Adam to this enlightened age, where they are set up as the governors and sovereigns of nations.

Anecdote.

1

SOME of the young nobility, who served about the person of Peter the Great as a sort of military chamberlains, under the title of Denbieks (now given only to common soldiers, or rather recruits serving personally their officers,) had been playing some pranks on a midnight ramble, which came to Peter's ears in form of complaint, and at which he was much enraged against the perpetrators, though unable for some time to discover their names.

His chaplain was suspected by the young offenders to have removed this obstacle to their punishment, which followed very quickly the discovery, in a fhower of blows from the dubeen. They were therefore resolved to revenge themselves on the officious parson, whose decided taste for good brandy, (then by no means uncommon in his cloth,) soon furnished them an opportunity of doing. Whilst one party of them was carousing with the devoted priest, and treating him with large cups of his favourite liquor, below stairs, another was piling up all the furniture of his apartment, immediately over Feter's bedchamber, on a round table in the middle of the room, on which they placed his looking glafs, and to crown the pyramid a large bowl of punch. To this new species of tower of Babel, they fastened a string, let through a hole into the adjoining apartment, where one of the actors was stationed, ready to pull it on a preconcerted signal.

The parson, full of brandy and glee, was conducted with some difficulty up to his apartment by his bountiful hosts, who had rather overdone the businefs, so that on blowing out the light, just as he reached his door, their plot was almost rendered unnecessary by the violence with which he measured his length on the floor. This was the signal for pulling the string, and down came the whole table edifice, with such a noise, as made the emperor start from his couch, and run up stairs with his dubeen, to correct the young dogs, who were of course suspected of the fault. But what was his astonishment. when he found them all lying apparently asleep in their beds, and the parson dead drunk on the floor of his room, swimming in punch, with all his furni ture scattered about the room, even to the looking glafs, which was shattered to pieces. The application of his dubeen brought him in some degree to his senses; but not so far as to account to Peter for the general wreck and the sea of punch. Indeed the poor man was nearly as much astonished as the emperor; and long took it for a trick of his old antagonist Satan, for the many pulpit phillippics he had uttered against that arch rebel. ARCTICUS.

A DETACHED REMARK.

THE variable weather of the human mind, the flying vapours of fancy, which from time to time cloud reason, without totally eclipsing it, requires much force of thought to regulate sound conduct.

A TABLE OF GEMS.

Continued from p. 240.

Clafs fourteenth.

THE PEARL, OR PEACOCK STONE.

THIS gem is formed from the cartilaginous ligament of the mytilus margaritiferus, or great pearl muscle, which has the appearance and colour of a peacock feather in miniature."

Analysis.

This being in strict propriety an animal production, has never, that I know of, been particularly analised. Varieties.

The colour of the finest oriental pearl is a brilliant white, with a metalline splendour, inclining a very little to the blue; but some of the Ormuz pearls, have what the Indians call the black water, which heightens their value in the eastern market.

Form.

This gem, in such high estimation and value in all ages, especially with the Romans, who preferred it even to diamonds, and the other precious stones, probably from their being ignorant of the art of cutting the harder gems, is an animal production, found in certain fhells, of the oyster and muscle kind, particularly in the mytilus margaritiferus. The finest oriental pearl is round, of a brilliant white colour, with a metallic splendour, and a slight VOL. Xiii.

M M

cast of blue; although they are often found of other fhapes and colours; but the ground is ever whitish, more or lefs dirty, and tending to a cream colour, a yellow, a grey, a blue, and even in some specimens, to a pinchbeck colour, with the splendour of that metal. Their estimation and value diminishes in proportion as they deviate from the standard form and colour given above; although pearls of an uncommonly large size, are always valuable, though they should deviate from both, on account of their rarity.

Structure, Properties, &c.

The structure of the pearl much resembles the stony concretions or calculi found in other sea and land animals; that is to say, it is made up of coats or thin plates, laid one over another, from the centre outwards, and is of a calcareous nature, like the shell which produces it, in certain circumstances. It has been regarded by naturalists as produced by disease, like other animal concretions; and on this idea, the celebrated Linnæus attempted to produce them artificially, by wounding the shell with a round sharp pointed instrument, in hopes that the animal would form the precious calculus to fhut up the hole; and it is said he succeeded in a sufficient degree to prove the justice of his hypothesis, if not to enrich the philosopher; as probably the size and maturation of pearls require a more genial heat to bring them to perfection, than the northern climate of Sweden can offer.

Where found.

The most valuable pearls come from the east, as those of Ceylon, Japan, China, &c. But the famous

fishery of Baharein, in the Persian gulph, which furnifhed to the ancients and moderns the celebrated pearls known by the apellation of Ormuz, from the name of the Indian mart where they were sold. The finest and largest are carried to the great Indian market, Surate, in the bay of Jougerate;—the inferior to Turky, Persia, &c. as the use of them is still greater in the east than in the west, where even religion afsists their sale in India.

The pearl is found in many rivers of Great Britain, particularly the Conway in Wales; the Irt in Cumberland; the Ythan in Scotland, and many other smaller streams; as also the county of Tyronne in Ireland. The best are produced in the MYA margaritifera, and the MYTILUS cygneus and anatinus; two kinds of bivalve fishes of the muscle clafs; many small pearls are also found in MYLITISUS edulis, or common edible muscle, and also sometimes in the common oyster; but these are of such small value as to be disregarded.

Largest

The famous ear rings of Cleopatra cost L. 161,000; and Julius Cæsar presented a pearl to Servilia, the mother of Brutus, for which he paid L. 48,000.

Of modern pearls, the largest upon record is that belonging to the king of Spain, in size and form resembling a small pear. Rafsia is not entirely without even this gem, as the author has some bad coloured pearls in his collection from the Kuril islands, which acknowledge the sceptre of that vast empire; and it is said, that an inferior variety are found in some of the rivers or streams of Ruf