cident to the discobuli, whose exercise it was to heave to a vast distance, quoits of an enormous size, yet we may be certain, that in them the muscular part of the arm must have dilated to a monstrous volume, and the neck so entirely de prived of its flexibility, that it would become impossible to turn the head to the right or to the left, the vertebra being too severely compressed, in order to augment the force of the throw.

Above all, nothing could be more pernicious than the extravagant races which it was the practice to make children attempt in the Olympic course, and at all the solemn games of Greece. In these, the extraordinary action of the atmosphere upon their tender fibres, must be extremely apt to wound the organs of respiration, and bring on consumptions of the lungs, which the ancients were as incapable of curing, as the moderns,

Should it be pretended that such exercises might have been useful, had the Greeks known how to keep them within moderate bounds, the answer is obvious. In these moderation was impossible, for they were founded on emulation. It is the nature of emulation to know ueither bounds nor medium; one must either vanquish or be vanquished; one great effort brought on another still more great, and the combatants were enervated both by defeat and by victory.

Before one champion could become famous, an hundred others must have perished in the trials without taking into the account those who would be mutilated to such a degree, as to become equally useless to the state, and burdensome to themselves.

The nervous system of the human frame, is susceptible only of a certain degree of tension. In every exertion beyond that, what is gained in one part, is inevitably lost in another. In the wrestlers, the hands were strengthened at the expence of the feet, and, in the racers, the feet acquired strength at the expence of the arms. The equilibrium of all the powers of the body was destroyed by a particular force, which, being purely factitious, soon degenerated into weak

ness.

Montesquieu asserts, that it was the exercise of wrestling which gained the Thebans the battle of Leuctra; but he forgot that this battle was fought in the 102d Olympiad, when, for four hundred years, the Lacedomians had practis ed as well as the Thebans, the exercise of wrestling, which nevertheless could not save them from a total defeat. It was the genius of Epaminondas, combined with particular accidental causes, that rendered the Thebans victorious at Leuc tra. The gymnastic art had ne share in that victory; and

soon after, the world beheld these same Thebans vanquished at Cheronæ, reduced into captivity by Alexander, and sold at last to the highest bidder, as slaves in a market, while the plough passed over, and corn grew on the very spot where Thebes had stood. Could a nation which had never practised the gymnastic art, ever experience a more humiliating, fate or terminate its career by a more terrible catastrophe!

In reading history, it is always more prudent to judge of events by their consequences, than by causes, which are often covered with an impenetrable veil. To prove the advantages, and the utility of gymnastic wrestling, the author of the spirit of Laws should have demonstrated, that Thebes was never destroyed, and the Thebans name never effaced from the list of nations.

A SINGULAR ANECDOTE OF A MISER.

Avarice, of all other passions, is the least to be accounted for, as it precludes the miser from all pleasure, except that of hoarding; the prodigal, the gamester, the ambitious have something to plead by way of palliatives for their inordinate affections to their respective objects and pursuits; but the miser gratifies his passiou at the expence of every con veniency, indulgence or even necessary of life. He is aptly compared to the magpye, who hides gold which he can make

no use of.

M. Vandille, was the most remarkable man in Paris, both on account of his immense riches, and his extreme avarice. He lodged as high up as the roof would admit him, to avoid noise or visits; maintained one poor old woman to attend him in his garret, allowed her only seven sous per week, or a penny per diem. His usual diet was bread and milk, and for indulgence, some poor sour wine on Sunday, on which day, he constantly gave one farthing to the poor, being one shilling and a penny per annum, which he cast up, and, after his death, his extensive charity amounted to forty-three shillings and fourpence. This prudent œconomist had been a Magístrate, or Officer at Boulogne, from which obscurity he was promoted to Paris for a reputation of his wealth, which he lent upon undeniable security to the public funds, not caring to trust individuals with his life and soul. While a Magistrate at Boulogne, he maintained himself by taking upon to be

milk-taster-general at the market, and from one to another filled his belly and washed down his bread, at no expence of his own, nor, doubtless, from any other principle than that of serving the public in regulating the goodness of milk. When he had a call to Paris, knowing that stage vehicles were expensive, he determined to go thither on foot; and, to avoid being robbed, he took care to export with himself neither more or less than the considerable sum of three pence sterling to carry him one hundred and thirty miles. And, with the greater facility to execute his plan of operation, he went in the quality of a poor priest or mendicant, and, no doubt, gathered some few pence on the road from such pious and well-disposed persons of the country who were strangers to him.

