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In testimony of her love,

And as the best return fhe can make
To her dear departed son,

For the constant tenderness and affection
Which, even to his last moments,
He fhewed for her,

His much afflicted mother,

The Lady Margaret M'Donald,

Daughter to the earl of Eglinton, erected this monument,

1768.

A correspondent who stiles himself one of the people, thus begins a very long paper dated 1st October 1792.

"One would have thought that the late horrible transactions in a neighbouring nation, would have cooled in some degree the rage in this country; or at least that the democratic, or as they affect to call themselves the patriotic party, would have felt the blush of contrition for the dire effects of their levelling principles." But this he alleges has not been the case." What efforts do they still make, continues he, to delude the people? Is it not enough that they have degraded the first nation in Europe into a state of barbarism, disgraceful to human nature, but must they also labour to plunge this country likewise into the same gulph of misery?" This writer proceeds with much zeal nearly in the same strain to the end of his paper; of which it is hoped the foregoing extract is a sufficient specimen.

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Poverty sends a very elaboratepaper to the Bee on the subject of smuggling. He justly reprobates these illicit practices as being destructive to the trade, and industrious exertions of honest men, and calls upon every friend to their country to lend their aid in checking it. He observes that the officers of excise and customs execute the law so partially as to take care not to discourage smuggling too much, as that would plainly curtail their emoluments. He also suggests that landed men too often encourage smugglers because of the advanced rent these freebooters sometimes are able to give for land. But this every sensible landlord knows is so precarious that it is only a small proportion of these, we hope, who, from this motive, tend to cherish smugglers. After a great many hints tending to check this evil, he concludes by proposing that respectable persons throughout the whole country fhould form themselves into societies for the purpose of giving informations concerning it, and checking the practice. This we fear can never be expected. Indeed there is only one radical

cure for smuggling, and that is to moderate the duties, so as to make the hope of gain not to be such as to counterbalance the lofs likely to be incurred. This, and nothing else will ever put a stop to it.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

THE favour of Emendator is received. After returning thanks to this correspondent for the obliging manner in which he writes, the editor afsures him that his hints fhall have all due attention bestowed upon them; though he does not say that all the emendations he proposes will be adopted. Where the public is concerned which consists of persons of tastes infinitely varied, it is impofsible that the wishes of any one can be entirely gratified, because attention must be paid to the wishes of others.

Philomanthes wishes, for example, that mathematical questions fhould make a considerable part of the work, in which he is supported by the intelligent

Pappus, whose letter is hereby acknowledged, and which will be laid before the public when room can be spared for it.

Euphranor complains that too great a proportion of the work is appropriated to serious subjects, especially those respecting agriculture; so that too little room is left for tales and entertaining anecdotes; while loudly calls for more on the subject of agriculture: "You should teach us, says he, how to sow, how to reapi how to manure our ground, so as to derive the greatest profit from it and leave all light summer reading to other trifling performances ;" without seeming to advert that the Editor would thus deviate entirely from the plan he proposed to the public at the commencement of his work, to which, as in duty bound, he has ever endeavoured as much as pofsible to adhere.

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"The fool says in his heart" there is no God.”

And none but a fool would say so.

MR EDITOR.

For the Bee.

De Guthrie

WHILST the frantic Gaul glories in the name of Athiest, and the French senate thakes with loud applause, these flighty shallow statesmen forget a wise maxim of their favourite Machiavel, so strongly recommended to the study of their rising generation, who says,

"That whenever the religion of a state falls into dis"regard and contempt, it is impossible for that state to continue long."

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Surely, of all the species of phrenzy and fanaticism, which have as yet afflicted human nature, and God B b

VOL. Xvii.

knows it has suffered enough from the different mọdifications of those distempers, the present mania is the most alarming; as no profefsion of faith can save the unhappy victims from the murderous fraternity, who dance like wild Sybels round the tree of blood, baptising it in that crimson fluid, with the fair name of liberty.

To turn then the thoughts of your readers from scenes of so much horror, and to raise their minds to that Supreme Being, so much despised by your more than Gothic neighbours, to whom I apply the motto of my paper, I fhall give a few of the most striking outlines of a subject, the best calculated of all others to raise admiration, whilst it is one of the most amusing that exists to a rational being,-I mean the wonders of the creation.

It has been with much pleasure that I have observed some occasional little extracts in the Bee, from the history and instinct of the larger animals: but there are still other branches of natural history, which offer, like the one you have already taken up, a wide field of innocent and instructive amusement. The branches I allude to, are those of insects, with the history, habits, and something like instinct of plants; subjects which are as rich in curious matter and entertainment, as any in the whole range of hu man knowledge.

As a beginning then to such papers in your useful miscellany, I give here an introductory sketch, compiled from authors, on botany and entomology; which if not new to the learned few, who make these

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branches a study, it will probably be so to the larger part of your readers, or to what is commonly understood by the word public, for which popular essays are invented and calculated; or at least fhould be so, in every periodical publication of the nature of the Bee.

In taking a general view of natural history, the first thing that strikes us, is the wonderful order and arrangement of the creation. Every species of animal and plant is supported on the particular aliment allotted to it by the Supreme Being, lest the one fhould deprive the other of its food, and introduce confusion into the beautiful system; and in fact there is no plant hitherto discovered, which does not afford food to some animal, and which in its turn does not require its particular food or soil.

The only exception to this general rule of nature, is the lord of the creation, MAN, who has been allowed a much wider range than any other animal; although even he is circumscribed in some degree, and will be poisoned by productions which afford wholesome food to some other link of the chain; but still the positive afsertion of holy writ is perfectly just," that every thing was made, either directly or indirectly, for the use of man," as even his poison becomes his medicine, when judiciously employed.

Entomology

If we look still more minutely into the admirable system of the universe, how much will we be ashamed at our occasional peevith complaints, against the numerous swarms of reptiles and insects, which surround

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