as well as by natives. "One of the former, a most respectable individual, in whose account I would put the firmest reliance, "described it to me as an appearance of rays or beams of light "in motion, intersecting one another, faintly resembling the "northern lights." It occurred when the atmosphere was clear, in the middle of the day, "in mid-air, beneath the vault of "the sky," unattended by any unusual" circumstance of weather "that might lead to conjecture respecting its cause and nature.” The natives of course regard it as supernatural and ominous, boding ill in general, except when it appears in the month of May. They call it Boodhoo-rays, and maintain that it issues from a temple of that god, over which it always, to them at least, seems suspended.

Passing over a good deal of matter highly valuable to profes. sional men, on the climate and diseases of Ceylon, we hasten to conclude our article with an account of some experiments performed by Dr. Davy on the "snakes" of the island, with the view of ascertaining whether they are really poisonous, and to what number and degree. His professional pursuits led him to pay particular attention to the nature of these reptiles, especially of those whose bite is poisonous; and through the activity of friends, as well as by employing men to collect for him, he succeeded in getting into his possession no fewer than twenty different kinds. Of these, sixteen were harmless, though the majority of them were accounted venomous, and were called "bad snakes" by the natives. The four poisonous snakes were of the coluber kind; the hooded snake or cobra de capello, and the tic-polonga, or bodroo pam, being the most deadly.

Every one has heard of the tricks played by the snake-charmers of India with the formidable cobra de capello; and the ignorant vulgar, our author remarks, believe that these men really possess a charm by which they thus trifle with death, without sustaining any injury. The more enlightened, laughing at this idea, consider these men impostors, and that in the exhibition of their skill, there is no danger to be avoided, the poison-fangs being previously removed.

"The enlightened in this instance are mistaken, and the vulgar are nearer the truth in their opinion. I have examined the snakes I have seen exhibited, and have found their poison-fangs in, and uninjured. These men do possess a charm, though not a supernatural one, viz. that of confidence and courage; acquainted with the habits and disposition of the snake, they know how averse it is to use the fatal weapon nature has given it for its defence in extreme danger, and that it never bites without much preparatory threatening. Any one possessing the confidence and agility of these men may imitate them, and I have made the trial more than once.'

A great variety of rather cruel experiments were made on all the snakes of the poisonous kind, with the view of determining

the effects produced by their bite. We shall confine our extracts to those performed on the tic-polonga.

"In February 1816, at Colombo, a fowl was exposed to this snake, about four feet and a half long, very thick, just taken, and in full vigour. It seemed desirous to avoid the fowl, retiring and hissing with extraordinary shrillness and loudness. After being irritated very much, it darted at the fowl and struck it, but did not appear to have wounded it, though it really had, in the slightest manner possible, near the insertion of the great pectoral muscle. In about a minute the fowl was seized with violent convulsions, which in two or three seconds terminated in death.

"About half an hour after the preceding experiment, a full-grown fowl was exposed to the snake. Even more provocation was required in this instance than in the first to excite the snake to act; at length he bit the fowl on the wing, and the fangs penetrating the loose skin drew a little blood. In a minute the fowl was seized with convulsions, and in half a minute more was dead.

"Six days after the snake bit a young dog, nearly full grown, in the hind leg. The results were as follows: In ten minutes he was restless and rather convulsive. In fifteen minutes his breathing became hurried; his muscles spasmodically affected; he lay on the ground breathing hard and crying shrilly; every now and then starting up as if from pain, and instantly falling down again. In twenty minutes his respiration was short and spasmodic, as it were by jerks, and amazingly rapid-ninety in a minute each expiration accompanied with a shrill sound, and now and then there was a full inspiration and a deep groan. Even now the sensorial powers seemed little affected; the poor animal was conscious of what was passing, and when patted on the head seemed to be soothed. In twenty-six minutes he became insensible; in fifty-one minutes his respiration became so extremely spasmodic as to pull his head down at every inspiration; at the end of the fiftyeighth minute he was dead."

