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For the gratification of our readers, we fhall give room to another extract from the description of this beautiful and romantic scene.

I defcended with regret from a delectable mountain, and came again within the pale of the park, at the place I left it, near the ruin; where in the midst of a grove of chefnuts, the path finds its way, and then fteals between a multiplicity of knotty, crooked oaks, along the fide of a narrow valley, capricioufly wooded in the bottom only, to a feat ornamented with fhells, with this infcription in the fame fancy:

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• SEDES CONTEMPLATIONIS.

OMNIA VANITAS.

The feat of contemplation.
All is vanity.'

This feat rifes in the midst of fylvan beauty, and no Situation in the world can more aptly agree with the first line of the inscription;-it is formed exactly for it, retired, folitary, and ferene-indeed, the whole of the walk from the ruin, is unparalleled :-no valley was ever more happily diverfifiedno taste ever shewed itself more powerfully-we here see how furpaffing that part of gardening is, that never violates the laws prescribed by nature; and if a defigner, who might happen to have (as is fometimes the cafe), fome lively sparks of genius about him, was to vifit this place, and be attentive to its charms, he poffibly might gather fome laurels in an imitation-but the worst part of it is, most of these gentlemen of the profeffion, feldom think any thing fine enough, and wilk dip their pencils into carmine, when the moft fimple colour would do a thousand times better.

I rambled in delight through this Tempean recefs, catching its influence in the feelings of the fofteft tranquility :-every ftep I took, whether I defcended into the obfcure, or fose again. to the more sprightly, I thought the fcene ftill improved, till I found myself within the vicinity of perfection itself, at

• The HERMITAG, E.

One knows not how to reconcile an hermitage, or a cottage, ftanding within the polished park of a nobleman: there is an incongruity in both; and neither, in my opinion, should be countenanced in fuch places.

• However, this hermitage, or call it what you will, is well enough adapted to the fcenery about it, being rudely formed with chumps of wood, and jagged old. roots, jambed together, and its interftices fimply filled with mofs: the floor

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Is neatly paved with small pebbles, and a matted couch goes round it.

A door from this leads into another apartment much in the fame drefs; every thing within, and immediately about it, carries the face of poverty, and a contempt of the vain fuperfluities of the world, fit for the imaginary inhabitant, whom we are to fuppofe defpifes the follies and luxuries of life, and who devotes his melancholy hours, to meditation and a rigid abstinence.

Within the first room are these well adapted Hines from the Il Penferofo of Milton:

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• And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage;
The hairy gown and moffy cell,
Where I may fit and rightly spell
Of every star that heav'n doth fhew,
And every herb that fips the dew:
Till old experience do attain
To fomething like prophetic ftrain.
Thefe pleafures melancholy give,

And I with thee will chufe to live.

• There appear from the door of this moffy cell, two perfpective peeps at the diftant country; one of them over the fpreading branches of the trees in front, and the other under them-little fancies of this fort, in places fo folitary, where they do not expose the fituation, but only tincture it with a ray of chearfulness, are very juftifiable.

I fuppofe there is not in the whole of thefe domains, nor, I may venture to affirm, in any other, a recefs to be found, capable of exciting more agreeable feelings in the breaft of a man of tafte, than this before us.-Nature and art co-operate fo happily, that to diftinguish one from the other, requires a judgment little inferior to that employed in the execution of it: the one feems to have exerted all her powers in gwing the moft random inequalities; the other in the excellent dif pofition of the groves, clumps, or fingle trees that adorn them.

. Excepting the two perspective views before-mentioned, the whole is close, depending on its own parts, which though few, admitting only of a glimpfe of the deep tree-filled rural valley, water, flants of lawn and precipitate woody hills, are inde fcribably picturesque.'

Thomfon, too, had his favourite walk in this Elysian retreat; to whofe memory likewife his lordfhip devoted an ele gant building, of an oftagonal form, with the following infcription.

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Ingenio immortali

JACOBI THOMSON.

Poetæ fublimis;

Viri boni:

Ediculam hanc, in feceffu, quem vivus dilexit,
Poft mortem ejus conftru&tam,
Dicat dedicatque

GEORGIUS LYTTELTON.

To the immortal genius

Of JAMES THOMSON,
A fublime poet;

A good man:

This temple (built after his death) in that recefs
Which when living he delighted in;

Is erected and dedicated

By GEORGE LYTTELTON.'

Envil, which the author next defcribes, the feat of the earl of Stamford, is also remarkable for its elegance. With respect to the fucceeding object of attention, the beautiful Leafowes, it was formerly the feat of Mr. Shenftone, and at present, of Edward Horne, efq. But for the account of thofe places, we muft refer to the Letters, where they are painted in a lively and agreeable manner, and the defcription interfperfed with obfervations which indicate fenfibility and taste.

