both being of the tribe of Levi; and Dathan and Abiram, being of the tribe of Reuben, afpired to fhare with Mofes in the fovereign authority; but God's indignation was manifefted against this united faction, by the earth opening and fwallowing them up. This decided preference fixed the title and office of priesthood to Aaron and his defcendants. And Eleazar, the priest, took the brazen cenfers, wherewith they that were burnt had offer ed, and they were made broad plates for a covering of the altar; to be a memorial to the children of Ifrael, that no ftranger who is not of the feed of Aaron come near to offer incenfe before the Lord, that he be not as Korah and as his company, &c. Numbers xvi. v. 39.

22. As the Old Teslament positively afferts, and I believe the Jews themselves acknowledge, that the Chrift was to defcend from the stock of David, is there any family or families now in exiftence, acknowledged by their nation, or confidered by themfelves, as the lineal defcendants of that monarch?

Anfwer to 2; 2. The prefent Jews do not know of any lineal defcendants of David. This is a curious circumftance in confirmation of the truth of our own hif tory of a Meffiah in Jefus-for the Jews expect a Meffiah of the house of David, while they actually acknowledge or know not of any living defcendants of that monarch; whence then can their expected Meffiah fpring? unle's by fome miracle the family of David should be restored, or difcovered from obfcurity. Whereas, Jefus dates his descent, through his father Jofeph, lineally from David and Abraham, according to St. Matthew; but according to St. Luke, it does not appear that Jefus took a lineal, though a fide defcent through David from Abraham; and if the immaculate conception be adopted, his defcent was entirely from his mother Mary, the daughter of Joachim and Anna, both of the tribe of Judah, of which tribe her husband Jofeph was alfo a member-but both were of the royal race of David, Luke i. v. 5, 36, which makes out the defcent of their fon Jefus from that monarch, and fulfills the prophecies

as to the Meffiah.

f

23: What is their prevailing ofinion relative to the fate of the ar, and do they give any credit to the account of it contained in the firft feven verfes of the fecond chapter of the 2 Maccabees?

Anfwer to 2.3.-The modern prevailing opinion of the Jews relative to the ark is, that it contained as well the two tables of Commandment, as alfo the fragments of those which were firft given to

Mofes, and which he threw on the ground in the camp of the Ifraelites, when he dif covered their idolatry, after his forty days abfence in Horeb or Sinai: they were preferved together in the ark, with the rod of Aaron that budded. But the ido latry of the Ifraelites being eafily led to pay more than feemly devotion to these relics, and to the ark itfelf, which was therefore carried from place to place with the army, king Jofiah, whofe real piety reformed many of their abuses, is said to have hid many of thofe utenfils which had been held too facred, A. M. 3376-and thus it happened that the ark never came into the fecond temple. The modern Jews give credit to the account of the ark, inentioned in 2 Maccabees, chap. ii. v. 5. that the prophet Jeremiah laid it in a hollow

cave in Mount Sinai, with the tabernacle and altar of incenfe, and "ftopped the door," and fome of those who followed him came to mark the way, but could not find it; and he faid to them, that the place fhould be unknown, until the time that God gathered his people again together, and receive them unto mercy, &c. Now Jeremiah preached in the 13th of Jofiah, the fon of Ammon, king of Judah (Jeremiah i. v. 2.) ante J. C. 641; and the Jews finally returned from their captivity in Babylon (which had begun under Zedekiah, A. M. 3416) after the seventy years foretold by Jeremiah, A. M. 3486, when Darius Hyftafpes allowed them by an edict to rebuild the temple.

I hope thefe notes will be found to be correct, and that W. H. P. will have the goodness, through the channel of this Magazine, to communicate any further notes or refults of his researches, to which I shall be happy to pay every attention.

For the Monthly Magazine. A PEDESTRIAN EXCURSION THROUGH feveral PARTS of ENGLAND and WALES during the Summer of 1797.

(Continued from p. 533.)

