Dr. Gerard Boate, a Dutch phyfician, employed in the army in Ireland. of "The Natural History of Ireland," invaluable advantages to be derived from by Grierfon, in 1726, the greater part our animal vegetable, and foffil kingdoms. written, about fixty years before, by But let us turn our eyes to brighter profpects which now begin to open to us. The exertions of the excellent fpeaker of the houfe of commons, and of that honour to our country, Richard Kirwan, efq the first minerologift in Europe, and thofe of other patriots, with the laudable liberality of government, have given us a cabinet of foffils, collected by the ablest minerologift in Germany, and now depofited at the Dublin Society's houfe in Poolbeg ftreet. The foundation of a noble library of natural history, under the fame aufpicious patronage, is laid at the fame place. Here the young naturalist may cherish and improve his tafte for this elegant and ufeful ftudy, and by practice and difcoveries enrich his country. The other articles in this compilation evince the low state of botany, ornithology, zoology, and, above all, minerology. It is not now generally known, that Dr. Nichollon, the antiquary, when bishop of Derry, in 1725, intended to write the natural hiftory of his diocefe The easiest and most effectual mode of accomplishing this, was to prevail on his clergy to make collections in their refpective parishes with his requeft many complied; particularly the Rev. Robert Innes, rector of Magilligan, in the county of Derry; who publifhed, in London, 1732, feven letters, addreffed to his lordship. Thofe that relate to our fubject are : The others are on gravity, the tides, We fhall not dwell on Barton's Lectures on Lough Neagh, or Hamilton's Letters on Antrim, because they are well known; nor on fome papers in the Philofophical Tranfactions; but only remark, that if the whole that has been written fince the age of Cambrenfis was collected, it would exhibit a more imperfect view of the natural history of Ireand than is to be found of Otaheite or Kamchatka. It is fufficient to afcertain the fact, without entering into a laborious investigation of the caufe. One fatal effect refulting from the little attention paid to natural hiftory is, our ignorance of its varidepartments, and, confequently of the Vol. III. January 1794. To realize thefe delightful ideas, I fubmit one or two confiderations to the patriotic Dublin Society. It feems to me, that to render what they have already done operative and useful, an able minerologift fhould immediately be appointed to refide in the house, and give inftructions to the indigent man of genius without fee, and to others at a reafonable rate. A fcience lefs complicated than minerology requires a teacher. For four months in the year this refident minerologist, or profeffor, fhould examine certain diftricts pointed out to him by the fociety, or a committee of it, and augment the cabinet with frish specimens. In a few years the phyfical geography of Ireland would be perfectly known, and an inexhauftible fund of materials and employment would be developed. This establishment need not exceed 5ool. per annum. A chemical fchool would be an indifpenfible addition to the cabinet. — The expence of this fhould be limited: fay that the whole would stand the nation in one thoufand pounds a year; I will venture to affert, no fcheme can be devised fo immediately productive, or of fuch extenfive advantage. Befides, we have a Kirwan to direct and fuperintend the whole !-What age will produce his equal? How few are the geniufes floating on the ocean time! IN this attempt to deduce from analogy the generation of the masonic society, it is not my purpose to give a rigorous exclufive proof of their origin: the reader mult be content with strong and peculiar refemblances where fcientific demonftration is excluded from the nature of the fubject. In every fociety founded under local determinations, as the fociety is enlarged, the firft diftinc tive marks become proportionably evanefcent; and, from constant substitution of new conditions, adapted to each new people, the primitive character is almoft worn away, as fruits tranfplanted to a foreign foil, at the firft diminish in flavour, and, ftill farther removed, must lofe in the end their original name. That the Egyptians have been the firft conquerors in Afia, and the firft to form a conftitution of civil manners and religion, diftinct from partial and arbitrary fuperftition, is a truth which every novice in ancient history can tell. Their first conquerors were their first gods; at leaft, thofe who first taught them the arts of peace and of agriculture: to these practices the more fecret ftudies, called magic arts, fucceeded: their fciences were famous to a proverb in Afia and Europe they were the firft to inculcate, by mysterious rites, the doctrine of a future ftate, a future judgment, the immortality of the foul, the pre-existence of fpiritual fubftances, the descent of thefe into body, and the arts of propitiation for fin. This immenfe population of Egypt, and the law by which each family was obliged to follow the profeffion of their ancestors, must have naturally forced to emigration, as it has done in France during this past century. The adventurers brought with them, in their wanderings, their native religion, and their magical fleights; which latter they used for procuring fubfiftence, by exciting pity or wonder amongst the