alabastritæ, and the most elegant and beautiful marcasites, and crystals, and spars. These filled the greatest part of the walls, and in classes, here and there, were scattered, as foils to raise the lustre of the others, the inferior shells.

Among the simple sea-shells, that is, those of one shell, without a hinge, I saw several rare ones, that were neither in Mrs. O'HARA'S nor in Mrs. CRAFTON's grottos in Fingal, as I observed to those ladies. The shells I mean are the following ones.

The SEA-TRUMPET, which is in its perfect state, nine inches long, an inch and half diameter at its mouth or irregular lip, and the opening at the small end about half an inch. The surface 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.

The ADMIRAL is vastly beautiful, a voluta two inches and a half long, and an inch 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 so variegated with the brightest colours, that a little more than a third part of the ground is seen. Broad fasciæ, the most charmingly varied, surround it, and the clavicle is the most elegant of objects in colours, brightness, and irregularities. There is a punctuated line of variations that runs in the centre of the yellow fascia, and is wonderfully pretty. This beautiful East-Indian sells at a great price.

The CROWN IMPERIAL is likewise extremely beautiful. This voluta is four inches long, two in diameter at the top, and its head adorned with a charming series of fine tubercles, pointed at the extremities. The ground is a clear pale, and near the head and extremity of the shell, two very beautiful zones run round. They are of the brightest yellow, and in a manner the most elegant, are variegated with black and white purple. It is also an East-Indian.

⚫ I had once a sweet little country house in the neighbourhood of those ladies, and used to be often at their gardens and grottos. Mrs. CRAFTON had the finest shells, but her grot 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 shell-house.

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 Calypso's. Her fancy did likewise form the garden, in which the grotto stood near the margin of a flood, into a paradise of delights. Many a pleasing, solitary hour, have I passed in this charming place; and at last saw all in ruins; the garden in disorder, and every fine shell torn from the grotto. Such are the changes and chances of this first state; changes wisely designed by Providence as warnings not to set up our rest here that we may turn our hearts from this world, and with all our might labour for that life which shall never perish.

What ruined Mrs. O'HARA's grotto deprived me of my little green and shady retreat. CHARLES O'HARA, this lady's husband, a strange 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 swallowed all. All I had there was seized for arrears of interest due of Mr. O'HARA, and as I was ever liable to distrainment, I took my leave of Fingal.

The HEBREW LETTER, another voluta, is a fine curiosity. It is two inches in length, and an inch and a quarter in diameter at the top. It is a regular conic figure, and its exerted clavicle has several volutions. The ground is like the white of a fine pearl, and the body all over variegated with irregular marks of black, which have a near resemblance of the Hebrew characters. This elegant shell is an East-Indian.

The WHITE VOLUTA, with brown and blue and purple spots. This very elegant shell, whose ground is a charming white, is found on the coast of Guinea, from five to six inches in length, and its diameter at the head often three inches. It tapers gradually, and at the extremity is a large obtuse. Its variegations in its spots are very beautiful, and its spots are principally disposed in many circles round the shell.

The BUTTERFLY is a voluta the most elegant of this beautiful genus. Its length is five inches in its perfection, and two and a half broad at the head. The body is an obtuse cone: the clavicle is pointed, and in several volutions. The ground is the finest yellow, and beautified all over with small brown spots, in regular and round series. These variegations are exceeding pretty, and as this rare East-Indian shell has beside these beauties three charming bands round the body, which are formed of large spots of a deep brown, a pale brown, and white, and resemble the spots on the wings of butterflies, it is a beautiful species indeed. The animal that inhabits this shell is a limax.

The TULIP CYLINDER is a very scarce and beautiful native of the East-Indies, and in its state of perfection and brightness of colour, of great value. Its form is cylindric, its length four inches, and its diameter two and a half, at its greatest increase. Its clavicle has many volutions, and terminates in an obtuse point. The ground colour is white, and its variegations blue and brown. They are thrown into irregular clouds in the most beautiful manner, and into some larger and smaller spots. The limax inhabits this fine shell.

I likewise saw in this grotto the finest species of the purpura, the dolia, and the porcellana. There was of the first genus the thorny woodcock: of the second the harp shell: and of the third, the argus shell.

The THORNY WOODCOCK is ventricose, and approaches to an oval figure. Its length, full grown, is five inches; the clavicle short, but in volutions distinct; and its rostrum from the mouth twice the length of the rest of the shell. This snout and the body have four series of spines, generally an inch and a half long, pointed at the ends, and somewhat crooked. The spines lie in regular, longitudinal series. The mouth is almost round, but the opening is continued in the form of a slit up the rostrum. The colour of this American, and extremely elegant shell, is a tawny

yellow, with a fine mixture of a lively brown, and by bleaching on the coasts, it gets many spots of white.

The BEAUTIFUL HARP is a Chinese; three inches and a half long, and two and a half in diameter. The shell is tumid and inflated, and at the head largest. It has an oblong clavicle in several volutions, pointed at the extremity, and the other extreme is a short rostrum. The whole surface is ornamented with elevated ribs, that are about twice as thick as a straw, and as distant from each other as the thickness of four straws. The colour is a fine deep brown, variegated with white and a paler brown, in a manner surprisingly beautiful.

The extremely elegant ARGUS is from the coast of Africa, and is sometimes found in the East-Indies. Its length, in a state of perfection, is four inches and a half; its diameter three. It is oblong and gibbous, has a wide mouth, and lips so continued beyond the verge, as to form at each extremity a broad and short beak. The colour is a fine pale yellow, and over the body are three brown fascia: but the whole surface, and those fascia are ornamented with multitudes of the most beautiful round spots, which resemble eyes in the wings of the finest butterflies. The limax inhabits this charming shell. This creature is the seasnail.

