upon being asked what countryman he was, replied, That he was a citizen of the world.

Nature seems to have taken a particular care to disseminate her blessings among the different regions of the world with an eye to this mutual intercourse and traffic among mankind, that the natives of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependance upon one

another, and be united together by their common interests. Almost every degree produces something peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country, and the sauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes; the infusion of a China plant sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. The Phillippine islands give a flavor to our European bowls. The single dress of a woman of quality is often the prodact of an hundred climes. The muff and the fan come together from the different ends of the earth. The scarf is sent from the torrid zone, and the tippet from beneath the pole, The brocade petticoat rises out of the mines of Peru, and the diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indostan.

If we consider our own country in its natural prospect, without any of the benefits and advantages of commerce, what a barren uncomfortable spot of the earth falls to our share! Natural historians tell us, that no fruit grows originally among us, besides hips and haws, acrons and pignuts, with other delicacies of the like nature; that our elimate, of itself, and without the assistance of art, can make no farther advances towards a plumb, than a sloe, and carries an apple to no greater perfection than a crab: that our melons, our peaches, our figs, our apricots and our cherries, are strangers among us, imported in different ages, and naturalized in our English gardens; and that they would all degenerate and fall away into the trash of our own country, if they were wholly neglected by the planter, and left to the mercy of our sun and soil. Nor has traffic more enriched our vegetable world, than it has improved the whole face of nature among us. Our ships are laden with the harvests of every climate; our tables are stored with spices, and oils, and wines; our rooms are filled with pyramids of China, and adorned with the workmanship of Japan; our morning's draught comes to us from the remotest corners of the earth; we repair our bodies by the drugs of America, and repose ourselves under Indian canopies. My friend, Sir Andrew, calls the vineyards of France, our gardens; the spice Islands, our hot beds; the Persians, our silk weavers; and the Chinese, our potters. Nature, indeed, furnishes us with the bare necessaries of life; but traffic gives us a

great variety of what is useful, and, at the same time, supplies us with every thing that is convenient and ornamental. Nor is it the least part of this our happiness, that, whilst we enjoy the remotest products of the north and south, we are free from those extremities of weather which give them birth; that our eyes are refreshed with the green fields of Britain, at the same time that our palaces are feasted with fruits that rise between the tropics.

For these reasons, there are not more useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of nature, find work for the poor, add wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great. Our English merchant converts the tin of his own country into gold, and exchanges his wool for rubies. The Mahometans are clothed in our British manufacture, and the inhabitants of the frozen zone warmed with the fleeces of our sheep.

M

X.-On Public Speaking.-I.

COST foreign writers who have given any character of the English nation, whatever vice they ascribe to it, allow, in general, that the people are naturally modest. It proceeds, perhaps, from this our national virtue, that our orators are observed to make use of less gesture or action than those of other countries. Our preachers stand stock still in the pulpit, and will not so much as move a finger to set off the best sermons in the world. We meet with the same speaking statues at our bars, and in all public places of debate. Our words flow from us in a smooth continued stream, without those strainings of the voice, motions of the body, and majesty of the hand which are so much celebrated in the orators of Greece and Rome. We can talk of life and death in cold blood, and keep our temper in a discourse which turns upon every thing that is dear to us. Though our zeal breaks out in the finest tropes and figures, it is not able to stir a limb about us.

It is certain that proper gestures and exertions of the voice cannot be too much studied by a public orator.They are a kind of comment to what he utters; and ến

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