au coude. Vous Vous voyez aussi que les animaux qui doivent boire l'eau qui coule sur la terre, s'ils ont des jambes longues, ont aussi un cou long, afin qu'ils puissent atteindre leur boisson sans la peine de se mettre à genoux. Mais l'homme, qui étoit destiné à boire du vin, doit être en état de porter le verre à sa bouche. Si le coude avoit été placé plus près de la main, la partie d'avant auroit été trop courte pour approcher le verre de la bouche; et s'il avoit été placé plus près l'épaule, la partie seroit si longue qu'il porteroit le verre au-delà de la tête. Ainsi nous aurions été tantalisés. Mais par la présente situation du coude nous sommes en état de boire à notre aise; le verre venant justement à la bouche.-Adorons donc, le verre à la main, cette sagesse bienveillante! Adorons, et buvons !

[Translation.]

TO THE ABBE MORELLET.

Passy,

You have often enlivened me, my dear friend, by your excellent drinking songs: in return, I beg to edify you by some Christian, moral, and philosophical reflections upon the same subject.

In vino veritas, says the wise man,-Truth is in wine. Before the days of Noah, then, men having nothing but water to drink, could not discover the truth. Thus they went astray, became abominably wicked, and were justly exterminated by water, which they loved to drink.

VOL. I.

T

The good man Noah, seeing that through this pernicious beverage all his cotemporaries had perished, took it in aversion; and to quench his thirst, God created the vine, and revealed to him the means of converting its fruit into wine. By means of this liquor he discovered numberless important truths; so that ever since his time the word to divine has been in common use, signifying originally to discover by means of WINE. Thus the patriarch Joseph took upon himself to divine by means of a cup or glass of WINE; a liquor which obtained this name to show that it was not of human but divine invention (another proof of the antiquity of the French language, in opposition to M. Gebelin): nay, since that time, all things of peculiar excellence, even the deities themselves, have been called Divine or Divinities.

1

We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana, as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy! The miracle in question was only performed to hasten the operation under circumstances of present necessity, which required it.

It is true that God has also instructed man to reduce wine into water. But into what sort of water?-Water of Life.2 And this, that man may be able upon occasion to perform the miracle of Cana, and convert common water into that excellent species of wine which we call punch.

My Christian brother, be kind and benevolent like God, and

The Roman orator, who is well known by his bad poetry to have been a water drinker, frankly acknowledges in his book De Divinatione, that he did not know how to divine. Quid futurum sit non divino.

2 Eau-de-vie, that is, brandy.

do not spoil his good work. He made wine to gladden the heart of man ;-do not, therefore, when at table you see your neighbor pour wine into his glass be eager to mingle water with it. Why would you drown truth? It is probable that your neighbor knows better than you can, what suits him. Perhaps he does not like water; perhaps he would only put in a few drops for fashion's sake; perhaps he does not wish any one to observe how much he puts in his glass. Do not then offer water except to children,-'tis a mistaken piece of politeness, and often very inconvenient. I give you this hint as a man of the world; and I will finish as I began, like a good Christian, in making a religious observation of high importance, taken from the Holy Scriptures; I mean, that the apostle Paul counselled Timothy very seriously to put wine into his water for the sake of his health; but that not one of the apostles or holy. fathers ever recommended putting water to wine. B. F.

P. S. To confirm still more your piety and gratitude to Divine Providence, reflect upon the situation which it has given to the elbow. You see in animals who are intended to drink the waters that flow upon the earth, that if they have long legs, they have also a long neck, so that they can get at their drink without kneeling down. But man, who was destined to drink wine, is framed in a manner that he may raise the glass to his mouth. If the elbow had been placed nearer the hand, the part in advance would have been too short to bring the glass up to the mouth; and if it had been nearer the shoulder, that part would have been so long, that when it attempted to carry the wine to the mouth it would have overshot the mark, and gone beyond the head; thus, either way, we should have been in the case of Tantalus. But from the actual situation of the elbow we are enabled to drink at our ease, the glass going directly to the mouth. Let us, then, with glass in hand, adore this benevolent wisdom-let us adore and drink!

AN ECONOMICAL PROJECT.

TO THE AUTHORS OF THE JOURNAL OF PARIS.

Messieurs,

You often entertain us with accounts of new discoveries. Permit me to communicate to the public, through your paper, one that has lately been made by myself, and which I conceive may be of great utility.

I was the other evening in a grand company, where the new lamp of Messrs. Quinquet and Lange was introduced, and much admired for its splendor; but a general inquiry was made, whether the oil it consumed was not in proportion to the light it afforded, in which case there would be no saving in the use of it. No one present could satisfy us in that point, which all agreed ought to be known, it being a very desirable thing to lessen, if possible, the expense of lighting our apartments, when every other article of family expense was so much augmented.

I was pleased to see this general concern for economy, for I love economy exceedingly.

I went home, and to bed, three or four hours after midnight, with my head full of the subject. An accidental sudden noise waked me about six in the morning, when I was surprised to find my room filled with light; and I imagined at first, that a number of those lamps had been brought into it: but, rubbing my eyes, I perceived the light

came in at the windows. I got up and looked out to see what might be the occasion of it, when I saw the sun just rising above the horizon, from whence he poured his rays plentifully into my chamber, my domestic having negligently omitted, the preceding evening, to close the shutters.

I looked at my watch, which goes very well, and found that it was but six o'clock; and still thinking it something extraordinary that the sun should rise so early, I looked into the almanac, where I found it to be the hour given for his rising on that day. I looked forward, too, and found he was to rise still earlier every day till towards the end of June; and that at no time in the year he retarded his rising so long as till eight o'clock. Your readers, who with me have never seen any signs of sun-shine before noon, and seldom regard the astronomical part of the almanac, will be as much astonished as I was, when they hear of his rising so early; and especially when I assure them, that he gives light as soon as he rises. I am convinced of this. I am certain of my fact. One cannot be more certain of any fact. I saw it with my own eyes. And, having repeated this observation the three following mornings, I found always precisely the same result.

Yet so it happens, that when I speak of this discovery to others, I can easily perceive by their countenances, though they forbear expressing it in words, that they do not quite believe me. One,