worthless husband was spending his substance in riotous living, unmindful of the fair and once happy young creature whom he had vowed to cherish and protect, and of the little helpless being on whom he had bestowed the miserable boon of existence. The young and disappointed wife had, on her death-bed, conjured her sympathising friend Nelly, who even then was more prone to visit the house of mourning than that of joy, never to wed a drunkard. This warning now recurred to her mind with painful force, and nerved her to resent some display of lover-like ardour on the part of Robert Melrose with more spirit than she could have believed herself capable of evincing, and certainly more than her lover had intended to elicit; and he, being in no mood to receive frown or rebuke, especially when there were laughing witnesses to his discomfiture, transferred his attentions to a livelier and less fastidious girl of the party, while Nelly, taking refuge amidst some very young people who had accompanied them, turned her sorrowful face towards the sea, and rippled its calm surface with her tears. On their return, the last individual had scarcely landed, when it was discovered that Nelly Bannatyne had disappeared; and, on a search being instituted, she was discovered in the distance, running towards her home with all imaginable haste. Young Melrose, now half abashed and half defiant, and hopeless in any case of overtaking his incensed lady-love, was easily induced to conclude the evening in a manner suitable to its commencement.

Mrs Bannatyne was somewhat scared at her daughter presenting herself alone, and with pallid cheeks and heavy eyes; but having ascertained that no untoward casualty had occurred to either life or limb, and cherishing a theory, that hearts, more especially young ones, possessed inherent medicative properties which it needed only a little time to elicit, she prosecuted no troublesome inquiries, which Nelly might have found it difficult either to reply to or evade. So the latter, instead of retiring to rest at her usual hour, sat in her own little apartment, looking out abstractedly on the moonlight, and anon weeping, as young eyes will weep, at the first dark cloud shading the bright prospects in which they had previously revelled, and vainly trying to determine a suitable line of conduct for her future guidance. The morning came, unlike its fair predecessor, fraught with a burden of sorrow to both the lovers. Robert Melrose awoke with troubled conscience and aching head, his memory presenting startling, though disjointed snatches of his yesterday's adventures. One thing, however, was but too clear-he had quarrelled with Nelly, and her gentleness imparted to this unpleasant event something of the marvellous, and indicated that he must have acted very reprehensibly indeed; and the young man was sadly puzzled as to how he should make his peace with Nelly, excuse his indiscretion to her austere, stately mother, and finally reinstate himself in the position which he had formerly enjoyed. Nelly, on the other hand, quietly performed her household duties, in a manner, however, which did not fail to extract a lengthened dissertation from her mother, containing certain abstract principles with regard to the influence which waste, negligence, or disorder exercised in a household; and, by way of improvement,' a pointed declaration that her younger daughter was no more fitted to perform the duties of a housewife than she was to discharge the functions of moderator of the General Assembly; than which, Mrs Bannatyne deemed she could have said nothing more forcible or perspicuous; so that, glad to retreat out of hearing of her mother's vocal battery, Nelly hastened to execute an intention which she had formed the previous evening, to call upon her sister, and consult her with regard to the momentous question disturbing her peace. Jessie, now the mother of a smiling little cherub, who seemed to have inherited much of her superabundant loveliness, received her with every possible manifestation of sympathy and condolence; but there was a merry twinkle in her dark eyes the while, which betrayed a latent triumph in the turn affairs had taken. Her idea of the wedding preliminaries termed a courtship, presented little

save a curious amalgam of quarrels and reconciliations; and a winter reft of storms would to her have appeared a far less disconcerting phenomenon than the unprecedented and uninteresting equability which had hitherto marked the intercourse of the lovers. Besides, the vice to which Robert Melrose had for once succumbed did not appear so very heinous to her, who had, in her short wedded experience, grown so familiar with its existence in the person of acquaintances and others, as to have in some measure grown callous to its enormity.

