freely to each other, and talked about the reasons they had never to become united. Several times they resolved to break off their acquaintance, and took leave with a design to execute their resolution; but their resolution was so weak, and their inclinations so strong, that the moment they separated they thought of nothing but how to meet again. After a long wavering on either side, he removed Belinda's scruples, and she quieted his. She promised to consent to their marriage as soon as those upon whom they depended had settled the necessary measures. Before it could be finished, her father was obliged to go into Wales to settle some matters concerning an estate he had there, which required his immediate presence. In the mean time Leontine was the happiest man in the world. He loved Belinda passionately, admired her beyond all women, and thought he was at the point of possessing her for

ever.

He visited her with all the freedom of a man who was shortly to be her husband; when one day his evil genius put him upon desiring of her the history of the steps her former lovers had taken to gain her favour; because it would be a pleasure to him to see the difference between her behaviour towards them and himself. She repeated their names, and told him all the methods they had pursued; adding, that those who persevered the longest were those she most disliked; that Lord S, who had made his addresses to her in London, was a selfadmirer, yet had something in him engaging; and as to the French Marquis, who had loved her to death, he was never in any shape pleasing to her. The extraordinary constancy of the latter struck his mind, and the "something engaging" in the Lord deeply affected him: he begged her to relate every particular which had passed between them. She did, and though she said nothing which could give offence, the fiend of jealousy sprung up in his heart. He left her, and passed the night without sleep. Belinda appeared to hin no longer the same person. "What was the charm," said he to himself," that kindled my passion? Was it not the notion that she never loved any one before? And yet, by all she herself has told me, she could certainly have no aversion against the French Marquis, and she

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has expressed too great an esteem for the Lord, and treated him too civilly; and unless she had loved him in the main, she would surely have hated him for a coxcomb, as admiring himself more than her. No, Belinda! you have deceived me; you are not the woman I believed you to be; I adored you as one who had never loved; it was this that gave birth to my affection; but you are such no more; and it is just I I should recal all my former fondness."

Upon this he resolved to talk with her once more, imagining he could explain to her what it was which made him uneasy, and clear up the whole affair with her in so happy a manner as to leave no suspicion. He did as he resolved; but this time of speaking was not the last; for the next day he resumed the discourse with more warmth than before; and Belinda, who had shewn an unparalleled patience and goodness till now, and had borne all his surmises, and laboured to remove them, began to be wearied with the continuance of a jealousy so violent and ill supported.-" Leontine," said she to him, "I see plainly these fancies you have entertained are going to extin guish your love; but, you must also remember, they will iufallibly destroy mine. Consider, I conjure you, about what it is you torture me, and about what you torture yourself. The first concerns a dead man, whom you cannot believe I loved, since I did not marry him. The next, Lord S―, for inadvertently saying he had something engaging in him, though indeed this was never my opinion, but that of other ladies, who are sometimes more taken with external shew than real and intrinsic merit; besides, if I had loved him, my relations would have willingly consented to the match, and there was nothing to oppose it. So that, Sir, you may rest secure, if you are so disposed, that I never knew any person who had it in his power to give you the least uneasiness."-" Convince me of this, madam," cried Leontine; "repeat it a thousand times; give it me in writing, and restore to me the exquisite pleasure of loving you as I wish to do; and above all pardon me the torture I have presumed to create in you." These last words made an impres sion upon Belinda; she saw he was not master of his own sentiments, and promised to do as he had requested.

Things were in this situation, when their || respective families removed for the winter season to London, and with them a young Baronet by the name of Thorpe. Leontine had long contracted an intimate friendship with him, and his merit was equal to the sweetness of his manners. The union there was between them introduced an acquaintance between Sir EdwardThorpe and Belinda: Leontinewas not displeased at their acquaintance; but, on the contrary, took a delight to promote it. The Baronet had observed him several times in froward fits, and though Leoutine kept no secrets from him, yet he was so ashamed of his foolish imaginations, that he could not let him know them. He came in one day to see Belinda, when Leontine had been as extravagant as ever upon a new subject of jealousy, which was Belinda's permitting an elderly officer's handing her into her coach from the play. She was willing to shame him, and, without giving him time to prevent her, told Sir Edward the occasion of his disturbance. He seemed astonished, and thought it so groundless, and reproached him for it so severely, that he cut him to the heart.

and had been for a long while; but she was so inferior to Belinda, that he could have no security from that passion.

At length he could not refrain breaking this matter also to the amiable lady, who in the greatest surprise turned away from him without speaking a word, and, passing into her closet, locked the door. She ro fused to open it, notwithstanding all his intreaties, and he was forced to return home in such confusion and despair, that he was shortly taken very ill. He was convinced, but too late, of the injustice he had done his friend, who now came to see him in his distress; he conjured him to forgive him, and to endeavour to move Belinda's heart to pardon and pity him. Sir Edward went to her house, and was told she could not be seen; be called there again every day while his friend lay ill, but equally in vain. As soon as Leontine was able to walk, he went thither himself, and had the same answer; and the second time was desired to come no more, for she would not see him.

