and arranged in a enough admired. in every egg were ones. manner that cannot be It was full of It was full of eggs, and many half-formed young 66. The water aranea, or great water fpider, was next put in, and made a wonderful appearance in his greatly magnified state. It is the largest of the Spiders in the great double fpider kind, except the native microscope. of Apulia, called the Tarantula, and is furnished at the head with a hard black forceps, which resembles that of the Apulian araneus: the colour of its oval way, reader, the folar microfcope is the most entertaining of all the microfcopes, and by it, without any skill in drawing, you may eafily make an exact picture of any animal or object you can put into the faftened pocket microscope. The object is fo intenfely illuminated by the fun beams collected by a convex lens, that are thrown on it by a looking-glafs, that its picture is moft perfectly and plainly reprefented on the white screen: You may have a mite, or one of the imperceptible animals of rotten wood, fo truly and greatly magnified, as eafily to sketch out the exact image of it, in all its wonderful parts, with a pencil or a pin and in this amufing work, and in transferring the objects from the folar to the double reflecting microfcope, the catoptric microscope, and the microScope for opake objects, how ufefully and delightfully might a young man of fortune employ many hours that are miferably fauntered away, or confumed in fenfelefs and illicit delights? body body is a bluish black, and has a transverse line and two spots hollowed in it: its eight legs are very long, the joints large, and the little bones of the feet have different articulations it was armed with briftles like a boar, and had claws very black, not unlike an eagle: it had eight eyes, and fix of them were difpofed in form of a half moon on the forehead; the other two were on the crown of the head; one to the left, the other to the right: this difpofition affords light to the whole body, and as these eyes are well furnished with cryftalline humours, they are fharp-fighted beyond all creatures, and fo nimbly hunt down flies: the mouth was full of teeth, and they looked like short thick hairs. In oppofition to this amphibious creature, which walks on the mud at the bottom of standing waters, as well as on the banks, the filvery-green bodied fpider was put into the box, which is one of the clafs that lives in the woods, where it fquats down on the branches of trees, and throws four of its legs forward, and four backward, extending them ftraight along the bough; but the great water aranea, with his terrible weapon, the black forceps, in a minute destroyed it, and we took the dead bodout, to put in its place the red and v me many fpider, which is a larger and stronger kind: this made a battle for two minutes, and hurt his foe: but he could not ftand it longer he expired at the victor's feet. A reflexion on the works of nature as feen in the micro jcope. These things were a fine entertainment to me, as I had not before seen a folar, catoptric, or improved doublereflecting microscope. I had now a nearer view of the fkilful works of the fupreme Artificer. With admiration I beheld the magnified objects--the wonderful arrangement of the intestines of a fleathe motion and ebullition of the blood of a loufe their forms-the various fpiders, fo astonishingly framed-the gnat, that elephant in fo fmall a miniature-the amazing form of the ant-the aftonishing claws and beautiful wings of a fly; the bones, nerves, arteries, veins, and moving blood in this very minute animal-the wonderful bee, its claws, its colours, and distinct rows of teeth, with which it fips the flowers, and carries the honey home in its ftomach, but brings the wax externally on its thighsand a thousand other things which manifest a Creator. In every object I viewed in the optical inftruments, my eyes beheld one thife Being and fupreme caufe of all things. fenfele infect, herb, and fpire of grafs, de clare clare eternal power and godhead. Not only the fpeech and language of the heavens, but of all the works and parts of nature is gone out into all the earth, and to the ends of the world; loudly proclaiming, that thou, O God, art Lord alone: Thou haft made heaven, the heaven of heavens, and all their hofts; the earth, and all things. that are therein; therefore be thou our Lord God for ever and ever. 67. The library belonging The library to these gentlemen is a very fine at Ulubræ. one, and contains many thousand volumes; but is much more valuable for the intrinfic merit, than the number of the books and as to antient manufcripts, there is a large store of great value: they had likewife many other curious monuments of antiquity; ftatues, paintings, medals, and coins, filver, gold, and brass. To defcribe those fine things would require a volume. Among the books, I faw the editions of the old authors, by the famous printers of the fifteenth and fixteenth centuries; editions greatly prized and fought after by most of the learned; but thefe gentlemen did not value them fo much as the editions of the clafficks, that have been published within this last century; efpecially the quarto editions done in Holland. They fhewed me many many errors in the Greek authors by the Stephens and as to Plantin, exclufive of his negligence, in feveral places, his Italic character they thought far inferior to the Roman, in respect of beauty. All this was true and it is moft certain, that the best corrected books are the best editions of the claffics. They are the best helps for our understanding them. There is no reason then for laying out fo much money for the old editions, when in reality the modern ones are better. An account of the book called Vindicia contra Ty rannos. . 68. One of the books in this library, which I chanced to take into my hand, was the famous Vindicia contra Tyrannos, which came out in Latin and French in 1579, under the name of Stephanus Junius Brutus, and is a defence of liberty against tyrants.-This treatife proves, in the first place, that fubjects are not bound to obey princes, if they command that which is against the law of God; as the worship of a confecrated wafer, and the theology of St. Athanafius, maria nolatry, the demonolatry, and all the diabolism of popery;—2dly, That it is lawful to refift a prince, who, like James the Second, endeavours to ruin the true church, and make the fuperftition of Rome the religion of the land;-3dly, That |