The LETTSOMIAN Cabinet of Minerals. Mineralogy of more importance, at present, to AMERICA, than Botany. We are dependent on foreign nations for riches that lie under our feet! The UNITED STATES rich in iron, lead, and copper. The great scarcity of gold. The whole amount of gold in the vast region of France (before the revolution) would

form a solid cube of less than ten feet square. So trifling the physical object that excited the impetuous passions of twenty-five millions of the human species! The extravagant price set on diamonds, and other glittering stones, ridiculous in the eyes of REPUBLICANS. " Quot manus atteruntur, ut unus niteat articulus !" Pliny.

XIX. ANALOGY between things material and intellectual. The world a mirror, reflecting moral truths. How the antient Magi construed the GREAT BOOK OF NATURE. Examples from the BIBLE.

XX. The French System de la Nature opposed by arguments drawn from Newton, Clarke, Common Sense,

Locke, and Voltaire.

"We shall not have much reason to complain of the narrowness of our minds, if we will but employ them about what may be of use to us. 'Tis of great use to the sailor to

know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom the depths of the ocean. 'Tis well he knows that it is long enough to reach the bottom, at such places as are necessary to direct his voyage, and caution him against running upon shoals that may ruin him. Locke.

The shortness of the course compels the lecturer to treat some particular subjects at greater length every other year. He is conscious

that few of these heads are treated with the profundity the subject demands. He has endeavoured, however, to excite, and to direct curiosity to books, where he himself could pot satisfy it.

STORY OF CECILIA.

THE passion of love is sup posed to exert its sway most despotically over the softer sex, the gentler half of our species; but though I cannot but confess that women, taken in the aggregate, are more delicate animals than men, and less capable of resolute exertion and firmness, yet there are instances among them of a firm endurance of evil, an energy of mind fully equal to the boasted strength of the stern lords of the creation. A woman indeed who has a soul at all, (for it is well known to be the Turk

ish creed that that beautiful ma chine is not endued with so useless a spring, and there are some instances among our own countrywomen,that would almost induce one to believe that a few fair Turks had straggled into Great Britain)....a woman, I say, who has a soul, is much more animatHer ed, more alive than man. impulses, if less permanent, are more lively; and though their vigour may quickly relax, yet the first spring is so powerful, that it will carry them farther than a more continued impetus will lead a man....But I am going to set before my readers the character of a female, not more distinguished for her feeling than her resolution; and whose case, as it may be common to all, may contain a general warning and a general example.

Cecilia was, from her infancy, the child of misfortune. She lost her mother in the first month of her life, and experienced through

her childhood every disadvantage which can attend a motherless female. It is needless to detail the circumstances which threw Cecilia, without fortune and without friends, into a dependent situation in an elegant family. There, however, we find her, from a very early age, bereft of all the splendid hopes her father's prospects once held out to her, and trusting alone to "Innocence and Heaven."

Cecilia was no beauty ;....in stead of the Grecian elegance of form, and the unrivalled delicacy of feature she might have inherited from her lovely mother, she could boast only an active, though not a slender person, a complexion that glowed with the pure tints of health, a countenance that bespoke good humour, and an eye that beamed intelligence. Her skin had been despoiled of its polish by that foe to loveliness, the small-pox ;....and the narrowness of her fortune deprived her of the adventitious advantages of dress. The lowliness of her situation, which she felt most acutely, (perhaps too much so, since circumstances, not incurred by guilt, ought to bring no imputation with them) repressed all the freedom of her manner, and all the graces of her youth. With these exteriour disadvantages, Cecilia was living with a woman of fashion, fortune, and beauty, who, satisfied with the charitable deed of affording a home to a fellow-creature, thought she treated her with sufficient kindness when she did not beat her.

Cecilia, however, possessed a mind far superiour to her situation; it had been elegantly and

even studiously cultivated. She was no mean proficient in the modern accomplishments, and was more than commonly skilled in the Belles Lettres. She had loved moral philosophy, as the most improving and the most interesting study; and she now sought in its doctrines a relief from the discomforts she experienced.

She could not believe but that unwearied assiduity, diligence, and good-humour would procure her the good-will, and even the affection of her patronness; but the course of a few years shewed her that she deceived herself, and that a fine lady is a non-descript in ethics.

but

Had Cecilia been one of those humble toad-eaters, who can bear to dangle after their ladies into public, clad in their forsaken ornaments, at once the envy and the scorn of the whole tribe of waiting gentlewomen,....had she been an adept at flattery, and echoed with applause the unmeaning witticisms she was condemned to hear, she would probably have been a favourite such was not her character. Con, scious of some internal merit, Cecilia sought to be chosen, not suffered; and finding, unhappily, that she could not obtain what she sought, she gradually withdrew more and more from observation, and though obliged to frequent all company, she never met with even the common attentions due to her age and sex.

Thus retired in herself, and thrust back by circumstances, it was not possible for her to obtain any attention in the gay and dissipated circle in which she was condemned to move, nor to have

She was now anxiously expect ing the moment when his avowal should dissipate all apprehensions, when one day, after a temporary absence, as she advanced to meet him with her accustomed gladness, she was struck with the strangeness of his manner !..... Polite he was indeed; but what was mere politeness from Alcanor to Cecilia? She gazed in his face; she saw in it no answering warmth; she retired to weep, and in solitude, chid herself for her fancifulness. She returned to prove Alcanor faultless, and herself mistaken. She found him to all others cheerful, animated, gay, as usual....to her invincibly cold. Day after day passed on, and no returning kindness beamed in his eye. Hope was extinct, and thus ended forever an attach ment singular in its progress, and barbarous in its termination.... No opportunity now offered of speaking alone to Alcanor, and if it had, of what service would it have been to the unfortunate Cecilia? Of what was she to complain? Nothing, however, was ever farther from her wishes than to complain, except to reproach Alcanor! To conceal her griefs, to conquer her feelings, to command her countenance, these were the tasks she imposed upon herself....these were the efforts that exhausted her strength, that imbittered her solitary hours, that bathed her pillow with tears!

These salutary efforts, however, succeeded, and Cecilia is a noble example that philosophy and exertion can surmount the greatest trials, and afford comfort' under the heaviest misfortunes. She has devoted her time, with

exemplary fortitude, to those pursuits which formerly interested her; and she finds from her laudable exertions the truest and most permanent comfort. One only reflection remains to imbitter her hours of retirement, and that is, her earnest and not unjusti fiable curiosity to learn the reason of Alcanor's sudden change: but this explanation she must assuredly rest without obtaining, since she can never ask, and he seems not at all disposed to volunteer it.

That no future clouds may arise to disturb a serenity so laudably regained, must be the wish of every one who reads this recital; but what words can do justice to the unsuspected perfidy of Alcanor, who first obtained the full confidence of his destined victim, and then amused himself with watching the progress of a passion he coolly resolved to reduce to despair? Cecilia, indeed, with a delicacy of which only the most feeling mind could be capable, sometimes reproaches herself with having too readily yielded to the semblance of affection; but her own heart, and that of the treacherous Alcanor, must fully exculpate her from this blame. The following lines, however, which I obtained by an accident not to be related, prove her jealousy of her own conduct, and the acuteness of her feelings.

I caught a bright fantastic cloud, And in the glittering moonlight dress'd it,

I

Then, of the beauteous pageant proud, Too fondly to my bosom press'd it.

fancied by the dubious light,

I saw my phantom sweetly smiling; My bosom throbb'd with wild delight, All reason's soberer fears beguiling.