and I believe no later intelligence has been received. I am sorry it
is not so entertaining and wonderful as some observations I read the
other day in an abridgment of the Annals of China, written in Latin.
They there see a thousand stars at a time fall from the sky into the
ocean with an amazing noise; or dissolve and disperse in rain. This has
not merely been seen once in China; I have met with the same account
given at two remote periods of time, besides that of a star which goes
towards the east, and bursts with the noise of a gun. It is a pity
such sights should be confined to China, while this part of the world
is never favoured with them. It is not long since all our philosophers
thought they had had sufficient experience to pronounce the heavens
and all the celestial bodies incorruptible and incapable of change; and
at the same time people at the other end of the world were seeing stars
dissolve by thousands: there appearance must have differed very much
from ours. But, said she, I never heard that the Chinese were great
astronomers. No, answered I, but the Chinese are gainers by being at
so great a distance from us, as the Greeks and Romans were by being
separated by a long space of time; whatever is remote assumes the right
of imposing on us.
Really I am more and more of opinion that Europe is in possession
of a degree of genius which has never extended to any other part of
the globe, at least not to any distant part. It is not perhaps able
to diffuse itself over a great proportion of the earth at once, and
some invincible fatality prescribes to it very narrow bounds. Let us
then make use of it while it is in our possession: and let us rejoice
that it is not confined to science and dry speculations, but equally
extended to objects of taste, in which I doubt whether any people can
equal us. Such, madam, are the things that should engage your attention
and constitute your philosophy.
══════════════
THE END.
══════════════
AN ELEGANT POCKET COMPANION FOR THE LADIES.
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On the first of February, 1803, was published, price One Shilling,
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No. 9,
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Miss De Camp | in the Parachute
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_A new and interesting Work, entitled_
A DICTIONARY OF THE WONDERS OF NATURE.
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_This day is Published_,
_Closely and elegantly printed in a Pocket-size, containing
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A
DICTIONARY
OF THE
_WONDERS OF NATURE_:
━━━━━━━━━
TRANSLATED PRINCIPALLY FROM THE WORKS OF
A. S. S. DELAFOND,
PROFESSOR OF PHYSIC AT BOURGES.
━━━━━━━━━
_Including extraordinary instances of_
Abstinence; Old Age; Curiosities in the Animal Kingdom; Singular
Antipathies; Remarkable Attachments; Extraneous Bodies; Phænomena
of the Human Bones; Brains; Wonderful Caverns; Forward Children;
Extraordinary Conformations; Remarkable Deafness; Apparent Death;
Extraordinary Divers; Wonderful Dwarfs; Dreadful Earthquakes which
have happened in various parts of the World; Extraordinary Eaters;
Curious Structure of the Eye; Instances of Fecundity; Fermentation;
Fire-damps; Subterranean Fires; Curious Fish; Wonderful Description of
Human Hair; Phænomena of Heat and Cold; Dreadful Hurricanes; Ice, and
Ice-houses described; Inundations, and the Properties of the Loadstone;
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_PHÆNOMENA IN NATURE_;
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══════════════
To me be NATURE'S volume broad display'd,
And to peruse its all-instructive pages, my sole delight.
══════════════
⁂ Such is the interesting nature of the contents of this work, that it
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══════════════
London:
_Printed by J. Cundee, Ivy-Lane_;
Sold by T. HURST, Paternoster-Row; and may be had of every
Bookseller in the Empire.
══════════════
Transcriber Note
Minor typos corrected. To accommodate placement a footnote, a
paragraph break was added on page 126.