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Endeavouring all such friends to gain,
Their generous, kind, good-will obtain,
With interested views!

May these their dreadful error see,
And from the alarming danger flee,
That on such views attend!
May sterling truth, with vigour rise,
Expand the mind, illume the eyes,

Of each true-hearted friend!

Keighley, Feb. 17th 1822. J. J.

TO THE DAISY.

Sweet simple flower, though lost to fame,
And scorn'd by every thoughtless wight;
How proud the orb which gave thy name-
That splendid orb which yields us light!

Surely thou'rt nature's favour'd flower!
She form'd thy peerless virgin ray,

Then bade thee grace young spring's new power,
And, with him, hail the God of day.

The glowing god beheld thee fair

As brightly glancing from the sky, And pleased at nature's friendly care,

He said, "Henceforth be call'd mine eye." Now each returning season brings Thy little silv'ry form to light, When nature's fairy finger flings Her gifts, all teeming with delight! Why valued less, because not rare

Thy beauty meets the common eye?
The day's blest orb on each his share

Of warinth bestows, on low and high!
Thy modest mien, thy lowly sphere,
Shall to my footsteps sacred be;
And as I view that orb so dear,
Sweet flower! I'll still remember thee.

TO MARIA.

When each flower is steeping
In the dews that weeping

Evening sheds around.
When the day breeze-lying,
On the harp-string sighing,
Trembling, gasping, dying,
Wakes their mournful sound,
Then the lost hours dearest
Memory's fondest, nearest

Once again are found.
Then! oh then, my meeting
Lips, that strain repeating,
Sung so oft by thee,
Tremble in commotion,
Like the moon-lit ocean,
In its dancing motion,
Light and full of glee.

But oh! the thought encroaching,
Of future hours approaching,
Sink ine in sorrow's sea.

Oh I have lov'd thee dearly,
Devotedly, sincerely,

Lov'd thee ev'n in madness. And though round me clinging, Hemlock weeds are springing, Killing ought that's bringing

One sweet smile of gladness. Yet, as here I languish Thy bright form, in anguish, Soothes the hour of sadness.

AN EPITAPH

On the Tomb Stone ereeted over the Marquis of Anglesey's Leg.

(BY THE RIGHT HON. G. CANNING.)

Here rests, and let no saucy knave
Presume to sneer and laugh,
To learn that mould'ring in the grave
Is laid a British calf.

For he who writes these lines is sure,
That those who read the whole
Will find such laugh were premature,
For here too lies a sole.

And here five little ones repose,
Twin born with other five,
Unheeded by their brother toes,
Who now are all alive.

A leg and foot to speak more plain
Rest here of one commanding,
Who though his wits he might retain,
Lost half his understanding.

And where the guns with thunder fraught,
Poured bullets thick as hail

Could only in this way be taught
To give the foe leg-bail.

And now in England, just as gay,
As in the battle brave;

Goes to the rout, review, or play,
With one foot in the grave.

Fortune in vain here show'rd her spite,
For he will still be found,
Should England's sons engage in fight,
Resolv'd to standhis ground.

But Fortune's pardon I must beg,
She meant not to disarm,
And when she lopp'd the hero's leg,
She did not mean his h-arm;

And but indulged a harmless whim,
Since he could walk with one;
She saw two legs were lost on him,
Who never meant to run.

Thus the word 'daisy' is a thousand times pronounced, without our adverting to the heauty of its etymology, viz. "the eye of day.". Campbell's Lectures on Poetry.

Coaches.-The use of coaches was introduced into England by Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, in the year 1580. A bill was brought into Parliament in the 43 of Elizabeth (1601) to prevent the effeminacy of men's riding in coaches."

ON INSTINCT.

Mr. EDITOR,

If you deem the following analysis of Mr. Smellie's very elegant Paper on INSTINCT, read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh some years since, suitable to the plan of your publication, I shall be glad to see it inserted as early as possible. At some future opportunity I shall make a few remarks on the system, and in the mean time

I remain yours, &c.

PEREGRINUS PROTEUS. Leeds, Feb. 25, 1822.

