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You must remember a narrow precipitous passage in my bank, by which it was thought improper for a short-sighted philosopher to pass with spurs. I have mended it; but in such a way that its rusticity does not hinder it from affording as great facility for descent or ascent as any monarch can find in his spacious marble stair case.

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I chose two young trees entwisted with ivy, which I have planted as two posts to my door; which make a passage so simple, that Lycurgus himself could not have found fault with it, as being too much laboured. On the side opposite to the door, near the top of the wall, is to be a window, not of the usual form, but lying flat lengthwise, and instead of glass it shall have an ox's bladder, which will exclude the wind, and all external objects, but admit a dim, religious light.

As the wall is to be formed of clay, it shall be stuck thick with wallflower, and other rock plants, and from the very first assume the air of an old building. In the middle of the area of the cell, the ground shall be raised about the height of an ordinary grave, on which is to lie a flat stone, of due dimension, to serve as a seat and table for the hermit, and the following inscription at the one end, super hoc quiesco, and at the other, requiescam. To unfeeling philosophical minds, this will be but a fleeting sight; but to those who are endowed with more fancy, and more acute feelings, it will present ideas of a very serious

nature. Such objects might have reformed Don Quixote from his chivalry, and have really persuaded him to follow his squire's advice to turn hermit. You will probably guess on whom I was thinking when I made a rustic stair case, for the accommodation of those who wear that courtly instrument, the spur; and that I had quite different sentiments towards the object of my thoughts, from what Brutus and Cassius had, about eighteen hundred years ago, on the day of which this is the anniversary.

To all the objects above mentioned, I think only of adding a human skull; and if the skull were that of a female that had once been handsome, in case the old hermit's passions should stir, they might be repressed, by seeing what beauty must become, and what must be the termination of all human enjoy

ments.

While I am writing this letter, I have received the disagreeable, but not unexpected account of the death of my worthy friend Amadies*, for whom I have entertained the greatest esteem, and most constant regard, these three and forty years.

By testimonies, from different hands, it is confirmed, that my correspondence was one of his greatest pleasures in life, and my

*Mr Loveday of Caversham, a learned and excellent. man; but he forbid his son to impart his papers post mor

tem suum.

letters one of the first entertainments he produced to his learned friends. Now, therefore, I am of less consequence to any person in the world, and can follow him to the next with the less reluctance.

My hermitage will be a proper place to think on, and prepare myself for the journey. When you come this way, you may do worse than take a view of it, and a leave of me. It may be now justly told me, tempus est abire tibi; yet I find that I have not been quite useless in the creation, of which I can give a strong instance. I once got some seeds from the famous old cedars of Mount Libanus, and on one of the trees sprung from them, a wood pigeon is now hatching her young, and I am very careful that she may not be disturbed in that pious office. This careful mother is probably the first that ever took up her domicil on a Scottish cedar.

The tree is situated near the rudest part of my banks, well sketched in a line that lately met my eye in a modern poem,

Too sweetly wild for chance, too greatly bold for art.

To view rural scenes, Ascanius, and to refer to descriptions of their peculiarities in the best writers, adds a new beauty to the fields, and obviates the satiety of possession, or of frequent enjoyment.

"Methinks I know, charm'd with the scenes I love, "Each tree a nymph, a god in every grove,'

Farewell."

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THERE is perhaps no one principle in human nature that leads to greater consequences, than the concentration of application to singular research.

But this, like every other principle, has occasionally strange and useless terminations, that may be called lusus naturæ in morals.

As an instance of this, I will present you with the result of a man's labour for three years, eight or nine hours a-day, Sundays not excepted, to determine the verses, words, and letters contained in the Bible.

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- 31,173, 773,692. --3,566,480.

The middle and the least chapter is the 117th Psalm.

The middle verse is the 8th verse of the 101st Psalm.

Jehovah is named 6855 times.

The middle one of these Jehovahs is in second Chronicles, 4th chapter and 16th verse. The word and in the Bible is found 46,227 times.

The least verse in the Old Testament is in first Chronicles first and tenth verses.

The least in the New Testament, 11th chapter of John 35th verse.

I look upon this to be a very curious occurrence in the history of human nature, that there should have existed a man who, merely from the pleasure of employment, should have spent three years on such a task.

I knew a gentleman of an honourable family, who having been long a martyr to the gout, found relief from the diversion of an uniform employment that cost him no expence of thought, but occupied him in his elbow chair.

He made extracts from books to fill nine huge volumes in folio, which I have had in my hand, and contemplated with wonder, which ceased when I considered the sedative end he had in view. Besides this, the gentleman set down every curious authentic particular he could lay his hands upon, and I found considerable entertainment from reading many of them, which I faintly remembered to have heard in common conversation, but durst not repeat them for want of such authentication.

Among others I found a note from Dunning's clerks books, of his principal earnings in the course of his practice, which stated the first year at L. 34: 16: 8, and his last at L. 9744.

The subdivision of labour, the wealth of nations, and the leisure afforded thereby to

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