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ciety, in its actual state, Irang together by innumerable links and ligatures. Many things are deemed, upon one view, useless and pernicious, which, upon a more accurate and comprehensive observation, will often be found inseparable and essential. It would not be an unamusing, nor, perhaps, an unprofitable, task to weigh accurately the present constitution of almost all human societies, by which the existence of domestic animals is not merely tolerated, but deemed indispensible to the general welfare. Whether all the domestic animals that are at present reared and fostered in Great Britain, for example, or some one class of them, might not be entirely dispensed with, and what effect the total extirpation would have on human felicity, are problems not unworthy the attention of inquisitive minds.

Whatever solution these problems should receive from a hundred or a million of enquirers, the state of things will doubtless remain the same; but surely there is some advantage in seeing every object in its proper light. The conduct of others is seldom influenced by our opinion of its rectitude, but to form just opinions of the conduct of others is, at least, to enlighten ourselves, to aug. ment our own stock of truth, and lessen our own stock of error.

For the Literary Magazine.

ROMANCES.

A TALE, agreeable to truth and nature, or, more properly speaking, agreeable to our own conceptions of truth and nature, may be long, but cannot be tedious. Cleopatra and Cassandra by no means referred to an ideal world; they referred to the manners and habits of the age in which they were written; names and general incidents only were taken from the age and history of Alexander and Cæsar. In that age, therefore, they were not tedious, but

the more delighted was the reader the longer the banquet was protracted. In after times, when taste and manners were changed, the tale became tedious, because it was deemed unnatural and absurd, and it would have been condemned as tedious, and treated with neglect, whether it filled ten pages or ten volumes.

Cleopatra and Cassandra are no greater violations of historical veracity and probability, and no more drawn from an ideal world, than Johnson's Rasselas, Hawkesworth's Almoran and Hamet, or Fenelon's Telemachus. In all these, names and incidents, and some machinery, are taken from a remote age and nation, but the manners and sentiments are modelled upon those of the age in which the works were written, as those of the Scuderis were fashioned upon the habits of their own age. The present unpo pularity of the romances of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is not owing to the satires of Cervantes or of Boileau, but to the gradual revolution of human manners and national taste.

The "Arabian Nights" delight us in childhood, and so do the chivalrous romances; but, in riper age, if enlightened by education, we despise what we formerly revered. Individuals, whose minds have been uncultivated, continue still their attachment to those marvellous stories. And yet, must it not be ascribed rather to change of manners than to any other cause, that we neglect and disrelish works which gave infinite delight to sir Philip Sidney, sir Walter Raleigh, and sir Thomas More, to Sully and Daubigne: men whose knowledge of Augustan models, and delight in them, was never exceeded, and the general vigour and capacity of whose minds has never been surpassed.

The works that suited former ages are now exploded by us. The works that are now produced, and which accommodate themselves to our habits and taste, would have been utterly neglected by aur an

cestors: and what is there to hinder veller. It's a damned strange thing, the belief, that they, in their turn, I must own: but they told me there will fall into oblivion and contempt....the French consul at Alexandry at some future time. We naturally conceive our own habits and opinions the standard of rectitude; but their rectitude, admitting our claim to be just, will not hinder them from giving way to others, and being exploded in their turn.

For the Literary Magazine.

A CONVERSATION UPON EGYPT.

An original letter.

Christeen, August 4, 1784.

I HAVE little, as yet, to tell you, my dear friend, but that, after a tedious passage of two days, I have at last reached this place, and found what I came in search of. I was never here before, and have not been here long enough to form any notion of the place and its inhabitants. The incidents of my little voyage were not worth relating to you, who have made such voyages so often, yet most of them were new, and therefore interesting, to me. Perhaps I cannot amuse you better, or while away more effectually this sultry afternoon, than by repeating a little conversation which took place between some of my fellow passengers.

A

We sat together on the quarterdeck, shaded by the main-sail, as we were towed up the innumerable windings of this dirty stream. careless, jolly fellow observed, that this creek strongly reminded him of the Nile, which, he said, was just such a river as this.

The Nile! exclaimed the fat skipper; where's that?

It's in Egypt, says the other: 'twas in Egypt when I was there.

When you was there? said an Irish innkeeper, of this village: if it was once there, I suppose it is always there.

There you're out, replied the tra

told me....I lived with him while I staid at Alexandry....he told me damned strange things though, I tell you before hand; that this river goes away every winter into the moon, into a damned high mountain there, and then comes down again after a while....the consul told me.... rattling and splashing at a devil of a rate, rolling along mud and crocodiles.

This information was followed

with a deep pause. At length the skipper said, Come, come, Mr. Ellis, that won't do. You are boring

us.

The traveller affirmed, with an path, that he was serious; that the French consul and many others told him so.

What, said the skipper, the channel, I suppose, then, is dry in the winter season.

