without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilised country could not be provided, even according to what we very falsely imagine the easy and simple manner, in which he is commonly accommodated."---Adam Smith.

THE EARTH

Is properly denominated our parent; and indeed it is a most expressive appellation, as will appear from the following illustration.

"It is the earth, says Pliny the Elder, that, like a kind mother, receives us at our birth, and sustains us when born; it is the earth alone of all the elements around us, that is never found an enemy to man. The waters deluge him with rains, oppress him with hail, and drown him with inundations; the air rushes in storms, prepares the tempest, or wakens the thunders. But the earth, gentle and indulgent, ever subservient to the wants of man, spreads his walk with flowers, and his table with plenty, returns with interest every good committed to her care, and though she produces poison, she still supplies the antidote; though constantly importuned more to furnish the luxuries of man than his necessities, yet even to the last she continues her beneficent indulgence, and when life is closed, she piously covers his remains in her bosom !".--Kaimes.

THE TWO GARDENERS.

THE subsequent little story is ingenious, and replete with instruction. For this reason haye we introduced it into our miscellany.

"TWO gardeners who were neighbours had their crops of early peas killed by the frost. One of them came to condole with the other on their misfortune. "Ah!" cried he," how unfortunate we have been, neighbour! Do you know I have done nothing but fret ever since. But bless me! you seem to have a fine healthy crop coming up just now. What are these?" These," cried the other gardener, "Why these are what I sowed immediately af ter my loss." What coming up already?" cried the fretter. "Yes, while you were. fretting, I was working!" What, and don't you fret when you have a loss?" "Yes, but I always put it off until I have repaired the mischief." "Lord, why then you have no need to fret at all." "True," replied the industrious gardener, "and that's the very reason; in truth, it is very pleasant to have no longer reason to think of misfortune; and it is astonishing how many might be repaired by a little alacrity and energy."Anon.

VANITY AND AFFECTATION

ARE the proper objects of satire; and whether they appear in youth or in the aged, they may be lashed with impunity.

"YOU will wonder perhaps when I tell you, that there are some characters in the world, which I would freely allow you to laugh at, though not in their presence. Extravagant va nity and affectation are the natural subjects of ridicule, which is their proper punishment. When you see old people, instead of maintaining the dignity of their years, struggling against nature to conceal them, affecting the

graces, and imitating the follies of youth; or a young person assuming the importance and solemnity of age. I do not wish you to be insensible to the ridicule of such absurd deviations from truth and nature."--Mrs. Chapone.

REGULARITY.

Is necessary to the proper discharge of the du ties of life; it may at first appear unpleasant, but habit will render it agreeable and even desirable.

"THERE is in many people, especially in youth, a strange aversion to regularity; a de sire to delay what ought to be done immediately, in order to do something else, which might as well be done afterwards. Be assured it is of more consequence than you can conceive, to get the better of this idle procrastinating spirit, and to acquire habits of constancy and steadiness, even in the most trifling matters; without them there can be no regularity, or consistency of action or character, no depen. dence on your best intentions, which a sudden humour may tempt you to lay aside for a time, and which a thousand unforeseen accidents will afterwards render it more and more difficult to execute no one can say what important consequences may follow a neglect of this kind!" Mrs. Chapone.

FRIENDSHIP

MUST be not only procured but preserved; this is to be effected by a temper and behaviour always conciliating.

"I have always laid it down as a rule, that

the same behaviour which procures friendship, is absolutely necessary to the preservation of it. I hate that vulgar familiarity which people are so apt to run into, when friendship rises into intimacy. I am so scrupulous in this mat ter, that I never call my most intimate friends. by their sirnames. If I give an entertainment, I think my oldest friends are entitled to the first place at my table, and to the best treatment I can give them. The false civility that is generally current in the world, and is nothing but affectation, judges quite contrary; they neglect their friends to pay all their attention to a stranger whom they, perhaps, may never see again, only for the vanity of having it said that they make a good appearance !"--Anon.

READING

Is the characteristic of the age. It is attended with substantial advantages, enlarges the empire of thought, improves the taste, and is a source of refined enjoyment.

"THE advantages that we reap from reading does not consist in retaining what we have read; and we must not think it profitable but in proportion to our memory. Reading, I mean even that of the most indifferent books, is an occa sion of thinking; it affords exercise to the mind. This is its principal use, because 'tis chiefly by thinking that the mind is enlarged and strengthened. I allow that we forget our own thoughts, those which Reading had occasioned, as well as those of the books themselves, but we still have improved the faculty of thinking, which is of much greater consequence than to have retained the thoughts. Taste is also formed

by reading good books, and however had our memory may be, the general notion of good and excellent insensibly takes impression on the mind, accordingly as we read good things!"

THE KINDNESS OF PROVIDENCE

Anon.

Is evinced by the copious provision made for the wants and necessities of man; a brief survey of this delightful truth will carry conviction to the heart.

"The beauties of nature bear witness to the existence of God, and the miseries of man con. firm the truths of religion. There exists not a single animal that is not lodged, clothed, fed, by the hand of nature, without care, and almost without labour. Man alone, from his birth upward, is overwhelmed with calamity first, he is born naked, and possessed of so little instinct, that, if the mother who bore him were not to rear him for several years, he would perish of hunger, of cold, or of heat.

"Thus Providence interposes for the relief of man, supplying his wants in a thousand extraordinary ways. What would have become of him in the earliest ages had he been abandoned to his own reason, still unaided by experience? Where found he corn, which at this day constitutes a principal part of the food of so many nations? Who taught him agriculture, an art so simple, that the most stupid of mankind is capable of learning it; and yet so sublime that the most intelligent of animals never can pretend to practise it? There is scarcely an ani mal which supports not its life by vegetables, which has not daily experience of their re