Sunbury to the little hamlet of HeN Friday, June 30, 1797. From reford; much of the road is very delightful, efpecially the parts nearest to Sunbury; where the winding river, the extenfive meadows, the fhady walks, and luxuriant plantations, diffuse a prodigality of gaiety and verdure. But greennefs itfelf is not green enough for the taftelefs inhabitants, fome of whom have daubed their houfes, and one in particular, the

very colonade before his door, with green paint.

It is remarkable how often abfurdities of this kind occur in the country houfes of perfons long immured in large cities. In London, indeed, where the verdure of nature is excluded by brick walls, and the bright face of heaven blotted out with fmoke, greens and blues are acceptable decorations: they form a pleafing contraft to the dingy phenomena around.-But in the country, where every bright and cheerful tint is poured out fpontaneously, it is most tasteless infipidity to daub them over one's house and furniture. Nor is it fufficient that we confult variety: contrafts may be fo fudden as to do violence to the eye; and every thing that looks like finery fhould be carefully avoided. Gaudinefs is no where to be endured but in a bank of flowers. Flaring red bricks make abominable blotches in a landscape; and (to take a flying leap in pursuit of my digreffion) there are fome confiderable houfes in Monmouthshire (particularly in the neighbourhood of Crickhowel) that may literally be faid to blush for the bad taste of their proprietors; being painted all over with a fine delicate pink. The outfide of a rural mansion admits of no choice but dead whites and ftone colours (of which the latter fhould be preferred); and within, greys, and drabs, and more fober browns will harmonife beft with the furrounding fcenery.

The pleafant hamlet of Hereford is fituated in the parish of Shepperton, on one of the fine fweeping curves of the Thames, and commands a noble view of the fpaci. ous park and plantations of Oatlands, which decorate the flopes and fwells of the oppofite banks.

The parish of Shepperton, and indeed the whole country from thence to Staines, abounds with fertile and luxuriant paftures: nor are the arable lands at all inferior. The affluence of nature, and the toil of man, confpire to produce one continued scene of fertility; while from every eminence the manfions of opulence overlook the profpect with exultation. But man, aggregate man, feems little benefited by this abundance. Cottages (none of which have the advantage of a cow) are very thinly scattered; and little farm houfes are ftill more rare. The few peasants we met looked (as the peafantry of England too generally do) careworn and toilworn; and the children feem to be brought up in the most oafifh ignorance. In fhort, every thing has the appearance of that de

folating monopoly which makes fertility itfelf a defert.

Having breakfasted, at a farm-house at Shepperton, on bread and milk, we proceeded to Staines; where (the weather being fine and the fun very powerful) we loitered away an hour or two with the rod and line; and pursued our route to Windfor. The enchanting scenery of this route is too well known to ftand in need of defcription.

Near Old Windfor, and just at the foot of Cooper's Hill, our attention was arrested by an elegant stone building, newly erected by one of the clerks (as we were informed) or fecretaries of Warren Hastings; and in which the ex-governor himself occasionally refides. It is remarkable that in the courfe of my rambles I have ftumbled upon feveral elegant villas, in different parts of the country, of which I heard a fimilar account.

At Windfor we only paused to enjoy its fine extenfive fcenery, and call to mind Gray's melancholy ode "on a profpect of Eton College," and then croffed the Great Park, on our way to Sunning Hill, where we intended to fleep; our object being to regain the ftraight road to Bristol without delay.

Windfor Great Park has little to recommend it but the rows of majestic trees at the entrance; which, though planted in straight lines (a direction which nature abhors) have nevertheless a very grand effect. Thefe are, however, the only rows of trees I ever beheld with fatisfaction; and the pleasure, in the prefent inftance, is only to be accounted for by the vaftnefs of the objects, and that boundless continuity which fills the mind with an idea of fomething like infinitude : for the line is extended not only along the whole of a very fpacious plain, but up the diftant hill, over whofe fummit it appears to curve; so that nothing like termination is difcernible. That this is the true folution, is evident as you advance: for the effect ceases as the line is fhortened : neither is the fame pleasurable fenfation renewed when, afcending the hill, you behold the fame length of avenue in an oppofite direction; for the plain lying beneath, and the vifta being abruptly terminated by a row of houses, the idea of infinitude is loft, and nothing remains but the disgusting tamenefs of parallel lines.