common people they became at last so notorious, that the name of Planus, or strolling Charlatan, grew into the fignification of an Egyptian juggler. This name is always technically ufed by Cicero, by Lucian, and by Horace; where the im poftor fwears by Ofiris", the exclufive divinity of Egypt, and is told to go and feek his fortune in fome other country. Even in the new teftament we learn, that the execrable priesthood which has defamed Chrift our Lord, as practicer of necromantic arts, after they had procured his murder, willing to prevent his refurrection, addrefs themselves to Pilate as follows :---"Lord, we remember that this Egyptian impoftor has boastedd." Hence, alfo Celfus, as we learn from Origen, was taught the fable of Chrift's nativity in Egypt, and of his magical frauds. From a pofitive text of Apuleius we may infer, that the divinity of Egypt, or prolific animated nature, had pervaded every country, Greece, Affyria, and Sicily:-" Moved by thy ardent prayers, I have approached thee, my Lucius. Me, the Phrygians of remo NOTE S. telt : teft antiquity have named the mother of gods, that abideth at Peffinum again, the earth-born inhabitants of Attica call me the Cecropian Minerva : thofe of Elufis, the primitive goddess Ceres: laftly, the Egyptians, first of all in traditionary and mystic wisdom, entitle me by my true name, Ifis, their queen, and worfhip me with holy rites and ceremonies entirely peculiar." In Italy the Saturnalia were of a fimilar nature: fince Ofis, their goddefs, and wife of Saturn, was nothing else than Ifis, or fruitful nature a name ufed, in ancient times, by the Greeks themselves; as we fee in Owen (Opore), the autumn, or feafon of Ops; that is, returning fruits and in the Latin, Inops, and Opulentus; which denote abundance, or want of temporary poffeffion; as Peculium denotes poffeffion in kind. Yet fuch is the confufion of ancient fable, that it cannot be determined by whom in each country thefe religious establishments were introductd: they are referred, in general, to Orpheus and Hercules; but of the hiftory is little known. Hence Hercules is by fome fuppofed a native of Thebes; by the Egyptians is fuppofed an Egyptian (the Greek is, however, reported to have travelled into Egypt); both natives of Thebes, in Boeotia, or in Thebais, and the labours of both confounded If the author of the Opphic verfes can be credited, Hercules had travelled into Colchis; but the amazing and impudent errors of the man prove the forgery. It it, however, proved, from undoubted authority, that Hercules had brought with him, from Egypt, and even inftituted a myfterious initiation, which was practifed in Italyf, Greece, and Afia". Plato and Pythagoras had travelled into NOTE S. trina pollentes Ægyptii ceremoniis me prorsus propriis percolentes appellant vero nomine reginam Ifidem. f Potitii et Pinerii. Bowl-Ifaeus. * Lucian—Περι της συρ' σθέας. Thoughts on the Mifery of a numerous Clafs of Females: particularly addreffed to, thofe of their own Sex, whom God has entrusted with Afflu. ence, for which they must fhortly give account. LE : ET not the seriousnefs of the title deter any daughter of vanity from perufing these few pages with candour and attention. Shall rational beings go through life without one hour's ferious thought either for themfelves or others? And let not the depth of wretchednefs into which those unhappy creatures have been plunged, in whofe behalf this appeal is made, induce any proud fellowfinner to turn away her ear in fcorn. It is in behalf of prostitutes you are addreffed-of poor abandoned proftitutes :but what has made you to differ? Imagine, for a moment, ye women of proud virtue! (if indeed virtue may for a moment be fuppofed affociated with pride) -imagine yourfelves placed in the fame fituation of poverty, ignorance, and temptation, by which fo many of your fex are expofed to vice and ruin; and you fay, that you would not at this moment be as wretched and as profligate as the prostitute you despise? No!—-rather acknowledge, with humble gratitude, the gracious power by which you have been exempted from the trial: and confider how you may employ the means with which you are entrusted, to prevent or alleviate the miferies in which others are involved. dare You pique yourfelves upon the delicacy of your feelings. Let it on this occafion be evinced. A tale of imaginary woe will draw the tear of fenfibility from your eyelids. Let your tears flow now over the real and deeper diftreffes exifting daily in the city in which you live. Contemplate hundreds of women, many of them initiated, from their childhood, into vice by their abandoned parents; many of them driven by penury to feek bread in the ways that their fouls abhorred; many more feduced by the defigning villainy of men, for whose inferual guilt language does not afford a name fufficient to ftigmatize its atrocity; contemplate them from whatever cause, and by whatever steps, engaged in a life of prostitution, and expofed to all its horrid concomitants of infult, brutality, and difeafe; torn with inward anguifh, which they are obliged to disguise; confidered and treated as the outcasts of the earth; and daily plunging deeper and deeper into wretchednefs and vice:view these objects; let the giddy round of diffipation and thoughtlefs folly be interrupted for a moment to afford leisure for contemplating them; and fay, do they not at least claim your pity? And can you turn away your eye without dropping one tear over their miferies, or fubmitting to a moment's reflection whether any thing can be done for the relief? Tell me no more of the tenderness of that heart which feels not for miferies fo great as their's; nor of the value of those feelings which do not prompt to beneficent exertion. If Does any one object-- they have brought their diftreffes on themselves?" I fhall only reply, in words of divine authority" Let her that is without fin among you caft the first fione at them*." But, perhaps, you ask what can we do to remedy the evils of which you draw fuch a melancholy picture?”