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reasons for a man's not speaking in public, than want of resolution; he may have nothing to say know courage is rec(laughing); whereas, sir, you koned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other."

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At Mr Thrale's, one evening, he repeated his usual paradoxical declamation against action in public speaking. "Action can have no effect upon reasonable minds. It may augment noise, but it never can enforce argument. If you speak to a dog, you use action; you hand thus, up your because he is a brute; and, in proportion as men are removed from brutes, action will have the less influence upon them." Mrs Thrale. "What then, sir, becomes of Demosthenes's saying- Action, action, action ?"" Johnson. "Demosthenes, madam, spoke to an assembly of brutes; to a barbarous people."

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THERE is a chapter in one of our metaphysical writers, showing how dogs make syllogisms. The illustration is decisive. A dog loses sight of his master, and follows him by scent till the road branches into three; he smells at the first, and at the second, and then, without smelling farther, gallops along the third. That animals should be found to possess in perfection every faculty which is necessary for their well-being, is nothing wonderful; the wonder would be if they did not: but they sometimes display a reach of intellect beyond this.

For instance-dogs have a sense of time so as to count the days of the week. My grandfather had one, who trudged two miles every Saturday to market, to cater for himself in the shambles. I know another more extraordinary and well-authenticated example: A dog which had belonged to an Irishman, and was sold by him in England, would never touch a morsel of food upon a Friday; the Irishman had made him as good a Catholic as he was himself. This dog never forsook the sick

By Robert Southey. 1812.

bed of his last master, and, when he was dead, refused to eat, and died also.

A dog of my acquaintance found a bitch in the streets who had lost her master, and was ready to whelp; he brought her home, put her in possession of his kennel, and regularly carried his food to her, which it may be supposed he was not suffered to want, during her confinement. For his gallantry, his name deserves to be mentioned-it was Pincher. Some of his other acquaintance

may

remember him. Whenever Pincher saw a trunk packing up in the house, he absconded for the next four-and-twenty hours. He was of opinion that home was the best place.

CVI. TOMB-FLIES.

When the French, in their war with Pedro of Arragon, took Gerona, a swarm of white flies is said to have proceeded from the body of St Narcis, in the church of St Phelin, (I copy the names as they stand in the Catalan * author,) which stung the French, and occasioned such a mortality, that they evacuated the city. This is so extraordinary a miracle, that there is probably some truth in it, because miracle-mongers have never the least invention, and because a curious fact in confirmation of it is to be found in the Monthly Magazine for December 1805. "In preparing for the foundation of the New Church at Lewes, it became necessary to disturb the mouldering bones of the long defunct, and in the prosecution of that unavoidable business, a leaden coffin was taken up, which, on being opened, exhibited a complete skeleton of a body that had been interred about sixty

Père Tomich. ff. 39.

years, whose leg and thigh bones, to the utter astonishment of all present, were covered with myriads of flies, (of a species, perhaps, totally unknown to the naturalist,) as active and strong on the wing as gnats flying in the air, on the finest evening in summer. The wings of this non-descript are white, and for distinction's sake, the spectators gave it the name of the coffin-fly. The lead was perfectly sound, and presented not the least chink or crevice for the admission of air. The moisture of the flesh had not yet left the bones, and the fallen beard lay on the under jaw."

Such a swarm of white flies very probably proceeded from the Saint's coffin; that he produced them by virtue of his saintship, and that they produced the infection among the French, would be believed in that age by all parties.

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CVII. CLASSIFICATION OF NOVELS.

Novels may be arranged according to the botanical system of Linnæus.

Monandria Monogynia is the usual class, most novels having one hero and one heroine. Sir Charles Grandison belongs to the Monandria Digynia. Those in which the families of the two lovers are at variance may be called Dioecious. The Cryptogamia are very numerous, so are the Polygamia. Where the lady is in doubt which of her lovers to choose, the tale is to be classed under the Icosandria. Where the party hesitates between love and duty, or avarice and ambition, Didynamia. Many are poisonous, few of any use, and far the greater number are annuals.

CVIII. MUNCHAUSEN.

Who is the author of Munchausen's Travels, a

book which everybody knows, because all boys read it?

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Two of his stories are to be found in a Portu guese magazine, if so it may be called, published about fourscore years ago, with this title Folheto de Ambas Lisboas. The seventh number contains a tale of a hunter shooting a wild boar with a peach-stone, because he had exhausted all his ball, and afterwards meeting the same boar with a peachtree growing out of his loins. The other resemblance is less striking. A waterman talked one night from the street to a woman at a window, and as neither of them could hear distinctly what the other said, What do you say? was frequently repeated by both. The reason why they could not hear was, that it froze very hard at the time, and in the morning the wall was covered with, What do-you-says, in ice.

It is not likely that the author of Munchausen should have seen these Folhetos; the low wit which they are filled with could at no time have been well understood beyond the limits of Lisbon, and has long been obsolete there; and in all probability very few sets have escaped the common fate of worthless papers, published in loose sheets, and thereby tempting the destruction which they deserve. But it is probable that the Portuguese and English writers both have had recourse to the same store-house of fable.

CIX. SEA-FIRES.

On Saturday, July 1, A.D. 949, a fire is said to have risen from the sea, and consumed many towns on the coast of Spain. It travelled on into the interior, and continued its work, destroying many places entirely, and part of Zamora, Carrion, Cas

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