the fhepherd's pipe. Before I had seen them trained in this manner, I had no conception of thofe defcriptions in the old paftoral poets, of the thepherd leading his flock from one country to another. As I had been used only to fee thefe harmlefs creatures driven before their keepers, I fuppofed that all the reft was but invention: but in many parts of the Alps, and even fome provinces of France, the fhepherd and his pipe are ftill continued, with true antique fimplicity. The flock is regularly penned every evening, to preferve them from the wolf; and the fhepherd returns homeward at fun-fet, with his fheep following him, and feemingly pleafed with the found of the pipe, which is blown with a reed, and refembles the chanter of a bag-pipe. In this manner, in those countries that fill continue poor, the Arcadian life is preferved in all its former purity; but in countries, where a greater inequality of conditions prevails, the fhepherd is generally fome poor wretch, who attends a flock from which he is to derive no benefits, and only guards thofe luxuries which he is not

fated to fhare.

It does not appear, from early writers, that the Sheep was bred in Britain; and it was not till feveral ages after this animal was cultivated, that the woollen manufacture was carried on among us.---That valuable branch of bufinefs lay for a confiderable time in foreign hands; and we were obliged to import the cloth, manufactured from our own materials. There were, notwithstanding, many unavailing efforts among our Kings to introduce and preferve the manufacture at home. Henry the Second, by a patent granted to the weavers in London, directed, that if any cloth was found made of a mixture of Spanish wool, it should be burned by the Mayor. Such edicts at length, although but flowly, foon operated towards the establishing this trade among us. The Flemings, who at the revival of arts poffeffed the art of cloth-working in a fuperior degrée, were invited to fettle here; and, foon after, foreign cloth was prohibited from being worn in England. In the times of Queen Elizabeth, this manufacture received every encouragement; and, many of the inhabitants of the Netherlands being then forced, by the tyranny of Spain, to take refuge in this country, they improved us in thofe arts, in which we at prefent excel the rest of the world. Every art, however, has its rife, its meridian, and

its decline; and it is fuppofed by many, that the woollen manufacture has for fome time been decaying amongst us.--The cloth now made is thought to be much worse than that of fome years past; being neither fo firm nor fo fine, neither fo much courted abroad, nor fo ferviceable at home.

No country, however, produces fuch fheep as England; either with larger fleeces, or better adapted for the business of cloathing. Thofe of Spain, indeed, . are finer, and we generally require feme of their wool to work up with our own; but the weight of a Spanish fleece is no way comparable to one of Lincolnshire or Warwickshire; and, in those countries, it is no uncommon thing to give fifty guineas for a Ram.

The Sheep without horns are counted the best fort, because a great part of the animal's nourishment is fupposed to go up into the horns. Sheep, like other ruminate animals, want the upper foreteeth, but have eight in the lower jaw : two of thefe drop, and are replaced at two years old; four of them are replaced at three years old; and all at four. The new teeth are easily known from the reft, by their freshness and whitenefs. There are fome breeds, however, in England, that never change their teeth at all; these the fhepherds call the leather-mouth'd cattle; and, as their teeth are thus longer wearing, they are generally fuppofed to grow old a year or two before the reft.

But this animal, in its domeftic ftate, is too well known to require a detail of its peculiar habits, or of the arts which have been used to improve the breed.---Indeed, in the eye of an obferver of nature, every art which tends to render the creature more helpless and useless to itfelf, may be confidered rather as an injury than an improvement; and, if we are to look for this animal in its nobleft ftate, we muft feek for it in the African defert, or the extenfive plains of Siberia. Among the degenerate defcendants of the wild Sheep, there have been fo many changes wrought, as intirely to difguife the kind, and often to mislead the obferver. The variety is fo great, that fcarce any two countries have its Sheep of the fame kind; but there is found a manifeft difference in all, either in the fize, the covering, the fhape, or the horns.

The woolly fheep, as it is feen among us, is found only in Europe, and fome of the temperate provinces of Afia,----

When

Correfpondent in your last Miscellany

A tells the public, that the experiment

made by throwing the lungs taken out of the thorax of a new-born infant into water, is not a certain method of discovering whether the child was born alive or not, and that therefore it ought not to be depended upon in a cafe where the life of a fellow creature is at stake.

