The improvements made in all arts and sciences within the last 200 years have nearly doubled the present limitation of life, in that we live more in less time.

The Egyptians were so ignorant of medicine, that, when any one was sick, they called in as many persons as pos sible to see him, that, if any one of them had had the like distemper, he might say what was fit for his cure. Shuckford, Con. 9. 367.

Surgery was much the oldest branch of physick which they practised.

Diod. Sic. 1. 1.

Esculapius was followed by a dog and a she-goat. The dog was taught to lick all ulcerated wounds, and the goat's milk was given for all diseases of the stomach and lungs.-Temple, i. 180.

The Chinese were so ignorant of geography, that their Literati seeing a map of the world in the hands of the Jesuits, took one of the two he mispheres which contained Europe, Asia, and Africa, for the Empire of China-and in mechanics it was the same, for one mistook a watch for a living creature.-Jesuits' Travels, II. 804; Boyle, Final Causes, 230.

The Chinese can never acquire a knowledge of other languages, because they have no idea of method in the construction of their own, having no alphabet.

The common cubit, which was formerly supposed equal to 18 of our inches, is now allowed to contain almost 22 inches; according to which measure, the Ark must have been about 547 English feet long, 91 broad, and 54 high. Bp. Wilkins has made it plain that these dimensions were sufficient for all the uses for which the Ark was designed. It contained 72,625 tons. There are not above 100 species of quadrupeds known in the world; nor above 200 of birds.Bp. Wilson; Hewlett on Gen. 6. 15.

Noah was the first husbandman, and planted the first vineyard.-Gen. 9.20.

Divine honour and deification were formerly paid to men who invented improvements in agriculture, arts, &c. such as Jupiter, Bacchus, Minerva, Ceres. But there is not a modern ploughboy who would not have become a god, with his present skill in husbandry. Had the mystery of Printing been invented in antient times, Guttenberg of Mentz might have been a god of higher esteem in

Germany than Mercury or Jupiter.Worth. Ep. 169. This cannot be thought improbable, since his assistant Fust, or Faust, attained the title of Conjuror for it, in so late times and such a place as Paris.-Bp. Law, Confid. 220. n.

If the antients could come back to the world, and see and read modern Sciences as we read of theirs, they would suppose themselves transplanted into some planet appointed for their progressive improvement, be fore they could be admitted into Heaven.

It was an antient custom in the East, and in Palestine, to sprinkle salt upon newly-born infants, by which their skin was rendered more dense and solid. This practice is still continued in Tartary. The prophet Ezekiel (xvi. 4) charges Jerusalem with not having been salted.-Hewlett, in loco.

An antient painter having been ordered to paint the portrait of his prince, who had only one eye, adopt. ed the conciliatory expedient of painting him in profile. And this i take to have been the origin of that mode of painting, now become so general, and so much more interesting thau the full face.

The opposite extreme to what is wrong, is commonly wrong also.— H. More.

A King of England, said Gourville, who acts according to the laws, is the greatest of all monarchs!

The Works of Tacitus were condemned to the flames from the Papal Chair, because the author was not a Roman Catholick.-H. More.

Pope Gregory the Great expelled the Works of Livy from every Christian Library on account of his superstition.-Ibid.

Christina of Sweden complimented the celebrated Vossius, by saying that he was so well learned, as not only to know whence all words came, but whither they were going.-Ibid.

The great use of increasing light and liberty, in any age, is to enable man to see vice in its own feature, and power to renounce its bondage.

The negligence in which the French lived in regard to truth, was one of the leading causes of their infidelity; and the same habitual neglect will operate in the same effect with any other nation or individual.

The

The celebrated Dutch Minister De Witt explained the secret of dispatch: By always doing one thing at a time. [The skill of doing more is the seed of perplexity.]

If there are fewer revolutions in Christendom than heretofore, it is because the principles of sound morality and government are better and more universally known; men are less savage and fierce, their understandings better cultivated. It is their interest to be humane and virtuous.-Sp. of Laws, B. 21, C. 16. Alphabetical writing, among its many benefits of spreading Religion and the Arts, set the axe to the root of Idolatry, which had been greatly assisted by symbolical characters.

The avenues to Learning of all kinds were planned and opened by Lord Bacon. The nature and most intimate recesses of the human mind were unfolded and explained by Locke; and the frame and constitution of the universe by Sir Isaac Newton, in a more perfect manner than ever was done or attempted by human skilsince the foundation of the world.Bp. Law, 230, n.

