with Noah, at the time I have mentioned, of the circumstances that then made the case of mankind, and of the things of common experience and usage. He must have been unable to converse at his first appearance ?"

"What you say, Madam," I replied, "is not only very probable, but affords a satisfaction unexpected in a subject on which we are obliged, for want of data, to use conjectures. I yield to your superior sense the notion, that the Scriptures were written in the language of Paradise. Most certain it is, that even in respect of our own language, for example, the subjects of Henry I., would find it as much out of their power to understand the English of George the First's reign, were they brought up again, as the ordinary people of our time are at a loss to make any thing of the English, written in the first Henry's reign. But when I have granted this, you will be pleased to inform me, how Abraham and his sons conversed and commerced with the nations, if the Hebrew was not the universal lan

pendix was intended to comprise will be found more fully noticed in the introductory portion to this volume. The materiel connected with the dispersion at Babel, was derived by the author, from Blomberg's Life of Edmund Dickinson, M.D. 1739. Evo. of which subsequent notice will be made. ED.]

guage in their time? If the miracle at Babel was a confusion of tongues, as is generally supposed, how did the holy family talk and act with such distant king's and people? Illuminate me, thou glorious girl, in this dark article, and be my teacher in Hebrew learning, as I flatter myself you will be the guide and dirigent of all my notions and my days. Yes, charming HARRIOT, my fate is in your hands. Dispose of it as you will, and make me what you please."

"You force me to smile," the illustrious Miss NOEL replied," and oblige me to call you an odd compound of a man. Pray, Sir, let me have no more of those romantic flights, and I will answer your question as well as I can; but it must be at some other time. There is more to be said on the miracle at Babel, and its effects, than I could dispatch between this and our hour of dining, and therefore, the remainder of our leisure till dinner, we will pass in a visit to my grotto, and in walking round the garden to the parlour we came from." To the grotto then we went, and to the best of my power I will give my reader a description of this splendid room.

In one of the fine rotundas I have mentioned, at one end of the green amphitheatre very lately described, the shining apartment was formed. Miss

NOEL'S hand had covered the floor with the most beautiful mosaic my eyes have ever beheld, and filled the arched roof with the richest fossil gems. The mosaic painting on the ground was wrought with small coloured stones or pebbles, and sharp pointed bits of glass, measured and proportioned together, so as to imitate in their assemblage the strokes and colour of the objects, which they were intended to represent, and they represented by this lady's art, the Temple of Tranquillity, described by

Volusenus in his dream.

At some distance the fine temple looks like a beautiful painted picture, as do the birds, the beasts, the trees in the fields about it, and the river which murmurs at the bottom of the rising ground; 'Amnis lucidus et vadosus in quo cernere erat verii generis pisces colludere.' So wonderfully did this genius perform the piece, that fishes of many kinds seem to take their pastime in the bright stream. But above all, is the image of the philosopher, at the entrance of the temple, vastly fine. With pebbles and scraps of glass, all the beauties and graces are expressed, which the pencil of an able artist could bestow on the picture of Democritus. You see him as Diogenes Laertius has drawn him, with a philosophical joy in his countenance, that shews him superior to all events. Summum bonorum finem

statuit esse lætitiam, non eam quæ sit eadem voluptati, sed eam per quam animus degit perturbationis expers; and with a finger, he points to the following golden inscription on the portico of the temple:

"Flagrans sit studium bene merendi de seipso,
Et seipsum perficiendi."

That is, "by a rectitude of mind and life, secure true happiness and the applause of your own heart, and let it be the labour of your every day, to come as near perfection as it is possible for human nature to get." This mosaic piece of painting is indeed an admirable thing. It has a fine effect in this grotto, and is a noble monument of the masterly hand of Miss NOEL.

Nor was her fine genius less visible in the striking appearance of the extremely beautiful shells and valuable curiosities, all round the apartment. Her father spared no cost to procure her the finest things of the ocean and rivers from all parts of the world, and pebbles, stones, and ores of the greatest curiosity and worth. These were all disposed in such a manner as not only shed a glorious lustre in the room, but shewed the understanding of this young lady in natural knowledge.

In one part of the grot were collected and arranged the stony coverings of all the shell-fish in the sea, from the striated patella and its several

species, to the pholades in all their species; and of those that live in the fresh streams, from the suboval limpet or umbonated patella and its species, to the triangular and deeply striated cardia. Even all the land shells were in this collection, from the pomatia to the round-mouthed turbo. The most beautiful genera of the sea-shells, intermixed with fossil corals of all the kinds; with animal substances become fossil; and with copperores, agates, pebbles, pieces of the finest marmora and alabastritæ, and the most elegant and beautiful marcasites, and chrystals, and spars. These filled the greatest part of the walls, and in classes, here and there, were scattered, as foils to raise the lustre of the others, the inferior shells.

Among the simple sea-shells, that is, those of one shell, without a hinge, I saw several rare ones, that were neither in Mrs. O'HARA's, nor in Mrs. CRAFTON's grottos in Fingal, as I observed to those ladies. The shells I mean are the following ones.

* I had once a sweet little country house in the neighbourhood of those ladies, and used to be often at their gardens and grottos. Mrs. CRAFTON had the finest shells, but her grot was dull and regular, and had no appearance of nature in the formation. She was a pious, plain, refined lady, but had not a fancy equal to the operation required in a shell-house.