. you ask the queftion feriously--if you afk it, not with a defire of evading the fubject, but anxious to impart relief, and to know the way of communicating it ;I anfwer, in a few words - Provide fome means of support for those among them, who are willing to return to the paths of industry and virtue. The writer's attendance at the Lock Hofpital, lately inftituted in this city, has obtruded the interesting subject on his mind. Through that hospital many hundreds of thofe poor creatures pafs in the course of a yeart. There the NOTE S. * John viii. 7. liberality From the 20th of Novembe, 1792, to the 17th of October, 1793, there were received into the hofpital nine hundred and feventy-eight patients, befides one thoufand -- rality of our government has provided an occafional afylum, which to many at least retards the time of their falling victims to disease. But with you it now rests to render this noble inftitution permanently efficacious to rescue them from final ruin. What is the fituation of a female fent out of that hofpital after her recovery? She looks back with horror to the vicious courfes which involved her in wretchednefs-inconceivable except to those who have experienced it. She bleffes the compaffion that afforded her a temporary fhelter and relief. But, alas! when the looks forward, famine or renewed proftitution ftares her in the face. Dire alter native! from which, generous daughters of Hibernia! you are called to extricate her. Whither can fhe turn herself for bread? Suppofe fhe is capable of fervice in a family :what family will open its doors to receive her? Befet with temptation from her former companions in wickednefs, caft off by all the reputable part of fociety--perhaps by her own nearest kindred, urged by pinching want, driven, I had almost faid, by neceffity, -what can fhe do? After a few faint truggles to re-enter at the door of virtue, she finds it closed against her; and with blindfold defperation, plunges once more into vice, and is loft for ever: -is loft--unnoticed, unpitied, unlamented by the polite circle of fashionable and virtuous females, who continue the gay round of extravagance and folly, wafting without enjoyment, in midnight dili pation, the fums which might have been bleffedly employed, to rescue their fellow creature and fellow-finner from deftruction, temporal and eternal.. N 0 T E. thousand and feventy-eight externs, who received advice and medicine. Who that hears thofe numbers, but will acknowledge how inadequate the Magdalen Afylum is to the object propofed in this effay? It is an inftitution noble in its defign; but when the multitudes who need the relief, are compared with the few individuals who can receive it there, it must be acknowledged-too, too narrow in its plan. The minifters of Chrift vifits thofe wretched proftitutes in the hour of confinement and difeafe; and finds that reverence and attention which are denied him in a more polite affembly. He denounces the terrors of the divine law-"the wrath of God revealed from heaven" against fin; and they tremble. He teftifies the grace and dying love of him who came to "fave finners ;" and they weep. He appeals to them, whether they have not found it "an evil and a bitter thing" to depart from the ways of God; and an emphatic groan of mifery anfwers the appeal. He lays before them the "bleffednefs of the people who have the Lord for their God," the freedom and fullness of the falvation that is provided for the chief of finners in Chrift; he invites them to come, that in him they may have life and peace-to "tafle and fee that he is gracious”. that his ways are "ways of pleafantnefs" that "his yoke is eafy and his burden light." They view the bleffedness defcribed with emotions of defire and of joy: but their rifing joy is dashed, when they view it as a bleffednefs from the participation of which they are, in a manner, by neceffity precluded. The figh that burfts from them fpeaks- and muft we ftarve ?-Women of fortune and of virtue! reply to the demand. Enable the ambaffador of Chrift to reply -you need not: an afylum is provided. for you, where you will not indeed eat the bread of idlenefs, but where you shall taste how much fweeter that is, which virtuous induftry fupplies; where employment will restore you to the rank of ufeful members of that community, to which you have hitherto been pests :its doors ftand open to admit you.'Enable him to make this reply, to be in every fenfe the "meffenger of glad tidings:"'—or else, may not he turn to you, with the authority of one fent by God to declare his word to all, and addrefs you in language fuch as this: Giddy triflers! trifling with the miseries of your fellow-creatures! trifling with your own fouls! trifing with God! on the brink of an eternity, for which you are unprepared, and as unconcerned as |