served, still the more was my curiosity increased. The first thing which drew my attention was, how the ground brought forth its fruits, by which all living creatures were nourished, and seemed to receive their whole essence. I observed the manner how the trees, the grass, and the flowers grew; each yielding its proper seed for new cloathing to their mother earth on their decay. The beautiful contexture, also, which appeared in each individual, gave me no small delight. And, in time, I learned how these successive renewals of nature exactly corresponded with the motions of the sun, at whose annual approach the woods and meadows put on a smiling green, and the flowers shot forth their heads; and at his removal to the more southern climates, all things seemed to fade and droop, as if they only lived in hopes of his return, which never failed at the fixed time. I marked the agreement between the moon and tide, and the revolutions of the lesser heavenly luminaries were the subject of my nocturnal contemplations. I also employed some time in considering the figure, situation, and beautiful variety of the colours in the rainbow. I discovered the necessity of rain and the solar heat, to ripen the fruits of the earth; and the use of morning and evening dews, to supply the absence of the former, was likewise known to me. I considered the admirable structure of the bodies of every species of animals within my observation; how appositely they were framed to serve their several purposes and ways of living, and what surprising art and foresight they shewed for the preservation of themselves and their young. In fine, I beheld the marks of wisdom wherever I cast my eyes. An universal harmony and alternate dependence appeared through all the parts of the creation; the most neglected things, when duly examined, being not without their manifest use. In short, I was every where surprised with an apparently wise design, where the least design of all was expected."

From nature he proceeded to nature's God; and he goes on somewhat too rapidly, except on the supposition of supernatural communication. He studies the economy of the beavers-is dazzled with the flash of lightning, and astounded with the roar of the thunder-he contemplates and meditates upon the luminaries which sparkle in the heavens, and. becomes a natural astronomer. The occurrence which gave him the strongest emotion, was the death of his dog, occasioned by the fall of a tree which had been gnawed by the beavers. The effect of this accident is thus related.

"Affrighted at the accident, I ran, without any regard to my own safety, and catching him up in my arms carried him a little distance off, and laid him upon the grass. Here, examining what mischief he had received, I could perceive no visible breach in his body, save a little skin rubbed from one of his knees; but I guessed at the greatness of his hurt, by supposing the like to have befallen myself.

"After I had continued some time looking on, I grew impatient to see him rise again upon his feet, and fawn upon me as usual; for I had never yet seen the dead body of any animal, no, not to my remem

brance, of the smallest insect; and his motionless condition made me at first conclude him to be only asleep. But after I found all endeavours in vain to bring him to himself, my confusion increased; and I began to suspect, that the body was not only bereft of sense and motion for the present, but was also rendered incapable of performing the functions of life ever after: for I considered, from my own experience, that every degree of violence impressed upon me was usually followed with a proportionable degree of pain, which was an utter enemy of sleep. I reasoned moreover with myself, that a greater force with the same instrument, or the same force with a different instrument, might have been capable to separate every member of the body from its fellow; or, at least, to have reduced it into a state as unlike what it was, and as incapable of recovering its former condition, as I had seen a flower, or blade of grass, after I had bruised it between my fingers. And in the end I became thoroughly convinced, that this must be the case of my companion, whom I was now to expect no more conversation with; but in a short time must behold his body mingled with the earth, like what I constantly saw happen to every thing which received its growth from thence. But when I came to apply these melancholy reflections to myself, it is not in my power to make you sensible of the uncommon emotions which arose within my breast: and when I suspected that my ceasing to live might be no other than a ceasing for ever to exist, which seemed to be the case of the dog now before me; this struck me with such a horror and amazement, that, for some time, I seemed as if driven into the very condition I so much dreaded.

"When I was partly recovered out of this consternation, the day drawing to an end, I left the carcase upon the grass, and retired to my cottage with a mind sufficiently disordered: and the dreadful apprehensions always running in my head of what was to befal me hereafter, would suffer me to take no rest the greatest part of that night.”

