has sold his coat off his back to purchase a tarantula.

I would not have a scholar wholly unacquainted with these secrets and curiosities of nature; but certainly the mind of man, that is capable of so much higher contemplations, should not be altogether fixed upon such mean and disproportioned objects. Observations of this kind are apt to alienate us too much from the knowledge of the world, and to make us serious upon trifles, by which means they expose philosophy to the ridicule of the witty, and the contempt of the ignorant. In short, studies of this nature should be the diversions, relaxations, and amusements, not the care, business and concern of life.

It is indeed wonderful to consider, that there should be a sort of learned men who are wholly employed in gathering together the refuse of nature, if I may call it so, and hoarding up in their chests and cabinets such creatures as others industriously avoid the sight of. One does not know how to mention some of the most precious parts of their treasure, without a kind of an apology for it. I have been shown a beetle valued at twenty crowns, and a toad at an hundred: but we must take this for a general rule, that whatever appears trivial or obscure in the common notions of the world, looks grave and philosophical in the eye of a virtuoso.

To shew this humour in its perfection, I shall present my reader with the legacy of a certain virtuoso, who laid out a considerable estate in natural rarities and curiosities, which upon his deathbe he bequeathed to his relations and friends in the following words:

The Will of a Virtuoso.

I NICHOLAS GIMCRACK, being in sound health of mind, but in great weakness of body, do by this my last will and testament, bestow my worldly goods and chattels in manner following:

Imprimis, To my dear wife,

One box of butterflies,
One drawer of shells,

A female skeleton,

A dried cockatrice.

Item, To my daughter Elizabeth, My receipt for preserving dead caterpillars. As also my preparations of winter May-dew, and embrio pickle.

Item, To my little daughter Fauny,

Three crocodile eggs.

And upon the birth of her first child, if she marries with her mother's consent,

The nest of an humming-bird.

Item, To my eldest brother, as an acknowledgment for the lands he has invested in my son Charles, I bequeath

My last year's collection of grasshoppers.

Item, To his daughter Susannah, being his only child, I bequeath my

English weeds pasted on royal paper,

With my large folio of Indian cabbage.

Item, To my learned and worthy friend Dr. Johannes Elscrickius, professor of anatomy, and my

affociate in the studies of nature, as an eternal monument of my affection and friendship for him, I bequeath

My rat's testicles, and
Whale's pizzle,

To him and his issue male; and in default of such issue in the said Dr. Elscrickius, then to return to my executor and his heirs for ever.

Having fully provided for my nephew Isaac, by making over to him some years since

A horned scarabæus,

The skin of a rattle-snake, and

The mummy of an Egyptian king, I make no further provision for him in this my will.

My eldest son, John, having spoken disrespectfully of his little sister, whom I keep by me in spirits of wine, and in many other instances behaved himself undutifully towards me, I do disinherit, and wholly cut off from any part of this my personal estate, by giving him a single cockle-shell.

To my second son, Charles, I give and bequeath all my flowers, plants, minerals, mosses, shells, pebbles, fossils, beetles, butterflies, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and vermin, not above specified; as also my monsters, both wet and dry; making the said Charles whole and sole executor of this my last will and testament; he paying, or causing to be paid, the aforesaid legacies within the space of six months after my decease. And I do hereby revoke all other wills whatsoever by me formerly made.

ADVERTISEMENT. !

WHEREAS an ignorant upstart in astrology, has publickly endeavoured to persuade the world, that he is the late John Partridge, who died the 28th of March, 1708; these are to certify to all whom it may concern, that the true John Partridge was not only dead at that time, but continues so `to this present day.

Beware of counterfeits, for such are abroad.

No 218. THURSDAY, AUGUST 30, 1710.

Scriptorum Chorus omnis amat nemus et fugit urbes.

HOR.

From my own Apartment, August 29. I CHANCED to rise very early one particular morning this summer, and took a walk into the country, to divert myself among the fields and 'meadows, while the green was new, and the flowers in their bloom. As at this season of the year every lane is a beautiful walk, and every hedge full of nosegays, I lost myself with a great deal of pleasure among several thickets and bushes, that were filled with a great variety of birds, and an agreeable confusion of notes, which formed the pleasantest scene in the world, to one who had passed the whole winter in noise and smoke. The freshness of the dews, that lay upon every thing about me, with the cool breath of the morning, which inspired the birds with so many delightful

instincts, created in me the same kind of animal pleasure, and made my heart overflow with such secret emotions of joy and satisfaction, as are not to be described or accounted for. On this occa

sion, I could not but reflect upon a beautiful simile in Milton:

"As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick, and sewers, annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe
Among the pleasant villages, and farms
Adjoin'd, from each thing met conceives delight:
The fmell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound.”

Those who are conversant in the writings of polite authors, receive an additional entertainment from the country, as it revives in their memories those charming descriptions with which such authors do frequently abound.

I was thinking of the foregoing beautiful simile in Milton, and applying it to myself, when I observed to the windward of me a black cloud fall.. ing to the earth in long trails of rain, which made me betake myself for shelter to a house, which I saw at a little distance from the place where I was walking. As I sat in the porch, I heard the voices of two or three persons, who seemed very earnest in discourse. My curiosity was raised, when I heard the names of Alexander the Great, and Artaxerxes; and as their talk seemed to run on ancient heroes, I concluded there could not be any secret in it; for which reason, I thought I might very fairly listen to what they said.

After several parallels between great men, which appeared to me altogether groundless and chimerical, I was surprised to hear one say, "That he valued the Black Prince more than the Duke of