to an animal that must be still where chance has once placed it, and there receive the afflux of colder or warmer, clean or foul water, as it happens to come to it?”

I shall add to this instance out of Locke another out of the learned Dr More, who cites it from Cardan, in relation to another animal which Providence has left defective, but, at the same time, has shewn its wisdom in the formation of that organ in which it seems chiefly to have failed. "What is more obvious and ordinary than a mole? and yet what more palpable argument of Providence than she? the members of her body are so exactly fitted to her nature and manner of life for her dwelling being under ground, where nothing is to be seen, nature has so obscurely fitted her with eyes, that naturalists can scarce agree whether she have any sight at all, or no. But for amends, what she is capable of for her defence and warning of danger, she has very eminently conferred upon her; for she is exceeding quick of hearing. And then her short tail and short legs, but broad fore-feet armed with short claws; we see by the event to what purpose they are, she so swiftly working herself under ground, and making her way so fast in the earth as they that behold it cannot but admire it. Her legs, therefore, are short, that she need dig no more than will serve the mere thickness of her body; and her fore-feet are broad, that she may scoop away much earth at a time ; and little or no tail she has, because she courses it not on the ground, like the rat or mouse, of whose kindred she is ; but lives under the earth, and is fain to dig herself a dwelling there. And she making her way through so thick an element, which will not yield easily, as the air or the water, it' been dangerous to have drawn so long a train befor her enemy might fall upon her rear, and fetch

her out before she had completed or got full possession of her works."

I cannot forbear mentioning Mr Boyle's remark upon this last creature, who, I remember, somewhere in his works observes, that though the mole be not totally blind, (as it is commonly thought,) she has not sight enough to distinguish particular objects. Her eye is said to have but one humour in it, which is supposed to give her the idea of light, but of nothing else, and is so formed that this idea is probably painful to the animal. Whenever she comes up into broad day she might be in danger of being taken, unless she were thus affected by a light striking upon her eye, and immediately warning her to bury herself in her proper element. More sight would be useless to her, as none at all might be fatal.

I have only instanced such animals as seem the most imperfect works of nature; and if Providence shews itself even in the blemishes of these creatures, how much more does it discover itself in the several endowments which it has variously bestowed upon such creatures as are more or less finished and completed in their several faculties, according to the condition of life in which they are posted?

I wish some learned society would compile a body of natural history, the best that could be gathered together from books and observations. If the several writers among them took each his particular species, and gave us a distinct account of its original, birth, and education; its policies, hostilities, and alliances, with the frame and texture of its inward and outward parts, and particularly those that distinguish it from all other animals, with their peculiar aptitudes for the state of being in which Providence has placed them, it would be one of the best services their studies

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could do mankind, and not a little redound to the glory of the all-wise Contriver.

It is true, such a natural history, after all the disquisitions of the learned, would be infinitely short and defective. Seas and deserts hide millions of animals from our observation. Innumerable artifices and stratagems are acted in the "howling wilderness," and in the "great deep," that can never come to our knowledge. Besides that, there are infinitely more species of creatures which are not to be seen without, nor indeed with, the help of the finest glasses, than of such as are bulky enough for the naked eye to take hold of. However, from the consideration of such animals as lie within the compass of our knowledge we might easily form a conclusion of the rest, that the same variety of wisdom and goodness runs through the whole creation, and puts every creature in a condition to provide for its safety and subsistence in its proper station.

WISDOM AND RICHES: A VISION.

“In sleep, when fancy is let loose to play,
Our dreams repeat the wishes of the day,
Though further toil his tirèd limbs refuse,
The dreaming hunter still the chase pursues.
The judge abed dispenses still the laws,
And sleeps again o'er the unfinish'd cause,
The dozing racer hears his chariot roll,
Smacks the vain whip, and shuns the fancied goal.
Me too the Muses, in the silent night,
With wonted chimes of jingling verse delight."

ANON.

ONCE entertained myself with comparing Homer's balance, in which Jupiter is represented as weighing the fates of Hector and Achilles, with a passage of Virgil, wherein that deity is introduced as weighing the fates of Turnus and Æneas. I then considered how the same way of thinking prevailed in the eastern parts of the world, as in those noble passages of Scripture, wherein we are told, that the great king of Babylon, the day before his death, had been "weighed in the balance, and been found wanting." In other places of the holy writings, the Almighty is described as weighing the mountains in scales, making the weight for the winds, knowing the balancings of the clouds; and in others as weighing the actions of men, and laying their calamities together in a balance. Milton had an eye to several of these

foregoing instances in that beautiful description, wherein he represents the archangel and the evil spirit as addressing themselves for the combat, but parted by the balance which appeared in the heavens, and weighed the consequences of such a battle.

"The Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,

Hung forth in heaven his golden scales, yet seen
Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign;

Wherein all things created first he weigh'd,
The pendulous round earth, with balanced air,
In counterpoise, now ponders all events,
Battles and realms; in these he put two weights,
The sequel each of parting and of fight,
The latter quick up flew, and kick'd the beam;
Which Gabriel spying, thus bespoke the fiend:

'Satan, I know thy strength, and thou know'st mine;
Neither our own, but given. What folly then

To boast what arms can do, since thine no more

Than Heaven permits; nor mine, though doubled now

To trample thee as mire! For proof look up,

And read thy lot in yon celestial sign,

Where thou art weigh'd, and shewn how light, how weak,

If thou resist.' The fiend look'd up, and knew

His mounted scale aloft; nor more; but fled

Murm'ring, and with him fled the shades of night.”

These several amusing thoughts having taken possession of my mind some time before I went to sleep, and mingling themselves with my ordinary ideas, raised in my imagination a very odd kind of vision. I was, methought, replaced in my study, and seated in my elbow-chair, where I had indulged the foregoing speculations with my lamp burning by me as usual. Whilst I was here meditating on several subjects of morality, and considering the nature of many virtues and vices, as materials for those discourses with which I daily entertain the public, I saw, methought, a pair of