After ascertaining the head and front of the delinquent's offending, her counsel contained a strong recommendation to mercy, though it was, nevertheless, permeated with a little of that mischievous spirit which had formed so striking a feature in the conduct of her own affairs in similar critical conjunctures. While advising that young Melrose should finally be restored to favour, she suggested that he should be subjected to a short probation, made designedly as trying to his patience and powers of endurance as was quite possible in the circumstances; and this was the course at length pursued, with such modifications, however, as Nelly's peculiar temperament led her to adopt. Notwithstanding, as Robert's leave of absence was strictly limited to a definite period, the day primarily fixed saw the young, and, despite late events, happy pair set off for their city home, followed by the blessing of their old and the hearty congratulations of their young acquaintances. At first, the young wife was lost in amazement and even dismay, at the eagerness, bustle, and variety presented in the course of a city residence, so opposed to the sameness, tranquillity, and simple pursuits previously familiar to her contracted experience. But these feelings soon subsided, as she became engrossed by the duties and avocations imposed by her altered domestic relations; and to those uninitiated in household mysteries, the incessant occupation and unfading interest afforded by Nelly's small house, within a house, so common in Scottish cities, and known to dwellers and others therein as a flat, would have proved an amusing study.

Notwithstanding her mother's prognostications, Nelly possessed all the elements of a careful, thrifty housewife. Then what hours of unalloyed happiness were those, when her husband returned at the close of his daily labours to his own pleasant fireside, and the events of the day were detailed, in purposely prolonged, but yet not tedious terms. To what social enjoyment, what private communings, and what solitary musings, that indispensable accessary of our British homes, a fire, has been a faithful, silent witness; and the one immediately under our notice was no exception to this observation, for what long pent-up revelations of tenderness were exchanged!—what brilliant prophecies were hopefully uttered in Nelly's home, within the circle of its genial beams! Alas! that those bright lim nings of the future had no parallel in actual, veritable experience, for care and anxiety soon reared their heads within this miniature Eden, and he who wrought the direful change the tempter-was one of those individuals known in popular phraseology as good fellows, and no one's enemies but their own,' as if ever human being was so completely isolated from his kind, as to be placed in a position to inflict injury upon himself, without irreparably influencing the comfort, happiness, and, it may be, ultimate fate of others. The links of morality are too closely and inseparably interwoven for that. The person referred to, named David Lawson, was a fellow-clerk of young Melrose's, and this business connection had, in the first place, originated in the intimacy between them—an intimacy speedily cemented by the liveliness and talent for narrative and repartee which characterised Lawsonqualities, unhappily, but too fascinating to the buoyant temperament and social nature of our friend Robert. While unable to appreciate, and consequently unwilling to share, the simple and unexpensive pleasure of Robert's happy home, Lawson too often succeeded in beguiling him beyond its precincts, sometimes by temptations skilfully adapted to his peculiarities and predilections; and oftener still, by sly, through laughing insinuations, that Nelly's influence

possessed something of the nature of authority-insinuations calculated to arouse the jealous pride of the character which he addressed; and Nelly was frequently left to muse on the dissipation of those bright visions which she had so loved to indulge. But it never entered into her conceptions to upbraid her husband for these repeated absences, acutely as she might feel, and bitterly as she might deplore them, and however irksome the complete solitude in which they involved her might appear; for the almost morbid timidity of her nature had prevented her from forming any very intimate acquaintances, and her nice sense of duty would have precluded the idea of a confidante in any case. Sometimes, on his return, Robert marked a red circle around her eyes, contrasting painfully with the never-changing smile of welcome on her lip, and which conveyed a keener reproach than the most stinging words could possibly have done. On these occasions he gave vehement and completely voluntary promises of reformation, which were, alas! speedily, and, he would fain have persuaded himself, involuntarily broken.

