of the company was faying, it would be worth while to obferve how he would diftinguish us at his firft entrance. Accordingly, he no fooner came into the room, but cafting his eye about, My lord fuch-a-one, fays he, your most humble fervant; Sir Richard, your humble fervant; your fervant Mr. Ironfide, Mr. Ducker, how do you do? kab! Frank, are you there?

There is nothing more eafy than to discover a man whofe heart is full of his family. Weak minds that have imbibed a ftrong tincture of the nurfery; younger brothers who have been brought up to nothing; fuperannuated retainers to a great houfe, have generally their thoughts taken up with little elfe.

I had fome years ago an aunt of my own, by name, Mrs. Martha Ironfide, who would never marry bcneath herself, and was fuppofed to have died a maid in the eightieth year of her age. She was the chron-1 icle of our family, and paft away the greatest part of the last forty years of her life, in recounting the antiquity, marriages, exploits and alliances of the Ironfides. Mrs. Martha converfed generally with a knot of old virgins, who were likewife from good families, and had been very cruel all the beginning of the laft century. They were every one of them as proud as Lucifer, but faid their prayers twice a day, and in all other refpecs were the best women in the world. lf they faw a fine petticoat at church, they immediately took to pieces the pedigree of her that wore it, and would lift up their eyes to Heaven at the confidence of the faucy minx, when they found fhe was a tradefman's daughter. It is impofuible to defcribe the picus indignation that would arife in them at the fight of a man who lived plentifully on an eftate of his own getting. They were tranfported with zeal beyond meafure, if they heard of a young woman's matching herself into a great family upon account only of her beauty, her inerit, or her money. In fhort, there was not a female within ten miles of them, that was in poffeffion of a gold watch, a pearl necklace, or a piece of mecklin lace, but they examined her title to

My aunt Martha ufed to chide me very frequent

ly for not fufficiently valuing myfelf. She would not. eat a bit all dinnertime, if at an invitation fhe found fhe had been feated below herself; and would frown upon me for an hour together, if the faw me give place to any one under a baronet. As Iwas once talking to her of a wealthy citizen whom he had refused in her youth, the declared to me with great warmth, that the preferred a man of quality in his fhirt to the richest man upon the change in a coach and fix. She pretended that our family was nearly related by the mother's fide to half a dozen peers; but as none of them knew any thing of the matter, we always kept it a fecret among ourfelves. A little before her death, fhe was reciting to me the hiftory of my forefathers: but dwelling a little longer than ordinary upon the actions of Sir Gilbert Ironfide, who had a horse fhot under him at Edgehill fight, I gave an unfortunate pifh, and alked, what is all this to me? Upon which the retired to her closet and fell a fcribbling for three hours to gether; in which time, as I afterwards found, fhetruck me out of her will, and left all fhe had to my fifter Margaret, a wheedling baggage, that ufed to be afking about her great grandfather from morning to night. She now lies buried among the family of the Ironfides, with a ftone over her, acquainting the reader, that he died at the age of eighty years, a fpinfter, and that she was defcended of the ancient family of the Ironfides; after which follows the genealogy drawn up by her own hand.

'Tis

GUARDIAN, Vol. II. No. 147.

ANCIENT WRITERS.

15 not only very common in the mouths of pedants, and perhaps in their hearts too, to declare, that all that is good is borrowed from the ancients; but is often urged by men of no great learning, for reafons very obvious. Now, nature being ftill the fame, it is impoffible for any modern writer to paint her otherwife than the ancients have done. If, for example,

I was to describe the General's horfe at the battle of Blenheim as my fancy reprefented fuch a noble beast,. and that defcription fhould refemble what Virgil hathe drawn for the horfe of his hero, it would be almost as ill-natured to urge that I had ftolen my defcription from Virgil, as to reproach the duke of Marlborough for fighting like Eneas. All that the most exquifite judgment can perform, is, out of that variety of circumstances wherein natural objects may be confidered, to select the most beautiful; and to place images. in fuch a view as will affe the fancy after the most delightful manner. But over and above a juft painting of nature, a learned reader will find a new beauty, fuperadded in a happy imitation of fome famous ancient, as it revives in his mind the pleafure he took in the first reading of fuch an author. Such copyings as thefe, give that kind of double delight which we perceive when we look upon the children of a beautiful couple; where the eye is not more charmed with the fymmetry of the parts, than the mind by obferving the refemblance tranfmitted from parents to their offspring, and the mingled features of the father and: mother. The phrafes in holy writ, and allufions to feveral paffages in the infpired writings, (though not produced as proofs of doctrine) add majesty and authority to the nobleft difcourfes of the pulpit: In like manner, an imitation of the air of Homer and Virgil, rai--fes the dignity of modern poetry, and makes it appear ftately and venerable.