Certainly, a difhoneft operator may make the lungs fink if the child had breathed, by pouring a fmall quantity of mercury down the trachea, after he had exhaufted as much of the air as poffible; and, vice verfa, he may make the lungs fwim if the child had been still born, by inflating the lungs as much as poffible with air; but if the lungs were taken out fairly, and immerfed in water, I am of opinion the finking or fwimming might well afcertain whether the child had breathed or not.

Some years fince I was prefent at the trial of a woman for the murder of her child; and the furgeon who examined the child, offering this experiment as evidence, was immediately filenced, and not suffered to proceed any farther, as it was well known fuch other evidence would have been given as muft have convicted the prifoner. In this cafe' the child's throat was cut, and it was thrown into a neceflary. She had confeffed the fact, and it was well known fhe had committed the like fact twice before; however, it was urged in private, that hame for her fornication induced her to destroy the children to prevent discovery, and the

children not having any fenfe of the value of life, it was no great crime.

To prevent fuch unnatural and atrocious offenders from escaping the punishment due to their guilt, the following is offered as an infalliblo method to difcover whether the child has breathed or not.

Before birth, no blood paffes through the pulmonary artery, but through the foramen ovale into the heart of the foetus; but as foon as the child is born and breathes, the foramen is clofed, and the blood paffes through the pulmonary veffels into the heart: if, therefore, upon opening the thorax of the child, the pulmonary artery and vein be found full of blood, or nearly fo, there cannot be a doubt but the child has breathed.

In the cafe above-mentioned, the wound in the child's throat was by the Judge fuppofed to have been made by the inftrument which drew it out of the neceflary; but, had the furgeon been allowed to go through his evidence, it would have been known to have been made before death: and it may be useful here to fay, that any divifion of the blood veffels after the circulation of the blood is wholly stopped, will not take away more blood than between the valves of that veffel; but, if any of the principal blood-veffels are divided while the circulation is carrying on, almoft the whole circulating blood will be drained away at the wound; fo that it cannot be difficult to afcertain whether a wound dividing the blood-veffels was made before or after death. R.

Nn 2

[Gent. Mag.]

The

The

An

TALE.

Na certain island of India, reigned a Prince, who was to exceedingly diftruftful, that though he had but one fifter, he would not difpofe of her in marriage, left he fhould have a brother-in-law more beloved by the people than himself. But notwithstanding the watchful eye he kept upon his fifter, one of his relatious found means to fee her; and the young couple having become enamoured of each other, they eluded the vigilance of their guards, and were privately married.

The fruit of this union was a fon, whom the princefs for fome time kept concealed; but fearing the indignation of her brother, fhe was obliged to expose him, left his cries might be heard, and not only the death of her child, but that of his father, fhould be the confequence.--. For this cruel feparation, the allotted a ferene night; and having put the infant into a box of rufhes, lined with a bituminous fubftance, the left him to the mercy of the waves, which carried him to the border of a deferted ifland, that lay oppofite to that of his birth.

The infant Ebn Yokdhan, inftigated by the calls of hunger, cried with all his might; and a fhe goat, which had juft been robbed of her kidling by an eagle, approached and gave him fuck. This tender office the failed not to renew every day; and the fame connection was gradually formed between them as between a child and its nurfe.

When he had attained his fifth or fixth year, he began to perceive that he was the only animal which was naked, all the others being covered with hair, wool, or feathers. He ruminated upon the methods by which this inconvenience might be remedied; and the firft which occurred was, to take the large leaves of fome tree, and twine them together to make a covering. Afterwards, meeting with the covering of a dead eagle, and remarking that it had no bad fmell, he made a kind of habit to himself from the skin, and the feathers.

As he always went about armed with a ftick, he rendered himself an object of terror to all the animals of the island, who no longer dared to come near him. The fhe goat, his nurse, however, never forfook him; and, though on account of her great weaknefs and age, he took an

extraordinary care of her, he could not nevertheless prevent her from dying foon after.

rate.

When he beheld his nurfe without motion, his furprise and grief were immodeHe called to her for a long time: but finding that the made no answer to him, he began to examine the eyes, the ears, and the legs of the animal, imagining that in thefe parts there must be fome obftacle which hindered them from performing their functions; as he had already remarked that, when he closed his eyes, ftopped his ears, or tied his legs together, he could neither fee, nor hear, nor walk. Every thing appeared to him in its ufual condition. He therefore concluded, that this hindrance proceeded from an internal caufe, and was connected with a particular part which actuated all the reft. This part, he thought, muft neceffarily be fituated in the middle of the body, in order to communicate, with greater eafe, its influence to the other members, and feeling his heart beat with violence, from the agitation of mind in which he was, he imagined that that muft be the principle and the fource of motion. On this, he immediately refolved to open the body of his nurfe, there to fearch for this part, and to find out wherein the deficiency lay.

