1789. Character of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon. the fway of an ufurper, whilft his fovereign was in exile and diftrefs; and his whole powers were exerted during that time to reaftate his royal mafter. During thofe years of feverity he neceffarily became inftructed a the different interefts of foreign Courts, a intimately as he had been with those of England; which union can only complete the minifter. Nor were his principles of religion and government only founded on the jufteft examination of thole fubjects. His friendfhips were in like manner contracted on long intimacy and knowledge of those with whom he was united. Reaton, fimilar fentiments, and virtuous motives, formed the union of him and his friends. They were fteady to him, and he to them. It must be confeffed, his paffions in fome particulars were rather impetuous: but it muft be recollected alfo, what were the objects of them. As he loved his country beyond all things, he faw its injuries with great dignation; and confequently that hatred, which he ever cherished against Prefbyteri ans, and other fectaries in England and Scotland became a juftifiable paffion. He had been the continual witnefs of their implacable purfuits to ravish power by blood and rapine; and feen even that violation rendered more deteftable by their facrilegioully avowing religion to be the impious caufe of their rebellion againft the conftitution; denominating the murder of their law ful Sovereign an act of piety, to enthrone King Jefus in his dominion of righteoufnels. Notwithstanding this averfion to the deftroy ers of his country, the Minifter never in fuenced the man of equity; as Lord High Chancellor, his decrees were untainted with partiality; hatred did not aggravate, nor affection foften the juflice of his decifions; ather did he, on the feat of judgment, know there was either a Churchman or Prefbyterian, a friend or foe, a royalift or rebel. Hypocrify, that vice infeparable from the daries, was the peculiar object of his deAation; and perhaps he carried this atforrence even too far, for the manners of all Courts. His penetration was not to be deired by any difguife, and though he might always difcern the true motive of it, he new that hideous mafk invariably concealed finifter defign; and therefore he loathed the heart which lay in ambush to do mifchief, ad Bunned the poffeffor. From this fteadiness to integrity, he knew to cover his face with fmiles of approbaat the prefence of the King'sharlot; and be thought it a difgrace to make, or to fecure are, to ferve himself, or his friends, gh the polluted channel of a concu afcendency; making no diftinction, 15 where law and religion have made none, between the whoredom of the Royal bed and the common bagnio, unless in his greater difapprobation of the former. He thought a King the most fallen of all human creatures, who, neglecting the public good, spent his hours in the delights of dalliance, the dupe of lafcivioufnefs, the flave of women, and disgrace of royalty: and it was his conftant with that the lure of lewdness might at least defert his master, before old age fhould render more defpicable that failing, for which youth did, in fome opinions, plead an excufe. For what object can be more truly contemptible, than a libidinous old King dallying in wantonnefs, his grey head royally reclining on the bofom of his concubine, his face covered with the wrinkled leer of falacious impotence, whilft his people are running by mal-administration and neglect to that ruin, which he only can, and it is his duty to prevent? If female favourites found no countenance in the eyes of Lord Clarendon, pimps, pandars, fycophants, and flatterers, however dignified with the superb appellations of Barons, Vifcounts, Earls, Marquifles, and Dukes, were not lefs difguftful and detefted. He confidered them as the public bane, and beheld them through the medium of their actions, and not of their titles. Their degeneracy was his contempt; and he thought neither defcent nor creation could really ennoble thofe whofe actions were a reproach not only to their ancestors, but to human nature, and who had forfeited all claim to honour by the moft ignominious behaviour. To thofe the wrinkled brow, and keen eye of difpleafure, fpoke his fentiments of their conduct, when his lips were filent; nor did the King himself efcape that honeft reproof, when he faw him negligent or mifguided; fo much did he prefer his mafter's eternal fame to his temporary delights, and the good of his country to every felfifh confideration. He had planned a fyftem of reinftating the happinels of England; from which no lure, nor profitable expedient, could tempt him to recede. He was bred, and truly was a man of learning, with talents every way adapted to improve this beft foundation: the very times in which he lived, afforded a power of ex perience in human nature, rarely to be found at any other æra. Scarce a virtue, or a vice, which did not then reign in full pow ers, as well as diffimulation in extreme, to imitate the firft, and conceal the latter. Every faculty of the foul was exerted in its full fretch, to accomplish its different purfuits, and every fenfation ftrenuously engaged by the full variety of objects