mined his breast, but could perceive no passage from his heart to his tongue; he still continued his protestations, when he was struck with a lie in his mouth.

Leaving him, Death followed several; but at last turned into the house of one of my friends: tremblingly I followed; but how delighted was I to find, that, while the dart was pendant over him, religion, peace, and quiet, reigned in his breast. His tongue, from the sincerity of his heart, breathed unaffected piety. When Death brought down his arm, he closed his eyes, and died in the utmost serenity of soul and body.

I could relate many more occurrences, but through fear of being too long I forbear; though I cannot but mention one, in a red coat, was notorious for perpetual boasting how little he feared any thing, who, but upon the distant 'prospect of the spectre, fainted, sunk, and died

away.

After many slaughters, the horrid image faced about, and turned upon me. I remember that I was under no manner of surprise or concern, but, upon his striking me, fell, in hopes of soon finding myself in some Elisium; but to my sorrow found I was in bed, and that all had been a dream.

This use, however, let me (and with me my readers) make of it, that it may be my care, "To die the death of the righteous, and that my last end may be like his."

STUDENT, vol. ii. p. 281.

No. LX.

Omnia migrant:

Omnia commutat natura, et vertere cogit.
Namque aliud putrescit, et, ævo debile, languet;
Porro aliud concrescit, et e contemptibus exit.

LUCRETIUS.

Clamat · auctorem natura; opus undique summum
Arguit artificem,

POLIGNAC.

All migrate:

Varying each hour, from change to change propelled.
This grows and ripens, and with age corrupts ;
That, from its ruins, springs, and perfects life.

All nature speaks its author; the vast work
Proves the vast workman.

GOOD,

ONE of the greatest pleasures of my life is the study of nature in my mornings' excursions: these are as regular and certain as so unstable a director, the weather, will permit; and are bent different ways for the sake of meeting with different series of objects. I am happy to perceive I have found the way to make them the sources of something agreeable to my readers, as well as to myself; and may venture to engage, that, if they will continue in a humour to join with me in admiring nature, and reverencing its author, from the successive objects which

the effects of these rambles lay before them, nature will not be wanting, on her part, with an inexhaustible variety.

A suspicion there is among people not acquainted with observations of this kind, however, which it is necessary should be absolutely removed; the accounts hitherto given of these things have been allowed pretty by people who were not willing to believe them true. It may be proper therefore, once for all, to say, on this occasion, that, as they are nothing if not true, there never has been, nor ever shall be, so much as a stretched circumstance in any of them. I intend them as papers of information, and shall therefore never attempt to propagate error; but to speak most seriously of the subjects. I mean them also as an honest tribute of praise, from a happy, a grateful heart, to him who made it so; and I can never dare to think of mixing falsities with such an offering.

The walks which give occasion to these peculiar papers are not always taken alone. I have a set of friends, pupils I may almost call them, one or other of whom is always with me in them; and who, though they engaged in the scheme with no further view than to the advantage of air and exercise, have been, by degrees, won to the love of the same kind of ob

servations; and, as their various fancy leads them, direct their researches, some to the animal tribe, others merely to the plants and trees, and some only to the subterranean treasures which the labour of the digger exposes here and there to view.

Nature teems with wonder in each of these branches, and each observer finds ample reparation for his labours.

One of my botanical pupils, to whom I had been the day before explaining the structure of some minute vegetables of the fungus kind, called upon me the evening before last, to tell me of a discovery he had just made of a new and beautiful plant of this lowly class, and begged I would direct the succeeding morning walk to the place of its growth.

He led me to a brook near Kentish-town; over a narrow part of which an antique willow, declining under the infirmities of age, and robbed of half the earth that used at once to support and supply nourishment to its roots, by the effects of the undermining stream, extended its slant trunk, and spread every way its tortuous branches.

The youth mounted the little ascent to the head of the tree with all that warmth that attends the pride of a discovery, and, pointing to a