Imatges de pàgina
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my felf you will be the guide and dirigent of all my notions and my days. Yes, charming Harriot, my fate is in your hands. Difpofe of it as you will, and make me what you please.

You force me to fmile, (the illuftrious Mifs Noel replyed) and oblige me to call you an odd compound of a man. Pray, Sir, let me have no more of those romantic flights, and I will answer your question as well as I can; but it must be at fome other time. There is more to be faid on the miracle at Babel, and its effects, than I could dispatch between this and our hour of dining, and therefore, the remainder of our leisure till dinner, we will pafs in a vifit to my grotto, and in walking round the garden to the parlour we came from. To the grotto then we went, and to the best of my power I will give my reader a description of this fplendid room.

A Defcrip

Noel's

grotto,

In one of the fine rotunda's I have mentioned, at one end of the green amphitheatre tion of Mifs very lately described, the fhining apartment was formed. Mifs Noel's hand had covered the floor with the most beautiful Mofaic my eyes have ever beheld, and filled the arched roof with the richest foffil gems. The Mofaic painting on the ground was wrought with small coloured ftones or pebbles, and fharp pointed bits of glass, mea

fured

The Tem

ple of

Tranquility

fured and proportioned together, fo as to imitate in their affemblage the ftrokes and colour of the objects, which they were intended to reprefent, and they represented by this lady's art, the Temple of Tranquillity, defcribed by Volufenus in his dream.

At some distance the fine temple looks like a beautiful painted picture, as do the and a re- birds, the beasts, the trees, in the fields about Infcription, it, and the river which murmurs at the bot

markable

tom of the rifing ground; Amnis lucidus & vadofus in quo cernere erat varii generis pifces colludere. So wonderfully did this genius perform the piece, that fishes of many kinds feem to take their passtime in the bright stream. But above all, is the image of the philofopher, at the entrance of the temple, vaftly fine. With pebbles and scraps of glass, all the beauties and graces are expreffed, which the pencil of an able artist could beftow on the picture of Democritus. You fee him as Diogenes Laertius has drawn him, with a philofophical joy in his countenance, that fhews him fuperior to all events. Summum bonorum finem ftatuit effe lætitiam, non eam quæ fit eadem voluptati, fed eam per quam animus degit perturbationis expers; and with a finger, he points to the following golden infcription on the portico of the temple:

Fla

Flagrans fit ftudium bene merendi de feipfo,
Et feipfum perficiendi.

That is, By a rectitude of mind and life, Jecure true happiness and the applaufe of your own heart, and let it be the labour of your every day, to come as near perfection as it is poffible for human nature to get. This Mofaic piece of painting is indeed an admirable thing. It has a fine effect in this grotto, and is a noble monument of the masterly hand of Mifs Noel.

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Nor was her fine genius lefs vifible in the ftriking appearance of the extremely beautiful fhells and valuable curiofities, all round the apartment. Her father fpared no coft to procure her the finest things of the ocean and rivers from all parts of the world, and pebbles, ftones, and ores of the greatest curiofity and worth. These were all difpofed in fuch a manner as not only fhed a glorious luftre in the room, but fhewed the understanding of this young lady in natural knowledge.

In one part of the grot, were collected and arranged the ftony coverings of all the fhell-fish in the fea, from the ftriated patella and its several species, to the pholades in all their fpecies and of thofe that live in the fresh streams, from the fuboval limpet or umbonated patella and its fpecies, to the triangular,

3

gular, and deeply ftriated cardia. Even all the land-fhells were in this collection, from the pomatia to the round-mouthed turbo. The most beautiful genera of the fea-fhells, intermixed with foffil corals of all the kinds; with animal fubftances become foffil; and with copper-ores; agates; pebbles, pieces of the finest marmora and alabastritæ, and the most elegant and beautiful marcafites, and chryftals, and spars. These filled the greatest part of the walls, and in claffes, here and there, were scattered, as foils to raise the luftre of the others, the inferior shells.

Among the fimple fea-fhells, that is, thofe of one fhell, without a hinge, I faw feveral rare ones, that were neither in Mrs. O'Hara's, nor in Mrs. Crafton's grottos in Fingal, as I obferved to thofe ladies (5). The fhells I mean are the following ones.

I. The

(5) I had once a fweet little country house in the neighbourhood of thofe ladies, and ufed to be often at their gardens and grottos. Mrs. Crafton had the fineft fhells, but her grott was dull and regular, and had no appearance of nature in the formation. She was a pious, plain, refined lady, but had not a fancy equal to the operation required in a fhell-houfe.

The excellent, the polite, the well-bred, the good and unfortunate Mrs. O'Hara had a glorious fancy. She was a genius, and had an imagination that formed a grotto wild and charming as Calypfo's. Her fancy did likewife form the garden (in which the grotto flood, near the margin of a flood) into a paradife of delights.

Many

Fine shells.

1. The fea-trumpet, which is in its perfect ftate, nine inches long, an inch and The Sea half diameter at its mouth or irregular lip, Trumpet, and the opening at the fmall end about half an inch. The furface is a beautiful brown, prettily spotted with white, and the pipe has fourteen annular ridges that are a little elevated, and of a fine purple colour.

2. The admiral is vaftly beautiful, a vo- The Admi luta two inches and a half long, and an inch ral. in diameter, at the head, from whence it decreases to a cone with an obtuse point. The ground colour is the brightest, elegant yellow, finer than that of Sienna marble, and this ground fo variegated with the

Many a pleafing, folitary hour, have I paffed in this charming place; and all at laft I faw in ruins; the garden in diforder and every fine fhell torn from the

grotto.

Such are the changes and chances of this firft ftate; changes wifely defigned by providence as warnings not to fet up our reft here: that we may turn our hearts from this world, and with all our might labour for that life which fhall never perish.

What ruined Mrs. O'Hara's grotto deprived me of my little green and fhady retreat. Charles O'Hara, this lady's hufband, a ftrange man, from whom I rented my pretty farm, and to whom I had paid a fine to lower the rent, had mortgaged it, unknown to me, to the famous Damer, and that powerful man fwallowed all. All I had there was feized for arrears of intereft due of Mr. O'Hara, and as I was ever liable to diftraining, I took my leave of Fingall.

brighteft

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