Matters proceeded in this unsatisfactory manner for a considerable period, until at length Nelly became the mother of a little one, whom, with all the earnest, touching faith of youthful maternity, she fondly hoped would be the harbinger of better days, and a powerful link to bind its father to his home. This object was, however, effected, temporarily, at least, in an unexpected and less desirable way. During the winter subsequent to the birth of her child, Nelly's health became so delicate, as to afford much cause for solicitude and anxiety; and nothing could now exceed the devotion and tenderness manifested by the really kind and warmhearted, though, unhappily, thoughtless young husband, stimulated, as he now was, by a self-reproachful sense of past neglect. But, as his business avocations did not admit of his attending her so closely as the circumstances demanded, her mother was finally summoned to aid in the work of nursing and cheering the invalid. Soon the anxious attendants were rewarded by perceiving the hue of health once more returning to her cheek; and, as the new year approached, her light tread sometimes echoed through her home, and her blithe voice was heard carolling nursery ditties, or addressing words of playful endearment to her thriving little one. When Hogmanay arrived, anticipating a happy evening, she busied herself in performing the many little household duties neglected or postponed during her tedious illness, and, for the first time since that illness had assumed a serious character, she anticipated her mother in opening the street-door for her husband on his return, and smilingly received his affectionate congratulations on her recovered health and spirits. The evening repast was soon prepared, and with it was produced the baby, rejoicing in all the glory of long robes; and Mrs Bannatyne, being in an unusually genial mood, a happier family party could scarcely have been discovered within the city boundaries, until Robert happened casually to mention that David Lawson meditated a thorough reformation of life, and, as a preliminary step in this desirable process, was about to form a matrimonial alliance, and had invited him to accompany him that night on a visit to the bride elect. Nelly, scarcely yet perfectly convalescent, and finding her hope of enjoying her husband's society overthrown through the machinations of the old enemy of her domestic happiness, burst into a passionate flood of tears, much to her own dismay, and greatly to the indignation of her mother, who cherished a profound antipathy to anything partaking in the slightest degree of the nature of a scene.' But Robert, amiably considerate of his wife's nervous and weakened condition, hastened to soothe and re-assure her, by declaring most emphatically that he purposed remaining at home, and to this altered determination he most assuredly intended to adhere. But Mrs Bannatyne, to whom her daughter had invariably disclosed but the sunny side of her experience, and who had witnessed but little in her son-in-law's conduct to suggest any doubts as to the fidelity of these representations, commenced declaiming, in most diffuse and energetic terms, on what she termed

