he wou'd evidence every punctilio of royal deriva? tion.

Q. When a man upon his tryal, says, he will be try's by God and his country, the clerk Jays Culprit, God fend you a good deliverance, pray, what is the signification of Culprit ?

A. The Athenians have given some account of this, Vol. III. p. 4. but our society are of opinion, that when the person pleaded not guilty, and put himself upon God and his country, for a tryal," the clerk pronounc'd these words, Qu'il le paroit, Let it appear so, i. e. Let it appear to God and your country, that you are not guilty of the crime

you

fand charged with ; so that Culprit appears to be a corruption of Qu'il le paroit.

Q. Your opinion is defir'd concerning the moon, as to its material substance, as to its bigness in comparison with the earth; and whether it be true, that therein may be feen the resemblance of a face.

A. The material fubftance of the moon is of a more rarified contexture than the earth, and is less by about 45 proportions. As for the resemblance of a face, we conceive it to be either the effect of imagination, from the inequality of light discernible in her, or an error occasion’d from an astronomical term, since the different appearances of the moon are exprefs'd by phases, which, tho' it differs from faces in orthography, yet not in sound. Thus, Sir, we have deliver'd our opinion of your queries, tho' some may think, that the learned know no more of these things than the man in the moon.

Q. Whether a person that has compounded with his creditors, is not so strongly concluded by the above rule, as to be incapable of performing any act of charity acceptable to God, before he has fully dischargʻd the debts be compoun. ded ?

A. That acts of charity may be acceptable to God, they ought to be done with all the fimplicity and fincerity of heart imaginable, out of a just sense of the duty we owe, and the dependence we have up.

on

on him, and not from our being struck with the misery of an object.

In the next place, what is so given ought to be strictly our own, which a person that has compounded with his creditors, ought not to think so, till he has satisfied all their just demands upon him; so that to make his charity acceptable to God, he must come up to those rules. For tho’his creditors may give him a legal discharge for his compofition, he can never be discharg'd' in conscience, till he has paid the last farthing : but divines allow a liberty in small acts of charity, which can be no damage to creditors, and where we may presume upon reasons able men.

Q. Why turpentine, when taken inwardly, caufes the urine to have a sweet scent like violets ?

A. Turpentine is endued with a great quantity of pure fulphur, which being very volatile, does penetrate che mass of blood, and mixeth it self with the ferum, so that when urine is excreted, the ful. phureous particles are discharged, and yield a grateful smell.

Q. Your opinion is defir'd, whether or no it is lawful for a person to wear a wigg?

A. It is not only lawful, but also neceffary for our querilt to cherish his brains.

Q. You are desired in your next paper 19 tell what mark it was that God put upon Cain, ?

A. Some think that he branded his forehead with a letter of his name; others, that he armd him with such a gastly look, that every one endeavour'd to avoid him.' But these can be but mere conjectures, since the case will admit of nothing farther than a guess. It shou'd therefore be our business rather to avoid the reason of the inark, than curiously to en quire into the nature of it.

Q. Ye Apollonian fors of brightest wit,
Who to unriddle nature's fecrets fit;
I, a poor maid, unknowing what to do,
For speedy fuccour, hirher fly to you.
2

A chara

A charming youth I passionately love,
Whom neither sighs, nor tears, nor pray’rs can move :
Daily I languish, and my pains increaje,
And nothing can I find to give me eafe ;
Then, Sirs, perform your promise to the fair,
And by your kind advice protect me from despair ?

A. Ah! Yet, fond maid, impending ruin Mua :
What numbers of your fex are thus undone !
You guide the wounds of Love, and then complain
That tears, and fighs, and passion, plead in vain :
You curse the pains, and rage to feel the smart,
Yet hug the fubtil poyfon to your heart ;
Wou'd you be happy, study to remove,
Your fames from one, who flights your proffer'd

LOVE; You'll then, with ease, your peace of mind regain, Unless juft heav'n decrees a longer pain ; For, Oh! I fear! yet with my thoughts untrue ! You've us'd some Man before, as he now uses You.