Many theories have been invented with a view to explain the instinctive actions of animals, but none of them have received the general approbation of philosophers. This want of success may be ascribed to different causes; to want of attention to the general economy and manners of animals; to mistaken notions concerning the dignity of human nature; and, above all, to the uniform endeavours of philosophers to distinguish instinctive from rational motives. Our author endeavours to show that no such distinction exists, and that the reasoning faculty is a necessary result of instinct.

He observes that the proper method of investigating subjects of this kind is to collect and arrange the facts which have been discovered, and to consider whether these lead to any general conclusion. He thus adduces examplesof pure instincts-of instinets that can accommodate themselves to particular situations of such as are improvable by experience and observations—and, lastly, he draws his conclusions. By pure instincts are meant, such as, independent of all instruction or experience, instantaneously produce certain acti ons; as when particular objects are presented to animals, or when they are influenced by peculiar feelings. Such are in the human species: the instinct of sucking, which is exerted by the infant immediately after its birth, or the contraction of muscles by any painful stimulus. The love of light is exhibited by infants, even so early as the third day. The passion of fear is discoverable in a child at the age of two months. Among inferior animals, there are num

berless pure instincts. Caterpillars shaken off a tree, in any direction, turn immediately to the trunk and climb up. Young birds open their mouths, not only on hearing their mothers' voice, but any other noise. Every species of birds deposits its eggs in the situation most proper for hatching its young. Some species of animals look not to future wants; others, as the bee and beaver, are endowed with an instinct that has the appearance of foresight. They construct and store their magazines. Bees attend and feed their queen; build cells of three different dimensions, for working-bees, for drones, and for females; and the queen-bee puts each species into its appropriated cell. They destroy all females, except one, lest the hive should be overstocked. The different instincts of the different species of bees, are also very remarkable. Equally singular are wasps and ichneumon flies, which, although they do not feed on worms themselves, lay them up for their young.

Birds build their nests of the same materials, although they inhabit different climates; turn their eggs, that they may be equally heated; geese and ducks cover up their eggs when they quit the nests. Spiders, and many insects, when put in terror, counterfeit death, and when the object of terror is removed, recover immediately.

Of instincts that can accommodate themselves to particular circumstances, many instances may be given in the human species: but these fall more particularly under the third class. Those animals are most perfect, whose sphere of knowledge extends to the greatest number of objects. When interrupted in their operations, they know how to resume their labour, and accomplish their purposes by different means.Some animals have no other powers but those of extending and contracting their bodies. Others pursue their prey with intelligence and success. In Senegal the ostrich sits on her eggs in the night only, leaving them in the day to the heat of the sun: at the Cape of Good Hope, where the climate is colder, she sits on them day and night. Rabbits, when domesticated, are not inclined to burrow. Bees augment the size of their cells when necessary. A wasp, carrying out a dead companion, if he finds it too heavy, cuts of the head, and carries it

out at twice. In countries infested with monkies, birds, which in other countries build their nests in trees, suspend their nests on the end of a slender twig. A cat when shut in a closet, has been known to open the latch with its paws.

The third class are those which are improvable by experience. Our author thinks that the superiority of man over other animals, seems to depend chiefly on the number of instincts with which he is endowed. Traces of every instinct which he possesses, are discoverable in the brute creation, but no particular species enjoys the whole.

Most human instincts receive improvement from experience and observation, and are capable of a thousand modifications. One instinct counteracts and modifies another, and often extinguishes the original motive to action. Fear is often counteracted by ambition or resentment. Anger by fear, shame, contempt, or compassion.

Of modified, compounded, and extended instincts, there are many examples. Devotion is an extension of the instinct of love to the Author of the Universe. Superstition the instinct of fear, extended to imaginary objects. Hope is the instinct of love directed to an improper object, In this manner all the modified, compounded, or extended passions may be traced back to their respective original instincts.

The instincts of brutes are likewise improveable by experience; witness, the dog, the horse, the elephant, &c.

From these examples, Mr. Smellie argues, that instinct is an original quality of the mind, which in man, as well as in other animals, may be improved, modified, and extended by experience.