The lives of the pupils of Fenelon and Machiavel are the best comment on the works of the respective authors. Fenelon produced Telemaque, and the Duke of Burgundy; Machial vel produced "Il Principe," and Cesar Borgia!-More.

It was a fact well known in the Court of Versailles, that Madame de Montespan, during the long period in which she continued the favourite mistress of the King (by whom she had seven children), was so strict in religious observances, that, lest she should violate the austerity of fasting, her bread, during Lent, was constantly weighed.-Ibid.

Farinelli used to complain heavily that the pension of 2000l. a year from the King of Spain was compensation little enough for his being sometimes obliged to hear his Majesty play.-Ibid.

Could Louis XIV. have read, probably the Edict of Nantz had not been revoked; he was uninstructed upon system; Cardinal Mazarine, with a view to secure his own dominion, having withheld from him all the necessary means of education; - the terms wit and scholar were in his

mind terms of reproach. The apathy which marked his latter years strongly illustrated the infelicity of an unfurnished mind.—Ibid.

The people will always be liberal to a prince who spares them, and a good prince will always spare a liberal people.-Selden.

Henry IV. of France fought for his prerogatives bravely, and defended them vigorously; yet, it is said, he ever carefully avoided the use of the term.-H. More.

It is difficult to say whether Julius Cæsar planned his battles with more skill, fought them with more valour, or described them with more ability. -Ibid. A. H.

PPROVING the remarks of H. H.

A (vol. LXXXIX. fi. 494,) I fully

agree with him in the necessity of every one giving his assistance against the daring attacks of unprincipled and irreligious men.

The late alarming circumstances that have taken place, must fully convince every reasonable thinking man, that the dreadful state of frenzy into which the lowest classes have been brought must proceed from some very unusual causes, that ought to be searched for from the very bottom of their root; for we must all be aware that in such cases even the terrible vengeance of the Law, and the executions thereof, avail but little, unless you do away the evil which has been the occasion of it.

If the Legislature would turn its attention to the diminishing of the large Farms, which are occupied by one family, and reduce them so as to be partitioned into smaller ones, it would no doubt tend to the employment of a number of poor families, and to improving the morals of their children, whom, for want, they are now obliged to send into the manufac turing districts, at a distance from any of their friends, to observe their manners, and where their habits are too often soon changed into a certain depraved state. This would be avoided, if they could be brought up in the usual industrious occupations of labour, husbandry, and the retirement of a country life. Many other reasons might be assigned to convince you of the necessity of some altera

tions being adopted; but for the present, I will not intrude further upon your time, but take another opportunity of imparting to you what may present itself to my observation. Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

EN RETIRO.

Feb. 26.

CAN any of your Correspondents,

belonging to the Ecclesiastical Court, inform me whether a Faculty

Few in a parish church goes with the

person and their heirs to whom it is granted (consequently devisable, as the donor pleases)? or does the same go with the dwelling house wherein the person resided at the time such Faculty was granted? and is such Faculty registered in the Diocese where probate of wills are usually granted? An elderly maiden lady, with only her niece, occupy the largest pew (capable of holding eight or ten persons) in the parish church in the vilJage, although they reside in a very small house there; her father, at the time when such Faculty was granted, being then a proprietor of one of the largest mansions there, the present Occupiers of which are now placed in a back pew in the church. Although the rector, highly to his honour, has used his utmost endeavours to lessen those old large pews, and make them more commodious for his parishioners, by increasing the number of the pews; yet this lady frustrates his good designs; and some other parts of the church are from the same cause prevented from being improved by this praiseworthy Divine*. I most highly approve of the Act of Parliament for building Churches; but this I am certain, that nine-tenths of the present sacred buildings, were the interiors to be properly regulated agreeable to the wish of this eminent divine, and pewing entirely afresh in the churches, with additional (or in many where there are not any) galleries, there would be sufficient accommodation for the inhabitants without the expence of building new churches. I hope, there

*In those large pews the farmers and their families sit facing each other, and one half of the congregation are seated with their backs to the Clergyman and Communion Table; this is surely highly improper.

fore, that, in the next Act of Parliament respecting the building of churches, a clause will be introduced, giving power to the rector or vicar for that purpose. Yours, &c. MENTOR.

A LITHOGRAPHIC VIEW OF THE SEVERAL COUNTIES IN ENGLAND: BY THE LATE MR. EMANUEL MENDEZ DE COSTA, F. R. S.

Fount Hermon; rocks of sand.

ROM London to Tunbridge.

