most powerful animals may in a moment be destroyeda.

5. What reason may not go to school to the wisdom of bees, ants and spiders? What wise hand teacheth them to do what reason cannot teach us? Ruder heads stand amazed at these prodigious pieces of nature, whales, elephants, dromedaries and camels: these, I confess, are the colossuses and ma

a Mons. Condamine relates the experiments made by him with the vegetable poison of ticunas mixed with that of lamas.

June 8th.-I made a very small incision with a lancet between the ears of a cat, and with a pencil I put into it a drop of the poison: in an instant the creature died in my hands.

July 15th.-I pricked a hawk in the left claw: into the puncture I introduced a small drop of the poison, and then set the creature at liberty; but he could not fly: the utmost he could do was to perch on a stick, which was within six inches of the ground. He shook his head several times, as if to get rid of something that seemed troublesome in his throat. His eyes were restless, and his feathers were all bristled up. His head fell between his legs, and in three minutes he died.

M. le Chevalier de Grossée had an eagle, which he kept a good while in his court-yard, and intended to make a present of it to M. Reaumur, to adorn his cabinet, but wanted to know how to put it to death without injuring its feathers. M. de Reaumur sent him an arrow fresh dipped in the poison: it was stuck into the wing of this large bird, the eagle dropped down dead in an instant.

jestic pieces of her hand. But in these narrow engines there is more curious mathematics: and the civility of these little citizens, more nearly sets forth the wisdom of their Makera.

6. I hold there is a general beauty in the works of God, and therefore no deformity in any kind of species of creature whatsoever. I cannot tell by what logick we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant ugly, they being created in those outward shapes and figures which best express the actions of their inward forms; and having passed that general visitation of God, who saw that all that he had made was good; that is, conformable to his will, which abhors deformity, and is the rule of order and beauty: there is no deformity but in monstrosity, wherein, notwithstanding, there is a kind of beauty, Nature so ingeniously contriving the irregular parts, as they become sometimes more remarkable than the principal fabric.

a Sir T. Browne.

b See note M at the end of this tract.

c Sir Thomas Browne.

7. As travellers, in a foraine countrey, make every sight a lesson, so ought we in this our pilgrimage. Thou seest the heaven rolling, above thine head, in constant and unmoveable motion: the starrs so overlooking one another, that the greatest shew little: the least greatest, all glorious; the aire full of the bottles of raine, or fleeces of snow, or divers forms of fiery exhalations. The sea, under one uniform face, full of strange and monstrous shapes: beneath the earth so adorned with variety of plants, that thou canst not but tread on many at once with every foot; besides the store of creatures that flie above it, walke upon it, live in it. Thou idle truant, doest thou learn nothing of so many masters?

THE WORKS OF ART.

Perdita. For I have heard it said,

There is an art, which in their piedness shares
With great creating nature.

Pol. Say there be,

Yet nature is made better by no mean,

But nature makes that mean;

So over that art, which you say adds to nature,
Is an art that nature makes; you see, sweet maid,
We marry a gentle scyon to the wildest stock,
And make conceive a bark of baser kind

By bud of nobler race. This is an art

Which does mend nature, change it rather; but
The art itself is nature.

We admire, says a favourite author, the industry and skilfulness of the bee in gathering honey out of the flowers, carrying it home and disposing of it in several cells ingeniously contrived for the purpose; the wisdom of the little ant in a hundred

a See note N at the end of this tract.

particular instances of her polity and managery of business;-the curious embroidery and network of the busie spider in making webs, and pursuing her game;-the strange artifice of the poor silk-worm, which, by the impulse of mere nature, works herself out of breath, and spends herself to clothe nobles. But let us sit awhile at home, and call back our rambling thoughts, and view ourselves, and we shall certainly find the human intellectuals pitching upon more noble objects, propounding more excellent ends, and pursuing them with proper and apt methods; insomuch that we shall find ourselves astonished at our own powers, and the wisdom of him that made us. If we do but cast our eyes backward to those works already attained, are they not like so many fair provinces conquered and taught a new language? Have there not lately been discovered certain glasses, by means whereof, as by boats or little ships of intelligence, a nearer commerce is opened and carried on with the celestial bodies? Does not the mariner also