124, In the year 1748, I happened at Chester to find a German, who by some management of his wind-pipe imitated all sorts of singing birds so exquisitely, that only by his bulk, and want of feathers, was it possible to distinguish him from the canary-bird, black-bird, thrush, &c. which he mimicked. While he was doing this, his lips were only so far open as to admit the back of a worn table-knife. I felt the vibrations in his wind-pipe, but I think not more sensibly than in my own, when I raise my voice a little. When he ceased to be a bird, he asked me if I would hear a concert of dogs, and another of cats? It is true, friend, I do think those animals do mean somewhat like our concerts, for I have frequently listened to those of dogs, and once to a concert of cats. I think myself happy, quoth the German, to have met at last with one who hath observed the fact. Saying this, he threw himself down behind a great table, and a single howl came forth, exactly like that I had been used to hear. This solo continued but about a minute, and was followed by a chorus of at least ten howls, as of so many dogs. After two or three repetitions of these solos and choruses, he performed the same in the cat fashion; and so very well in both, that the animals themselves could not have performed better, had all their mistresses been to hear their serenades. The dogs then fell upon the cats, and all was barking, mewing, spitting, scratching. I should have mentioned, that the concert of cats, whether as an exhibition of their own, or of this their representative, was the most horrible sound I had ever heard, nearly the same, I believe, that would have come from a dozen little children, each possessed by a demon. A practice, like those above, is said to obtain among the Belzebub baboons in Terra Firma, where great numbers of them frequently meet in the woods, when one standing up on an eminence, seems to make a speech, and the rest to sit and listen until he hath done, on which the whole audience join in such a scream, as human ears cannot bear without an inexpressible shock. The Chinese, a people the most early polished in the world, can no more be pleased with our music, nor we with theirs, than either of us can with that of dogs, cats, or baboons, yet on both sides we are delighted with our own. So are the Hottentots with their iambic of trim-tram. Is music then arbitrary and customary only? Or is ours the dictate of nature? This point should be cleared up by the philosophers of sound. At least, the Eolian harp should be allowed to produce some

thing more than mere melody, till our present silly jingle shall be taught to speak to the heart, and mean somewhat. If there is harmony (as the adepts in music call it) to be found in this jingle, it can be harmony only for the ear, and the pleasing unisons of an Æolian harp should be preferred to it, call either by what name we will. But query is there any essential rule of musical composition, as there is in universal grammar?

125. Cybele, otherwise called Vesta, and Terra, the earth, was worshipped, not only by the Greeks and Romans, but by many of the northern nations, as the mother of the gods. It seems, they owned their gods to be earth-born, as well as the giants, the enemies of those gods. The Romans, already somewhat acquainted with several of her children, by the wise advice of an oracle, sent to Pergamus for her; and when she arrived found her to be a shapeless stone, and according to some ancient author (I forget whom) of enormous size. It was not long however until they represented her by the figure of a woman, crowned with turrets and battlements, as the earth should be, and under this semblance adored her. The barbarous nations, not acquainted with sculpture, continued to worship mother earth as before, by a large piece of the earth, that is, a rock or huge stone, detached from the rest of the globe. I suspect we have many of these goddesses in Ireland. At least I have been shewn several of them, which were worshipped in old times as divinities, if we may believe a uniform tradition of the native Irish. Of these one is to be seen near Newry of so great a bulk, that Jupiter, and almost all his Olympic family, might have been brought out of her in a Cæsarean operation by an obstetrical statuary. The tradition acquaints us, that some of these were, as late as the present century, found so nicely balanced on a stone prop or pivot, as to be easily shook by the hand of an ordinary man, though not farther moveable than about half an inch, by the strength of five hundred men. This served for a miracle, superior, I believe, to any exhibited by her children to attract adoration. Any very large object, the expanse of the ocean, or a very high mountain, is apt to strike the beholder with wonder, which is not far distant from a degree of veneration. The effect of this was aimed at by Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon, and by Lysippus, or a scholar of his, at Rhodes. After tossing little stones here and there in play, the sight of one as large as a house, and of a weight so far exceeding our utmost endeavours to move it, espc

cially however if easily moved, though ever so little, enhances the wonder, and may be made to excite the adoration of a very ignorant and superstitious mind. Although the poor native Irish now despise their stupidity, who could kneel to a mishapen rock, the work of God, yet they still readily fall down before a stone Mary, or Peter, of little size, which they know to be the work of a man only. Anterior to all inscriptions, and I believe to all knowledge of letters, at least in Ireland, forts, or earthen fortifications, abounded every where throughout that country; as do artificial barrows, or monuments of the dead, probably of much earlier date than the forts. These latter were erected as monuments over the burnt bones of the very greatest men; while bones of men ranking in a second class, enclosed in urns of pottery, were deposited in the earth, and over each urn was placed a rude stone, as large as the friends of the deceased could roll to the spot of interment. The lower and poorer people were all buried unburnt in the earth, as now. The barrow erected over Halyattes in Lydia by his son Cræsus, is the greatest I have read of, in height about four hundred perpendicular feet, and emulating the pyramids of Egypt in every thing, but materials. These sorts of monuments are traced northward throughout all the countries, peopled by the posterity of Gomer. This rude kind of structure speaks its own antiquity, as prior to all inscriptions and records. The language of the old Irish, of considerable similarity with the Hebrew, noted by the very learned colonel Vallancey, together with the aforesaid monuments, support the idea of their kindred with Gomer; nor is it at all incredible, that a people, living detached from the rest of mankind till about six hundred years ago, should have better preserved a tincture of the original language than any other people, more exposed to conquest, and more jumbled with neighbouring nations by commerce, or any other kind of intercourse. The Montgomeries, once possessed of large estates in France, and as Vandals, in Barbary, have preserved entire in their own the name of their great ancestor Gomer. An Irish lady of that name, having very fairly traced her family up to Gomer in a chat with one of my acquaintances. of another name, was bid to stop there. Why, pray, said she? Because, madam, replied he, if you go but two steps higher I shall be of as noble a family as your ladyship, and will actually call you cousin at least. If the antiquarians do not think my other Irish antiquities worth their notice, they ought at least to

