W May all your hours still smile, all gayly move, The Acknowledgment. he plies the tyrant ga uests, and creates in Arge is so oppressive to make the secret k. jome murm’ring river's se by large fuereflive show crouling bar rrent yie ja rapid ca ; the fie lare, I thus admire, so great a mult brinha Q. Why does a Esfep, viber sizzes, neue tu teman ance of the Bishoprocé swia, and your beina, sa sime, accept of ? A. The custom is non oisimet, sur une sen Suppose the elected B.itups 19 iunt in We repeated, Nola enfcspers, I se': cze szablusz wro defign to deciase their burity and soseb z is honourable 20 office is the Cousi wa series 123 own seeking, nos the corect ci rier muros sup They may be suppos'a 210 to have compies z tiz third time of asking mitoe te sie sooriete of God, which had c. to fb uygury. If some were not si obey pues i so particular a form, - za vas them, and not upon Q. Wiy is it, the a us with parallel resemblances, besides the various deformities peculiar to it self. If the prodigal reduce himself to beggary, the covetous is a beggar in the midst of affluence: if the one can promise nothing to his family but future want, the other streightens it with present want: if the one overlooks the gifts of heaven, the other under rates the giver. The one indeed is a careless, or a random liver; but the other must be allow'd to be in the worfe extream, to be a fuperftitious idolater. Prodigality is a fort of phrenfy, and therefore carries its own extenuation, tho not excuse ; but every act of covetousness is determin'd with calmness, carried off with sedateness, concluded with thoughtfulnefs: Prodigality is indeed a very fore disease, but withal it is its own phyfician. The penury it brings us to is an useful pill to correct ill huniours of the mind, to remove obstructions to fo-, ber reasoning, to make us willing with the prodigal , in the Gospel, to arise and go to our father; but be, who hides his talents in a napkin; who robs not only his own, as does the prodigal, but alfo the poor and the publick of their due, is so riveted toʻthe earth he doats on, fo center'd to the shining mass, that no. thing can disengage him from his other felf, but the unmerited mercy of that eternal Being, from whom he has no reason to expect the favour, while one of the covetous whom God abhorreth. Q. Your opinion is requested concerning the singing of Swans, whether they fing at any time of their lives, or whe ther it be only just before their' deaths ? A: 'Tis our opinion that they never fing at all, but that the original conceit was grounded on the fable of the antienis, that the soul of Orpheus was transmi. grated into a fwan, for which reason the Greeks and Egyptians held that bird in great veneration. We find no encouragement in any author to believe it was the {weetness of their singing which occafion'd this fable, fince all those who speak of it place their relations so remote, that every experience cannot refute it. а Q. What Q. What is the cause of intermitting fevers? A. Intermitting fevers are suppos'd to proceed from the stagnation of the pancreatick juice thro’some obstructions in one or more of its lateral ducts; which juice by its delay there growing acrimonious, and penetrating thro' the viscous phlegm obftructing the paf. sages, enters into the small gut, and there mixes with other humours, whenee arises a vitious effervescence; and this disorder returns as often as the afore-mention'd ftagnation is produc'd. Q. Why is it that the person to be married is enjoyn'd to put a ring upon the fourth finger of his spouse's left hand? A. There is nothing more in this, than that the cuAồm was handed down to the present age, from the practice of our ancestors, who found the left hand more convenient for such ornaments than the right, in that 'tis ever less employ'd; for the same realon they chose the fourth finger, which is not only less us'd than either of the rest, but is more capable of preserving a ring from bruises, having this one quality peculiar to it felf, that it cannot be extended, but in company with some other finger, whereas the rest may be fingły stretch'd to their full length and streight's ness. Some are of the antients opinion in this matter, viz. That the ring was fo woror, becaufe to that finger, and to that only comes an artery from the heart, But the politer knowledge of our modern anatomists having clearly demonstrated the absurdity of that notion, we are rather inclin'd to believe the continuance of the custom owing to the reason above-mentioned. Q. What is the reason that vinegar caufes fome people to weat? A. The vinegar received into the stomach may there probably meet with an alkali, from whose con trarieties an effervescence arises, which nature endeavours to discharge by sweat. Q. I would desire the favour of Apollo's opinion, whea ther 1 a sher any person may properly be call'd a true-born Englishman? A. We know no reason to the contrary, unless a man has the misfortune to be born a bastard. Q. What is a dream? Whence does it proceed? May dreams be depended on? 4. To define a dream, and give you the cause of it at once: It is a confus'd perception of the mind, occasion’d by the motion of the animal spirits, thro' the passages of the brain; and tho' no one can deny but that God, if he so pleases, may in dreams pre-fig. nify events to come, yet what stress you are to lay upon common dreams, you may learn from Solomon, Ecclef.v. V. g. In the multitude of dreams and many words, there are also divers vanities; but fear thou God. Q. Was the surface of the earth plain before the flood, According to the ingenious Dr. Burnet's hypothesis. In Genesis there are several texts, that seem to make again it, especially chap. vii. 19, 20. A. As that ingenious hypothefis is founded upon a precarious supposition, so it is diametrically opposite to the text you mention; and whatever objection niay be drawa from the irregularities, which mountains occasion in this terrestrial globe, it will readily disappear, if we but consider the use, the necessity, the beauty of such irregularities. Q. Is it posible for heat to be without fire; and if it be, what is the difference between them? A. To the first we answer in the affirmative. Το the second we reply, that heat differs from fire two ways; either in the lefser motion of such particles as are capable of such a degree of motion, as is necessary to the production of fire, as in all combustible matter, when only hot; or in the motion of such para ticles as are incapable of any such degree of motion, as in ashes. Q. Sweet Apollo, I beg the favour of you to give me gour opinion, whether when one lives very easy and withont contradiction, and has so done a long time, even till one |