One may obferve, not 30 miles from London, that the fhepherds have their houfes on wheels where the ground is unoccupied by any others except their fheep, and it is no uncommon thing for a poor cottager to encroach on the wafte for a few poles for cabbages or potatoes, and then to be made to attorn to the Lord of the Manor, and pay an exorbitant fum for what he has enclosed within his mud walls or dead bushes.

You need not be told that formerly our confiderable farmers kept a good many fervants either by the day or year; but fince the deftruction of fmall farms has become a fashion, this method of providing for the poor has declined.

We have many poor cottagers that can keep a cow, an afs, or a sheep: the latter take place, even on their native mountains, of goats or hogs are fubftituted as more ufeful to the fupport of a family when their flesh is falted and dried for winter store; horses run wild on every common, which, thank God, affords more provender in a fingle English parith than the whole wildernefs of Kadeth Barnea. It is no uncommon thing to fee the gypsies or pedlars, or even chimney-fweepers, trotting on their own hacknies from one end of the parish to another, and as much further as they can go and find fresh grafs or thistles.

Almost every cottager round London has the inexpreffible convenience of a well within diitance, and no man in his fenfes would build a house, or make a fettlement, without the convevience of water. here are also different kinds of wells: fome brick, fome ttone, fome bare clay and earth: and there is this further difference between them, that fome have an ebullition of water from their bottom, which in plain English would be called a fpring; in others the water enters at the fide or near the top; into others it drops from the heavens ; and fome are fo artificial as to be contrived of wood and fet to catch the droppings of eaves. We have in almost every parifh a pond fit to water the cattle, and to boil a tea-kettle. You must have seen feveral wells in England defcended into by fteps, whofe broken edges gave them a truly patriarchal and antique air; and you must alfo have seen wateringtroughs at every ale-house door round London. The coverings of these wells are as various as the wells themselves,

but feldom rife above a few patcht boards to keep out the dust, and perhaps tempt an arch urchin now and then to lay his tail over them; and whenever the water at the bottom is evaporated and exhausted the mud at the bottom makes excellent manure. It must not be omitted that the water is drawn out of thefe wells by various machines, fuch as chains, ropes, &c. and in pails, pitchers, piggons, kettles, mugs, bottles, and fometimes in chamber-pots, by perfons of every fex and age. All thefe minutiæ are expreft with the strictest adherence to coftume by landscape-painters, from Teniers to Smith of Chichester; and you will find artists who know nothing of Greek or Latin, and can hardly talk English, paint a beggar boy or gypfey-girl with all the propriety of Pouffin or Reubens.

The drefs of the English peafantry is just what the anniversary flop-fhops, commonly called fairs, or the purlieus of Goodman's Fields and Monmouth Street, furnish of ready-made cloaths in conftant colour, cut, and fashion. And first with regard to that of the men: It is as certain that the neck and arms are covered, as it is that thofe parts of Eaftern bodies were naked. One nced not in proof of this fay that here and there a parith-clerk, or an oidfashioned John Trot, wears a pair of black or white gloves with stiff tops up to his elbows; or that when the Efquire gives fome principal tenant a burial ring for his father, he is not a little proud of wearing it. Black hobs, or natural grey locks, or rats tails and tallow candle ftrait hair, are the only ornaments of the head among thete people, and differ in different lanks and ages.

It is not easy to state the comparison between the veil and any part of the female head-drefs. The infection of fashion has fo difconcerted the modelt ftraw. hat, or the humbler and well-' worn and ragged bonnet, that, as we have no difguife for impudence, we have fcarce a decent covering for modesty; and the man that fhould expect to pick up a forward huffey in a village church

I always underfload that the book of Genefis was written in Hebrew; and that what the Seventy Interpreters knew they were about when they translated it into Greek, and fo it is a fign if they make Hagar carry water in a bottle of

water,

yard

yard, muft not look for her under Tamar's veil, however the enamoured hind may expect to meet the completion of his wishes in a clean fhift as Smart as paffible.

The English peasant is not ashamed to put his hand to the plough, though he has no objection to enjoying himself under his tree or at his door, with his brown pipe or jugg (luxuries which Abraham, Ifaac, nor Jacob, ever knew); and ftares like a ftuck pig with. out any uncommon effort if a tranger accofts him, especially if that stranger gives himself greater airs, or is more bedaubed with lace than o dinary, and he returns his compliments with an't please your worship, and farvant fur, not to mention his hofpitable offer of a brown cruft, a hock of bacon and greens, and a joram of nappy ale; for Dutch plaice and moor game do not fall to his fhare; and if a drover wants a night's feed for his beafts, or a stagecoachman a ftraw yard for his overwork'd cattle, 'tis at his fervice-on reasonable terms.

The farmer's fons and fervants look after his cattle, and are accountable for loffes or accidents, though it is no unufual thing for a wealthy farmer to keep a bailiff.

Their fervants are either boys er girls of the fame parish, or hired for a year and a day at fome neighbouring ftatute; and if they get one another with child, or the mafter takes a liking to a fresh girl, and engrafts a child on her, he either marries her, or fends both her and the iffue of her body to the work houfe, especially if his wife exerts her prerogative jealousy, and infiits on it. It is not uncommon for a farmer to get his maid with child. A wife's fifter has been known to have come in for as hearty a share of the brother-in-law's careffles as ever fell to the lot of Leah. This laft circumstance however is more confined to the great.

No lefs natural is it that the pinbasket of the lawful wife should have the greatest hare of the father's affections, or that in all civilized countries adultery with a lawful wife fhould be deemed criminal.

