suffer no vulture or eagle to rest near their station, but would drive them from the hill with an amazing fury: even the blue thrush at the season of breeding would dart out from the clefts of the rocks to chase away the kestril, or the sparrowhawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird that has young she will not be induced to betray them by an inadvertent fondness, but will wait about at a distance with meat in her mouth for an hour together.

Should I farther corroborate what I have advanced above by some anecdotes which I probably may have mentioned before in conversation, yet you will, I trust, pardon the repetition for the sake of the illustration.

The flycatcher of the Zoology (the Stoparola of Ray) builds every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house. A pair of these little birds had one year inadvertently placed their nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that followed. But a hot sunny season coming on before the brood was half fledged, the reflection of the wall became insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not affection suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to hover over the nest all the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths gaping for breath, they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring.

A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in a willow wren, which had built in a bank in my fields. This bird a friend and myself had observed as she sat in her nest; but were particularly careful not to dist:rb her, though we saw she eyed us with some degree of jealousy. Some days after, as we passed that way, we were desirous of remarking how this brood went on; but no nest could be found, till I happened to take up a bundle of long green moss as it were carelessly thrown over the nest in order to dodge the eye of any impertinent intruder.

A still more remarkable instance of sagacity and instinct occurred to me one day, as my people were pulling off the lining of a hotbed in order to add some fresh dung. From out of the side of this bed leaped an animal with great agility that made a most grotesque figure; nor was it without great difficulty that it

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could be taken; when it proved to be a large white bellied field mouse with three or four young clinging to her teats by their mouths and feet. It was amazing that the desultory and rapid motions of this dam should not oblige her litter to quit their hold, especially when it appeared that they were so young as to be both naked and blind! To these instances of tender attachment, many more of which might be daily discovered by those that are studious of nature: may be opposed that rage of affection, that monstrous perversion of the oropyn, which induces some females of the brute creation to devour their young because their owners have handled them too freely or removed them from place to place! Swine, and sometimes the more gentle race of dogs and cats are guilty of this horrid and preposterous murder. When I hear now and then of an abandoned mother that destroys her offspring, I am not so much amazed; since reason perverted, and the bad passions let loose are capable of any enormity; but why the parental feelings of brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform tenour should sometimes be so extravagantly perverted, I leave to abler philosophers than myself to determine.

The Natural History of Selborne.

P. 207, l. 15. Himself. An instance of the scientific spirit worth noting. It was not common in White's days.

TOBIAS SMOLLETT.

Tobias Smollett was born at Dalquhurn in 1721, of the house of Bonhill. He was bred to medicine, served on board a man-of-war, but finally settled down to literature. Most of his work has the faults of hack writing, but his novels, though less universal and more given to “humours" than Fielding's, show genius. He died at Leghorn in 1771.

A BUDGET OF PARADOXES.

UR adventures, since we left Scarborough, are scarce worth

OU

reciting; and yet I must make you acquainted with my sister Tabby's progress in husband-hunting. After her disappointments in Bath and London, she actually begun to practise upon a certain adventurer, who was in fact a highwayman by profession; but he had been used to snares much more dangerous than any she could lay, and escaped accordingly. Then she opened her batteries upon an old weatherbeaten Scotch lieutenant, called Lismahago, who joined us at Durham, and is, I think, one of the most singular personages I ever encountered. His manner is as harsh as his countenance; but his peculiar turn of thinking, and his pack of knowledge, made up of the remnants of rarities, rendered his conversation desirable, in spite of his pedantry and ungracious address. I have often met with a crab-apple in a hedge, which I have been tempted to eat for its flavour, even while I was disgusted by its austerity. The spirit of contradiction is naturally strong in Lismahago, that I believe in my conscience he has rummaged, and read, and studied with indefatigable attention, in order to qualify

himself to refute established maxims, and thus raise trophies for the gratification of polemical pride. Such is the asperity of his self-conceit, that he will not even acquiesce in a transient compliment made to his own individual in particular, or to his country in general.

When I observed, that he must have read a vast number of books to be able to discourse on such a variety of subjects, he declared he had read little or nothing, and asked how he should find books among the woods of America, where he had spent the greatest part of his life. My nephew remarking that the Scotch in general were famous for their learning, he denied the imputation, and defied him to prove it from their works. "The Scotch," said he, "have a slight tincture of letters, with which they make a parade among people who are more illiterate than themselves; but they may be said to float on the surface of science, and they have made very small advances in the useful arts."-" At least,” cried Tabby, "all the world knows that the Scotch behaved gloriously in fighting and conquering the savages of America."-"I can assure you, madam, you have been misinformed,” replied the Lieutenant; "in that continent the Scotch did nothing more than their duty, nor was there one corps in his Majesty's service that distinguished itself more than another. Those who affected to extol the Scotch for superior merit, were no friends to that nation."

Though he himself made free with his countrymen, he would not suffer any other person to glance a sarcasm at them with impunity. One of the company chancing to mention Lord B's inglorious peace, the Lieutenant immediately took up the cudgels in his lordship's favour, and argued very strenuously to prove that it was the most honourable and advantageous peace that England had ever made since the foundation of the monarchy. Nay, between friends, he offered such reasons on this subject, that I was really confounded, if not convinced. He would not allow that the Scotch abounded above their proportion in the army and navy of Great Britain, or that the English had any reason to say his countrymen had met with extraordinary encouragement in the service. "When a South or North Briton," said he, "are competitors for a place or commission,

which is in the disposal of an English minister, or an English general, it would be absurd to suppose that the preference will not be given to the native of England, who has so many advantages over his rival.-First and foremost, he has in his favour that laudable partiality, which, Mr. Addison says, never fails to cleave to the heart of an Englishman; secondly, he has more powerful connections, and a greater share of parliamentary interest, by which these contests are generally decided; and lastly, he has a greater command of money to smooth the way to his success. For my own part," said he, "I know no Scotch officer who has risen in the army above the rank of a subaltern, without purchasing every degree of preferment either with money or recruits; but I know many gentlemen of that country, who, for want of money and interest, have grown grey in the rank of lieutenants; whereas very few instances of this ill-fortune are to be found among the natives of South Britain. Not that I would insinuate that my countrymen have the least reason to complain. Preferment in the service, like success in any other branch of traffic, will naturally favour those who have the greatest stock of cash and credit, merit and capacity being supposed equal on all sides."

But the most hardy of all this original's positions were these: -That commerce would, sooner or later, prove the ruin of every nation, where it flourishes to any extent-that the parliament was the rotten part of the British constitution—that the liberty of the press was a national evil-and that the boasted institution of juries, as managed in England, was productive of shameful perjury, and flagrant injustice. He observed, that traffic was an enemy to all the liberal passions of the soul, founded on the thirst of lucre, a sordid disposition to take advantage of the necessities of our fellow-creatures. He affirmed the nature of commerce was such, that it could not be fixed or perpetuated, but, having flowed to a certain height, would immediately begin to ebb, and so continue till the channels should be left almost dry; but there was no instance of the tide's rising a second time to any considerable influx in the same nation. Meanwhile, the sudden affluence occasioned by trade, forced open all the sluices of luxury, and overflowed the land with every