Nelly's selfishness in wishing to deprive her husband of an opportunity of enjoying a little recreation, after the uninterrupted confinement to which he had been so long subjected, and which he had so patiently endured, until at length Nelly became convinced that she had desired to claim a most unwarrantable exaction; and she was now as anxious that her husband should avail himself of the invitation extended to him as she had been previously averse to his so doing. Robert, however, penetrating the motive which dictated her solicitations, would most probably have refused to comply with them, had not young Lawson entered at this critical conjuncture to claim the fulfilment of his friend's promise, and nothing remained for the friend apparently but compliance. It was Nelly who bestowed the finishing touches of her husband's toilet previous to his departure, disposing the bow of his neckcloth, as he often declared no other hand ever did, or could, dispose it, and shading back his dark locks from his brow with careful though trembling hand, blushing the while with a womanly pride, which his manly bearing and really handsome countenance might well excuse and justify. But oh! Nelly, Nelly, was there nothing prophetic in that long, lingering clasp of his hand-in that breathless, gasping attempt to return his playful adieu, and acknowledge his self-imposed promise of an early returnin that wistful, straining gaze bent on his beaming face and finally receding figure-and in the vain endeavour to catch the sound of his retreating footsteps, long after they had died away in the distance? Ah! loving, faithful wife, there was a wild foreboding at thine heart, causing every pulse to thrill with a strange, undefinable prescience -one of those dark, mystical shadows of which philosophy has never dreamt, but the reality of which, nevertheless, the experience of many a simple nature can verify. Some time elapsed, but, long before the period when Robert might be reasonably expected to return, Mrs Bannatyne insisted on her daughter retiring. And though extremely doubtful of the necessity or propriety of so doing, Nelly was fain to comply, as she had never learned to consider that her new relation as a wife cancelled her old obligations as a daughter. But had her spirits been ever so uninfluenced by care, depression, or the nervousness incident to recent illness, sleep would still have been out of the question, as festive parties held their revels above, around, and beneath her, and the shout of the bacchanal or the tread of the dancer smote, in unwearied succession or inharmonious concert on her ear, relieved at intervals by a medley of old and beautiful Scottish songs, executed, however, with much more energy and display of physical strength than was compatible with a correct taste, or a strict attention to melody. But, one by one, these and other similar noisy assemblages dispersed; intoxicated parties stumbled up stairs, and others similarly circumstanced stumbled down; some, accompanied and assisted by more discreet and temperate friends, and others accomplishing the difficult feat alone, happily unconscious of the wounds and bruises contracted in their perilous descent. But still Nelly listened in vain for the well-known footstep, which she could distinguish amidst a thousand. A long interval had elapsed; the little kitchen clock had proclaimed that the new year was some three hours old, and no sounds now disturbed the silence of the night, save the pattering drops of a falling shower, the heavy, systematic tread of the night police on their respective beats, and the occasional plash or senseless shout of some drunken reveller, as he was prostrated in the dark muddy street. Still Robert Melrose did not return; and his wife, now thoroughly alarmed, and unable any longer to endure her suspense and agitation, passively has arisen, and is sitting in darkness, listening vacantly to her mother's somnolent breathings, and weeping bitterly, as she clasps her unconscious infant to her bosom. She has sat thus long, very long, she thinks, when suddenly a tread, as of a multitude, is heard, wending up the street. It comes nearer and nearer still, and Nelly holds her breath in terror as the sound of many, though suppressed voices ascend the stairs. They have stopped on her landing-place;

and, unmindful in her agony of the natural feelings of maternity, the mother has forgotten her 'sucking child,' and almost flinging it from her into its cradle, and flying rather than running towards the door, she has opened it before a hand extended to ring the bell has accomplished its purpose. The light of a policeman's lamp is glaring on her colourless face, and a murmur of commiserating voices has fallen on her ear unheeded, for all her faculties are absorbed in the contemplation of a shrouded and apparently heavy burden, borne by a body of men, who retreat a step into the gloom, as they encounter her wild glance of inquiry. At length a voice has broken the deathlike silence that held the crowd in thrall, and, in accents trembling and broken with suppressed emotion, has explained, That Mr Melrose has been hurt, but that he'll no be much the waur the morn.' The wife has silently motioned to the bearers to bring him in, and they have done so, and have laid him gently on the couch indicated. She then kneels beside him, but, as she raises the covering thrown lightly over his face, one wild, piercing shriek has echoed through the dwelling, appalling the stoutest heart there, and summoning her mother to her side. Nelly's eyes are rivetted on the dear face, so beaming and handsome but a few hours before, but now so distorted by pain, and so disfigured and concealed by gory clots and streaks, that the eye of affection alone could have recognised it. The crowd has dispersed, intuitively feeling that such grief is too profound and sacred for a stranger's gaze; and doctors have been summoned, who, after ascertaining the nature of the sufferer's wounds, decline any active interference, shake their heads, and look puzzled, and scared, and impotent, as even the faculty will do when brought face to face with the great last enemy, scythe in hand, and mocking alike the struggles of nature, the expedients of medical science, and, alas! the wildest pleadings of human agony and wo. But Nelly kneels there still, offering up one voiceless prayer, that, nevertheless, for fervour and intensity, might have well pierced heaven's arches, and reached the ever-open Ear: a prayer that the dying man might enjoy an interval of consciousness previous to his demise, were it restricted to a moment, in which to express a feeling of penitence, and a hope of mercy. This desire was mercifully granted. As the cold, pale beams of a January morning dawned into the sufferer's chamber, a gleam of intelligence lit his hitherto dull, glazed eye, and clasping Nelly's hand convulsively, he uttered a few words, so faintly, however, as to be inaudible to all but her to whom they were addressed. But she caught and treasured them within her heart, as the seed of the brightest hopes she was henceforth to enjoy in her lonely pilgrimage through life. The ravings of delirium were the next sounds that fell on her ear, sounds sometimes, perhaps, more terrible than the silence of lethargy, or even the stillness of death. But that unchangeable stillness soon succeeded, and Nelly was released from the embrace of the dead, for the time being happily unconscious of her bereaved condition.

