1 The particular variety of ephemera here described, is an insect of a considerable size. Its body, independent of the tail, measures nearly one inch in length. There are many others of much smaller dimensions, some of them not exceeding one tenth part of this size. The most part of the ephemera tribe belong to the nocturnal clafs of flies; but some of them also make their appearance in the day time. They may all, however, be distinguished from every other clafs of insects, by the particular conformation and consistence of their wings, of which the reader may form an adequate idea from the engraving above given. It accords in many respects with the ephemera vutgata of Linnæus; which he describes specifically in the Syst. Nat. p. 901. No. I. But it differs from that [which has been described with great accuracy by De Geer] in the season of the year when the fly comes abroad, the duration of its life in the fly state, the form of its body, and various other particulars. The figures are taken from Reaumur,, as I could find no specimen of the insect itself. [To be continued.] MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE. General Remarks on Historical Composition. [Continued from Vol. II. page 460.] THE poet from whom I have taken the quotation that stands at the top of this paper, never wrote a practice and not by theory. For though the whole world have been speaking about the study of mankind for many thousand years past; yet, when it is considered in a practical view, the operations of the human mind, as they tend to affect the welfare of society, seem scarcely to have been as yet begun to be adverted to. Since Voltaire wrote his Histoire Generale, most of our historical writers have indeed taken the hint from him, and talked of the progrefs of arts and civilization; but they talk of them as men who have formed their notions from theories only, and not from practical investigations; so that they serve to confound rather than to illustrate. The science of political economy too has been talked of for many years past in every country in Europe; yet the very first principles of that science have scarcely been begun to be established, though the world has been inundated with publications on that subject to such a degree as to perplex the wisest, and entangle the ignorant in the intricate mazes of error. Till these aberrations shall be corrected, we must be contented to trudge on in the dark and muddy paths in which we are bemired; nor can we hope to be benefited by disquisitions on the most important subject that can attract the notice of the historian, until the day shall arise that shall difsipate that darknefs which now so generally prevails. It appears to me, that our progrefs in this useful study has been chiefly retarded by the ill-judged efforts of many who have attempted to elucidate the subject. of political economy. Most of those who have undertaken this task have exhibited it in the light of the most abstruse and incomprehensible of all sciences; and in attempting to develope those principles on which they think it depends, they have been drawn into deep and endless calculations grounded on doubtful and unascertained facts, the conclusions deduced from which operate like rays diverging from a centre, which lead those who follow them farther and farther asunder the longer they proceed, till, by pursuing this ignis fatuus for a sufficient length of time, they lose themselves entirely, and, like a bewildered person, only exhaust their strength by the unavailing efforts they make to extricate themselves from that labyrinth in which they find themselves inclosed. To this cause I am willing to attribute the ineffectual exertion of so much ingenuity as has been idly displayed in those numberless intricate disquisitions on this subject which have been published in our day, and which will doubtlefs in future times be adduced as a striking characteristic of the folly of the present age. Had the welfare of man depended upon the falla-. cious lights of his rational powers alone, he would have been in a situation much more deplorable than any other creature on this globe; and his whole race must have been utterly exterminated many thousand years ago. But such was not the will of Heaven; and that beneficent Being who endowed him with the reasoning faculty, saw it proper at the same time to confer upon him other propensities fufficiently powerful to counteract the baneful influence of this fallacious guide, on which his vanity would have induced him too often to lean with the most destructive confidence. Not only is his life individually preserved by the operation of these mere animal influences for the time al nued; but his existence also as a social being has, by it, been insured against the destructive ravages of this erroneous guide from the beginning of time until the present hour. It is not, therefore, in the depths of human ratiocination that we are to look for the first principle of that association which unites man to man, and impels him so to act as to preserve his existence as a social being under every variety of modification that the sophistry of philosophers, the tyranny of defpots, or the madness of the mob, have been able to devise; but to another principle whose influence is universal, whose operation is steady as the motion of the heavenly bodies, whose power is irresistible, and whose duration must extend to the utmost period of human existence. To the developement of this principle alone then, under the various modifications of which it is susceptible, should the attention of those who wish to obtain a distinct view of the progrefs of civil society, be chiefly directed and fortunately this, like all the other laws of nature, is so simple as to be comprehended with ease by any one who will bestow but a due attention to facts that come within the sphere of his own observation, without giving himself any trouble about those subtle disquisitions which may perplex, but never can tend to enlighten the understanding. I wish it were in my power to adduce a practical illustration of this momentous truth that should be sufficiently clear to prove impressive on the minds of all my readers; for then I should hope to be able to lead them into a train of investigation that would tend much to enlarge the sphere of their own enjoyments, and augment the comforts of others. Let us then, for the sake of this kind of illustra and in attempting to develope those principles on which they think it depends, they have been drawn into deep and endless calculations grounded on doubtful and unascertained facts, the conclusions deduced from which operate like rays diverging from a centre, which lead those who follow them farther and farther asunder the longer they proceed, till, by pursuing this ignis fatuus for a sufficient length of time, they lose themselves entirely, and, like a bewildered person, only exhaust their strength by the unavailing efforts they make to extricate themselves from that labyrinth in which they find themselves inclosed, To this cause. I am willing to attribute the ineffectual exertion of so much ingenuity as has been idly displayed in those numberless intricate disquisitions on this subject which have been published in our day, and which will doubtlefs in future times be adduced as a striking characteristic of the folly of the present age. Had the welfare of man depended upon the falla-. cious lights of his rational powers alone, he would have been in a situation much more deplorable than any other creature on this globe; and his whole race must have been utterly exterminated many thousand years ago. But such was not the will of Heaven; and that beneficent Being who endowed him with the reasoning faculty, saw it proper at the same time to confer upon him other propensities fufficiently powerful to counteract the baneful influence of this fallacious guide, on which his vanity would have induced him too often to lean with the most destructive confidence. Not only is his life individually preserved by the operation of these mere animal influences for the time al |