Having, therefore, picked out fome edged ftones, and dried reeds, which he fharpened as well as he could, he made an incifion into the body of the goat, and prefently found the lungs; which he judged, however, not to be the object of his fearch, because they were not in the middle of the body. When he reached the liver, he imagined that that part muft be the heart. For this reafon he began to examine; and having perceived two cavities in it, the one full of coagulated blood, and the other empty, he conceived that the principle of life was feated in the latter. And as he was fenfible that this

principle had gone out of the body while it was yet entire, he was well affured that it would not return thither, when the body fhould be divided into feveral parts. Afterwards, confidering that this carcafe was incapable of any kind of function, he concluded that to that principle which bad now left it, he must attribute all the operations he had feen the goat perform; that

it was that which had fupplied him with fuck, and which had taken care of him from his infancy. Thefe confiderations excited in him a strong inclination to know what had become of this principle, and whither it was gone; if it had left the body of itself, or if it had been driven from it by fome extrinfic power.

While our Solitary was immersed in thefe reveries, the carcafe began to putrify the steam attracted two crows; and they, afraid to approach for fear of Ebn Yokdhan, began to fight. One of them had no fooner killed the other, than it dug a hole in the earth, into which it threw the body, and afterwards filled it up.From this circumftance, Ebn Yokdhan determined to dig a hole alfo, and pay that duty to his nurse which a crow had paid to his enemy.

Soon after a windy storm arofe, which drove the branches of fome dry trees against each other with fo much violence that they took fire. The novelty of this accident greatly aftonished our Solitary; and, prompted by his natural curiolity, he approached to it. He attempted at first to handle the flames; when, starting back with pain, he refolved to carry it into a cave in which he lodged, in order to examine the fire, and the effects it was capable of producing. With not a little care did he preferve it; as he found that the blaze ferved him for fun during the night, and that, at a certain diftance, the moderate heat which iffued from it, cheared him, and revived his strength.

One day, as he was warming himself, a fish, which he had juft caught, leaped upon his fire, but being intent on fome other object, he did not at firft perceive it; but his noftrils being prefently affected by an agreeable flavour, which he had never experienced before, he was induced to fearch into the cause of it. On beholding the fish half-broiled, he longed to taste of it. He did taste of it; and finding it more palatable than the fruits which had hitherto compofed his nourishment, he addicted himself to hunting and fishing, in both which exercifes he facilitated his fuccefs by the contrivance of fundry expedients, fuch as that of taming birds (by whofe finging the reft were attracted, and fecured in his fnare) and that of training horses, mounted on which, he out-ran at the chace the fwifteft beafts.

Ebn Yokdhan had hardly numbered his two and twentieth year, when he invented these things, and made clothes to himself of the skins of beafts, fewed

together with threads of the bark of palm-tree, with hemp, &c. but thefe bodily exercifes did not occupy him wholly, and hardly did he ever behold an object, of which he wished not to fearch into the cause.

He had already remarked, that matter operates not of itself, but by means of a certain impulfe, from fome external caufe; and of this he endeavoured to find the author, upon the earth, and in the fky. But as he could find no being which was not finite, and which was not fubject to change, he thence concluded, that he who had formed matter, and who had thus peculiarly arranged it, was not matter, fince of neceffity he must be infinite and immutable; that matter having not of itself the ability to act, it was not it which, properly speaking, performed the actions he faw it produce, but the perfect Being who gave it that power, and who preferves it; that, of confequence, this Being was all-powerful, all-wife, all-knowing; that his exiftence was neceffary; and that nothing was wanting to his glory, to his perfection, and to his fovereign felicity.

This fublime idea took fuch poffeffion of Ebn Yokdhan, that he no longer paid any attention hardly to aught befide; when any object happened to divert him from it, he instantly returned to it, applying every thing he had found good and amiable in that object to the infinitely perfect Being, and removing from him every thing which appeared corruptible, or fubject to imperfection.

There was one thing, however, which greatly puzzled him, namely, that this Being, who is fo worthy of the love, and the respect, of all his creatures, fhould have formed fo few of them who were endowed with a capacity to know him, and to pay a voluntary homage to him. This confideration difturbed his repofe for fome time; but by means of the fresh truths which he daily difcovered, he foon recovered his wonted tranquility.