We arrived at Sunning Hill just as the day was clofing; but no beds were to be there obtained; and our accommodation at the Red Lion at Cow-Worth did not atone for the trouble of walking two miles

further,

further, along an intricate crofs road, in the dark. We procured, indeed, a tolerable fupper: but one fmall bed for two of us in a fmall room, in which, alfo, was another bed with two other travellers, repaired but imperfectly the fatigues of the day. In fhort, the Red Lion is a little inn upon a great high-road, and of courfe the worst place a traveller can put up at who wishes for frugal and comfortable accommodation.

Saturday, July 1. We rofe at eight o'clock, imperfectly refreshed, and pur fued our way, over heaths and moors, to Bagshot, with fcarcely an object worthy of obfervation to relieve the drearinefs of the road. Neither was the profpect much improved on the other fide of Bagfhot; but having refreshed ourselves with an excellent breakfatt, of tea and rolls and cream, which did us more good than the fleep of the preceding night, our animal fpirits regained their tone; and the vivacity of converfation made the miles pafs unheeded under our feet. We canvaffed various fubjects of literature and criticism, the state of morals and the exifting inftitutions of fociety. We lamented the condition of our fellow-beings, and formed Utopian plans of retirement and colonifations. On one fubject, and only one, we effentrally differed-America. I cannot look towards that country with all the fanguine expectations fo frequently cherish ed. I think I difcover in it too much of the old leaven. Its avidity for commercial aggrandifement augurs but ill even for the prefent generation; and I tremble at the confequences which the enormous appropriations of land may entail upon pofterity. Almost every circumftance I can collect makes me fear for the future, rather than exult in the prefent. This conversation, to ourselves at least, was highly important. It matured and methodifed in our minds the project (which before had only floated acrofs our brains in moments of wearinefs and difguft) of retiring to fome fequeftered spot, and fpending the remainder of our days in ruftic induftry and philofophical feclufion.

Having croffed the Loddon, at Blackwater, from Surry into Hampshire, the appearances of cultivation increafe; and, of courfe, the road becomes lefs dreary.

At Hartford Bridge we refted ourfelves nearly two hours, during the heat of the day; and, refuming our journey, were gratified by the improving profpects of cultivation and fertility. Of the pic turefque, indeed, there was fill an entire blank; but the eye repofed with fatisfac

tion on the freshness of the furrounding verdure.

About four miles from Hartford Bridge, the hamlets of Murrel Green and Hook are feparated by a little tranfparent brook, which empties itself into the Loddon near Arborfield: and under which a drain is conducted to draw off the waters from fome neighbouring lands.

The itate, cultivation, and the fertility of the paftures arrefted our attention. But what principally delighted us was the apparent comfort and decency of the cottages, whofe little gardens were stocked with useful vegetables, and whose doors and windows were decorated with rofe and woodbine. The only wretched habitations we met with, were two tenements made out of one farm-house (the farm belonging to which, in the progrefs of monopoly, had been united to another in the neighbourhood), and four others into which a deferted inn (which had been a farm alfo) was in another place divided. Thefe habitations were miferable indeed. Shattered windows, crazy walls, floorlefs apartments, and neglected roofs, proclaimed the comfortless condition of the inhabitants. From a decent motherly woman, whom we found with a family of young children around her, in one part of the former of thefe buildings, we learned that rains and fnows frequently beat in upon them, and they were obliged to move their beds from corner to corner of the room, in the vain hope of finding, in fome part, protection from the inclemencies of the weather. These circumstances are by no means peculiar to the village of Hook. Wherever we met with farm-houfes thus divided, we uniformly found them the moft miferable habitations in the neighbourhood. How fhould it be otherwife? The labourers, who inhabit them, confider their tenure as too precarious, and the premifes too large for them to think about repairs; and a crazy old manfion, in which his hedgers and ditchers only are to refide, is an object beneath the attention of an overgrown capitalist..