Dry as this deck, said the traveller. The consul told me so. A beaten road; nobody can tell it from the fields; rather dustier, that's all.

Egypt! Egypt! resumed the skipper: why it an't the place we read of in the Bible is it? where Joseph, and Pharaoh, and Potiphar and them was; and where the Jews passed over the Red Sea without wetting their shoes.

The very same, like enough, said the traveller, but dam'me if I know. Perhaps the Red Sea was like the river, and the Jews went over when it happened to be dry: but I can't say positive as to that, for I never heard of the Red Sea when I was there; so perhaps it's not the same as the Bible makes mention. But I'll tell you what's stranger still: when the river comes back, it overflows all the land, and then they always plough and sow, when the water's on it, three or four feet deep. I've seen them at it: the men up to their middles, and the oxen up to their bellies.

But how can they sow in the water? how does the seed get to the ground?

Sinks to be sure, how should it else?

I know Egypt well enough, said the innkeeper. I had a full brother there seven years. When he came back, he used to tell us such odd comical stories. By the mass, I never believed half of them: yet brother Pat was an honest soul, and never told a lie, but when he was in liquor, and that was not oftentimes; not more than once a week, or thereaway, and then he was damned drunk, that's the truth on't.

Pray, interrupted I, what did Pat say about Egypt?

Why, he said they were all no better than Mihummetans in that country; people that worship the new moon. They put it a-top of all their churches.

Put the new moon a-top of all their churches! said the astonished skipper.

Pshaw! said the traveller, that's a lie, for I remember there was no such thing on the steeples that I saw, and many is the good time I have seen their churches; aye, and been in them too. When I was there, I never saw the new moon, or the old one either, any where else but in the sky, not I.

I don't mean the new moon, its own self, said the innkeeper, but a statute of the new moon, as I take it.

That's flat idolatry, says a little demure personage, in grey clothes; for the scriptur says, thou shalt not worship any thing in the heavens above, nor in the earth beneath : now the moon, you can't deny, is a thing in heaven: now to make a graven image of the moon, why that's a profane idol; why that's to be no better than a heathen, dy'e

see me.

Aye, resumed the innkeeper, and what's worse than all that, they've no pews in their churches. So, Pat says, he heard say, for he did not see it himself. Becase why? why becase they won't let no christian go into their churches. If he goes in, what do they do? says I to Pat.

Why, says he, they take and sacrifice him to the new moon, he says.

Why, said the demure personage, if a man goes into a such like place, 'tis my belief he's an idolater. He's no conscientious christian. The scriptur says, who can touch pitch and not be defiled?

And then, too, continued the innkeeper, they never rings no bells to call people to church, but the clargyman goes to the top of the steeple and calls out to the people to come, and then they takes and goes: and then, too, what's oddest of all, they keep Sundays on Fridays. they call the Bible the Go run.

And

Why that, says the man in grey, is worst of all, to keep Sundays on Fridays. Why they're no better, as a body may say, than a parcel of sabbath-breakers. God forbid I should be uncharitable, but it's my belief that no good can come of such doings. The scriptur saith......

As to that, interrupted the traveller, you may think as you please, to be sure, Mr. Elmslie, but my notion is, that all days is alike.

This declaration aroused the zeal of Mr. Elmslie, and he set himself in the hold forth attitude immediately. The traveller continued: I'll bet you a bowl of jorum (here, Tom, bring us another bottle, you dog, and some sugar); I'll prove it you as plain as the nose in your face.

I lays no wagers, says the theologian; I am for plain downright arguing, dy'e see, from scriptur..... Mark that: I sticks to scriptur.

Being anxious to hear the innkeeper repeat a little more of his brother Pat's account of Egypt, I here interfered between the disputants with....Pray, gentlemen, let us have the jorum first, and this weighty matter may be settled afterwards. Meanwhile, let us have more of Mr. M'Dowal's account of Egypt.

Why, says M'Dowal, I don't know as how as I remember much more of what Pat told us....Aye! he said, that every man there has a dozen wives; that women never go to market, a shopping, nor a gossip

Ing as they do in christian countries, because the men are affeared they'll run off: so they keeps them locked up all their lives, and they don't go nowhere's; not even to church.

Mr. Elmslie heaved a deep sigh.... And then there's a sort of people there, Pat said; he called them mammy looks, that are always on horseback, and they are great lords, and they do what they please among the people. They never go out but they cut off the heads of somebody, especially christians. If one of them there mammy looks meets a christian, why he'll cut him down with his broad sword as soon as look at him....Sarvice to you, gentlemen, putting the jorum to his lips. Pat says, they makes no more of drinking the blood of us christians, than I do this jorum.

Here Mr. Elmslie's devout exclamations awakened the disputatious zeal of the traveller, and the talk was turned upon the equality between the value of a christian's life with that of a Jew's or a pagan's. I shall not follow them in this digression, but end here, with the ending of my paper. So, adieu.

. H. L.