The fatal accident admitted of a very simple and natural explanation. The unfortunate man, enticed by strong drink, and the example of his thoughtless companion, had proceeded from house to house first-footing, completely unmindful of his promise of an early return to his home; until, when he had finally remembered, and was about to perform this promise, his foot slipped on a piece of orangepeel, or other similar substance, carelessly thrown by some individual on a stair landing-place, and he was immediately precipitated down the adjoining steep stairs, and thus received the contusions which had terminated so fatally. It was long before the disconsolate widow learned these particulars, as she lay for weeks in a hopeless and insensible condition, prostrated by a lingering fever, receiving strength and consciousness but to find herself childless as well as widowed-her infant, deprived of its natural sustenance, having pined away, and been laid beside its father in an early grave.

The young widow returned to her native village, remaining with her mother till the death of the latter,

when, coming into possession of a very limited independence, she yielded to an indefinable longing to revisit the scene of her short wedded life, and finally took up her permanent abode in its vicinity. The afflictive dispensation had served to develop and mature much latent energy of character, necessary to the impetus and proper direction of her affectionate impulses; and she endeavoured to forget her own sorrows in the prosecution of those works of usefulness and benevolence in which we found her engaged. Poor Aunt Nelly! how pregnant with bitter memories did the exclamation quoted in the commencement of our tale appear, when we had learned her melancholy history! a history that may well convey a serious moral. But alas! the stream of social life teems with many such morals, some lying hidden within its dark depths, and others floating in visible clusters on its surface, arresting the attention, but in few cases affecting the conduct of superficial and volatile observers.

THE HUMANITIES OF WAR. LET us never forget that our enemies are men. Though reduced to the disagreeable necessity of prosecuting our right by force of arms, let us not divest ourselves of that charity which connects us with all mankind. Thus shall we courageously defend our country's rights without viclating those of human nature. Let our valour preserve itself from every stain of cruelty, and the lustre of victory will not be tarnished by inhuman and brutal actions. Marius and Attila are now detested; whereas we cannot forbear admiring and loving Cæsar; his generosity and clemency almost tempt us to overlook the injustice of his undertaking. Moderation and generosity redound more to the glory of a victor than his courage; they are more certain marks of an exalted soul. Besides the honour which infallibly accompanies those virtues. humanity towards an enemy has been often attended with immediate and real advantages. Leopold, duke of Austria, besieging Soleure, in the year 1318, threw a bridge over the Aar, and posted on it a large body of troops. Soon after, the river having by an extraordinary swell of its waters carried away the bridge, together with those who were stationed on it, the besieged hastened to the relief of those unfortunate men, and saved the greatest part of them. Leopold relenting at this act of generosity, raised the siege, and made peace with the city. The Duke of Cumberland, after his victory of Dettingen, appears to me still greater than in the heat of battle. As he was under the surgeon's hands, a French officer, much more dangerously wounded than himself, being brought that way, the Duke immediately ordered his surgeon to quit him, and assist that wounded enemy. If men in exalted stations did but conceive how great a degree of affection and respect attends such actions, they would study to imitate them, even when not prompted to the practice by native elevation of sentiment. At present, the European nations generally carry on their wars with great moderation and generosity. These dispositions have given rise to several customs which are highly commendable, and frequently carried to the extreme of politeness. Sometimes refreshments are sent to the governor of a besieged town, and it is usual to avoid firing on the king's or general's quarters. We are sure to gain by this moderation, when we have to do with a generous enemy; but we are not bound to observe it any further than can be done without injuring the cause we defend, and it is clear that a prudent general will, in this respect, regulate bis conduct by the circumstances of the case, by an attention to the safety of the army and of the state, by the magnitude of the danger, and by the character and behaviour of the enemy. Should a weak nation or town be attacked by a furious conqueror who threatened to destroy it, are the defenders to forbear firing on his quarters? Far from it; that is the very place to which, if possible, every shot should be directed. Formerly, he who killed the king or general of the enemy was commended and rewarded; the honours annexed, the spolia opima, are well known. Nothing was more natural in former times; the belligerent