Sensation implies (says he) a senti ment, principle, or mind. Whatever feels, therefore, is mind. Of course all animals are endowed with mind. But the minds of animals have different powers, and those powers are oppressed by peculiar actions. The structure of their bodies is adapted to the powers of their minds, and no mature animal attempts action which nature has not enabled it to perform. This view of instinct is simple; it removes every objection to the existence of mind in brutes, and unfolds all their actions by referring them to motives perfectly similar to those by which man is actuated. There is perhaps, a greater difference between

the mental powers of some animals, than between those of man and the most sagacious brutes.

The notion that animals are machines is, therefore, too absurd to merit refu. tation. They possess, in some degree, every faculty of the human mind. Sensation, memory, imagination, curiosity, cunning, &c. &c. are all discernable in them. Every species has a language. Brutes, without some portion of reason, could never make a proper use of their senses. But many animals are capable of balancing motives, which is a pretty high degree of reason. Young animals examine all objects they meet, the first period of their lives seeming dedicated to study. Thus they gradually improve their faculties, aud acquire a knowledge of the objects which surround them; and men who, from peculiar circumstances, have been prevented from mingling with companions, are always awkward, cannot keep up their organs with dexterity, aud often continue ignorant of the most common objects during life.

ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY.

THE Source of religion, and of the legitimate mode of religious worship, are to be sought for only in revelation: for mere reason could never have introduced savages to the knowledge of God; and a sense of the Deity, is an hypothesis clogged with insuperable difficulties.

Now it is undeniable that all man kind have believed in superior invisible powers; therefore, if reason and instinct be set aside, there remains no other origin of this universal credence than primoval revelation, however it might subsequently become corrupted in the course of its transmission from one ge neration to another. This position may at first sight seem begging of the questi tion; but it receives no slight support from the presumption, that, if there be a Deity, he could not do otherwise than reveal himself to the first men, after he had formed them with faculties to adore and worship him. To other animals, the knowledge of a Deity is of no importance; to man it is of the first consequence. Under the government of a wise and beneficent God, chance is excluded, and every event appears, as it really is, the results of established law.

Admitting, therefore, that the knowledge of a God was originally derived from revelation, and that the first men professed pure theism, or the knowledge of one supreme, independent, and eternal Being, we may endeavour to trace the rise and progress of polytheism and idolatry, as well as to ascertain the real opinions of the Pagan world concerning that multitude of gods with which they filled heaven, earth, and hell.

Whether we believe, with the author of the Book of Genesis, that all men have proceeded from the same progenitors, or adopt the hypothesis of modern theorists, that there have been successive creations of men, polytheism and idolatry will be seen to have arisen from the same causes, and to have advanced nearly in the same order, from one de gree of impiety to another. On either supposition, the original progenitors must have been instructed by their Creator in the truth of genuine theism; and there is no room to doubt that such truth, simple and sublime as it is, would be transmitted in a pure state from father to son, as long as the race continued to live in single family, and was not spread over a large extent of country. And if any credit be due to the records of antiquity, the first inhabitants of this globe lived to so great an age, that they must have increased to a very considerable number long before the death of the common parent, who would naturally be the bond of union to the whole society, and whose dictates, in what related to the origin of his being, and the existence of his Creator, would be listened to with the utmost respect by every individual of his numerous progeny.

But after the death of their ances tor, many causes would conduce to disperse this family into separate and independent tribes, among whom, in proportion to their distance from the primoval seat, and their removal from the æra of revelation, great changes would take place in the opinions of some of the tribes respecting the object of their religious worship. A single family, or a small tribe, retired into desert place, wilderness (such as the whole earth then must have been) would find employment for all their time in providing the means of subsistence, and in defending themselves from beasts of prey. In such circumstances they would have little

leisure for meditation; and, being constantly conversant with objects of sense, they would gradually lose the power of meditating upon the spiritual nature of that Being, by whom, as they had learned from their ancestors, all things were created.