My

GUARDIAN, Vol. I. No. 12..

ANIMALS.

Y friend Sir Rager is very often merry with me upon my paffing fo much of my time among his poultry; he has caught me twice or thrice at a bird's neft, and feveral times fitting an hour or two together near a hen and chickens. He tells me he believes I am perfonally acquainted with every fowl about his houfe, calls fuch a particular cock my favourite, and fre

quently complains that his ducks and geefe have more of my company than himself.

I must confefs I am infinitely delighted with those fpeculations of nature which are to be made in a country life and as my reading has lain pretty much among books of natural history, I cannot forbear recollecting upon this occafion, the feveral remarks which I have met with in authors, and comparing them with what falls under my own obfervation; the arguments for Providence drawn from the natural hiftory of animals, being in my opinion demonftrative.

'The make of every kind of animal, is different from that of every other kind; and yet there is not the least turn in the muscles, or twift in the fibres of any one, which does not render them more proper for that particular animal's way of life, than any other caft or texture could have been.

The most violent appetites in all creatures are, luft and hunger; the firft is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preferve themselves.

It is aftonishing to confider the different degrees of care that defcend from the parent to the young, fo far as is abfolutely neceffary for the leaving a pofterity. Some creatures caft their eggs as chance directs them, and think of them no farther, as infects and feveral kinds of fish; others, of a nicer frame, find out proper beds to depofit them in, and there leave them, as the ferpent, the crocodile, and oftrich. Others hatch their eggs, and tend the birth till it is able to fhift for itfelf.

What can we call the principle which directs every kind of bird to obferve a particular plan in the ftrueture of its neft, and directs all of the fame fpecies to work after the fame model? It cannot be imitation for though you hatch a crow under à hen, and never let it fee any of the works of its own kind, the neft it makes fhall be the fame to the laying of a stick, with all other nefts of the fame fpecies. It cannot be reafon; for were animals endued with it to as great a degree as man, their buildings would be as different as

ours, according to the different conveniences that they would propofe to themselves.

Is it not remarkable, that the fame temper of weather which raises this general warmth in animals, fhould cover the trees with leaves, and the fields with grafs, for their fecurity and concealment, and produce fuch infinite fwarms of infects, for the fuftenance of their refpective broods?

Is it not wonderful that the love of the parent should be fo violent while it lafts, and that it fhould laft no longer than is neceffary for the prefervation of the young?

The violence of this natural love is exemplified by a very barbarous experiment, which I fhail quote at length, as I find it in an excellent author; and hope my readers will pardon the mentioning fuch an inftance of cruelty, because there is nothing can fo cffectually how the ftrength of that principle in animals of which I am now fpeaking. "A perfon who was well skilled in diffections, opened a bitch, and as the lay in the most exquifite tortures, offered her one of her young puppies which the immediately fell a licking; and for the time feemed infenfible of her own pain. On the removal, fhe kept her eye fixed on it, and began a wailing fort of cry, which feemed rather to proceed from the lofs of her young one, than from the fenfe of her own torments."

But notwithstanding this natural love in brutes is much more violent and intenfe than in rational creatures, Providence has taken care that it should be no longer troublefome to the parent, than it is ufeful to the young; for fo foon as the wants of the latter ceafe, the mother withdraws her fondnefs, and leaves them to provide for themselves: and what is a very particular circumftance in this part of instinct, we find that the love of the parent may be lengthened out beyond its ufual time, if the prefervation of the fpecies requires it; as we fee in birds that drive away their young as foon as they are able to get their liveli hood, but continue to feed them if they are tied to the nest, or confined within a cage, or by any other means,