take the Montgomeries into their particular attention. The herald's office more especially ought maturely to weigh the matter, because probably the Montgomeries have a right to priority among mankind, for as Gomer was undoubtedly the eldest son of Japhet, so the greater part of our most learned critics and commentators insist upon it, that Japhet was the eldest son of Noah. The Jews have no claim to this priority, for they are descended from the younger son of Isaac, and Isaac from Arphaxad, who was but the third son of Shem.

126. About the year 1768, a six-year old bullock was slaughtered in Dublin after the usual manner, that is, knocked down and blooded. The raw flesh of this beast (I saw some of it) was every where as white as good veal. The blood was thrown away by the butcher, and not microscopically examined, so that it could not be known, whether it abounded with red globules as plentifully as the blood of other oxen. Though the Jews, I believe, do not knock down their beeves, as we do, but bleed them to death, in order the more perfectly to clear the flesh of the blood, yet I have never heard that their beef, newly killed, is of so pale a colour; nor can I think, that the minuter muscular vessels of any full grown animal, can by any mode of bleeding, be so entirely exhausted of this fluid, as to leave it colourless. But the point may be easily tried by killing and dressing a bullock in the Jewish manner. At present it seems to me most reasonable to suppose, that as wooden vessels are tinged with the colours of such liquors, as have been long enclosed, or passed through them, in like manner, the muscular membranes of a full grown animal, by the incorporation or adhesion of the red globules, must have acquired their colour in a much higher degree, than the same sort of membranes in a calf of only six or seven weeks old; and in this opinion I am the more confirmed, because there is a like difference in point of colour between the flesh of a lamb and of a wether, both blooded to death in the manner of the Jews. It is true the difference, though considerable, is not so great between the flesh of a sucking pig and that of a hog; but this may be owing to the smaller impregnation of red globules in the blood of the latter, killed at a year old, than in those of a bullock, killed at six, and of a wether at four. Besides, it may be possible, for aught I know, that the blood of swine may never be so highly thus impregnated, as that of the other two species, or their fibres and membranes, so susceptible of that impregnation.

127. It is a current report, but on what authority grounded, I know not, that three hundred lewd women were, like other stores, shipped aboard the Royal George, sunk near Portsmouth; and that the divers, who went down to rummage the wreck, found them and the sailors in pairs. Whosoever believes this, ought always to remember, that God is on land as well as at sea; and that if here he hath water, there he hath fire at all times ready, as an instrument of justice and vengeance. I doubt however the truth of this ugly report, as it is rather too wicked for credibility; as that ship, I am told, was overset in the daytime; and as the divers could not have been at leisure to make the observation above-mentioned.

128. A miser is one, who, in respect of vanity and sensuality, is more mortified than an anchoret, and what he denies himself, he is still farther from allowing to others. He heaps up riches, without knowing or caring who shall gather them,' when he dies. His vice is the most abstracted, the most ideal, and refined of all vices. There is another sort of miser, much more sensible than this, who heaps up money, with large stores of victuals and clothing; and, for fear of thieves and robbers, intrusts both with a parcel of poor agents, not suspected by any sort of plunderers to possess the prey they look for. These agents, by sale or barter, on very moderate brokerage, bring in to the miser I am speaking of, a profit, with which nothing else in commerce can come into competition. The miser, whom they serve, sees them every day airing his stores, and preventing all sorts of insects and moths from damaging his meat and clothes, and at long run he receives his money, exchanged into the currency of a better world than this, so as to carry it with him beyond the grave.

129. There is a certain set of words, such as bigotry, latitudinarianism, superstition, and fanaticism, employed mostly in matters of religion, and flung by sects and parties at one another, as terms of reproach. Thus used, they are nothing else but the random shots of poisoned arrows and chewed bullets, from the engines of ill-nature and malice. All of them, however, when rightly adapted, imply somewhat culpable, and often criminal. Bigotry is a zeal without knowledge, a tenaciousness of opinions, ill founded, and warmly pursued to excess, even to hatred and persecution. Truths, of all sorts, ought to be espoused by a rational mind; and, if they are of the last consequence to human duty or happiness, they cannot be espoused with too great warmths;