SIR, TO THE EDITOR OF THE BEE. Ir the following stanzas meet your approbation, and would not disgrace your Miscellany, their insertion would much oblige your humble servant, M. THE BLIND Boy. PITY the wailings of the poor blind boy, And still expos'd to all its bitter strife! Procur'd a pittance to his children dear; But heaven took him from our eager arms! My mother pin'd;-the cause my father's death; My guide to pitying friends from door to door, Who neither car'd for pity nor the poor! Disease ensued. She rav'd and pin'd away Life runs apace, and all these ills I bear, Nought can my ling'ring days from sorrow save; Pity the sorrows of the poor blind boy, M. t VERSES TO THE POPPY, BY MRS CHARLOTTE SMITH. 1AIL, precious blossom! thou canst ease Canst close those weary eyes in gentle sleep Expel imperious mem'ry from her seat, Soul-soothing plant! that can such blessings give, Which bids the spirit from its bondage fly, I'd court thy palliative aid no more; No more I'd sue that thou shouldst spread Burst these terrestrial bonds, and other regions try. AN EXTRACT FROM THE "TOMB OF CHARLOTTE," THE red breast oft is seen at evening hours, Still hover round this spot, and guard her bed. CONGERNING THE ROAD TOWARDS PERFECTION. For the Bee. Wisdom is the great and chief object: therefore get wisdom, get understanding: forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee, and bring thee to honour. [PROVERBS OF SOLOMON, THE SON OF DAVID, Chap IV. ver. 5. 6. 7.] KNOWLEDGE, whether in the form of history or science, is surely of great value to the intellectual nature of man; and the records of knowledge, preserved in literary compesitions are, the principal means of communicating its benefits from age to age, and from one nation to another. An art by which this effect is produced, may no doubt be placed among the most effectual means of cultivating the faculties of man, of forwarding his progrefs, of extending the fruits of experience, and of augmenting the powers to be derived from a just notion and application of the laws by which human nature is governed. The mere conceptions also of superior genius, and the sentiments which arise in such minds, whether fictitious or real, remaining with the people, in literary monuments of any denomination, must contribute to form the national character, and give to ordinary men, some participation of the sentiment and thought which took their rise from the exertions. of a superior mind. "The monuments of literature and arts produced in one age, remain with the ages that follow, and serve as a kind of ladder, by which the human faculties, mounting upon steps, which ages succefsively place, arrive in the end at those heights of exquisite discernment, and elegant man is qualified to obtain." choice, which, in the pursuit of its objects, the mind of [Principles of Moral and Political Science by Dr Adam Ferguson.] "To the mind which is by nature endowed with a discernment of rectitude and truth, the experience even of may lead the way to what is good. evil Society, in which alone the distinction of right and wrong is exemplified, may be considered as the garden of God, in which the tree of knowledge of good and evil is planted, and in which men are destined to distinguish, and to choose, among its fruits." [Ibid.] "In society the human mind must, as it were, draw the first breath of intelligence itself; or if not the vital air by which the celestial fire of moral sentiment is kindled, we cannot doubt but it is of mighty effect in exciting the flame; and that the minds of men, to use a familiar example, may be compared to those blocks of fuel, which, taken apart, are hardly to be lighted, but if gathered into a heap, are easily kindled into a blaze." [Ibid.] "The affairs of `society require the light of science, as well as the direction of a virtuous conduct, insomuch, that the recluse, by investigating the laws of nature, and the principles which relate to the concerns of men, is no less employed for his country than the most active of its servants; or than those who are most occupied in discharging the functions of state." [Ibid.] **** The reader who has selected these passages for the Bee, is prompt and warm to declare, that he thinks the philosopher from whose pen they come is well entitled to the furlough from society, the proper use of which he has both so handsomely made and explained. Dr Ferguson is a singular instance of a man's heart and genius warming and firing with a Tength of life. 181 However much the reader was pleased with the accuracy of his essay on Civil Society, and his History of the Roman Republic, he thought they wanted that unction which he is happy to observe in his last great and useful publication. The fifteenth and sixteenth sections of his second chapter, and the fourteenth of the third, are entitled to high commendation; the love of virtue and of humanity call for it; and from the depth of that solitude, for which the Doctor has endeavoured to obtain a patent, the reader desires to bestow it on the Principles of Moral and Political Sci ence. A NEW INVENTED IMPROVEMENT IN THE MACHINERY Ar a time when the succefs of our manufactures depends so much upon improvements in machinery, it is presumed that every information upon that subject will be accep table to your readers. William Kelley, of Lanark cotton mills, has invented a new method of erecting the great gear of mills for spinning twist, at lefs expence, and so as to require a smaller quantity of water to do the same work, than by any other method formerly practised; and it is so constructed, that any single drum and shaft can be stopped, without interruping the movements of a y o the other drums, on either side of the one stooped; and the manner of stopping is so simple, that it can be done with the greatest facility by the children employed in spinning at the drums. The advantages of the above improvement are of conşiderable importance, as a reduction in the quantity of |