Leontine imagined from the manner of his friend's censuring him, that he had been pre-instructed by Belinda. He saw that himself had exceeded the bounds of reason, but still conceived he ought not to be condemned absolutely, at least by one who was in love with Belinda; for he imagined Sir Edward was so himself, and had been for some time. He fancied also Belinda was sufficiently aware that Sir Edward's regard to her was something more than friendship, and that, according to the common infirmity of women, she was not ill pleased at it. When alone, this new misfortune he had incurred appeared to him infinitely beyond any of his former, and that he ought to dread Sir Edward on every account. He was graceful, and Belinda had a great esteem and friendship for him; she saw him often; she seemed to unburthen herself to him, and insensibly admit him into the place he had possessed in her heart. In short, he was more in pain concerning Sir Edward than he had ever been on any other account; he knew, indeed, he was in love with another,

When he found there was no hope, be thought he should have expired; and all the consolation left him, was to go and pass the night sometimes under her window; but never had the pleasure to see it opened. She lived in one of the outlets of Grosvenor-square, and one night, as he was 1e. turning home, he heard her window open distinctly. He returned in an instant, and imagined he saw Belinda, but as he approached, perceived a man creeping up close to the wall under the window, as if he would conceal himself. He knew not how, but in spite of the darkness of the night, he thought it was Sir Edward Thorpe. This made him frantic; for he now be lieved Belinda loved him, that he was come hither to talk with her, that she opened the window for him, and that it was to him he owed her loss. In this agitation he drew, and they began to fight with fury. Leontine found he had wounded him in two places, but he continued to defend himself. At the noise of their swords, or by Belinda's orders, some came out of the house to part them. Sir Edward knew his friend by the light of the torches; he started back some paces, and Leontine advanced to seize his sword, but he dropped it, and with a feeble

AN eclipse of the sun is caused by the interposition of the moon between the sun and the spectator, or by the shadow of the moon falling on the earth at the place of the observer.

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As there are not many persons who have an opportunity of seeing a total eclipse of the sun, we shall here give the phenomena which attended that on April 22, 1715.—Captain Stannyan, a Berne, in Switzerland, says, "The sun was totally dark for four minutes and a half; that a fixed star and planet appeared very bright; and that its getting out of the eclipse was preceded by a blood-red streak of light from its left limb, which continued not longer than six or seven seconds of time; then part of the sun's disk appeared, all of a sudden, as bright as Venus was ever seen in the night; nay, brighter, and at that very instant gave a light and shadow to things, as strong as moon light used to do." The inference drawn from these phoenomena is, that the moon has an atmosphere.

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At Geneva there was seen during the whole time of the total immersion, a whiteness which seemed to break out from behind the moon, and to encompass it on all sides equally; its breadth was not the twelfth part of the moon's diameter. Venus, Saturn, and Mercury were seen by many; and if the sky had been clear, many more stars might have been seen, and with them Jupiter and Mars. Some gentlewomen in the country saw more than sixteen stars; and many people on the mountains saw the sky starry, in some places where it was not overcast, as during the night at the time of the full moon. The duration of the total darkness was three minutes.

At Zurich, both planets and fixed stars were seen; the birds went to roost, the hats came out of their holes, and the fish swam about; a manifest sense of cold was experienced, and the dew fell on the grass. The total darkness lasted four minutes.

"It was universally observed, that when the last part of the sun remained on its east side, it grew very faint, and was easily supportable by the naked eye, even through the telescope, for a minute of time before the total darkness; whereas my eye could not endure the splen dour of the emerging beams in the telescope from the first moment. To this, perhaps, two causes concurred; the one, that the pupil of the eye did necessarily dilate itself during the darkness, which before had been much contracted by looking on the sun; the other, that the eastern part of the moon, having been heated by a day as long as thirty of ours, must, of necessity, have that part of its atmosphere replete with vapours, raised by the long-continued action of the sun; and, by consequence, it was more dense nearer the moon's surface, and more capable of obstructing the lustre of the sun's beams. Whereas, at the same time, the western edge of the moon had suffered as long a night, during which time there might fall in dews all the vapours that were raised in the preceding long day; and for this reason, that part of its atmosphere might be seen much more pure and transparent.

"About two minutes before the total immersion, the remaining part of the sun was reduced to a very fine horn, whose extremities seemed to lose their acuteness, and to become round like stars. And for the space of about a quarter of a minute, a small piece of the southern horn of the eclipse seemed to be cut off from the rest hy a good interval, and appeared like an oblong star round at both ends; which appearance could proceed from no other cause but the inequalities of the moon's sur face, there being some elevated parts thereof near the moon's southern pole, by which in terposition part of that exceedingly fine fila ment of light was intercepted.

"A few seconds before the sun was totally