He next examines, with more attention than he had ever before bestowed, the contents of his cottage, and is particularly engaged with an old chest. The contents display considerable variety; a mirror, a fan painted with human figures, mathematical instruments, and books; from the first, which he breaks, he learns what causes the reflexion; he cannot read the books, it is true, but one of them being a mathematical one, with figures, he is enabled, with their assistance, to learn the science. The most striking incident in the book, and the most naturally told, is the discovery of fire, which leads him to the discovery of conscience.

"One evening, as I was cutting down the reliques of an old rotten tree within my inclosure, whose situation did not please me, accidentally missing my aim I struck the hatchet against a stone, which occasioned sparks to fly forth in abundance. After I had removed this without my pales, in my return I beheld some of the chips lying close by the remaining stump to send up a vapour, something like what I had seen

arise in the morning from the dewy savannahs, but far more gross and dense, as well as more quick in its ascent; and, as I approached nigher, I perceived the flame, which immediately brought to mind the ignis fatuus and glow-worms heretofore: but when I came to handle this, as I had done the worms, the pain it gave made me draw in my fingers with a great deal more speed than I put them forth; and byand-by the flame, catching hold of the stump of the tree, began to burn with some vehemence. I stood wondering how this strange thing came here, which I took at first to be a living animal from its creeping along the ground, and seeming to catch at and consume every thing in its way: and I was well nigh confirmed in this belief by the fall of some drops of rain, at every one of which, as at the receipt of so many blows, it appeared to recoil back, and send forth its complaints as if from a sense of the injury it received; but I changed this opinion when I beheld the sparks flying from it, and observed the sudden increase made from the smallest of these, wherever it met with proper materials; which brought to mind the sparks struck from the hatchet, from whence I immediately concluded all this to proceed.

"I spent some time in making experiments upon this wonderful phenomenon: I observed its emission of light and heat, like the sun and stars; from which resemblance of its effects I concluded the resemblance of their natures. I took notice also, how apt several sorts of matter were to be destroyed by it, while others it affected no otherwise than as it heated them for the present, or discoloured them with its smoke; but water it seemed always to abhor: and I pleased myself one while with supplying it with fuel, and anon quenching it again with water from the brook; till at last, by pouring on too much, I quite extinguished it.

"My thoughts were mostly that night employed upon this new discovery; and on the morrow I took the hatchet and sword to try farther experience upon the tree now lying without the south-west side of my inclosure; where, at the first trial with my instruments one against another, I got fire, which presently set the tree all in a blaze. I pleased myself awhile with the sight; but this was soon over, and my heart began to quake, when I beheld it out of my power to extinguish it; and, catching hold of a large coppice of trees which stretched along to the sea at north-west, it in a moment sent up such hugh pillars of fire and smoke, that it threatened to lay the whole island in ashes. And doubtless the mischief would have been vastly more, had not the wind at that time chanced to blow from the land, and by that means preserved my inclosure and cottage, which must otherwise have inevitably fallen with the first in this dreadful ruin.

"I was in the utmost consternation to see the devastation I had caused, my ears being quite stunned with the incessant roaring of the flames, and crackling of the large trees, mixed with the loud yells of the beasts and fowls, all endeavouring to escape as far as possible from a sight so terrible: and so great was the combustion, that it was fairly visible to my father in the other island. But when I came to think of the injuries this indiscreet piece of curiosity must bring upon my fellow

creatures, and imagined I heard the cries of several helpless animals perishing in the flames; O heavens! with what horror was I seized! I ran round the flames in the most distracted manner, without the least regard to my own safety; still pouring forth the most bitter lamentations, till, at last, through very anguish of spirit I fell all along upon the ground, and could bear up no longer; my resentments being all the same, as if I had occasioned the destruction of so many of my own species.

"The fire continued burning that whole day, and the greatest part of the night following; during all which time I could not keep my eyes from it, continually shewing the utmost tokens of rage and despair, for having been the author of so much mischief. At length, when it had destroyed all before it to the shore, for near a mile distance, it began to abate for want of proper matter to supply it; and a great quantity of rain falling next morning quite extinguished it.