The great value a miser annexes to a farthing will make us less surprised at the infinite attachment he must have to a guinea, of which it is the seed, growing, by gentle gradations into pence, shillings, pounds, thousands, and ten thousands, which made this worthy connoisseur say, take care of the farthings, and the pence and shillings will take care of themselves; these semina of wealth may be compared to seconds of time, which generate years, centuries, and even eternity' itself.

When he became extensively rich, being in the year 1715 worth seven or eight hundred thousand pounds, which he begot or multiplied on the body of a single shilling, from the age of sixteen to the age of seventy-two; one day he heard a woodman going by in summer, at which season they stock themselves with fuel for the winter; he agreed with him at the lowest rate possible, but stole from the poor man several logs, with which he loaded himself to his secret hiding-hole, and thus contracted in that hot season, a fever; he then sent, for the first time, for a surgeon to bleed him, who, asking half a livre for the operation, was dismissed; he then sent for an apothecary, but he was high in his demand; he then sent for a poor barber, who undertook to open a vein for three pence a time; but says this worthy economist, friend, how often will it be requisite to bleed? Three times said he and what quantity of blood do you intend to take? About eight ounces a time, answered the barber: that will be ninepence.-Too much, too much, says the old miser, I have determined to go a cheaper way to work; take the whole quantity you design to take at three times, at one time, and that will save me six-pence; which being insisted on, he lost twenty-four ounces of blood, and died in a few days, leaving all his vast treasures to the King, whom he made his sole heir. Thus he contracted his disorder by pilfering, and his death by an unprecedented piece of parsimony.

I am inclined to think that the misfortunes, as they are termed, of life, are not so often owing to the want of care, as the having too much, and being over-solicitous to acquire what nature the great substitute of Heaven would effect for us, if we would be contented to follow her dictates. The brutes, led on by that inward impulse we call instinct, never err in their pursuit after what is good for them; but man, enlightened by reason, that particular mark of providence which distinguishes him from the rest of beings, obstinately refuses to be conducted to happiness, and travels towards misery with labour and fatigue. It would be absurd to say a rational creature would voluntarily chuse misery but we too frequently do it blindly. Every thing, as the philosophical emperor observes, is fancy; but as that fancy is in our own power to govern, we are justly punished if we suffer it to wander at will; or industriously set it to work to deceive us in uneasiness. The most sure and speedy way to detect any mental imposture is by soliloquy or self-examination, in the way laid down by our great restorer of ancient learning; if our fancy stands the test of this mirror, which represents all objects in their true colours, it is genuine, and may be accepted by the mind in safety; but if it recedes from the trial, or changes in the attempt, 'tis spurious, and ought to be rejected. This will inform us that the great mistake of mankind in the pursuit after happiness, is casting their looks at a distance for lands of paradise, whilst the prospect, so much sought after, blooms unbeheld around them.

(To be Continued.)

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AMUSING CHRONICLE,

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No. XX.)

February 1, 1817.

(Vol. II,

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THE NARRATOR, No. XVI.

DISSERTATIONS

On Hobby-horsical Propensities,

CONTINUED.

"If I am delighted with the beautiful variety on the wings of the Butterfly, the rich tracery, and matchless indentations of the marine Conch, or the remnants which time has brought from the works of early genius, my pleasures are inspired by a grateful remembrance of a first cause, and by liberal sentiments, can the mercenary Miser say this, the abominable Hypocrite, or the dangerous Slanderer? I believe not then spare me in your censures.”

CRAB.

There is an activity and restlessness in the mind of man, which makes it impossible for him to be happy in a state of absolute inaction some point of view, some favorite pursuit is necessary to keep his faculties awake: 'tis to this

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