Birchdon; forge of iron, two miles from it, worked from ferruginous geodæ. An iron forge at Hamsel, in Sussex; five miles from it the ore is found in beds of ochre.

From Tunbridge to Portsmouth, in Hampshire. This route must be made along the further parts of Surrey, as Reigate, Guildford, Farnham, &c. to Alton, in Hampshire; thence to Portsmouth. At Reigate, fullers' earth pits and freestone. Quarries thereabouts. The rest of Surrey is all great chalk-hills. Farnham, a chief place for hops, and generally fixes the price, or is the staple mart of hops throughTwo miles near out the kingdom. this place, the counties divide. Portsmouth, Gosport, Spithead, &c. places of rendezvous for the Navy of England, the Dock, &c.

The Isle of Wight. At the end facing the Needles, the cliffs and the amazing quantities of sea birds are worthy remark.

The Needles are remarkable rocks. On this isle cop peras stones are gathered, and a fine argilla alba, called Hayters' Clay, is dug in it.

To Southampton: thence along the New Forest. Hordell Cliffs, between Christ Church and Lymington; a vast variety of elegant curious fossil shells, &c. are found beat out by the sea; an account of them is given in the Conchylia Hantonensia, in 4to. by

Mr. Brander.

bury; its quarries and fossils, and its manufactures of lace, stuffs, and stockings. Lyme; the pier is built of Coraua ammonis. Sherborne; its quarries abound with nautili, anomiæ, and other curious petrifactions.

Devonshire. Exeter; its cathedral and woollen manufactories. Plymouth, built on rocks of four kinds of marble; its dock for the Navy; and Eddystone Light-house, off Plymouth. Slate quarry at Buckland and Fleet, nine miles from Dartmouth and Totness. Torbay marble. Lead mines at Bear Alston, Combmartin, Liras Newton, Bearferris. Copper mine at North Moulton. Coal pits at Bovey, and bituminified wood. Manganese at Uptontine near Exeter.

Cross Crimble Ferry to Mount Edgecumbe, the seat of Lord Edgecumbe, near which you enter Cornwall.

Cornwall. This county is one continued scene of the mineral kingdom, worthy the greatest attention of a traveller. Every spot is replete with mines, so that a particular specification is as impossible as unnecesary. The mines themselves of tin, copper, and lead; the tin stream works and lodes; the sheads, smelting-houses, and coinage of it; the copper mines and works; the antimony of Endellion; cobalt, marcasites, mispickel, crystals, granites, and various other fossils; the soap rocks, &c.; are all sources of curiosity worthy inspection. The fossils to be collected are tin grains and ores; grey, red, blue, green, and turcois ore, and marchasitical copper ores, or fire ores; as also native copper; the marcasites and various minerals called indif. ferently mundics, cornei, called cockles, samples of veins called gossens, mineræ zinci, called black Jack, wolfram and other minerals called mock-iron, call, &c. the stones and countries of the lodes, called moorstone, killas, growan, elvean, &c. The Rev. Dr. Borlase has lately published the Natural History of this county, in folio. No petrifactions are to be found in all this county.

Some chief copper mines are, Huel Virgin in Gwennep; Northdown, at Redruth; Oldpool, at Illughan; Roskear, at Cambron, and Huel Kitty; Hueland, at Gwynnear, &c. Tin mines: Godolphin ball; Bellarnoon, at St. Just; Mines at St. Agnes, espe

cially that of Mr. Dunnythorne, and Pyran Mines, &c.

You return from Cornwall, coasting the other part of Devonshire, in which route lie the mines of Combmartin and Northmoulton above mentioned; then enter into

Somersetshire. The Mendip Hills full of mines of lead, manganese, calamin, ochres, and many other minerals, fossils and petrifactions, and the cavern called Wooky Hole, near Wells. Bristol; its trade and manufactories, spelter work of Mr. Champion, and its Hot Wells; and St. Vincent's Rocks, iron ore and crystals; coal-pits at Kingswood; and Cottam stone.Bath; its waters; Allen's Quarries; Walcot Quarries, full of curious petrifactions; ammonitæ at Keinsham, between Bath and Bristol.. This county abounds with stone quarries and petrifactions; as also with coal pits, as Clutton, Finsbury, &c. in which impressions of vegetables are found in the strata over the coal. Brass works at Wormley, near Bristol.

From Bristol to Aust Passage over the Severn, for the route through the Principality of Wales.

From Aust Passage cross the Severn into Monmouthshire. The iron works of Mahon, Tredegar, Tinton, Monmouth, and Pontypool.