which employed them. By means of thete, as he had ample opportunity and abilities to analize the 16 : British Theatre. the human mind, he became intimately ac- His ftile has in general been thought cul- Ja Edward Earl of Clarendon, Lord High Cha cellor of England, equal in power and re lution to the accomplishing every requi which this land then flood in need of to ma it permanently happy. OUR British Theatre. UR prophecy of the Prophet was ju the confequence of repeating it w empty benches. It was too dull even as medium for mufic, and failed, though fu ported by the powers of Billington, and accumulation of the comic abilities in t theatre. It is extraordinary that the heat nefs of this piece was not discovered at r hearfal, or that its abfurdities did not co demn it on the reading, but perhaps its 1 thargic influence operated on the manage and he fympathetically flumbered with t author. The town are threatened with for an after piece, but we hope it is only threat-and that the Prophet will be hea no more. Mrs. JORDAN In Rofalind, for the first time, and fi her own benefit, was exactly on a par wit Palmer, who performed Touchstone-th were both paffable.-Rofalind requires in nite polifh as well as humour; Mrs. Jord. wants that polifh,-Grace is not in all h fteps, though there is a confiderable portic of Promethean fire in her eye. ALADDIN, or the WONDERFUL A pantomime with this title could n Mifs WALLACE. and This lady who has fo long kept expecta grea tion upon tip toe is at laft announced. Sh comes forward with great patronage promife. Her first appearance was in Irelan when an infant, for the benefit of her fa ther; the character, The Fine Lady, in Lethe Sing and we understand from thofe who faw her that the acted with eafe, fprightliness, an humour aftonishing for her years. that time the has been liberally inftructed i every branch of polite education that En •Denne could afford. 1789. New Anecdotes and Obfervations in Natural Hiftory. New and curious Anecdotes and Obfervations [Selected from The Natural History and Natural Affection of Animals. HE more I reflect on the soy natural affection [the more I am aftonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this affection more wonderful than the shortness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her turn the virago of her yard, in proportion to the helple finels of her brood; and will fly in the face of a dog or a fow in defence of thofe chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive before her with relentless cruelty This affection fublimes the paffions, quickens the invention, and fharpens the fagacity of the brute creation. Thus an hen, juft oecome a mother, is no longer that placid bird the ufed to be, but with feathers flanding an end, wings hovering, and clucking note, the runs about like one poffeffed. Ďams will throw themselves in the way of the greateft danger, in order to avert it from their progeny. Thus a partridge will tumble along before a fportfman, in order to draw away the dogs from her helplefs covey. In the time of nidification the moft feeble birds will affault the most rapacious. All the hirundines of a village are up in arms at the fight of an hawk, whom they will perfecute till he leaves that district. A very exact obferver has often remarked, that a pair of ravens nefting in the rock of Gibraltar, would fuffer no vulture or eagle to reft near their ftation, but would drive them from the hill with amazing fury even the blue thrush at the fealon of breeding would dart out from the clefte of the rocks to chafe away the keftril, or the fparrow-hawk. If you ftand near the neft of a bird that has young, fhe will not be induced to betray them by an inadvertent fondnefs, but will wait about at a diftance with meat in her mouth for an hour toge ther. 17 ed off the heat from their fuffering offand mouths gaping for breath, they screenfpring. A farther inftance I once faw of notable fagacity in a willow-wren, which had built in a bank in my fields. This bird a friend and myfelf had obferved as the fat in her neft; but were particularly careful not to difturb her, though we faw the eyed us with fome degree of jealoufy. Some days after, remarking how this brood went on; but no neft could be found till I happened to take up a large bundle of long green mofs, as it were, carelessly thrown over the neft in order to dodge the eye of any impertinent intruder. A ftill more remarkable mixture of fagacity and inftinct occurred to me one day as my people were pulling off the lining of an hotbed, in order to add fome fresh dung. From out of the fide of this bed leaped an animal with great agility that made a moft grotefque figure; nor was it without great difficulty that it could be taken; when it proved to be a large white-bellied fieldmouse, with three or four young clinging to her teats by their mouths and feet. It was amazing that the defultory and rapid motions of this dam fhould not have obliged her litter to quit their hold, efpecially when it appeared that they were fo young as to be both naked and blind! To these inflances of tender attachment, many more of which might be daily difcovered by thofe that are ftudious of nature, may be oppofed that rage of affection, that