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seemed still undivided; till the morning, by degrees advancing, completed the separation.

5. The stars are extinguished, and the shades disappear. The forests, which but now seemed black and bottomless gulfs, from whence no ray was reflected to show their form or colours, appear a new creation rising to the sight, catching life and beauty from every increasing beam.

6. The scene still enlarges, and the horizon seems to widen and expand itself on all sides; till the sun, like the great Creator, appears in the East, and with his plastick ray completes the mighty scene.

7. All appears enchantment; and it is with difficulty we can believe we are still on the earth. The senses, unaccustomed to the sublimity of such a scene, are bewildered and confounded; and it is not till after some time, that they are capable of separating and judging of the objects which compose it.

8. The body of the sun is seen rising from the ocean, immense tracts both of sea and land intervening; the islands of Lipa'ri, Pana'ri, Alicu'di, Stromboʻlo, and Volca'no, with their smoking summits, appear under your feet; and you look down on the whole of Sicily as on a map; and can trace every river through all its windings, from its source to its mouth.

9. The view is absolutely boundless on every side; nor is there any one object, within the circle of vision, to interrupt it; so that the sight is every where lost in the immensity.

10. The circumference of the visible horizon on the top of Etna cannot be less than 2,000 miles. At Malta, which is nearly 200 miles distant, they perceive all the eruptions from the second region; and that island is often discovered from about one half of the elevation of the mountain; so that, at the whole elevation, the horizon must extend to nearly 'double that distance.

11. But this is by much too vast for our senses, not intended to grasp so boundless a scene. I find by some of the Sicilian authors, that the African coast, as well as that of Naples. with many of its islands, has been discovered from the top of Etna. Of this, however, we cannot boast, though we can very well believe it.

12. But the most beautiful part of the scene is certainly the mountain itself, the island of Sicily, and the numerous islands lying round it. All these, by a kind of magick in vision, seem as if they were brought close round the skirts of Etna; the distances appearing reduced to nothing.

13. The present crater of the volcano is a circle of about three miles and a half in circumference. It goes shelving down on each side, and forms a regular hollow, like a vast amphitheatre.

14. From many places of this space issue volumes of smoke, which, being much heavier than the circumambient air, instead of rising in it, as smoke generally does, rolls down the side of the mountain like a torrent, till, coming to that part of the atmosphere of the same specifick gravity with itself, it shoots off horizon'tally, and forms a large tract in the air, according to the direction of the wind.

15. The crater is so hot, that it is very dangerous, if not impossible, to go down into it. Besides, the smoke is very incommodious; and, in many places, the surface is so soft, that there have been instances of people's sinking down intc it, and paying for their temerity with their lives.

16. Near the centre of the crater is the great mouth of the volcano. And when we reflect on the immensity of its depth, the vast caverns whence so many lavas have issued; the force of its internal fire, sufficient to raise up those lavas to so great a height; the boiling of the matter, the shaking of the mountain, the explosion of flaming rocks, &c., we must allow, that the most enthusiastick* imagination, in the midst of all its terrours, can hardly form an idea more dreadful.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO SCHOOL-BOYS, ON DANCING.

Harry. TOM, when are you going to begin your dancing?

You will be so old in a short time as to be ashamed to be seen taking your five positions.

Thomas. I don't know as I shall begin at all. Father says he don't care a fig whether I learn to jump any better

* Pronounced en-thu-zhe-as'tik.

than I do now; and, as I am to be a tradesman, he is determined, at present, to keep me at the reading and writing schools.

Har. That must be very dull and dry for you. And what good will all such learning do you, so long as you make the awkward appearance you do at present? I am surprised at your father's folly. So, because you are to be a tradesman, you are not to learn the graces! I expect to learn a trade too. But my papa says I shall first learn the dancing trade; and then, if I never learn any other, I shall make my way through the world well enough.

Tom. I don't know which discovers the most folly, your father or mine. Old folks certainly know more than young ones; and my father is much the oldest man.

Har. I don't believe that doctrine. There's Jack Upstart knows more than his father and mother both, and he is but nineteen yet. And he says the present generation, under five and twenty years of age, knows more than fifteen generations that have gone before us.

