Oct. 2. borafsus flabelliformis; and there maintaining itself by its hooks, it makes similar darts against the descending stream, in search of insects, till it reaches the top. This is all the information I can give you at present on the subject of fish, I will endeavour soon to ascertain what I have proposed.

A curious species of legerdemain respecting serpents. To show you how easily a person my be deceived, Iwill give you an anecdote of my self. Soon after my arrival here, when I was amused by the slight of hand tricks, tumbling, rope dancing &c. in which a parti cular cast of natives are very expert; these people, who carry about snakes, and pretend to have authority over them, came to me and told me that they would catch, by the power of music, as many snakes as I chose. I was a good deal surprised at what they said, and resolved to put it to the test. One of them went a little way from the house, playing on a pipe and uttering incantations, saying that if the snake would come to him he would treat it well, give it butter milk, and send it to the mountains where it would not be molested; he then pretended to look very attentively at a hole, still continuing to play, and louder; when by and by he saw a snake, and catiously introducing his hand, brought out a large cobra de capella, coliber naga. In this way he caught two or three close by the house, I then carried him to different parts of the garden; and he caught so many that I at last thought I had proof positive. Soon after I had brought them to the house, Dr Anderson came home and on hearing what I believed, in consequence, he desired me to

to look at their mouths, when lo all their poisonous fangs had been pulled out, and the little poison that was in their mouths was of a whitish colour and harmless, from the milk diet the snakes had been fed on, instead of that high red colour it is of when in their native state. The fellow then confessed, when we threatened to kill all his snakes as dangerous, that he had deposited most of them in different parts where he thought it was likely I should go. Some wild ones however he caught that were not of a poisonous nature; but that is easily done, for if a snake is seen, by siezing it by the tail with one hand, and running the other close to the head, they can secure the most dangerous with safety. Now the opinion of fish being charmed by music is very ancient, and as much believed as that of fish falling from the heavens. A. B.

READING MEMORANDUMS.

LET us pay an absolute submifsion to the will of God, in all the dispensations of his providence, and to all the rules of natural and revealed religion, without endeavouring vainly to discover the reasons of his determinations, or prying into final causes, most of which, to our limited capacity, are inscrutable. It is our business to live virtuously and happily in the world, and not to attempt the discovery of how or when it was formed into its present situation. This is a tree of forbidden knowledge, the search after which has discovered the nakednefs of all our philosophers.

LITERARY OLLA. No. x.

For the Beg

Gray the Poet, A dialogue concerning Youth.

To D***d M*****u E*****c.

-The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some fhew their gaily gilded trim,
Quick glancing to the sun.

'To contemplation's sober eye,
Such is the race of man:

And they that creep and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.

Alike the busy and the gay,

But flutter thro' life's little day,

In fortune's varying colours drest:

Brush'd by the hand of rough mischance,

Or chill'd by age their airy dance,
They leave, in dust to rest.'

These, (nephew!) with other charming lines of the excellent GRAY, were sent inclosed in a letter to his accomplished and beloved young friend WEST, the son of

the lord chancellor of Ireland,

But "his sun was set," letter arrived at his residied I believe on the first

his spring was gone, before the dence in Hertfordshire; and he of June, the same day that brought me into the world; so that if I believed in the metempsychosis, I might be foolish enough to imagine that I am the very person to whom this pretty little copy of verses was addressed.

When I was sitting in my garden under the shade of a weeping beech of singular beauty, which spreads its foliage over an area of near four hundred feet in circumference, admitting the light agreeably without the scorching or glaring rays of the sun, I had in my hand the life

and the letters of the elegant

author of the immortal eAh! said I, happy Wal such a man for your fel

legy in a country church yard. pole, happy West, to have had low traveller, friend, and preceptor; but I also had a Gray for mine. Then I thought of the dear and amiable young man whom duty had pointed out to my attention, and I conceived the design of writing a treatise concerning the nurture and legitimate happiness of youth and I resolved to send it to you, on account of your age, and destination, your love and respect for me, and on account of your excellent father.

I have cast it in the mould of a dialogue, in what I wish to make a chaste imitation of the ancients; and I have made Gray the chief speaker, and Walpole and West (the admirers of Gray,) the prolocutors in dialogue with

the poet.

Figure them then to yourself as walking together in the garden of Walpole, the young men ardent in argument, and the sentimental poet hovering over their debate, moderating it by his philosophy, and firing it with the sacred. Aame of his towering genius.

West. How delightful is this vernal day and sweet retirement on the banks of the imperial Thames;

"Tho' deep yet clear, tho' gentle yet not dull;

Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full."

I imagine Gray, by tuning his pipe to it so often, has been afsimulated to it, as we generally are to what we admire.

Walpole. Sentimental young rogue: I see what kind of sport you are thinking of on the margin of this river. You are fifbing for a compliment in immortal verse from Gray, when he fhall have finished his apprenticeship to the muse on the Thames, and set up in business for himself.

West. By no means, Horace, and to give you the reply valiant, I super-add in the words of the same poet of the Thames, that I was thinking of our placid and agreeable situation here, while Stanhope is thundering in the senate, and Spain trembling through all her borders. Oh happiness of sweet retir'd content!

To be at once secure and innocent.

Gray. Bravo! young courtiers: but as the morning is yet early, what would ye think of resuming the conversation of yesterday, on the proper training and employment of youth; and how they lead to honourable manhood, and venerable old age?

Walpole and West.

With all our hearts; we only wished to play a little prelude to your pleasing solo. Gray. In spite of your merriment gentlemen I will be

serious.

We had determined yesterday, as you may remember, by an unanimous opinion, that the capital end of a good education was to form a reasonable, useful, and benevolent man; and that the most proper and efficatious method of leading young people to what is reasonable, useful, and benevolent, was to inspire them with confidence and awe towards the great intelligent author of nature.

Walpole. We did so; but you must also recollect that I entertained some doubt concerning the means to avoid chatechistical rote, metaphysics, or superstition, in begin. ning too early with the grand foundation of religion.

W st. My fears do not lye upon that side, but rather the other.

upon

Gray. I would have children gradually and familiarly,

* Stanhope earl of Chesterfield (April 1739) agitating the house of lords.