monftrous perverfion of the sogn, which induces fome females of the brute creation to devour their young because their owners have handled them too freely, or removed them from place to place! Swine, and fometimes the more gentle race of dogs and cats, are guilty of this horrid and prepofterous murder. When I hear now and then of an abandoned mother that deftroys her offspring, I am not fo much amazed; fince reafon perverted, and the bad paffions let loofe, are capable of any enormity: but why the parental feelings of brutes, that ufually flow in one moft uniform tenor, fhould fometimes be fo extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler philofophers than myfelf to determine. Their focial Attachments. THERE is a wonderful spirit of fociality in the brute creation, independent of sexual attachment; the congregating of gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable inflance. Many horfes, though quiet with company, will not flay one minute in a field by thenfelves; the ftrongeft fences cannot restrain them. My neighbour's Lorfe will not only not 18 New Anecdotes and Obfervations in Natural Hiftory. not flay by himself abroad, but he will not bear to be left alone in a ftrange ftable without difcovering the utmoft impatience, and endeavouring to break the rack and manger with his fore feet. He has been known to leap out at a ftable window, through which dung was thrown, after company; and yet in other refpects is remarkably quiet. Oxen and cows will not fatten by themselves; but will neglect the finest pafture that is not recommended by fociety. It would be need lefs to inftance in fheep, which conftantly flock together. But this propenfity feems not to be confined to animals of the fame fpecies; for we know a doe, ftill alive, that was brought up from a little fawn with a dairy of cows; with them it goes a-field, and with them it returns to the yard. The dogs of the houfe take no notice of this deer, being used to her; but, if strange dogs come by, a chace enfues; while the mafter fmiles to fee his favourite fecurely leading her pursuers over hedge, or gate, or file, till he returns to the cows, who, with fierce lowings and meRacing horns, drive the affailants quite out of the pafture. Even great disparity of kind and size does not always prevent focial advances and mutua! fellowship. For a very intelligent and obfervant peffon has affured me, that, in the former part of his life, keeping but one horfe, he happened alfo on a time to have but one folitary hen. These two incongruous animals spent much of their time together in a lonely orchard, where they faw no creature but each other. By degrees an apparent regard began to take place between thefe two fequeftered individuals. The fowl would approach the quadruped with notes of complarency, rubbing herself gently again his legs; while the horfe would look down with fatisfaction, and move with the greatest caution and circumfpection, left he fhould trample on his diminutive companion. Thus, hy mutual good offices, each feemed to confole the vacant hours of the other; fo. that Milton, when he puts the following fentiment in the mouth of Adam, feens, to be fomewhat mistaken: "Much lefs can bird with beaft, or fish, with fowl, "So well converfe, nor with the ox the ape." We have remarked in a former letter how much incongruous animals, in a lonely ftate, may be attached to each other from a spirit of fociality; in this it may not be amifs to recount a different motive which has been known to create as ftrange a fondness. My friend had a little helpless leveret Braught to him, which the fervants fed with Jan. milk in a spoon, and about the fame time his cat kittened, and the young were dispatched and buried. The hare was foon loft, and fuppofed to be gone the way of moft fondlings, to be killed by fome dog or cat. However, in about a fortnight, as the mafter was fitting in his garden in the dusk of the evening, he obferved his cat, with tail erect, trotting towards him, and calling with little fhort inward notes of complacency, fuch as they use towards their kittens, and fomething gamboling after, which proved to be the leveret that the cat had fupported with her milk, and continued to fupport with great affection. Thus was a graminivorous animal nurtured by a carnivorous and prędaceous one! Why fo cruel and fanguinary a beast as a cat, of a ferocious genus of Feles, the murium leo, as Linnæus calls it, should be affected with any tenderness towards an animal which is its natural prey, is not so easy to determine. This ftrange affection probably was occafioned by that defiderium, thofe tender maternal feelings, which the lofs of her kittens ` had awakened in her breaft; and by the complacency and ease she derived to herself from the procuring her teats to be drawn, which were too much diftended with milk, till, from habit, fhe became as much delighted with this foundling as if it had been her real offspring. This incident is no had folution of that ftrange circumftance which grave hiftorians as well as the poets affert, of expofed children being fometimes nurtured by female wild, beafts that probably had loft their young. For it is not one whit more marvelfous that Romulus and Remus, in their infant