Thirty-four days after the last experiment, the snake bit a rat, which immediately lay down motionless, and after a few convul sive shivers expired. There are two more experiments detailed with great minuteness, tending to illustrate still farther the destructive energy of the poison infused from the fangs of the ticpolonga. Between the first and last experiments performed under the eye of Dr. Davy, the interval was 146 days, during which the animal had eaten nothing. It had refused different kinds of food that were offered to it, and yet after that great length of time, it looked as well, and appeared as active as ever, whilst its virus, so far from being weakened or exhausted, had only become more concentrated and even more frightfully active. As the author was obliged to leave Colombo at the period just specified, he does not know how much longer the snake lived without eating, or in what manner it terminated its captivity.

As a literary performance, this volume possesses not any very high claims to praise, being in some parts carelessly and in other parts rather ungrammatically written. The style, however, is in general, simple and perspicuous, and never offends by aiming at qualities unsuitable to the subject or to the author's habits of

thinking. Free from pretension, and intimately acquainted with whatever he undertakes to communicate, Dr. Davy soon makes his reader his friend as well as his companion; and were he only a little more select in his topographical notices, and somewhat. more studious of the charms of well chosen language, he would forthwith find himself placed high on the list of our most popular travellers.

ART. II. On the Amusements of Clergymen and Christians in general. Three Dialogues between a Dean and a Curate. By EDWARD STILLINGFLEET, Lord Bishop of Worcester. London, Sherwood & Co. 1820. 1820. P. 183. 12mo.

WE are not told whether or not this little work, which is ascribed to the celebrated writer of the Origines Sacra, was ever before printed,—a fact on which our own recollections do not bear, although there is an impression on our minds something like as if we had either heard or read of it; and we conceive there is reason to be rather dissatisfied with the account of the manner in which it was rescued from oblivion and brought to light. All that is said on this point is briefly and anonymously given in two sentences, namely,

"When Dr. Josiah Frampton's library was sold in London (in the year 1729 or 1730) his divinity books were classed in seven lots; one of which was purchased by Dr. Edwards. The catalogue of this lot mentioned a parcel of MSS: Among these the Doctor found one in Dr. Frampton's own hand-writing, of which the following is a copy:

"

But, waiving our ignorance as to their former appearance, and the ground of complaint now mentioned, we have no hesitation in saying that the dialogues are every way worthy of their assigned author, and that the publishers have conferred no inconsiderable favour by bringing them under our notice. We have read them with a degree of pleasure, and possibly edification, which we rarely derive from productions of greater magnitude and higher pretensions; whilst the good feeling, sense, and principle which they indicate, the ingenuity of reasoning and the vivacity of spirit displayed in them, impress us with an exalted and a very grateful idea of the individual, whose well-merited fame they are so likely to renew and extend. Nor will the character of Dr. Frampton, who appears in them in the subordinate station of a pupil or disciple, suffer, at least with the liberal minded, by the disclosure made therein of his early frivolity. On the contrary, it is to his credit, we think it will be allowed, that he so frankly acknowledges his follies, and that he

demonstrated, by his own reformation, the efficacy of the counsel to which he was providentially subjected. Such, then, is our opinion of this work, and we proceed, without farther preamble, to justify it, by a brief analysis and several specimens of its contents. A formal essay on the general topic, important as it undoubtedly is, would be quite out of place, and probably of less practical utility.

Dr. Frampton, to whom, ostensibly, we are indebted for the origin and the préservation of the dialogues, had frequent opportunities, when curate of Wroxal, in Warwickshire, of meeting with Dr. Stillingfleet, then Dean of St. Paul's; and he was induced, by circumstances, to cultivate an acquaintance, which apарpears to have operated a beneficial change on his behaviour. By his own account, he had entered the ministry with little solicitude about the duties which he undertook to discharge. He was, consequently, in various respects incorrect as to his conduct; and, though not a stranger to study, indulged rather freely in country diversions, trifling, if not dangerous amusements. But such as he was, the Dean entertained a regard for him, which he did not fail to express by means, and in a manner which genuine friendship only will ever hazard, and genuine worth alone. ever tolerate. The occasion of the present admonitory and preceptive dialogues, which were carried on when Stillingfleet was confined by a fit of the gout, during one of his annual visits at the house of Sir Roger Burgoin, is thus narrated.