The CONCHA OF VENUS was the next shell in this young lady's collection that engaged my attention. One of them was three inches long, and two and a half in diameter. The valves were convex, and in longitudinal direction deeply striated. The hinge at the prominent end was large and beautifully wrought, and the opening of the shell was covered with the most elegant wrinkled lips, of the most beautiful red colour, finely intermixed with white; these lips do not unite in the middle, but have slender and beautiful spines round about the truncated ends of the shell. This shell of Venus is an American, and valued by the collectors at a high rate.

But of all the curious shells in this wonderful collection, the HAMMER OYSTER was what I wondered at most; it is the most extraordinary shell in the world. It resembles a pick-ax, with a very short handle and a long head. The body of the shell is in the place of the handle of the instrument, and is four inches and a half long, and one inch and a half in diameter. What answered to the head of the pick-ax was seven inches long, and three quarters of an inch in diameter. This head terminates at each end in a narrow obtuse point, is uneven at the edges, irregular in its make, and lies crosswise to the body: yet the valves shut in the closest and most elegant manner. The edges are deeply furrowed and plaited, and the lines run in irregular directions. The colour without is a fine mixture of brown and purple; and within a pearly white, with a tinge of purple. This rare shell is an

East-Indian, and whenever it appears at an auction is rated very high. I have known ten guineas given for a perfect one. With a large quantity of these most beautiful shells, which are rarely seen in any collections, and with all the family of the pectens, the cardiæ, the solens, the cylinderi, the murexes, the turbines, the buccina, and every specis of the finest genera of shells, Miss NOEL formed a grotto that exceeded every thing of the kind I believe in the world; all I am sure that I have seen, except the late Mrs. HARCOURT's in Richmondshire; which I shall give my reader a description of, when I travel him up those English Alpes. It was not only, that Miss NOEL'S happy fancy had blended all these things in the wildest and most beautiful disposition over the walls of the rotunda but her fine genius had produced a variety of grots within her grotto, and falling waters, and points of view. In one place was the famous Atalanta, and her delightful cave and in another part, the Goddess and Ulysses' son appeared at the entrance of that grot, which under the appearance of a rural plainness had every thing that could charm the eye: the roof was ornamented with shellwork; the tapestry was a tender vine, and, limpid fountains sweetly purled round.

But what above all the finely fancied works in Miss NOEL'S grotto pleased me, was, a figure of the philosopher Epictetus, in the centre of the grot. He sat at the door of a cave, by the side of a falling water, and held a book of his philosophy in his hand, that was written in the manner of the antients, that is, on parchment rolled up close together. He appeared in deep meditation, and as part of the book had been unfolded and gradually extended, from his knee on the ground, one could read very plain, in large Greek characters, about fifty lines. The English of the lesson was this

"" THE MASTER SCIENCE

"All things have their nature, their make and form, by which they act, and by which they suffer. The vegetable proceeds with a perfect insensibility. The brute possesses a sense of what is pleasurable and painful, but stops at mere sensation. The rational, like the brute, has all the powers of mere sensation, but enjoys a farther transcendent faculty. To him is imparted the master-science of what he is, where he is, and the end to which he is destined. He is directed by the canon of reason to reverence the dignity of his own superior character, and never wretchedly degrade himself into a nature to him subordinate. The masterscience, he is told, consists in having just ideas of pleasures and pains, true notions of the moments and consequences of different actions and pursuits, whereby he may be able to measure, direct

or controul his desires or aversions, and never merge into miseries. Remember this Arrianus. Then only, you are qualified for life, when you are able to oppose your appetites, and bravely dare to call your opinions to account; when you have established judgment or reason as the ruler in your mind, and by a patience of thinking, and a power of resisting, before you choose, can bring your fancy to the test of truth. By this means, furnished with the knowledge of the effects and consequences of actions, you will know how you ought to behave in every case. You will steer wisely through the various rocks and shelves of life. In short, Arrianus, the deliberate habit is the proper business of man ; and his duty, to exert upon the first proper call, the virtues natural to his mind; that piety, that love, that justice, that veracity, that gratitude, and that benevolence, which are the glory of human kind. Whatever is fated in that order of incontroulable events, by which the divine power preserves and adorns the whole, meet the incidents with magnanimity, and co-operate with chearfulness in whatever the supreme mind ordains. Let a fortitude be always exerted in enduring; a justice in distribution; a prudence in moral offices; and a temperance in your natural appetites and pursuits. This is the most perfect humanity. This do, and you will be a fit actor in the general drama; and the only end of your existence is the due performance of the part allotted you."

Such was Miss NOEL's grotto, and with her, if it had been in my power to choose, I had rather have passed in it the day in talking of the various fine subjects it contained, than go in to dinner; which a servant informed us was serving up, just as I had done reading the above recited philosophical lesson. Back then we returned to the parlour, and there found the old gentleman. We sat down immediately to two very good dishes, and when that was over, Mr. NOEL and I drank a bottle of old Alicant. Though this gentleman was upwards of eighty, yet years had not deprived him of reason and spirits. He was lively and sensible, and still a most agreeable companion. He talked of Greece and Rome, as if he had lived there before the æra of Christianity. The Court of Augustus he was so far from being a stranger to, that he described the principal persons in it; their actions, their pleasures, and their caprices, as if he had been their contemporary. We talked of these great characters. We went into the gallery of Verres. We looked over the antient theatres. Several of the most beautiful passages in the Roman poets this excellent old man repeated, and made very pleasant, but moral remarks upon them.

"The cry," said he, "still is as it was in the days of Horace :O cives, cives, quaerenda pecunia primum est; Virtus post nummos.