nations had, almost in every instance, their safety and very existence at stake, and the death of the leader put an end to the war. In our days, a soldier would not dare to boast of having killed the enemy's king. Thus sovereigns tacitly agree to secure their own persons. It must be owned, that in a war which is carried on with no great animosity, and where the safety and existence of the state are not involved in the issue, this regard for legal majesty is perfectly commendable; and even to take away the life of the enemy's sovereign, when it might be spared, is, perhaps, doing that nation a greater degree of harm than is necessary for bringing the contest to a happy issue.

But it is not one of the laws of war that we should on every occasion spare the person of the hostile king; we are not bound to observe that moderation except where we have a fair opportunity of making him prisoner. On this subject let us notice a trait of Charles XII. of Sweden, in which sound reason and the most exalted courage are equally conspicuous. That prince, being engaged in the siege of Thorn in Poland, and frequently walking round the city, was easily distinguished by the cannoneers, who regularly fired upon him as soon as they saw him make his appearance. The principal officers of his army, greatly alarmed at their sovereign's danger, wished to have information sent to the governor that, if the practice was continued, no quarter should be granted either to him or to the garrison. But the Swedish monarch would never permit such a step to be taken, telling his officers that the governor and the Saxon cannoneers were perfectly right in acting as they did, that it was himself who made the attack upon them, and that the war would be at an end if they could kill him, whereas they would reap very little advantage even from killing the principal officers of his army.-Vattel's Law of Nations.

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LORD MONBODDO AND HIS MEN WITH TAILS.' ALL the world has heard of Lord Monboddo, and his 'men with tails,' like those of monkeys. General readers of the present day, however, are apt to consider the whole affair as a mere joke, got up against his lordship by some malicious contemporaries, and to assume that he never seriously put forth the doctrine that there existed actual human beings with tails. But the case stands otherwise. Lord Monboddo did really and truly believe in the existence of homines caudati (tailed men), and produced on paper many serious arguments in support of his opinion. As his work on the 'Origin and Progress of Language,' in which the subject is discussed, can now be found but in the larger established libraries, it may amuse some readers to see what the ingenious, though eccentric, Scottish judge has to say in defence of his whimsical hypothesis.

Unlike the author of the 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,' Lord Monboddo does not aver that the human race were all indisputably simious (apish) at one time, simply because that condition lay in the way of their progress upwards from bestiality to humanity. His lordship does not hold man to have gone through countless previous forms of being before arriving at monkey-hoodthe state nearest to the one now attained by him. He merely argues that there is the strongest ground for imagining that a variety of the human family exists up to this period, in whom the os coccyx, which terminates the spinal column in ordinary mortals, is so extended as to form a tail, of greater or lesser longitude, and appearing externally. It has been usually said that Monboddo declared the race to have lost their tails gradually, as man advanced from all-fours to the upright sitting position, merely from their being worn away. But his lordship says no such thing directly. He but argues specially for the continued existence of the homo caudatus as a variety of man, and conceives that the known divisions of the race are in reality discriminated as strongly by skin-colours, and other peculiarities, as they could be by tails and no tails. As a natural appendix to his proposition, he holds that the ourang-outang is also but a variety of the human race; the tailed man being the link between the civilised creature and the wild species