A little further on is a plantation of oaks, belonging to Lord Dorchester, planted originally at the distances where they are intended to grow, and protected each by a high circular bank of turf, which gives them the appearance of Christmas brambles stuck in the centre of fo many twelfth-cakes. I am not woodman enough to decide on the advantages of this mode of plantation; but to the eye, the effect is extremely ungracious.

Soon after turning our backs on this

unfightly

unfightly plantation, we quitted the high road to examine the ruftic parish church of Squires. This is at prefent little other than a finall barn-like hut. Nothing apparently remains of the old building but a fmall arched door-way, in the SaxoGothic ftile, whofe venerable antiquity is fill confpicuous through the barbarous white-wash with which it is daubed over. Hard by we perceived a decent and fubftantial farin-houfe, with barns and yards well stocked, and every appearance of profperity and abundance. And yet we found upon inquiry, that this farm confifts but of 160 acres; an extent, indeed, abundantly large, when the population of the country, and the provision and comforts of the mafs are taken into confideration; but cheerlefsly narrow, according to the monopolifing calculations of the age. This information made us gaze around with increafing fatisfaction; nor could we help deprecating the hour when fome four or five fuch families as this farm appears to fupport in refpectable abundance, fhould be exterminated to make room for fome mongrel of a 'fquirefarmer, whofe hounds and hunters and Bacchanalian revels devour, like a cloud of locufts, the produce of a district.

With an old threfher, who was working in the barn, we entered into converfation; and were entertained with the quaintnefs of his rustic humour. But we endeavoured in vain to procure any information concerning the price of labour, or the condition of the labouring poor. Every question was repelled by fome Ay rub, or fagacious hint; and his arch geftures, and emphatic half-fyllables, difplayed the felf-congratulating cunning of fufpicion. This is far from being a fingular inftance. Sufpicious flyness, and jealous reluctance of communication, especially on fubjects connected with their refpective callings, are too generally characteristic of Englishmen in every rank and condition-characteristics that form an almoft infurmountable barrier to the attainment of any accurate knowledge of the general ftate of mankind, and to every hope of effectually improving their condition.

Returning into the high road, we met with a character of very different defcrip. tion. His appearance was fomething, though not much, above the condition of a common labourer. His features, tho' confiderably relaxed by intoxication, bore the ftamp of intelligence far above his fituation; and this impreffion was confirmed by his converfation. He was in

quifitive, fhrewd, and communicative. It appeared that he read several newspapers, and, in all probability, is the oracle of every pot-house in the furrounding country. Unfortunately, however, we could no way turn his converfation into the channel we defired. He talked of nothing but Parker and the delegates, of war and of parties. In short, he was too full of liquor and temporary politics, to furnish any information on the fubject of political economy, and the only information in pointwe could procure was, that the manor of Squires was the property of Brook Watfon.

It is painful to reflect that, in the humble conditions of life, men diftinguished, like the prefent, by the fuperiority of intellect and information are generally, like the prefent, equally diftinguished by habits of profligate intemperance. But this ought not to be an argument against extending information-for the vice is the caule of the fituation, not the intelligence the cause of the vice. If the individuals whole examples are thus infifted upon, had not degraded themselves by fuch conduct, either they would never have funk into the class in which they are confounded; or if (which is rarely the cafe) they were originally placed there, their talents would have advanced them to circles of fociety more congenial to their attainments and capacities. If this is denied, then is the cafe kill ftronger, and we fhall be obliged to conclude, that being hopelessly furrounded by a fort of intellectual defert, and having no refources but their own animal fpirits, they are driven into habits of intemperance to fupply the deficiency of external stimuli.

[To be continued.].

