SONNET.

NATURE! Sweet mistress of the pensive mind!
As on a sandy fhore I musing stand
And see around the wonders of thy hand,
I feel each passion sooth'd, each sense refin'd.

The icy plains above the whisp'ring tide,

The dreary woods that bound th' extensive view,
The light blue clouds that Sol's pale lustre hide,
Vary thy tints and every charm renew.

Thee when young spring sports on the spangled green,
When summer blushes in her rosy bow'rs,

When welcome autumn yellow plenty show'rs,

Or winter storms amid the alter'd scene;

Still let me love, still woo thee to my arms,

For peace and virtue blefs the heart that nature charms.

TO MARIA,

For the Bee.

FAIR beauty's loveliest flow'r! to whom is given
Those charms that throw, without an artful aid,
A heav'nly lustre o'er Retirement's fhade,
And make thy lovely haunts a little heaven.

Oh! born to bloom in Solitude's retreat,

The glory and the pride of C-d-s vale ;
May angels guard thee from the storms of fate,
And fhield thy blofsoms from each wint'ry gale.

While I all lost to anxious despair,

Still hold thy image in my tortur'd breast, And trace each feature, as it grows more fair;

Till one, with Fortune's honours more carest,

Shall bear thee swiftly from thy native fhore,

And tear thee from my sight, and bid me hope no more!

ARMINE.

FOUR BUIKES, NEWLIE COMPYLIT BE JOHN ROLLAND IN DALKEITH, IMPRINTIT AT EDINBURGH BE JOHN ROS, MDLXXV. Cum privilegio regali.

Our fra the splene with cordiall amouris,

Greit salusingis, with greitings full of gloir;
Laude, reverence, helth, vertew, and honouris,
With all havingis that may ane corps decoir,
To the Venus I render evermoir.
And nocht causles; with superabundant
Mirth, melodie, thow dois my hart refloir,,
As invincent victour, and triumphant.

For to remane into memoriall

Thy name and fame in chronik and scriptour,
I sall gar prent to keip perpetuall,

As is the actis of the greit conquerour;
O! Venus, quene! of all quenis the flour,
Adres my spreit, that I may say sum thing,
Within this gairth to thy laude and honour,
The to salute, and thy sone Cupid king.

My spreitis thay feir, for dreid my hart dois quaik,
My-toung trimblis half in ane extasie,

Fra my febill and feint ingine to tak,
And to descrive the greit nobilitie

And tenderness that dois remane in the.
The proverb is, gude will sould be payment,
Because the toung can nocht keip unitie,

As wald the heart, now to purpois I went.

The poem is upon the whole a curious picture of the manners of the age, with that strange jumble of the Pagan mythology and the Christian religion, of which we see so many examples in the works of Milton.

PHILALBAN.

ON FEEDING AND FATTENING GEESE AND DUCKS.

In the course of our lucubrations, we have often occasion. to take notice of the great benefits that would result from a general diffusion of the knowledge that has been acquired by experience in arts and agriculture, throughout the globe. The following particulars respect a subject that has been an object of attention to every person in the country, for hundreds of years past, in every part of Europe; yet we may venture to say, that the facts it ticularises will be perfectly new to, perhaps, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand readers of the Bee, though it has been practised for time immemorial in the part of the world from whence the account is sent; it is extracted from the Memoirs of the Royal Society of Agriculture in Paris.

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Were gentlemen, in general, at as much pains to describe with accuracy, such modes of practice in their own district, in which long experience had rendered them perfect in all the details, as they are in general to publish imperfect accounts of foreign practices which are new to them, and consequently only partially known, the progrefs of useful knowledge would be much more rapid than it ever hitherto has been. But it is so natural for one to think that what he has seen practised from his infancy, and which is universally known by those around him, can be a matter of little curiosity to any one, that he neglects it's though he eagerly catches at the least hint of a practicethat is new to him, and is anxious to communicate it to others, thinking it will afford them as much satisfaction as it does to himself. From these causes it often happens that the proper order of things is directly reversed; he

who ought to be the instructor, remains silent; and he who is willing to learn, though unqualified to teach, becomes the instructor. Could our correspondents; those especially at a distance, be induced to communicate with accuracy, the details of any excellent practice in regard to arts, manufactures, agriculturte, trade, or rural economics, that has long prevailed in their particular district, they would confer an obligation on the public, and a particular favour on the Editor.

An approved mode of rearing and fattening geese in Languedoc.

M. CASIMIR PUYMORIN, correspondent of the Society at Toulouse, has communicated to the society the following manner of raising and fattening geese, in the canton which he inhabits,

They raise, in upper Languedoc, a kind of large white and grey geese, almost as big as the swan, of which the distinguishing mark is a lump of fat under the belly, which touches the ground when these animals walk. As you leave Toulouse, and approach towards Bearn and the moors, that lump diminishes, and the kind of geese becomes weaker and smaller; but in return, when salted, they are better and more delicate.

The geese lay in the month of March, and the young are hatched by the beginning of April. They are fed on bran, crumb of bread, and young shoots of trees, cabbage, lettuce, and bruised plants. Care is taken to fhelter them from the cold; and they are not allowed to go out but in fine weather. The eggs are generally hatched by hens. Care must be taken to remove all hemlock that may grow near the place where they are kept; the young are fond of it; but they will scarcely have swallowed, a

Nov. 14. single fhoot when they fall down dead. When the goslings are one or two months old, they join the goose and gander which had been preserved for producing eggs, and go without any conductor to seek food in the neighbouring pastures, and along the rivulets. They return at night to their home; and the good managers take care to give them lettuce, cabbage, groundsel, and grains of wild oats. There is a very great consumption of these birds,-since, from the month of June till the month of October, there are consumed in the single city of Toulouse, 120,000, which are sold, for the most part, divided into quarters; the giblets are sold again separately. The price of a goose three or four months old, is from twenty to forty sols, [halfpence.] After the harvest they find plenty of food in the fields, either in corn, or the seeds of wild plants; and afterwards in the threshed straw, where they carefully seek out the grains that have been left. After the first frosts of November, they must be fed for a month with some care. To make them get into flesh, they give them bruised herbs and riddlings of corn. As for me, I have found them fatten better on potatoes, raw or boiled, which they eat with avidity.

After the bird has got into good flesh, it is necessary not to delay the fattening of them too long, lest you lose the season entirely. About the end of December they enter into rut, after which time they will not fatten at all.. As soon as the frost has set in, they are fhut up, to the number of ten or twelve, (never more,) in a dark place, where they neither can see light, nor hear the cries of those which are kept for laying. They remain in that prison till they have attained the greatest degree of fatnefs, and are ready for killing ;-that moment must be seized, otherwise they would very soon turn lean, and at last. die.