Tom. I don't know how that is. But father early taught me this proverb, "Young folks think old folks are fools; but old folks know young ones to be so." But to return to schools-Pray how far have you gone in your arithmetick? Har. Arithmetick! I have not begun that yet; nor shall I till I have completed dancing. That is a nurly study; I know I never shall like it.

Tom. Writing, I suppose, you are fond of.

Har. I can't say I am, Tom. I once had a tolerable fondness for it; but, since I began dancing, I have held it in utter contempt. It may be well enough for a person to write a legible hand; but it is no mark of a gentleman to write elegantly.

Tom. You would have a gentleman spell well, I suppose. Har. I would have him spell so well as to be understood; and that is enough for any man.

Tom. What say you to grammar and geography?

Har. Don't name them, I entreat you. There is nothing so much abhor, as to hear your learned school-boys jabbering over their nouns, their pronouns, their verbs, their parables, their congregations, their imperfections, and confluctions. I'll tell you what, Tom,-I had rather be mas

ter of one hornpipe, than to understand all the grammars which have been published since the art of printing was discovered.

Tom. I am sorry, friend Harry, to hear you speak so contemptuously of the solid sciences. I hope you don't mean to neglect them entirely. If you do, you must expect to live in poverty, and die the scorn and derision of all wise

men.

Har. Never fear that, Tom. I shall take care of myself, I warrant you. You are much mistaken in your prognostications. Why, there's Tim Fiddlefaddle-he can't even write his name; and, as for reading, he scarcely knows B from a broomstick; and yet he can dance a minuet with any master of the art in Christendom. And the ladies all love him dearly. He is invited to their balls, routs, assemblies, card parties, &c. &c., and he diverts them like any monkey.

Tom. And does he expect it will be the same through life? How is he to be maintained when he becomes old? and how is he to amuse himself after he is unable to dance; as you say he neither can read nor write?

Har. Why, in fact, I never thought of these things before. I confess there appears to be some weight in these queries. I don't know but it will be best for me to spare a day or two in a week from my dancing, to attend to the branches you are pursuing.

Tom. You will make but little progress in that way. My master always told me that the solid sciences ought to be secured first; and that dancing might come in by and by He says, when his scholars have once entered the dancingschool, their heads, in general, are so full of balls, assemblies, minuets, and cotillons, that he never can find much room for any thing else.

Har. I will still maintain it, notwithstanding all you can say in favour of your solid sciences, as you call them, that the art of dancing is the art of all arts. It will, of itself, carry a man to the very pinnacle of fame. Whereas, without it, all your writing, arithmetick, grammar and geography will not raise one above the common level of a clown.

Tom. I am no enemy to dancing, I assure you, friend Harry. It is an accomplishment suitable enough for those

to learn who expect to have but little else to do. But for you and me, who are destined to get our living by some mechanical profession, there are doubtless many pursuits more advantageous. I think we ought to employ but a very small part of our time in learning to dance. We will suppose, for instance, that you learn the trade of a carpenter; I would ask you, if it would not be necessary to understand figures, so that you might be able to keep your own accounts; and so much geometry as to be able to measure heights and distances, superficies* and solids? Would it not be very convenient to know a little of history, in order to acquaint yourself with the various orders of architecture, and where they had their origin? If you were shown a picture of St. Peter's Church, or a plan of Grand Cairo, would you not like to know enough of geography to tell in what part of the world they are situated?

Har. These are subjects which cousin Tim says never are agitated in the fashionable circles which he visits. And so I bid you good by.

EXTRACT FROM MR. JOHN Q. ADAMS'S ORATION DELIV ERED AT BOSTON, JULY 4, 1793.

AMERICANS! let us pause for a moment to consider the situation of our country, at that eventful day when our national existence commenced. In the full possession and enjoyment of all those prerogatives for which you then dared to adventure upon "all the varieties of untried being," the calm and settled moderation of the mind is scarcely competent to conceive the tone of her'oism, to which the souls of freemen were exalted in that hour of perilous magnanimity.

2. Seventeen times has the sun, in the progress of his annual revolutions, diffused his prolifick radiance over the plains of Independent America. Millions of hearts, which then palpitated with the rapt'urous glow of pa'triotism, have already been translated to brighter worlds; to the abodes *Pronounced su-per-fish'ez. ar-ke-tek'tshure.

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