of the woods. But he carries humanity no lower than the ourang-outang. The whole of the common and smaller monkey tribes belong, according to him, to the inferior orders of animals. In this respect, his theory differs completely from the 'ceaseless progression' theory laid down in the 'Vestiges.'

Such is the comparatively moderate length to which Lord Monboddo goes; and, before citing part of his own ingenious argumentation on this subject, we ought to remark that he has been laughed at not quite fairly, inasmuch as the famous naturalist Linnæus held opinions very nearly akin, in some important respects, to those of the Scottish Judge of Session. In corresponding with the latter respecting the statements of a Swedish voyager, named Keoping, who declared himself to have seen men with tails like cats' in some of the eastern isles, Linnæus remarks, that long after the voyage of Keoping, in 1647, another sea-captain (Bontius) saw 'tailed men' in the same regions. The learned Swede quotes other authorities to the like effect, but adds, homo caudatus non loquitur (the tailed man does not speak'). Lord Monboddo, so far sensible, seemingly, of the objectional force of this distinctive feature, endeavours to obviate it by showing how imperfectly many admitted tribes of mankind speak; and he will not exclude the ourang-outang from the human family for his want of articulated language, contending that speech is a matter of acquisition wholly, from the croak of the raven up to the os rotundum of humanity. But one thing is certain on his side, namely, that Linnæus called the tailed creature of the voyagers 'a man.' Nay, he admitted of another species besides the caudatus, styling it, from its habits, the homo nocturnus, or night-man' (not quite the same, it may be supposed, with the functionary bearing that appellation in civilised cities). Linnæus points out, moreover, that a large Chinese work in his own possession, containing numerous plates, most distinctly describes and figures a tailed variety of mankind. So that the famous Swede ought to bear his share of the ridicule, so long directed against Lord Monboddo particularly.

'I am convinced,' says the Scottish judge, 'that we have not discovered all the variety of nature, even in our own species. That there are men with tails, such as the ancients gave to their satyrs, is a fact so well attested, that I think it cannot be doubted.' His lordship allows, that those who have not studied the subject may think this story of men with tails very ridiculous. But the philo sopher, who is more disposed to inquire, than to laugh and deride, will not reject it, at once, as a thing incredible, that there should be such a variety in our species, as well as in the simian tribe, which is so near of kin to us.That there have been individuals in Europe with tails, is, I think, a fact incontestable. Mr Maillet, the author of the description of Egypt, a man of great curiosity and observation, affirms, in a work that he calls Telliamed,' that be himself saw several men of that kind, whom he names, and of whom he gives a particular account. And I could produce legal evidence, by witnesses yet living, of a man in Inverness, one Barber, a teacher of mathematics, who had a tail, about half a foot long; which he carefully concealed during his life, but was discovered after his death, which happened about twenty years ago. Nor will any man, who knows the structure of the human body, and the nature of a tail, which is nothing else but an elongation of the rump-bone, be surprised that this should sometimes happen. Verheyen, a learned anatomist, in the account he gives of the os coccygis, or rump-bone, say, that the os coccyx is a kind of small tail, which, however, does not appear exteriorly in man, as in oxen and other brute animals. Diemerbroeck and Harvey indeed relate that they had seen men, who had tails extending outwardly to the length of a foot, and which tails were undoubtedly formed by the addition of numerous small bones to the ordinary coccyx.' When we look to Diemerbroeck, we find a very particular account of a fact of this kind, in his Anatomy. This coccyx, when prolonged externally, becomes a tail, such as I saw, in the year 1638, in a child newly born.