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My eyes were fixed on the surface of the placid waters. saw the Babylonian willow kissing the lovely bosom of my Hyperborean Ilifsus.-The cedars of Lebanon were near me, and the lofty pine of New England, and the larix of the Alps, and the laurel of Italy.

The odour of the magnolia mixed its perfume with that of the sweet briar and the honeysuckle; and the trees, and the fhrubs, and the flowers of both hemispheres were intermixed, and equally flourifhing together.

The sun had gone down in glory, and I saw his sub-horizontal rays gilding the last points of the fading landscape.

The mellow woodlark piped his chearful notes, and softened the croaking of the young thrushes, straining their little throats to imitate the music of their fathers.

Our new guests, the redstart and the bullfinch, repeated their fresh tidings, that they had come to a new land of cultivation, and that the progeny of heaven was but of one family and one sentiment, harmony and love.

A magnificent and pleasing melancholy took pofsefsion of my soul.

Ah! said I, is it pofsible that when vegetables from the four winds of heaven can be brought to afsociate together, and to flourish, man fhould be incapable of afsimilation, and fhould estrange himself from the communion of nature!

Mankind certainly has had a common origin. Where to look for his cradle we know not, but let

us trace some of his infantine habits or institutions, that they may enable us to recognise our brethren, and give them a fraternal embrace.

The use of the right hand is universal. The greatest anatomist in Scotland, if not in Europe, with his father, once thought with the ancients, and with Fallopius in particular, that there were slight appearances of a natural. cause for this habit in the heart and in the spine, but upon more mature deliberation they affirmed that they had not found any good reason to afsert this opinion.

Sir John Pringle had some notion that cattle and horses were disposed to begin their movements with the right foot, but upon further enquiry he was undeceived.

Mr John Hunter, the prince of comparative anatomists, had never attended much to that part of the animal economy, (although he had often thought of it,) till he was called upon to inquire; and he did it with that promptitude and accuracy which has ap-› peared in all his philosophical and experimental transactions. He conversed with Sir Joseph Banks and Mr Solander upon the subject, and they informed him, that in the South Seas, wherever they had been, the right hand was universally used, by institution of the parents, as in other parts of the world.

Mr Hunter made it his business upon this occasion to inquire of the fhow people at London, and at the Menagerie in the Tower, but none of the keepers had ever observed any disposition in any

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of the animals under their care, to advance or use a particular limb in walking or in action.

Mr Hunter never could observe any natural cause in the construction of the human body for this preference; and was of opinion that it was an object of inquiry rather for the moral, than the natural philosopher.

That this habit or custom is perpetuated every where by education is certain; and were it not, it could not possibly remain; because children being carried in the left arm of the mother or nurse, the right arm is confined, and would be of course supplanted by the other; and it is a fact well ascertained, that in hospitals and other places, where this matter is not attended to, the children as commonly have the one hand useful as the other, according as they have been inclined by accident.

It would seem therefore that this custom has been derived from the primæval stock of the human species, and goes far to prove a common origin.

Let this consideration converge with others to draw us into fraternal union with the human race.

"Da jungere dextram,

"Da genitor: teque amplexu ne subtrahe nostro."

I cannot put any coincidence of custom, however universal, in competition with this, as leading to the proof of a common origin; yet the adoration of fire, the worship of the sun, or the deity on the tops of mountains, the symbols of the lotus, and the misletoe of the oak, the priapus, so similar to the linjam of the Hindoos, the washing in consecrated waters the consultation of oracies, with similar invocations

and ceremonies all over the world, seem to infer either the tradition of such habits from a common origin, or somewhat in the physical as well as moral nature of man, that leads him to similar institutions. How has it happened that this respect for fire pervaded the universe? The Spaniards found the perpetual fire among the Peruvians, as it was found in Scandinavia.

This attachment, is certainly no innate idea or propensity, however reviving the light and heat of the sun, or however necessary that of culinary fire.

How came it to pass that in so many countries when the wood was laid on the altar, if the sacrifice was acceptable, it was believed to take fire of itself without any visible kindling? This was said of Egnatia, who is honoured with the ridicule of Horace. Even the philosophic Cicero prides himself on his wife's offering a libation in his behalf before his entry on the Consulate, that when she poured the wine in the afhes, a bright flame burst out, forgetting the natural cause, which might have occurred to the most ignorant physician.

Now all these ceremonies, symbols, and oblations, with many others suited only to the finer climates of the earth, were observed within the memory of man in the Western Islands of Scotland, when the anaitis of Persia, was held in veneration, and even worfhipped; horses burnt in honour of Apollo or the sun, after the manner of the pagan Tartars; and in Ireland to this day, by traditional custom, the illiterate natives pass their wives, and their children, and their cattle, through the fire to Baal, as was done in the east four thousand years ago.

From all these reffections, thought I, though we can derive no certainty with respect to our common origin, we can find sufficient reason to repel the suggestions of those false philosophers who would insi nuate the casual existence of man, and his spontaneous origin from the scene of his existence.

Having thus given sufficient scope to my agreeable reverie, I was awakened out of it by the tink ling sound of the bell for supper.

"Sic ego inglorius ad ripam amnis amati,
"Et agens solicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ."

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SIR,

FARTHER THOUGHTS ON JURIES

AND THEIR MANAGEMENT.

To the Editor of the Bee.

AM one of those old fashioned fellows who am not fond of novelties, I never troubled my head much about the constitution of this country till I heard every body speaking about it, for I was content with feeling that I got leave to live in peace, and to follow my business without being incommoded by any other evil except that of successful rivals; which is an evil, if an evil at all, that originates rather from a good than from a bad constitution.

Since the rage for mending the constitution has come into fashion, I have heard a great deal spoken upon that subject by my neighbours, who knew even less about it than myself; but I have heard nothing said sufficient to convince me, that any re