Glamorganshire. The culm coalpits at Neath. Iron works at Forrest, Abberavan, Velin Gryffys, and New Forge.

Carmarthenshire. Iron forges at Kidwelly, Whitland, Cymdwyfram, Cambrayne and Fannovaine.

Pembrokeshire. Iron works at Blackpool and Coiducore.

Cardiganshire. Full of mines. Rich lead and copper mines, called Cwmystwith, ten miles from the seaport of Aberystwith; mine of Esgair y Mwyn. Iron work at Fanfrede..

Merionethshire. Lead mines of

Flintshire. Full of mines and coalpits as also very curious calamins, especially about Holywell. Bulkeley Mountain; its clay for lutings, furnace-bricks, &c.

Denbighshire. Collieries at Wrexham. Barsham and Pentablue iron forges.

Montgomeryshire. Lead and cop. per mines in the manor of Keferliog, and iron works at Iltattravail and Dołobran.

Iron works at

Radnorshire, and Brecknockshire. Tanners Forge and Fanelly. Return to Bristol through Monmouthshire again.

Though I have only particularised some few parts of Wales, yet all that Principality is properly a mineral country, and well worthy the search of a mineralist.

From Bristol take your route through Gloucestershire.

This county is chiefly stony, abounding with free-stone quarries, full of petrifactions. Gloucester. The Forest of Dean; full of iron mines, coalpits, and other mineral works. It is governed by its own mining laws and jurisdiction. The mines are large, rich, and furnish curious ore of the stalactites kind, called Brush Iron A cavern at Charford Bottom: two miles from Stroud. Coal-pits at Seridge, Broad Moor Green, Actop, and Redbrook. Copper works also at Redbrook, near Colford, five miles from Monmouth. Cheltenham mineral waters. Lead mine near Sodbury. Iron forges at Lidbrook, Lidaey, Upleadon, Fartworth, and Flaxley.

ores.

Herefordshire. I do not find any particular in this county remarkable enough to be specified, except the iron works at New Weare, Bringwood, and Lanidloe.

Shropshire. The iron works at Coalbrookdale, with the curious petrifactions and impressions of vege. tables in the iron stone balls. There are many other iron works, at Pres cot, Sutton, Upton, &c. The pitchstone at Pitchford, Bental, Broseley, and other places. Pipe-clay at Wenlock, and limestone used to fuse the iron-stone of Coalbrookdale. The limestone mountains of the Wrekin, and Cym y Bwch, and the petrifactions in them. Many coalpits in Shropshire. The fossils to be collect

ed in this county are the iron-stones, limestones, and petrifactions.

Cheshire. The salt rocks and works at Nantwich, Middlewich, &c. Silk mills at Stockport. The peat mosses. Copper mines at Alderley Edge. Other mineral works in this county ;-iron forges at Cranage, Warmington, and Lea.

Lancashire. Liverpool, famous for trade. The Candle or Kennel coalpits at Haigh, Wigan, &c. This coal turns and polishes; and toys, utensils, &c. are made of it. Coal-pits at Wigan, Warrington, Burnley, Townly, Hindley, and many other places. Manchester, and its manufactures. Copper mines at High Furness, Conyston Fells; copper works and furnaces at Warrington, but the ore smelted there is brought from Wales. Lead mines at Andlesack. Fine hæmatites ore found in the fells, and much of it is sent to Carron in Scotland, and Sheffield and Rotherham in Yorkshire, and iron forges at Cunsey, Bachbarrow, Sparkbridge, Conyston, Caton, and Burgh. The navigable canals run through this county.

[To be continued.]

SECRETARIES OF STATE. FROM A MS. OF DR. DUCAREL, 1768. THE old Kings of England had but

one Secretary of State. This officer was anciently called Clericus Regis, or Secretarius; a title given to him that is ab epistolis, et scriptis secretis..

The name of Secretary was at first applied to such as, being always near the King's person, received his commands. These were called Clerks of the Secret, whence was afterwards formed the word Secretary, regi a secretis.

There was but one Secretary of State in this kingdom till about the end of the reign of King Henry VIII.; but then, business increasing, that Prince appointed a second Secretary; both of equal power, and both stiled "Principal Secretaries of State."

These Secretaries did not sit at the Council Board till the time of Queen Elizabeth, who first admitted them to the place of Privy Counsellors.

On the Union, Queen Anne added a third Secretary, who is frequently stiled " Secretary of State for North Britain."