Oaths are common among our peafantry, and you fhall hear a hearty G-d d--n you accompanied with a fap of the hand or the table (no proof of dimfightedness) in token of earnest affeverations. Ods life and other oaths are alfo in uf.

GENT. MAG. Feb. 1780.

I do not undertake to vouch for the abfurd cultom of a grandfather holding his grandaughter on his knees while the is delivered of a child, not having penetrated fo deeply into vulgar antiquity; and as I never was out of my own country, ftill lefs will I take upon ne to vouch for what is done beyond fea. But from the modeft practice of our antient farmers wives, who will be laid only by their own fex, I fhrewdly conjecture they would not easily fubmit to have any male affiftants on the occafion. You will obferve I advance nothing beyond my own knowledge, and that I do not pretend to a grain of faith extraordinary for fear of being thought an old woman,

or

The defire of having children by hook or by crock, obtains univerfally among the English Peaiantry. Attempts to prevent procreation are held in abhorrence; though fometimes intereft prompts the fatal drag, or the unnatural fuffocation.

Parental authority and parental bleffing have not wanted their due weight, nor is the authority of a hufband over his wife leffered: we have inftances of men, who fell their wives to their betters, and even to their equals, for a trifle; and the only redref's my countrywomen have is to be beforehand with their fpoufes, cuckold them with full evidence, and obtain a change of bedfellow by act of parliament. In this we fairly beat the Patriarchs hollow.

That we may follow the comparison to the laft ftage of life: the fame affectation of family vaults obtains among our Patriarchs; the fame mode of conveyance by bargain and fale, or by faculty, fecures the fee fimple of a few funeral feet of earth; and if the party dying forgets to give a charge in his will, the furvivors inviolably pay him the last civility to pack him into the family vault fo foon as he is gone the way of all flesh.

I wish to oblige you by purfuing the compafon further; but the opportu nities for enquiry are fo few among the purfe proud, the miferable, and the ignorant of our common people, their respect for antiquities fo little, the milestones fo often defaced by idle louts, and the very fellows who live by the river fide know fo little about the tide and navigation, that one fears to trut one's felf to their difcretion or fkill; and fo little reg rd do they pay to

the

ability, however the Roman writers, who alone mention it, may have exaggerated it,

ANOTHER of Mr. B's correfpondents, Philo Veritas, from N. Walfham, in No. 2940, supposes the masses of tone cleared away by vinegar were "fuch as were only fufficient to obftruct the march of a numerous army, confifting of foldiers and elephants, horfes and baggage," and after fupporting it as he thinks by the authority of Florus, Virgil, Silius Italicus, and 2. Curtius, who, I can affure him, fay nothing of it §, and admitting both its probability and poffibility, he inclines to "afcribe its origin to pure furmife, and the reception it has gained in the world to pure credulity."

Mr. URBAN,

T

HE admirable Clerichton was confidered as the wonder of his age; becaufe, when 20 years old, he was master of 12 languages, of all fciences, and of all exercises.

William Crotch is in thefe days confidered as a moft extraordinary phænomenon; because, at two years of age, he began to play (felf-taught) on the organ.

But what is all this to the wonderful learned boy of Lubeck? He knew, and would repeat, the principal facts in the five, books of Mofes before he was one year old, and he went on in the fame proportion. But, to do juftiee to the story, it fhould be taken from the author himself, who was his tutor; I have therefore tranfcribed it, as it appears in the laft Critical Review, from a book published in German, at Gottingen and Lubeck, that you may, if you please, circulate the wonderful account.

S. H.

died there, June 27, 1725, after having displayed the most amazing proofs of intellectual talents. He had not completed his first year of life, when he already knew and recited the principal fats contained in the five books of Mofes, with a number of verfes on the creation. In his 14th month, he knew all the hiftory of the Bible; in his 30th month, the hiftory of the nations of antiquity, geography, anatomy, the ufe of maps, and nearly 800 Latin words: before the end of his third year, the hiftory of Denmark, and the genealogy of the crowned heads of Europe; in his fourth year, the doctrines of divinity, with their proofs from the Bible; ecclefiaftical hiftory; the inftitutions; 200 hymns, with their tunes; 80 pfalms; entire chapters of the Old and New Teftament; 1500 verfes and fentences from ancient Latin claffics; almost the whole Orbis Pictus of Comenius, whence he had derived all his knowledge of the Latin tongue; arithmetic; the hiftory of the European em. pires and kingdoms; could point out in the maps whatever place he was afked for, or paffed by in his journies, and recite all the ancient and modern historical anecdotes relating to it. His ftupendous memory caught and retained every word he was told: his ever active imagination ufed, at whatever he faw or heard, inftantly to apply, according to the laws of affociation of ideas, fome examples or fentences from the Bible, geography, profane or ecclefiaftical history, the Orbis Pictus, or from ancient claffics. At the court of Denmark, he delivered 12 fpeeches without once faultering; and underwent public examinations on a variety of fubjects, especially the history of Denmark. He fpoke German, Latin, French, and Low Dutch, and was exceedingly good-natured and well-behaved, but of a molt tender and delicate bodily conftitution ; never ate any folid food, but chiefly fubfi ted on purfes milk.

He was celebrated, fays this account, all over Europe, under the name of the Learned Child of Lubeck. He died at the age of four years, four months, 20 days, and 21 hours; and his death was recorded in a number of periodical papers.

Mr. UREAN,

YOUR correfpondent. Y. Z. in Noyember Mag. p. 543, is fcarcely

intelli