Experimental Inquiries: Part the Third. Containing a Defcription of the red Particles of the Blood in the Human Subject and in other Animals; with an Account of the Structure and Offices of the Lymphatic Glands, of the Thymus Gland, and of the Spleen. By Magnus Falconar. 8vo. 5s. in boards. Longman. IN this work, Mr. Falconar profecutes the Inquiry concern

ing the compofition of the blood, which had been begun by the late ingenious Mr. Hewfon. He informs us, that during an intimacy of three years, he had frequent opportunities of difcourfing with that gentleman on the subject, and becoming perfectly acquainted with his ideas. Befides which, Mr. Falconar frequently repeated many of the experiments that had been inftituted by his friend, and thereby not only attained a more complete knowledge of the dcrine, but has been confirmed in the cpinion that it is founded in truth.

The first chapter of this Inquiry was written by Mr. Hewfon, and publifhed in the fixty-third volume of the Philofophical Tranfactions. The author there maintained, in oppofition to

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preceding writers, that the particles of blood, inftead of being fpherical, were in reality flat bodies. This discovery he afcribed to his having diluted the blood before he fubjected it to the microscope; the omiffion of which expedient had rendered the compofition of the blood indifcernible to former observators. In performing the dilution, however, he did not employ water, which would have diffolved the particles, but the serum of the blood. After viewing the particles diftin&t from each other, he obferved that they were perfectly flat; and that the dark spot in the middle, which father de la Torré imagined to be a hole, was not a perforation. In answer to an objection which might be urged, namely, that though thofe particles appear to be flat out of the body, they retain a spherical figure within the veffels, Mr. Hew fon affirmed, that he had repeatedly observed them with their fides parallel, like a num ber of coins laid one against another, whilft circulating in the small veffels between the toes of a frog, both by the folar microscope, and the other which he used.

In the fecond chapter, Mr. Falconar enters on an anatomical and phyfiological difquifition concerning the ftructure of the lymphatic glands, in which we meet with the following obfervations on the properties of the fluid that is found in thofe parts of the body.

• The existence of a white thick mucus-like fluid, in the lymphatic gland, has been long generally known to anatomists, and is particularly remarked by M. de Haller; but the properties of this fluid feem to have been entirely overlooked and neglected.

This may perhaps have been owing to the fame cause, that the shape of the particles of the blood, till lately, has been fo little known, viz. the want of diluting this liquor; for it we examine this fluid in the natural ftate, we find it a homogeneous mafs, difcovering nothing of its compofition, or properties. But if we dilute it with a folution of Glauber's falts in water, or with the ferum of the blood, and view it with a lens of the of an inch focus, as formerly mentioned in the experiments on the blood, we then obferve the following appearance.

• Numberless fmall, white, folid particles, refembling in fize and shape thofe central particles found in the veficles of the blood, are to be feen diftin&ly gliding down on the stage of the microscope, and if we dilute it fufficiently, we can examine them separately, and view them as diftin&ly as we can the particles of the blood.

These particles found in the lymphatic glands, likewife agree remarkably in their properties with the central paracles

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found

found in the veficles of the blood, not only as to fize and shape, but also in being infoluble in ferum, or a folution of any of the neutral falts in water (except putrefaction takes place), and are like the blood foluble in water, and in the fame order. Thefe particles are by the lymphatic veffels taken into the courfe of the circulation, and mixed with the blood, where they are for a time retained, to be again feparated from it, as we fhall fee afterwards in our inquiry into the anatomy of fome other parts.'

The third chapter treats of the fituation and structure of the thymus gland, a part, the function of which not being obvious, fome phyfiologists have confidered as of no use in the animal economy. From the experiments here related, however, the following plaufible conclufions are drawn, viz. that one ufe of the thymus is to fecrete from the blood a fluid, containing numberlefs fmall folid particles, fimilar to thofe found in the lymphatic glands; and that the lymphatic veffels arifing from the thymus convey this fecreted fluid through the thoracic duct into the blood-veffels, and become the excretory ducts to this gland. That the ftructure and uses of this gland are fimilar to thofe of the lymphatic glands, to which it may be confidered as an appendage. In confirm ation of this doctrine it is obferved, that the thymus exiftş only during the early periods of life, at which time thofe particles appear to be chiefly wanted.

In the fucceeding chapter, the author examines with equal accuracy the fituation and ftructure of the spleen; and from the experiments related, proceeds, in the next division of the Inquiry, to give an account of the manner in which the red particles of the blood are formed, conformable to the obfervations that have been made.

The theory of this inquirer is, that the central particles of the blood are chiefly formed by the lymphatic veffels and glands, and that the office of the spleen is to fecrete the ve ficular part. The novelty of the doctrine, as well as its importance to phyfiology, induces us to lay before our readers the author's arguments in its favour,

It may then reasonably be afked, how is the red blood formed when the spleen is taken out, if the spleen is the vifcus intended by nature to form the red blood? This objection will militate equally ftrong against any other use the spleen is fup. pofed to have; for that the spleen may be taken out, and the animal fuffer but little inconveniency, by no means prove it to be useless, but it proves that fome other part is capable of performing its office. Every philofopher muft entertain too exalted an idea of nature, to believe that any part of the

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