"We were sitting together, one day, after dinner; and the Dean laying up his feet on a cushion, and being tolerably free from pain, began to rally me a little on my attachment to country diversions-a subject he had often before casually introduced; and on which he knew I had a weak side. I had brought him two young partridges that day for his dinner; and he began by expressing his obligations to me for my attention to him; and then asked me some questions, which led me to give him an account of my day's exploits. I did not see his drift: and in the spirit of a sportsman, told him, that the late rainy season had made game very scarce that the two covies, from which I had shot the brace I had brought to him, were the only birds I had seen the whole day, though I had been out from five in the morning till twelve at noon; and had walked upwards of fifteen miles. "Well, said the Dean, with an affected gravity of countenance, I only wished to know the extent of my obligation to you; and I find your philanthropy has done more for me in giving me seven hours of your time to procure me a dinner, than I could have done (even were I as able to walk as you are) for any man in Christendom.

"From being a little jocular, he became, by degrees, serious. I have often thought, said he, Mr. Frampton, (and I know your candor will excuse me) that the clergy have rather injured the respectability of their characters by mixing too much with the amusements of laymen. They not only get into a trifling way of spending their time; but by making themselves cheap, they diminish the weight of their instructions; and often give a sort of sanction by their presence to gaieties, which were better check

ed. It is a common speech in the mouths of licentious people, that they must be right, because they have gotten the parson along with them.—Indeed a clergyman cannot be too cautious with regard to his character. It is a matter of the greatest delicacy, and easily sullied. If he act contrary to it, he always has a consciousness about him, which makes him jealous of every eye: and when he becomes hardened, he is among the most contemptible of mankind. You will easily, however, understand, that when I restrict the clergyman from joining too freely with the amusements of the laity, I am equally hurt with every appearance of haughtiness and moroseness. If the character of the clergyman is not marked with modesty and humility, it is bereft of its most distinguished graces."

"It is very probable, my dear Sir, said the Dean, that my rules may be stricter than you would wish to comply with. I have thought often on the subject lately, for the sake of a young clergyman, in whose well-doing I was much interested: but I had not all the success I hoped for.

"I assured the Dean, I should endeavour to be a more observant disciple. I did indeed spend a considerable part of my time in amusements of various kinds; but I was hopeful that my errors proceeded more from inattention (the apology he was pleased to furnish) than from any bad disposition.

"The good Dean was pleased to say, he believed me; and added some other friendly expressions, which not being to our present purpose, I omit. He then asked me, what was my idea of an amusement; or how I should define it?"

After a little discussion, clerical amusement is defined so as to intend the "exercise of the body," and the "recreation of "the mind," while it is also "suited to the genius of the profession ;" and then amusements are divided into three kinds, namely, the "riotous and cruel," the "trifling and seducing," and the innocent and instructive."

Among the first of these, Dr. Stillingfleet gives precedence to hunting, which, in defiance of fashion and his pupil's predilections, he affirms to be improper in a clergyman. The spirit of his remonstrance goes to the utter reprobation of this diversion, as a relic of barbarism, and the source of much cruelty and vice. We give part of his arguments.

Surely, said I, Sir, there is a difference between the pleasure of a pursuit, and a pleasure which consists merely in the act of inflicting death? "Why, yes, answered the Dean, there is a difference; but I know not on which side of it the advantage lies. If hunting be a more genteel species of butchery, it is certainly a more cruel one. The ox receives its death by an instant stroke; whereas the hare is first thrown into convulsions of terror for four or five hours together, and then seized in the midst of its agony, and torn piece-meal by a pack of ravenous blood-hounds-As to your last argument, that hunting rids the country of noxious animals, I apprehend you are mistaken in the fact. I rather think it tends to replenish the country with them. As one instance at least I can testify, that I offended a whole club of sporting neighbours in a manner that was hardly ever to be gotten over, by giving a man half-a-crown for killing a fox which had thinned my poultry-yard. And I dare say, there is not a hunting squire in the country, who would not at any time give up a dozen of his tenant's lambs, to save half the number of foxes' eubs. Nay, I have often known covers of considerable extent left purposely in fields, or perhaps planted merely to decoy foxes into a neighbourhood, by providing a proper shelter for them.-