Q. Oh! tell a culinary fair one why,
From back of cat as black as charcoal,
Smartly rubbid with hand in dark hole,

Such fiery Sparkles fly ?
May I ne'er more be kiss’d by mar,
If this ben't fact, your servant ANN.
A. An oily substance nourisheth the hair,

Which fulph'rous particles contains,

By friction rais'd with little pains ; If this ben't truth i'll swear,

Ne'er kitchen-wench again to follow,

Yours, Nancy, scullion to Apollo.
On a certain Lady continually looking out at her Chamber.

Window.
HE lark no sooner tends her Alight,

To greet with songs the new-born light;
No sooner Progne's in ber chat,
But Chloe's in her airy seat;
And there retains her dear abode,
Till night informs the drowzy God.

Tell

T

Tell us, bright guardian of the day,
The cause of this abstruse delay?
Doft thou employ thy Cupids here,
To wound th' unweary passenger?
Does contemplation fix thy mind,
Too great on earth to be confin’d?
Or does my philofophick fair,
Camelion like fubsift on air?
Or doft thou search how fars dispense,
On man their wond'rous influence ?
Or would it with phaetonick pride,
Within the solar chariot ride?

Or, ( grant thy fancy's not so bigh)
- Dort think with Icarus to fly?
If so, thy project render sure,
And fins as well as wings procure.

On Hope.
OP E is a friendly passion of the mind,

Which to the miserable still is kind :
Il mooths the lover's brow, it calms his breast,
And in soft whispers tells him he is blest;
What cou'd relieve the pangs of deep despair,
Support defeated bliss, or make us bear

The tyranny, and frowns of an insulting fair,
But Itrength of Hope ? that bids the lover live,
And in the midit of pain, do's still some pleasure give.

The Lover's degrees of comparison.

Ho

More happy he, who for her beauty tighs.
Buc that successful mán most happy is,
Who fighs for her fake, while the lighs for His.

Q. There b; ing no crimes more exprefly forbid, both by the lanes of God and man, than murther and revenge, especially self murther, which, by all christians, is juftly efteem's the most abhorrent to human nature ; I would entreat your folution of the foliowing question : how shall I acquit Sampfon from being a notorious instance of both these crimes, in a way consistent with the motions we ought

-80 have of the divine attributes and commands, since it's very evident, that he was mov'd by revenge, when he pray'd that God would affift him ; and that God in anfwer to his prayer did give him power to destroy himself, and several thousands of the Philistines ?

Your Servant, Lucinda. A. We approve of St. Austin's opinion, that the ardency of Sampson's prayer proceeded, not from any private fpirit of revenge, but from a divine impulse moving him thereunto; and this is confirm'd from the success of his petition'; since we are affur'd, that God heareth not finners, especially in the very subject matter of their fin. And if Sampson was mov'd from above to the action he perform’d, we cannot but allow, that he, who has the sole dispofal of our lives, can commission any of his creatures to destroy themselves. But if we farther consider the action as heroical, in that by so great a laughter of the Philifines he wrought a signal deliverance for his country; sure thus to die for the publick good, is foreign to the common notion of self-murther. And tho' a fentence of his prayer seems expresly to inform us of his desire to be reveng'd for the deprivation of his fight, yet we need oot expound it in a rigorous acceptation, but may fo' mollifie it, as to fuppose, that so inhuman a cruelty in the Lords of the Philiftines to one, who was judge in Ifrael, made them vessels of wrath, better fitted for destruction.

From the premises therefore we may give Sampson an acquittal, since he antidated a Gospel-precept, and laid down his life for bis brethren.

Q. Whether the air, which the Plenifts hold is the medium employ'd by nature for the filling up all imaginable vacuums in the world, be it self perfectly full, and with out pores, and, consequently, capable to furnish other bodies to an absolute plenitude ?

A. They who allow a vacuum; as we do, must grant withal that there is no imaginable way of knowing, whether the most subtile matter existent in the world, be with or without pores. Cou'd the Ple