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America, than the long course of barter by which our navigators supposed they might be passed from tribe to tribe, from Hudson's bay or the Spanish. settlements then known. ARCTICUS.

SIR, To the Editor of the Bee.

IN A work which tends, in so ample a manner, to dif fuse useful and entertaining instruction, to inspire with a desire to investigate nature; and, under your impartial and discriminating management, to promote the expanse of genius, I beg you would insert, for the entertainment of the curious and the speculation of the philosopher, the following singular instance of antinatural affection I may call it, which very lately occurred, and which can be well authenticated, and oblige, Sir,

Your humble servant and reader,
PATRICIUS.

A FRIEND of mine who enters into the researches of nature with activity, happened very lately to be paying a visit to a gentleman of independent fortune and respectability in a neighbouring county to Ayr, when, among other subjects of a like nature that, were introduced, several instances of uncommon affection, manifested by animals of the brute creation, towards others of a different species, were enumerated; and, among the rest, the extraordinary instance of a cat (which belonged to the gentleman of the house,) extending its maternal care to a poor solitary chicken,. which having, by mistake, been placed along with

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May 16. some duck eggs, had, agreeably to nature, made its appearance in the world a considerable time before its companions; and as the cat had formerly given proofs of, I may say, a kind of philanthropic disposition, had been intrusted to its care. When my friend was there, the chicken was about a fortnight old; and had been nursed with a great deal of tenderness and care by its affectionate foster mother. Whenever it manifested an inclination to go out to feed, or again to benefit by the genial heat she afforded, fhe immediately put her body in the most favourable posture. This must appear very extraordinary, when we consider that a cat is, by nature, of all animals the most sullen and deceitful; and is pofsefsed of an inherent enmity to all the feathered tribe. It will be difficult to account for so many different principles actuating the same animal. Can we suppose that that noble chivalry, that generous sensibility, talked of with such rapture by that profound orator Mr Burke, but is now, alas! lost to France, after having been neglected, or discarded by mankind, can be extending itself to animals of an inferior nature; or, that the words of the scripture are likely to be fulfilled, and that the age is approaching when the lamb will be found along with the wolf, and the wolf with the lamb? This is certainly an improving age.

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DETACHED REMARK.

It must be confessed, that to embellish the form of nature is at least an innocent amusement; and some praise is due to him that does his best endeavours to join pleasure with profit.

POETRY:

THE WAIL OF ELVINA. AN ODE.

For the Bee.

WHAT time the soft ey'd star of eve
Gleam'd on the gently trembling wave,
From Bara's isle the sighing gale
Wafted Elvina's rueful wail:
Forlorn, her lovely locks fhe tore,'

And pour'd her sorrows on the desart shore.

Ye rocks,' fhe cried, ye fhelving caves,
Whose sides the briny billow laves;

• Ye cliffs far frowning o'er the deep,
• Ye lonesome isles,-to you I weep;
• Far distant from my father's halls,
The tow'rs of Moran and my native walls.

"O Moran are thy warriors fled!

• Dismal and dark their narrow bed

"Silent they sleep,-the north wind, cold, Blows, dreary o'er their crumbling mold; Silent they sleep, no dawning day

• Visits the grave, or wakes their shrouded clay.

At dead of night a cry was heard,

O why was Moran unprepar'd! • No watchman on the castle wall, .6 No wakeful warrior in the hall;

At dead of night the crafty foe

4 Rush'd from the main, and struck the vengeful blow

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I saw my warlike brothers slain !

• Lsaw my father's bosom gor'd;

• By Cadwal's num'rous host o'erpow'r'd

"He fell; and from the gushing wound,

Reeking and red, his life blood stream'd around.

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But who is he, regardless of distress,

Who views the tear, and hears unmov'd the sigh;

Who uses lawless powers to opprefs?

His name I rightly deem is CRUELTY:
May innocence from him by instinct fly!

For does the butcher's harden'd heart relent
At the mild bleatings of the patient lamb?
Or the fierce wolf his bloody feast prevent,
At the dumb anguish of the trembling dam?

TO PEACE.

CELESTIAL Peace! from thy abode descend,
And all the habitable world befriend.

No more let nation, fill'd with 'vengeful ire,
'Gainst nation rise, with ravaging desire;

Te Let troublous Discord haste, with rapid flight,
To the dark regions of eternal night、

!

A CHARACTER OF THE PRINCE OF DENMARK.

Continued from p. 40.

THE above is the substance of several communications from an ingenious correspondent at Copenhagen. But as it is always satisfactory to hear different opinions on the same subject, I subjoin with pleasure the following cha racter of the prince of Denmark, drawn by another gentleman in the capital of Denmark.

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For the liberty we enjoy we are entirely indebted to our prince royal, who I can, with the greatest justice, call a free born Englishman. I do not give you his character from mere report, but as I have found it to be. He is sincere, steady, and free; not rash in promising, but scrupulously attentive to perform what he has once said. In transacting business he is candid and open,-hears with attention,-is not fond of too much elocution, but wishes to have free and candid discussion, and directly to the point in hand. His hour of audience is five o'clock in the afternoon. In one word, the prince royal of Denmark is character that would fhine in private life. As a prince, his time is spent for the public good; and the enormous expences that other princes of Europe heap daily upon their subjects are by him spared. He is a pattern of œconomy to his subjects, and appears to me to model after the late king of Prufsia. Since he came to act in government, which was in 1784, he has done more than the most sanguine could have expected, and which is only the ground work of what in future may be hoped for. The alterations necefsary in Denmark were so great and numerous, that precaution, patience, and steady perseverance. alone, could effect them. These he began when he was in a manner a child, and in that line he has steadily perse

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