of the year to the last, in the same time, because he performs all that relates to day and night in the same succession; without giving himself the smallest concern, whether, according to our mode of computation, it be early or late.

By this means, the great concourse of passen. gers, both on foot and in carriages, which are seen in all the great towns in Italy, especially on sundays and holidays, in the principal streets and squares; and thus at the Corso of Rome, and at the Carnival, an enormous multitude of intractable people, by this mode of reckoning the hours, are guided and managed, as it were by a string. Nay, by dividing day and night so distinctly from each other, certain bounds are set to luxury, which so readily confounds day and night together, and uses the one for the purposes of the other.

I grant that the Italian might lead the same course of life, and yet compute the hours after our method; but the instance that separates day and night, is to him, under his propitious sky, the most important epoch of the day. It is even sacred to him, as the church always enjoins the vespers according to this point of time. I took notice, both at Florence and Milan, that several persons, though the public clocks are all marked with figures in the manner of our's, yet continued their watches and regulated their domestic œconomy in the old mode of computation. From all this, to which I might add a great deal more, it will be readily acknowledged; that this method of computing time, which, to astronomers, with whom noon is the most important point of the day, may appear contemptible, and to the northern stranger convenient, is yet very well calculated for a nation who live conformably to nature, under a happy temperature of climate, and would fix the main epochs of its time in the most determinate and striking manner.

HE bill of this beautiful bird is white, tipped Twith block, is beautehead is white,

rich scarlet colour, which is divided by a line passing from each corner of the bill to the eyes, which are black; the cheeks are white; top of the head black, which extends downwards on each side, dividing the white on the cheeks from the white spot on the hind part of the head; the back, rump, and breast are of a pale brown colour; belly white; greater wing coverts black; quills black, marked in the midddle of each feather with yellow, forming, when the wing is closed, a large patch of that colour on the wing; the tips white; the tail feathers are black, with a white spot on each near the end; the legs are of a pale flesh colour.

Beauty of plumage, says the lively Count de Buffon, melody of song, sagacity, and docility of disposition, seem all united in this charming little bird, which, were it rare, and imported from a foreign country, would be more highly valued. Goldfinches begin to sing early in the spring, and continue till the time of breeding is over; when kept in a cage, they will sing the greatest part of the year. In a state of confinement they are much attached to their keepers, and will learn a variety of little tricks, such as to draw up small buckets containing their water and food, to fire a cracker, and such like. They construct a very neat and compact nest, which is composed of moss, dried grass, and roots, lined with wool, hair, the down of thistles, and other soft and delicate substances: -the female lays five white eggs, marked with spots of a deep purple colour at the larger end: they feed their young with caterpillars and insects} the old birds feed on various kinds of seeds, particularly the thistle, of which they are extremely fond.-Goldfinches breed with the Canary; this intermixture succeeds best between the cock Goldfinch and the hen Canary, whose offspring are productive, and are said to resemble the male in the shape of the bill, in the colours of the head and wings, and the hen in the rest of the body.

THE MOUNTAIN FINCH.

Length somewhat above six inches: bill yellowblackish at the tip; eyes hazel; the feathers on the head, neck, and back are black, edged with rusty. brown; sides of the neck, just above the wings, blue ash; rump white; the throat, fore part of the neck, and breast, are of a pale orange; belly white; lesser wing coverts pale reddish brown, edged with white; greater coverts black, tipped with pale yellow; quills dusky, with pale yellowish

1

edges; the tail is forked, the outermost feathers edged with white, the rest black, with whitish edges; legs pale brown.

The Mountain Finch is a native of northern climates, from whence it spreads into various parts of Europe: it arrives in this country the latter end of summer, and is more frequent in the mountainous parts of our island. They have been seen on the Cumberland hills in the middle of August. Great flocks of them sometimes come together, they fly very close, and on that account great numbers of them are frequently killed at one shot. In France, says Buffon, they appear sometimes in such immense numbers, that the ground where they roosted has been covered with their dung for a considerable space; and in one year they were so numerous, that more than six hundred dozen were killed each night during the greatest part of the winter. They are said to build their nests in fir trees, at a considerable height; it is composed of long moss, and lined with hair, wool, and feathers; the female lays four or five eggs, white, spotted with yellow. The flesh of the Mountain Finch, though bitter, is said to be good to eat, and better than that of the Chaffinch; but its song is much inferior, and is only a disagreeable kind of chirping. It feeds on seeds of various kinds, and is said to be particularly fond of beech mast.

QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Ttration both of the character of this great HE following anecdote is a very curious illusprincess, and of the bad taste of the pulpit eloquence of her age. It is related by a contemporary; and that the naivete of the style may not be lost in the narrative, it is transcribed as it appeared in the original writing:

Our

"There is almost none that waited in Queen Elizabeth's court, and observed any thing, but can tell it pleased her very much to seeme to be thought, and to be tolde, that she looked younge. The majesty and gravity of a scepter born 44 yeeres could not alter that nature of a woman in her. When Bishop Rudd was appointed to preach before her, he wishing, in a godly zeale, as well became him, that she should think sometime of mortality, being then 63 yeeres of age, he tooke his text, fit for that purpose, out of the Psalms. Psalm 90, V. 12. O teach us to NUMBER dayes, that we may incline our hearts unto wisdom; which text he handled most learnedly. But when he spoke of some sacred and mystical numbers, as three for the Trinity, three times three for the Heavenly Hierarchy, seven for the Sabbath, and seven times serven for a Jubilee; and lastly, seven times nine for the grand Climacterical Yeere (her age), she, perceiving whereto it tended, began to be troubled with it. The bishop, discovering all was not well, for the pulpit stood opposite to her Majestie, he fell to treat of some more plausible numbers, as of the number 666, making Latinus, with which he said he could prove the Pope to be Antichrist, &c. He interlarded his sermon with scripture passages, touching the infirmities of age, as that in Ecclesiastes 12.- -When the grynders shall be few in number, and they wax darke that look out of the windows, &c. and the daughters of singing shall be abased, and more to like purpose.-The Queen, as the manner was, opened the window; but she was so farre from giving him thanks, or good countenance, that she said plainly" he should have kept his arithmetic for himself, but I see the greatest clerks are not the wisest men," and so went away discontented.