which had been publicly advertised, commenced, as our readers are aware, on Wednesday, 21st April, and was strictly carried on until Friday, the 30th, a period of nine days, during all which time these gentlemen verify, that she had not received any nourishment. She, however, gradually grew more and more feeble; her pulse was almost imperceptible, and she at length became so ill, on the latter named day, as to induce the gentlemen to suspend the watch. At this time, she begged to have her mouth moistened with a wetted cloth, and her desire was complied with, by applying to her lips a cloth dipped in vinegar and water; this was done several times, and the gentleman who administered it, declared he perceived her to swallow, although she even then strenuously denied it. The physician attending upon her, at the same time, gave it as his opinion, that she could not survive an hour; and yet at this period, with the immediate prospect of eternity before her, she, by her own desire, took an oath, drawn up in the strongest and clearest terms, that for more than four years past she had not taken sustenance of any description! Her daughter was now admitted to see her, and she in a short time very much revived. From the weighing machine, upon which she was placed during the watch, it appeared that she had lost daily nearly two pounds in weight. Nothing now remained to convince every one of her imposition, but her own confession of her guiltthis last proof she voluntarily made before a magistrate. After this confession, she took milk, in the presence of several gentlemen, and · now seems fast recovering. Such is the result of her imposture, by the artful management of which, and the curiosity and commiseration it excited, she has, we may infer, continued to hoard a sum probably nearly sufficient to maintain her through the remainder of her existence."

SLOTH.

TEXT. "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding, and lo, it was all grown over with thorns; and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was taken down."

PROVERBS.

COMMENT. A moral writer has justly remarked, that the very nature and condition of man, his wants and capacities, his bodily organs and mental endowments, his relation to the present and the future world-concur to prove that he was designed for active employments. The man, therefore, who neglects the duties of life, who buries in the earth the talents which God has given him to be improved; who composes himself in thoughtless inaction, and sleeps away his years as if he had nothing to do this man grievously mistakes his high interest; wickedly perverts the designs of his being; and like the wicked and slothful servant in the parable, he will be severely punished. What a shameful and disgusting spectacle does the slothful man exhibit! Every thing within the sphere of his influence, assumes the face of ruin and distress. Has he lands to cultivate? Though capable of affording abundance, they lie barren and waste; or at most, yield him only a scanty pittance. Is he bred to any of the arts or other professions? His business is neglected, his faculties rust away

through want of use, and his affairs are suffered to fall into embarrassment. Is he a son ? He is a source of continual shame and sorrow to an affectionate parent, who perhaps once looked on him as the fu ture support of his age and infirmity. Is he a husband? Who can describe the anguish he brings to a tender wife? She receives him as her friend, her defence, her shelter; but behold she has found him, an enemy, the betrayer of her happiness. Behold, she has taken shelter under a leafless bramble. Is he a father? His children are clothed in rags, and bred in ignorance, idleness and vice. But here the ablest pencil would fail of doing justice to the picture. What sight is more distressing, than that of an infant family receiving their earliest and most durable impressions from a slothful and brutish parent? Than that of a father, who ought, under GoD, to conduct his children to honor and happiness, directing them by the almost irresistible force of example to disgrace and misery? Such a father, besides being a curse to his offspring, is a scourge to society: for instead of contri buting to its support, he undermines those great pillars of virtue and industry, by which all decent society must be sustained. He is the disseminator of a contagion, under whose sickly influence every thing great and commendable in man decays and dies, under whose infiuence the fruitful field returns to a wilderness, the smiling village becomes desolate, and the splendid city crumbles into ruin; under whose influence, in short, were it to become universal, all the ennobling duties of civilized life would be neglected, man revolt back into a state of sullen barbarism, and become one of the poorest, weakest, meanest animals of the forest.

CORRECTION OF TIME.

It may not, perhaps, be generally known, that those who were born before the 28th of February, 1800, should after that day reckon their birth-days a day later than before. Those who were living before the alteration of the style in 1751, may recollect, that after that alteration, their birth-days were reckoned eleven days later. A further alteration of one day took place in 1800; which would, in the usual course, have been a leap year, but had only 365 days.

If we suppose a child to have been born on the 31st of December, 1796, on the 31st of December, 1800, he had lived four years of 365 days each; but as every fourth year should have 366 days, the child was not four years old till the 1st of January, 1801. And à man born the 1st of January, 1751, was 10 years old on the 12th of January, 1761, and was 50 on the 13th of January, 1801.

TRUTH.