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

E. P. has in his letter, dated April 4th, expreffed very philanthropic fentiments, for which he has my moft cordial thanks; but when we confider his plan as yet only offered in the outline, we must venture to fuggeft to him, what in another place I have before intimated, that the fimilarity of feveral charitable inftitutions, and fome of them precifely on the fame plan, tends to injure them all by weakening their refources.-If two charities of the fame defign were united, they would be, enabled to do more good-I mean thofe in the neighbourhood of each other.—It is hence that I would call to E. P.'s recollection that the Philanthropic Society takes in

one

one leading principle of his plan, namely, that of employing young people in a place which feparates them from the vices in which they have lived, in a mode of fupporting the fociety on which they are to depend, until they are deemed fit to be returned into the world :-Again, the Magdalen Hospital receives the very objects of companion whom E. P. more particularly points to where they are inftructed and reformed if their reformation be poffible --and the difficulty in E. P.'s mind of their being ever received into families afterwards, is removed by the fact of numbers of reclaimed women having been fo received, after their having left that house, and become moral characters.But as E. P. dates from Newcastle upon Tyne, it may be probable that he has not feen in his neighbourhood the good effects daily felt here of the two inftitutions which I have mentioned; in which cafe, if he would procure books of their rules, he might with a little labour model one fociety for his district out of them both-but his own zeal muft folicit patronage-his own unremitted care must form the defignand his perfeverance refift difficulties and difcouragement even to endure the relaxation of his fupporters and the deficiency of funds.

PERMI

ERMIT me to mention one peculiar hardfhip under which the poor of this country labour. Amidst the neceffary burdens of the war, it has been the laudable endeavour of adminiftration to lay on taxes, fo as to affect the lower orders of fociety as little as poffible.In one inftance, however, they have deviated from this general rule. Salt is a neceffary article of life, and ought to go as untaxed as any thing else which forms the immediate fuftenance of the people at large. In a northern climate like this, to lay up a flock of winter provifion of fleth or fifh, is abfolutely neceffary. The high price of falt prevents the poor from doing this, to a proper extent, and diftreffes them much. The fishermen on our coafts are not able to falt their herrings and pilchards, as they were accustomed to do formerly, for want of capital:-fince for ten pounds weight of falt they must now give as much, as fome time ago would purchase ten times that quantity. The fifh they take, therefore, more than they can immediately fell, are converted

into manure for the land. From this waste of what should fupport the poor, another inconvenience arifes-other kinds of food are eaten in greater abundance, and confequently their prices rife with the demand for confumption. Thus this tax operates two ways-by preventing fome articles from being brought to the market, and raising the price of thofe that are in both of which the poor are material fufferers.

I fincerely hope fome friend to humanity will take up this bufinefs, in the proper place, and endeavour to get this odious Gabelle repealed. I cannot fay I admire. that philanthropy which looks abroad, and neglects home-which talks of the blood of Africans mixed with fugar, and forgets the fufferings of the poor of this country. If proper reprefentations of the hardship of this tax were made, there is little doubt but a repeal of it might be effected; and certainly its author would gain to himself lafting reputation; and, what is more the confolatory thought of having benefited the condition of the oppreffed Poor. I am, &c.

May 22, 1799.

X. Y.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

H

SIR,

AVING lately come to the know. ledge of a curious efcape of a dog, unquestionably true, I thought it worth preferving; and therefore fend it you, juft as the owner of the animal related it to me.

Ween preparations were making in St. Paul's to receive his Majefty, on his intended vifit to return thanks for his recovery; a favourite bitch attended its mafter into the church, and followed him up the dark ftairs of the dome. Here, all at once, it was miffing, and the mafter whistled and called a long time in vain. Nine weeks after this circumftance, all but two days, fome glaziers were at work in St. Paul's, and heard among the timbers that fupport the dome a faint noife; thinking it might be fome unfortunate human being, they tied a rope round a boy, and let him down about the place whence the noife came. At the bottom he found a dog lying on its fide, together with the skeleton of another dog, and an old fhoe half eaten. The humanity of the boy led him to refcue the animal from its miferable fituation, and it was accordingly drawn up. As it was very much emaciated, and scarce able to stand, the workmen placed it in the porch of the church,