ftate, fhould be nurtured by a fhe-wolf, than that a poor little fucking leveret fhould be foftered and cherished by a bloody grimalkin. "viridi foetam Mavortis in antre "Procubuiffe lupam:. geminos huic ubera circum "Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem. "Impavidos: illam tereti cervice reflexam "Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere linguâ," Bats. Ar prefent I know only two fpecies of hats, the common vefpertilio murinus and the vespertilio auribus. I was much entertained laft summer with a tame bat, which would take flies out of a perion's hand. If you gave it any thing to cat, it brought its wings round before the mouth, hovering and Liding its head in the Manner 1789. Account of Thomas Frye. manner of birds of prey when they feed. The adroitnefs it thewed in thearing off the wings of the flies, which were always rejefied, was worthy of obfervation, and pleafed me much. Infects feemed to be moft acceptable, though it did not refufe raw flesh when offered: fo that the notion, that bats go down chimnies and gnaw men's bacon, feems no improbable ftory. While I amufed myself with this wonderful quadruped, I faw it feveral times confute the vulgar opinion, that bats when down on a flat furface cannot get on the wing again, by, rifing with great cafe from the floor. It ran, I obferved, with more difpatch than I was aware of; but in a more ridiculous and grotefque manner. Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by fipping the furface, as they play over pools and ftreams. They love to frequent waters, not only for the fake of drinking, but on account of infects, which are found over them in the greateft plenty. As I was going, fome years ago, pretty late, in a boat from Richmond to Sunbury, on a warm fummer's evening, I think I faw myriads of bats between the two places: the air swarmed with them all along the Thames, fo that hundreds were in fight at a time. The great large bat* (which by the by is at prefent a nondefcript in England, and what I have never been able to procure) retires or migrates very early in the fummer: it also ranges very high for its food, feeding in a diffe rent region of the air; and that is the reafon never could procure one. Now this is exactly the cafe with the swifts; for they take food in a more exalted region than the other fpecies, and are very feldom feen hawking for flies near the ground, or over the furface of the water. From hence I would conclude that these birundines, and the larger bats, are fupported by fome kind of high-flying gnats, fearabs, or phalene, that are of thort Continuance; and that the fort ftay of thefe Arangers is regulated by the defect of their food. 19 the other was a female: but, happening in an evening or two to procure the other likewife, I was fomewhat difappointed, when it appeared to be alfo of the fame fex. This circumftance, and the greatest scarcity of this fort, at least in thefe parts, occafiona fome fufpicions in my mind whether it may not be the male part of the more known fpecies, one of which may lupply many females; as is known to be the cafe in sheep, and fome other quadrupeds. But this doubt can only be cleared by a farther examination, and fome attention to the fex, of more fpecimens all that I know at prefent is,. that my two were amply furnished with the parts of generation much resembling those of a boar. In the extent of their wings they meafured fourteen inches and an half; and four inches and an half from the nose to the tip of the tail their heads were large, their noftrils bilobated, their fhoulders broad and mufcular; and fofter than the fur, which was of a bright colour; their maws were full of food, but fo macerated that the quality could not be diftinguished; their livers, kidnies, and hearts, were large, and their bowels covered with fat. They weighed each, when entire, full one ounce and one drachm. Within the ear there was fomewhat of a peculiar ftructure that I did not understand perfectly; but refer it to the obfervation of the curious anatomift. Thefe creatures fent forth a very rancid and offensive smell. T Account of Thomas Frye. has been the fate of this ingenious artift to be over-looked in a very extraordi. nary and very reprehenfible manner, by those who have profeffed to preferve the memory of fuch perfons as have excelled in the arts, and to tranfmit their names with due honour to pofterity. Mr. Walpole omits to mention even his name; and Mr. Strutt, in his imperfect and erroneous work, has fhewn in a few lines, that he knew no thing of the perfon he was writing about. To fupply the defects of one Author, and to correct the blunders of the other, would be objects not unworthy the Hibernian Magazine. A better motive, however, actuates us on the prefent occafion, viz. to do juftice to the memory of neglected genius. Thomas Frye was born in or near Dublin, in the year 1710, and received what education he had in the kingdom of his na tivity. It is afferted, that he was indebted to frong and natural genius only for his knowledge in the art he poffeffed, from which it may be prefumed, that his master (for he had one) was neither eminent nor fkilful. Certain it is, that he early referied to London, as the place where talents |