There are few crimes more infamous than the violation of Truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave, and seek prey only for himself. Yet the law of truth, thus sacred and necessary, is broken without punishment, without censure, in compliance with inveterate prejudice and prevailing passion. Men are willing to credit what they wish, and encourage rather

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those who gratify them with pleasure, than those who instruct them with fidelity.

PIETY.

Piety communicates a divine lustre to the female mind-wit and beauty, like the flower of the field, may flourish for a season; but let it be remembered, that, like the fragrant blossoms that bloom in the air, these gifts are frail and fading; age will nip the bloom of beauty; sickness and sorrow will stop the current of wit and humor; but in that gloomy time which is appointed for all, piety will support · the drooping soul, like a refreshing dew upon the parched earth.

ON CLEANLINESS.

It is a proverb in the Levant, that no prince ever died of the plague ; the meaning of which only is, that opulence, and the many resources it affords, are preventatives against that contagion. Of this we have seen recent instances in the pestilence which lately ravaged Algiers. It has been remarked, that none of those who enjoyed the first offices of state, were attacked by this distemper, though according to the precepts of the Mahometan religion, they were obliged to appear in public, as at any other time, and though, in compliance with general custom, they gave their hand to be kissed indiscriminately, to every Moor who came to beg justice, and to throw himself under their protection. This contagious disorder was not therefore communicated to them by contact; which must be attributed to their great cleanliness, to the use of baths, and to the frequent ablutions which are prescribed them by the law of Mahomet. We know that the Mahometans pray five or six times a day, and that at each prayer, those whose situations will permit, purify themselves by washing their hands; they generally make three meals every day, and each meal is preceded by the same ablutions; they wash themselves also every time they touch any thing unclean; so that in this respect, their religious rites are very much suited to the nature of the climate, and become very salutary to them; since it is known by experience, that water alone is sufficient to carry off the contagious impurity of the pestilence.

For a like reason, the subaltern officers belonging to the household of the dey of Algiers, such as those who inspect the different departments, secretaries, clerks in the various offices, &c. in general escape the plague; though they preserve during the time this dreadful epidemical disorder is reigning, an open communication with the other Moors. Of 300 officers of this kind, there were only two attacked during the last plague at Algiers; which must appear almost miraculous, since the populace perished by thousands, and easily caught the infection, on account of their dirtiness, and negligence respecting their persons. There is, above all, a particular sect of Mahometans, who observe several points of the Mosaic law, and who, in general, exercise mean, but lucrative employments, such as serving in the public baths, selling old clothes, &c. These Mahometan Jews, attached to the minute care of a retail trade, and living in meanness and filth, were swept off, almost entirely, by the last plague at Algiers; VOL. II. No. 8.

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which undoubtedly still more confirms the great advantages of cleanliness.

The more attention we pay to the phenomena of contagious disorders, such as the plague, malignant fevers, small pox, &c. we shall cease to consider the principle of contagion as dispersed throughout the air; and it is now more and more confirmed by observation, that these diseases are communicated by contact either mediate or immediate. One cannot, therefore, during epidemical distempers of this kind, too strongly recommend cleanliness to those who approach the sick, or too much exhort them to change their dress as frequently as possible; to keep exposed to the air the clothes they have used, or to dip them in water; to wash the hands and face frequently, and to make this a general rule above all when they have touched either clothes or linen of a diseased person. This attention will be of the greatest service in stopping the course of infection, but unluckily it is too much neglected.

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOSOPHY.

There is a philosophy, hollow, unsound,
To matter confining its false speculations;
Whose flight is confined within Nature's dull round,
Its pinions the web of sophistic persuasion.

And there's a philosophy truly Divine,

That traces effects up to spiritual causes,
Determines the link of the chain where they join,
And soars to an infinite height ere it pauses.

That meanly debases the image of God,

To rank with the brutes in the scale of creation :
This raises the tenant of light from the sod,
And bears him to heaven, his primitive station.

Hail, science of angels! Theosophy, hail!

That shows us the regions of bliss by reflection;
Removes from creation's broad mirror the vail,
Where spirit and matter appear in connexion.

It breaks on the soul in an ocean of light,

She starts from her lethargy, stretches her pinions,
Beholds a new world bursting forth on her sight,
And soaring in extacy claims her dominions,

A sense of original dignified worth,

Her bosom expands with sublime exultation;

She tastes immortality even on earth,

In light that eclipses the sun's emanation.

Be sages and pedants to nature confined,

And the bat darkly flutter in Luna's pale presence; I'll soar, like the eagle, through regions of mind,

In the blaze of that sun which is truth in its essence.