For the Literary Magazine.

FALSE PREJUDICE AGAINST MUSIC,

He that hath not music in his soul
Is fit for treason, stratagem, and spoil.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE doctrine of sounds is a study against which no conscience can revolt, because it is the attribute of man to enquire into the causes of things, and he is wont to consider it as the best evidence of his not abusing the faculties bestowed on him by his bountiful Creator. Our enquiries on this head have taught us, that sounds are produced on the organs of hearing by vibration, and therefore the drum of the ear is analogous to the instrument whence it is named. The effect of vibration is beautifully exemplified

in the reverberation of an echo, and in the lessening tones of a bell after being struck.

The science of harmony is founded upon the number and regularity of the vibrations in strings of dif ferent lengths and thicknesses; a short thick piece of metal being struck, vibrates with amazing rapidity, while one of the same length but less thickness has a slower motion in proportion as it is extended with less force. Two strings of equal length and thickness, being extended with unequal power, produce an unpleasant sensation on the organ of hearing; but if the two are equally tightened, the effect is agreeable, because an equal number of vibrations is produced by each string in the same period of time; the tone is the same, because the two strings, of equal thickness, strike the air with equal force. Strings of different sizes and lengths, although producing different tones, and an unequal number of vibrations, nevertheless harmonize together, when the number and force of the vibrations proceed in regular proportions, and occur in regular periods. The art of forming instruments to produce harmonious sounds, depends upon this extensive variety of vibrations, requiring to produce them a succession of strings, gradually encreasing in length and thickness. In a pianoforte the length of the smallest string is only a few inches, while that of the longest extends to six feet.

Can it be more offensive to the conscience of a good man that he should hear two strings, vibrating thus regularly, and in unison, than to hear them vibrating irregularly, thereby producing discord? If it is, to be consistent with himself, he should delight in the clashing of shovel and tongs, and the confusion of tongues; if married, he should prefer the sounds of discontent to the sweetest accordance of sentiment, and should seek occasions to procure from his children an eternal succession of squailing, whining, and screaming. Who is he that is

offended with echo, who quarrels with the birds, because they sing, and hates to hear an infant laugh? Let me avoid his path. Yet, if he does no harm, O pity this sad disease of his mind, and seek him next in bedlam.

The fact is, that all good men, provided they are in health, love music; and it is only the prejudice of an illiberal education which induces them to affect a disapprobation of it. I have seen such as these, when they have thought themselves unseen, listening with rapture to the strains of harmony, and at the moment their consciences have acquitted them of harm.

inherited from our forefathers, whose piety was incensed at the association of music with the rites of superstition, as it would be madness to prefer pain to pleasure, deformity to beauty, so should it be not to love harmony, at least as much as we abhor discord. If the frenzy of Saul was assuaged by the harp of David, many an evilbrooding brain has been harmonized by music's thrilling chords, and the savage breast been taught to vibrate in concert with its companions of humanity; for it is a sentiment taught by universal experience, that

"He that hath not music in his soul

VERITAS.

For the Literary Magazine.

Music may not be a necessary of Is fit for treason, stratagem, and spoil."' life, but it is an innocent sensation of it; it may not do much good, but it can do no harm; it may be a little expensive, but it is not so much so, as the skirts to our coats, as fur hats instead of leather ones, as carpets, mahogany tables, silver spoons, carriages, and extensive houses. But when this music is produced at the expence of others, surely it is cheap enough to hear, and reasonable enough to be pleasing.

Music, the knowledge of which I forbear to call an accomplishment, since the term is in bad repute, but which I would call the divine restorer and harmonizer of the soul, is a talent in its practice spreading more delight than almost any other, and a delight unfelt by the bosom which at the time harbours aught of inhumanity. The only objection of any weight comes from the rigid economist of time; yet of him I would ask, are there to be no moments of relaxation? Must the bow be always bent? The harmless tenants of the grove, between their intervals of labour, in the search for food, exult in notes of joy, which excite the sympathy of all animated nature. And shall man alone persist in his sullen misery, nor dare to express one note of pleasure, one gay effusion of gratitude?

While we are disposed to excuse the visionary objections which are

FORCE OF EXAMPLE.

Continued.

SUCH were my sensations at this time; such were the thoughts that passed through my brain. But to proceed. Notwithstanding the appearance of the mendicant denoted extreme misery, not a hand was extended for his relief. Whether my companions thought him an unworthy object, or whether each waited for the other to set an example which he was willing to follow, I know not; however, he received nothing from any of the company. I pitied him sincerely, and would have most cheerfully contributed to his relief; but such was the force of example, that I was ashamed to be the first to begin, and the poor man was obliged to retire, bare and pennyless as he came. Even while pity pleaded in his behalf, my heart felt the impulse of benevolence, and my mind acknowledged the justice of his claim, yet, for want of an example, did my hand refuse to obey their direction.

Nor do I believe my case is an

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