From him are sprung the Gregories, whom even the splendor of the immortal inventor of the catoptric telescope has not been able to prevent from fhining in the broad day of this enlightened hemisphere! Nor am I slow to acknowledge, that one noble and luminous demonstration of his singularly learned descendant, and indeed the whole structure of his original book, are in point, with respect to conjectures on which I forbear to enlarge. The world is too young for any thing but handling it like children, to know it better; nor have we yet discovered catoptric telescopes for looking into the connection be. tween spirit and matter. George Jamesone amused himself with painting landscapes, and there are some of them extant. Of his architectural pictures there is one in the king's university at Aberdeen, which is very curious, as not only representing that fine building before it was innovated, but the professors and students in their drefses. These are particulars chiefly interesting to Scotsmen, but why should I forbear mentioning them in the Bee, and in my dear Scotland. Will foreigners think the worse of us that we love our country? OLLA. Nc. v. LITERARY On the form and stile of modern epistolary correspondence. Ir is something to mark the very form and pressure of the age we live in; but it is more worthy of ambition to lay a foundation for promoting that which may give a better. Every person of delicate and refined sentiment, must regret the slavish and ridiculous expletives with which modern letters are encumbered and concluded; and must perceive in them a preposterous custom continued, after the state of society to which they owed their origin has given place to another, connected with an improved condition of government, and manners. "Au To speak or write insincerely, or treat another with contemptuous fanfaronade, is even commonly denoted by the ordinary conclusion of our familiar epistles. pied du lettre," is an exprefsion tantamount to this foolery and insult; and yet we continue to be the most humble and most devoted servants of all our correspondents without distinction. This is such an outrage upon common sense, that it ought to be universally extirpated without mercy. "What is it, (said a Turkish lady to lady Mary Wortly Montague,) that wives, and mistrefses in England reserve for their husbands and lovers, when they give, without blushing, the use of their lovely hands and lips to every common acquaintance !" The same most natural sentiment applies to our indiscriminate use of My Dear, My Dear Lord, and Sir, and all our obedient and devoted humble servants; together with that abominable prophanation of sacred friendship in our dear and sincere friends; and our expectations to have a dozen of friends invited by chance at a coffeehouse or in the streets, to dine or to sup with us! To parody the famous speech of old Noll to the rump parliament;—it is high time for us to put an end to their standing in these places, which they have rendered ridiculous by the want of common sense, and injurious to society by the destruction of significant expressions of real love and friendship. They have no more meaning in them than paper and pack thread. Henry Home of Kaims, the harbinger of a better age in Scotland, and who made himself to be felt all Europe over, was of this opinion, as will appear from the following letter to a peer of Scotland. Edinburgh, Feb. 8. 1781. "This morning, when I was in bed, your servant got your paper addrefsed to me for the Philosophical Society, and I have read with much pleasure your fhort and pithy letter to myself, in your familiar stile, without any fashionable compliments. "Instead of loading every letter, good, bad, or indifferent, with a multitude of superlatives, and unmeaning galimatias, I wish you would seriously set on foot a reformation in this businefs; first by setting the absurdity, like Perkin Warbeck, to turn the spit before you degrade it with formality; and then, that you would attempt to restore the noble simplicity that distinguished the correspondence among the ancient Greeks and Romans. "Taking it for granted that this will be in reality agreeable to your taste, as well as to mine, I return your tennis ball, by venturing to subscribe myself, simply, HENRY HOME." I fall conclude with a public letter of the accomplished earl of Orford, so much better known, all over the world, by the name of Horace Walpole. Without concert, it approaches very nearly to the plan proposed, and it was addressed to the same person with that of the former. I was honoured yesterday with your card, notifying to me the additional honour of my being elected an Honorary Member of the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland; a grace, my lord, that I receive with the respect and gratitude due to so valuable a distinction; and for which I must beg VOL. Xiv. T leave, through your favour, to offer my most sincere thanks to that learned and respectable Society. My very particular thanks are still more due to your lordship, who, in remembrance of ancient partiality, have been pleased, at the hazard of your own judgement, to favour an old correspondent, who can only now receive, and not bestow benefit with respect to the society that has adopted him. 66 In my best days I never could pretend to more than having flitted over some flowers of knowledge. Now, worn out, and near the end of my course, I can only be a broken monument, to prove that the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland are zealous to preserve even the least valuable remains of a former age, and to recompense all who have contributed their mite towards illustrating our common island. Berkeley Square, Feb. 10. 1781. S There is a modesty, simplicity, and beauty, in this letter, that requires no commentator. Quod verum atque decens curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum. HOR. SIR, To the Editor of the Bee. As I see à laudable and most desirable disposition in the readers of your excellent Miscellany to patronise the study of nature, I have sent you some useful directions for preserving the objects of natural history, which I hope may enable our young men, who go abroad on various errands, to amuse themselves, and enrich their country and science, by putting them in practice. I am, Sir, your constant reader, D. E. Directions for collecting and preserving natural curiosities. Quadrupeds. Care fhould be had that they are quite fresh: the larger ones may be skinned, by making one long opening on the breast, and drawing out the body, as in fleaing a rabbit; leaving the head, tail, feet, and claws, as perfect as possible; strew over the inside of the skin with equal parts of pepper and allum mixed; and taking out the tongue and eyes, fill the mouth and eye holes with the same; as also the inside of the skull, first drawing out the brains through the hole at the under part of the head, where it was separated from the neck: the skin may then either be stuffed with some soft material, as mofs, cotton, or the like, to a proper size, and sewed up again; or it may be dried without stuffing, in the open air; and if the fur itself be well wetted with some corrosive sublimate, dissolved in water, in proportion of half an ounce, or more, to a quart, it will secure it from moths, &'c.; or if this water be used to the inside instead of the allum and pepper, it will do as well; especially if the skins are put into a very slack oven to dry them, which, if convenient, is to be preferred to the open air for many reasons. Birds. These, if large, may be skinned as large quadrupeds; but more care fhould be had that the feathers be not soiled with blood or dirt; the inside of the fkin may be powdered with the allum and pepper, to which if an eighth of camphor be added, the better; stuff out the neck to its usual size; and beginning to sew up at the breast, fill the skin to a proper bulk, as you go on, and finish at the vent; the stuffing may be mofs, cotton, oakum, tow, or any cheap soft substance: you should also empty the whole kull through the roof of the mouth; which may be done |
