lence; for arsenic will not more certainly put a termination to the natural life of the body, than these will speedily put a period to the literary existence of those writings in which they abound. THE BEE, vol. xiv. p. 301, April 31, 1793. "The poetical passages of Scripture (observes Dr. Knox) are peculiarly pleasing in the present translation. The language, though it is simple and natural, is rich and expressive. Solomon's Song, difficult as it is to be interpreted, may be read with delight, even if we attend to little else but the bril liancy of the diction; and it is a circumstance which increases its grace, that it appears to be quite unstudied. The Psalms, as well as the whole Bible, are literally translated; and yet that translation abounds with passages exquisitely beautiful, and irresistibly transporting, Even where the sense is not very clear, nor the connection of ideas obvious at first sight, the mind is soothed and the ear ravished, with the powerful yet unaffected charms of the style. It is not, indeed, necessary to enlarge on the excellencies of the translation in general; for its beauties are such as to be recognised by feeling more than by description: and it must be owned, that they have been powerfully felt by the majority of the nation ever since the first edition. In many a cottage and farm-house, where the Bible and Prayer-book constitute the library, the sweet songs of Israel, and the entertaining histories of Joseph and his brethren, and of Saul and Jonathan, constitute a neverfailing source of heart-felt pleasure. "It is false refinement, vain philosophy, and an immoderate love of dissipation, which causes so little attention to be paid to this venerable book in the busy and gay world. If we do not disclaim all belief in its contents, it is surely a great omission in many gentlemen and ladies who wish to be completely accomplished, or think themselves so already, to be utterly unacquainted with the sacred volume. It is our duty to inpect it; and it is graciously so ordered, that our duty in this instance may be a pleasure; for the Bible is truly pleasing, considered only as a collection of very ancient and curious history and poetry." ESSAY xlix. Edition 1795. No. CLXIII. In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas Of transformations new and strange I tell. OVID. AMONG the extraordinary discoveries with which this ingenious age has abounded, none appear more curious than a late experiment in chemics, which is said to have succeeded admirably. Modern ingenuity seems, indeed, to have abundantly surpassed ancient researches, not only in the success but in the subjects of its exercise. The transmutation of metals, for example, it is well known, employed the learned attention of centuries; and the distinguished epithets of the Greek orators were transferred to certain golden philosophers of the crucible, who pursued through a disappointed life the rich dream of alchymy. Their want of success is the more to be lamented, as their pursuit was doubtlessly disinterested, and persevered in merely for the advancement of learning. The process, however, still remains fruitless; and the subject of it, it is to be feared, will long continue the grand desideratum in the world of science. But the newly-acquired knowledge may be considered at least as equivalent in point of curiosity, and more so as to use. The change of lead or iron into gold, though it carries with it something very pleasing to the imagination, would be found in effect little advantageous to the Midas who should accomplish it, or to the Peru or Mexico, where it should be accomplished. The modern discovery, on the contrary, of the transmutability of the human body to a spermaceti candle (for such is the extraordinary subject of the ingenious and successful research to which I allude) cannot fail of being equally beneficial to the projector and the public. My reader will probably be as much surprised as I confess myself to have been, if he has not happened to meet with an account of this transformation, in some of the late publications. But it comes to us so circumstantially related, that, by a new process of chemistry just discovered, the best spermaceti may be procured from dead human bodies, that it challenges peculiar attention. Whether this new metamorphose be considered in a moral or a literary light, it will be found equally satisfactory. No mean master of philosophy, the universal Shakspeare, has already moralised on the contrasted state to which the material part of us, even kings and heroes, is subject: Imperial Cæsar, dead, and turn'd to clay, How much more pleasing the contemplation, especially to the literary labourer, that his earthy part, after having been animated by the genius of his mind, should not degenerate into the unworthy offices foreseen by Hamlet; but, on the contrary, should aspire to the generous purposes of repaying the favours it had received from its old companion-of shining with grateful flame on the study of those very pages, which the labours of the mind had composed by the less brilliant glimmerings of the lamp! It was long a doubt among the learned, whether spermaceti were a mineral or an animal substance. On that head, if any difference of opinion could have remained, it would now be entirely cleared up in favour of the latter hypothesis, by the late noble experiment; proving, exclusively of its cetaceous origin, from which the favourers of that hypothesis deduce it, that it may be procured from a much nobler |