Indeed, in circumstances much more favourable, the human mind dwells not long upon purely intellectual notions. We are so habituated to sensible objects, and to ideas of space, extension, and shape, which perpetually press upon the imagination, that we find it extremely difficult to conceive any being without assigning to him locality and figure; whence Bishop Law has supposed, that the earliest generations of men, not even excepting those to whom he contends that frequeut revelations were made, may have been no better than anthropomorphites* in their conceptions of the Divine Being.

Hence a new species of religious worship would naturally follow; for when men had lost sight of the original revelation of the will of God in this respect, and had supposed the Creator of the universe to be actuated by like passions with themselves, they would fall to such inventions, in order to propitiate him, as were congenial with their own feelings and hence the first schism, or division of divine worship; of which this is the original.

Sheffield.

TO THE EDITOR.

J. P.

SIR, As an antiquarian, I blush to think that this fine country of ours produces not one useful vegetable which it can call its own; we have imported every thing of the kind, from the luxu rious pine, down to the humble potatoe. The following list of the earth's productions, with the countries from which they originally came, may perhaps be new and interesting to such of your readers as have not considered the subject.

Rye and Wheat were first imported from Tartary and Siberia; where they are yet indigenous. Barley and Oats unknown; but certainly not indigenous

* A sect who attributed to God the form and members of the human body.

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Rice Shalot Tobacco +

Fennel

Egypt

Syria

Asia

Crete

Cyprus

Italy Holland Canary Islands The East Astrachan China

Garlick

Gourds

Horseradish

Kidney Beans

Lentil Potatoe

East Indies France Brazil

This plant, the Solanum Toberosum of Botanists, also grows wild in the environs of Lima, in Peru, and fourteen leagues from Lima on the coast; it has been found wild in Chili. It is culti vated by the Indians of both countries, who call it Papas. It grows spontaneously among the rocks on Monte Video, and in the forests near Santa Fe de Bogata; the wild plants however produce only very small roots of a bitter taste.-(Journal of Science.)

It is singular that all the other members of the species of solanum, of which this is a member, are of a poisonous nature. Mr. Knight, the distinguished President of the Horticultural Society, has supplied the long desideratum with regard to the seeding of early potatoes. The potatoe continues in perfection about 14 years: it should then be again raised from seed; but those of the early sort rarely bloom; the seed is procured in the common way by chance seeds from plants of the later variety. The preternatural formation of the tuberose roots is the cause, according to Mr. Knight, of their not seeding. He gives the following as the mode to be adopted to obtain a certain supply of seed: The potatoe sets must be planted in little heaps of soil, with a stake in the middle; when the plants are about four inches high, the earth is to be washed away by a strong current of water, so that the fibrous roots alone enter the soil-these are totally different from the fibres furnishing the potatoe, and when this plan is followed, numerous blossoms never fail to appear, which furnish abundance of seed, and thus new and improved varieties may be easily obtained.

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Nor are we less indebted to other and distant countries for our finest flowers:The Jessamine came from the East Indies; the Tulip from Cappadocia ; the Daffodil from Italy; the Lily from Syria; the Tube-rose from Java and Ceylon; the Carnation and Pink from Italy; and to which I may add the Elder-tree imported from Persia- many others might be mentioned but I have enlarged my list more that I intended. Your's &c.

GREGORY. Ardwick, near Manchester, Feb. 23, 1822.

To the above list we might also add that Sugar was originally brought from India, by the introduction of the plant Soccharum Officinarum.

"Arabia," says Pliny, " produces saccaron, but the best is in India.

It is

a honey collected from reeds; a sort of white gum, brittle between the teeth, the largest pieces do not exceed the size of a hazel-nut, and only used in medicine."

Sugar was first made from the reed in Egypt: from thence the plant was carried into Sicily, which, in the twelfth century, supplied many parts of Europe with that commodity; and from thence, at a period unknown, it was probably brought into Spain by the Moors.-From Spain, it was planted in the Canary Islands, and in the Madeira by the Portuguese. This happened about the year 1506. Afterwards the reed was carried to St. Domingo, and to the Island of Hispaniola; and about the year 1623, into the Brazils. Sugar was then a most expensive luxury, and used only in feasts or for medicinal purposes.

ED.

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