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In size the genet is larger than the martin; its body measures in length about twenty inches; its head is long and slender, with a sharp muzzle; its ears are a little pointed; its hair soft, smooth, and fhining, of a tawny red colour, spotted with black, Along the ridge of the back there is a kind of mane of long hair, which forms a black line from head to tail; the spots on the sides are round and distinct; those on the back almost close. Its tail is long, and marked with seven or eight rings of black. Its perfume issues from an orifice beneath its tail; it smells faintly of musk.

This is a beautiful, cleanly, and industrious animal, and very active in pursuing its prey. It is kept, we are told, in the houses of Constantinople as eats are with us, and is equally tame. Being more slender in its body than a cat, it can creep into smaller holes, so that it is extremely useful to the inhabitants in destroying rats, mice, and other vermin. In its dispositions it is mild and gentle, its colours beautifully variegated, and its fur valuable. Upon the whole, it seems to be one of those animals, that, with proper care and attention, might become a useful addition to our stock of domestic quadrupeds.

SIR,

FRAGMENTS, &c. BY ARCTICUS.

To the Editor of the Bee.

WHO was it that said, the next thing to being witty yourself, is to be the cause of wit in others? Now, by a parity of reasoning, one may say, that the next

thing to writing witty things yourself, is to preserve and promulgate those of others, which might otherwise be lost.

Actuated by this laudable motive, I here give you the translation of some fragments from an old continental paper, just fallen into my hands, by an accident, which I fhould be sorry to see entirely lost. They contain delicate general satire, and humorous. moral researches.

FRAGMENT FIRST.

We carry every where about with us a little urchin, who serves, and domineers over us, at the same time. We suppose him of great fidelity and attachment, because he never quits us through life; but the truth is, that he eternally cajoles us, and that we are his dupes every moment.

As, for example, we hide and cover him up with the greatest care, forbiding him to fhow even the tip of his nose to any living creature; yet he is so disobedient and impudent, as to dare fhow himself, even quite naked, before strangers; and that he does with so much addrefs, and has so much the power of fascinating and blinding us, that we do not even perceive it.

But woe be to the man, to whom he plays this trick for every one of our acquaintances has also his little urchin, and all such mortal enemies, that they ferret one another out in a surprising manner, and are always on the watch; so that the instant one of them only stirs, the others are all in alarm,

and join like a pack of little hounds, to worry the imprudent brat. This little rogue is called

Self love.

Who is that ignoble looking brat, ashamed to show its ugly face, but whose hooked fingers,, already. seize by stealth, every thing which its voracious appetite craves? The little monster is called

Abuse:

But have only a little patience till he grows up,, his face will then become lefs fhocking; he will ac-quire a modest afsurance, and will no longer conceal what he steals privately at present; his name will then be changed to

Usage:

Give him still a few more peaceable years, till he has acquired his full growth; he will then put on a haughty imposing look, under his third and last:

name,

Right.

FRAGMENT SECOND.

Chance, son of Necefsity, is a silly, foolish, and blind old fellow; wandering continually about the world, led by two women of very different characters, the one is named Prudence, the other Folly.. On these two wenches he begets all events, quits. them on his journey, and leaves Futurity to stand midwife to his progeny. In general, though. not always, those born of Prudence are happy,. and those of Foliy miserable; whilst it is said,, that the last mistrefs is much more prolific than the first, and that the old dotard loves her nost;

269 because he perceives that Prudence wants to govern him, whilst he thinks himself lord and master of Folly.

FRAGMENT THIRD.

The result of a chemical analysis of the human brain..

On distilling the brain' of a Beau, much aeriform fluid came over; of an old Burgomaster, much insipid phlegm; of a Poet, a little acid spirit, with a portion of caustic alkali; whilst the brain of a second son of Parnafsus, left to itself, without any species of preparation, gave a feeble phosphoric light, but without heat.

After distillation of the brain of an old miser, nothing was found but a hard refractory matter at the bottom of the retort.

Between the brains of a British senator, and a new French legislator, no kind of affinity was found,, in spite of every species of intermediary substance employed to unite them; the Frenchman's brain eternally frothing up, leaving the solid British substance always at bottom:

Much inflammable gas was obtained from the the brain of a duellist, just run through the body in a quarrel about the figure of his mistrefs's nose, which his antagonist unluckily did not find exactly of the Grecian model.

Some brains of women, distilled on hot sand, gave a quantity of incoercible yapours, which were soon difsipated on being treated in naked fire.

Upon the whole, human brains gave but little spiritus rector,-a fugitive principle, proper to vege

tables, but which seems to escape in their afsimilation to animal substances.

ORIGINAL ANECDOTE OF A RUSSIAN PARSON.

I SHALL now give you an anecdote of the comic kind, where Peter the Great appears once more in what I have called his patriarchal character, correcting his offending children, with his far dreaded, and much respected dubeen, or cudgel. I must however premise, as a pope or parson cuts rather a ridiculous figure in this anecdote, that the Rufsian clergy were far from being then, what they now are, a sober learned clafs of men. For much later than Peter's time, it was no uncommon thing to see one of the inferior orders reeling drunk along the streets, as they were, and even are, taken from the lowest clafs of people; a regiment having been formed about two years ago of pope's children for the Swedish war, and disciplined for the artillery, by general Melisineu, at the Imperial Cadet Corps of artillery and engineers.

By this explanation I hope I fhall be exempted from suspicion of the least insult on the clergy, without whose diligent and indefatigable application to their duty, at this dangerous crisis, civil society will be in a manner difsolved, and Europe become a vast forest of wild beasts in human shape;-judging at least from the example before our eyes, of a people from whom pretended philosophers had eradicated every sense of religion and moral sentiment, by which the people have been alone governed from

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