So deeply was our Solitary fometimes impreffed with reflections on these mysterious matters, that he would have relinquifhed all care of his body, if he had not believed that he was obliged to preferve it. He therefore refolved to pay no more attention to his bodily concerns than what might be neceffary to keep him from dying; he went out of his cave but once a week, and then merely in queft of fruit for his fuftenance; the first of which that offered he took with

out

out choice. This manner of living he continued till the age of fifty years; when God, unwilling that fo rare a pattern of virtue fhould remain unknown to the world, permitted him to be dif covered by the following accident.

Not far from the island in which Ebn Yokdhan had been brought up, there was another, inhabited by the followers of the ancient prophets, who, in order to familiarize the mysteries of heaven to the fenfes, illuftrated them by allegories, and by parables. Two of thefe iflanders, Afal and Solomon, though intimate friends, entertained very different fentiments, however, as to the road which leads to happiness. The former maintained, that it was by relinquishing the world, and by living in folitude: the latter, by mixing with fociety.

Afal had heard that the island in which Ebn Yokdhan refided was uninhabited; and, in order to dedicate himfelf to devotion, he gave his wealth to the poor, referving no more than what was neceffary to get himfeif conveyed thither. As Ebn Yokdhan feldom tirred from his cave, he did not meet with Afal, till one day, as he happened to be plucking fome fruits. Afal was at a distance employed in prayer; and nothing could exceed the furprize of Ebn Yokdhan, when he beheld, for the firft time, a creature refembling himself.---Impelled by curiofity, he advanced towards him; but Afal, taking him for another Solitary, immediately withdrew. Ebn Yokdhan pretended not to fee him; and following at a distance, as if by chance, he waited till he fhould again fall upon his knees, before he would run after him. Afal, alarmed at finding himself purfued, took to flight; but Ebn Yokdhan, foon overtook him.----The new Solitary was ready to die with terror, when he found hinifelf defencelef's in the hands of a favage. Ebn Yokdhan, however, encouraged him with all the careffes he could thirk of beftowing; and Afal, on recovering his compofure, fpoke to him in feveral languages, in order to render himself intelligible. To all of thefe Ebn Yokdhan gave no anfwer but by expreffing his aftonishment. Afal prefented to him. fome remains of the provifions he had brought with him, and began to eat of them, in order to fhew him the example. Ebn Yokdhan, who had prefcribed to himself the ftricteft rules of fobriety, at first declined the offer; but, afiaid to offend his new acquaintance, at length

complied, and in return went in fearch of the best fruits of the island for him. A moft intimate connection was foon formed between them; and Afal, impatient to know by what accident he had found a man thus circumstanced, refolved to teach him to fpeak. He began by telling him the names of things, and afterwards he taught him to connect them together. In a word, the mafter was fo affiduous, and the fcholar was fo docile, fo eager for inftruction, that in a fhort time, they were able to converse together with ease.

As foon as Ebn Yokdhan could speak fo as to be understood, Afal enquired of him by whom he had been left upon the ifland. Ebn Yokdhan replied, that he knew not---that he was a ftranger even to his parents, but that a fhe-goat had fuckled him. He then related the occupations of his childhood, and of his youth, the difcoveries he had made, and the ideas he had conceived of heavenly things; and in his turn he enquired of the other whence he came, and what it was that had brought him into that ifland. Upon this Afal gave him a defcription of his country, of the manners, and the religion of its inhabitants.---Ebn Yokdhan was highly delighted to find every thing which that people taught as to the nature of God, the rewards and the pun fhments after this life, and even the last judgment, was conformable to his meditations.

They foon refolved to go back into the world; and happily a veffel, having loft its courfe on a paffage to the island whence Afal had come, happened to ccaft along that of our Solitaries; who accordingly made a signal to take them on board. Solomon had just been elected Prince of thofe iflanders; and his court was compofed of the moft able perfonages of the fect to which he belonged. Afal and Yokdhan were welcomed there with great marks of joy; and for the latter, when they were informed of his history, they conceived a particular efteem. From this reception, he was infpired with the hope of re forming a people fo mild and fo moderate; but when he came to talk to them of virtue, our philofopher had the mortification to obferve all his hearers difappear. How happy had he been, would they have allowed him the liberty of practifing it himself, without the neceflity of returning into his own island! [St. James's Mag.]

CHARACTERS