And we likewise beg, that your honours, as to the forementioned points, would hear the reverend Mr Flamstead, who is the legal officer, appointed by the government, to look after the heavenly luminaries, whom we have constituted our trusty and learned solicitor. IT CANNOT RAIN BUT IT POURS, &c. THIS jeu d'esprit, is one of the few occurring in the Miscel lanies which were written by Dean Swift. Peter, the wild Boy, to whom it principally relates, was found in 1725, in the woods of Hamelen in Hanover, walking upon his hands and feet, climbing trees like a squirrel, and feeding on roots and grass. He was brought to England, and committed, for some time, to the charge of Dr Arbuthnot, when he became the subject of this ludicrous narrative. The late ingenious, learned, and eccentric Lord Monboddo, was disposed to receive, as authentic, many of the facts which are here given by way of satire and ridicule, such as Peter's snatching at the chamberlain's staff, and attempting to kiss Lady Walpole. But this was a subject upon which the venerable metaphysician indulged himself in great extravagancies, averring the discovery of Peter to be a more extraordinary phænomenon than the discovery of thirty thousand fixed stars, more than we are already acquainted with. The truth is, that Peter, like other individuals discovered in the same situation, was nearly an idiot, and could not even acquire the use of language. He was ong boarded at a farm. house in Hertfordshire, where he died in 1785, aged, as was supposed, about seventy-two years. |