"But though the fire was extinguished, so was not my trouble. This accident raised a tumult in my bosom, as much beyond my own power to appease, as it was beyond my power to quench the fames which occasioned it: for it gave me the first sad experience of the severe lashes of a self-condemning conscience; a trouble to which all my other griefs were comparatively as nothing. I had hitherto experienced no afflictions but such only as proceeded from things without; things upon which the soul had no real, at least, no lasting dependence: so that whenever she obtained a better knowledge of her own state, it would not fail either to shew her the vanity of them at present, or, however, give her the comfortable hopes (if not the assurance) of their removal hereafter. But this was a wound given to the soul herself, and, consequently, a more perfect knowledge of herself was the way to add to her misery, by making her more sensible of the great evil of the loss of innocence; a loss which could never be retrieved by any ability in herself, and which must needs proportionally deprive her of the favour of God. And whenever I reflected upon the wretched havock which, by this fact, I had made in the workmanship of God's hand, and considered the intolerable injuries I had done to so many of my fellowcreatures, I could not but tremble to think how justly I had provoked our common Creator."

There are several pretty little incidents in the book, in addition to those we have quoted:-the discovery of the light of the glow-worm; the intercourse between Automathes and the beavers, which is of a very agreeable sort, and full of the author's own kind disposition, besides many other pleasant touches of description and feeling. On the fan, which he had found in his cottage, Automathes first saw the semblance of the human figure; it was this elegant toy that awakened in his heart a longing for the society of his own species, a burning desire to see something like himself: by his minute examination of the fan; and his own observation of the animal kingdom, he had already pictured on his mind a distinction of sexes. He was one

day partially gratified by a vision of a female: it was his mother, whom he supposed had been the instrument employed by heaven in his education, and who was now come on the completion of the task, to afford a sensible manifestation of herself, as if intending to take her final adieu of him in this life, when she had, as it were, executed her commission, and was about to return into the mansion of rest. Shortly afterwards a ship arrives off the island, and, to his great surprise and delight, a company lands from the vessel, the motions of whom are watched with intense interest by Automathes, who at last marches amongst them a naked savage, and finds his father, who is revealed to him by that sort of mysterious sympathy which accompanies the relation of parent and child, at least in novels and ro

mances.

The father, it appears, had been driven on another desert island, where he had remained until this very time, when he was discovered by the crew of this ship who were countrymen and acquaintances, and upon whom he had prevailed to accompany him to the island on which he had left his son. Gibbon says that our author has blended the History of Robinson Crusoe with the Arabian Romance of Hai Eb'n Yockdan. This does not appear to us to be the case; it bears no resemblance to the former; the outline is entirely borrowed from the Arabian work, which was translated into Latin by Pocock, and afterwards into English by George Ashwell. The history of Automathes possesses considerable advantage, as a romance, over that of Hai Eb'n Yockdan, which is filled with, philosophical speculations on the subject of the human mind, but unmixed with the pleasant episodes and lively fancy of the History of Automathes. There is also this difference between the two fictions, namely, that the progress of Hai Eb'n Yockdan, in the attainment of knowledge, is accompanied with a ferocious indifference to the sufferings of the animals around him, whom he considers as his enemies in his pursuit of information. In his acquirements too, he had nothing but his own unaided reason for his guide. Automathes, on the contrary, at first imagines that all animals are endowed with the same feelings, and are influenced by the same resentments as himself: he never attempts to destroy life in the meanest of the animal tribes, and his sole food consisted of fruits and vegetables. The former is the most philosophical, but also the most wearisome; the latter is the most entertaining, and the most amiable. Automathes, indeed, bears the marks of having been written by a mild and gentle spirit, who had some peculiar notions about the superintending care of divine intelligences; and who, if not a profound philosopher, was, at least, an agreeable writer. Indeed, we have been induced to