"God True, most true, my brother," said Lewis. knows I take no merit to myself for sobriety, or any good quality-but grant me the first favour I ever asked." “That I shall, dear lad, if it was to beg myself for a month." "I was going to ask it till we leave this unwholesome climate," said Lewis, "but we shall begin with a month. I must go to attend my master at dinner. Give me your hand; and promise not to taste strong drink for a month. I will see you again as soon as I can. Before a fortnight had passed, Dick was severely wounded in a skirmish. He had escaped any fracture, but his constitution, enflamed by the frequent use of ardent spirits, had such a tendency to gangrene, that after long languishing in the hospital, he was pronounced incurable, discharged, and sent home. His wife was a native of the south of Scotland, from whence she had been absent many years; but still anxious to enquire about her relations, she consented to Dick's proposal for going in quest of his brothers and sisters. Betty had not heard from any of her friends since she married an Irish chapman; but she had the joy of finding they had removed to Lord L.'s property, where, by successful speculations, they had amassed wealth, which must soon fall to her, as the only survivor of her father's family (who had waited on a wild young man lately deceased,) was in the last stage of decay, the consequence of following his master's example in a dissolute life. Another of her brothers, an industrious sober lad, had died of the small-pox six weeks before her arrival-and though to gain money was Betty's sole notion of happiness, she was greatly affected by accounts of the dreadful sufferings. of the deceased under his loathsome disease-and by the sight of him, who paid the penalty of his vices in three weeks, after she became the attendant of his sick-bed. Dick Dick was now the richest tenant on Lord L.'s estate; bu he seemed to rejoice more that his farm lay half-way be tween Terence's school-house, and the small village where Roger and Lizzy had settled since their marriage, than in all his possessions. Lizzy had married an ingenious locksmith; and Roger had taken to wife the youngest daughter of his foster-father and master, the excellent William Stevenson. Lewis gave Dick letters of introduction to his brothers and sisters; and to become acquainted with them, had been the inducement with him to go to Scotland, though he had no hope of meeting them so soon, and conveniently. Their interview was joyfully pathetic;-but Terence, Roger, and Lizzy were mortified to find their long lost brother, not only grossly ignorant, but much addicted to liquor. His wife, an active, bustling, worldly-minded woman, was too imperious for adopting effectual measures to reclaim him. She rather forced him from home by her invectives; and when his brother expostulated with him for spending so much time at the alehouse, Dick shrugged his shoulders, saying, "A man that has no cup of comfort at home will be driven where he can find it; but if she would spaake soft words, I could'nt for the soule o' me vex her." While his brothers enjoyed the peaceful plains of Scotia, Lewis experienced complicated distresses in America. He was in bad health; but he concealed his own sufferings, and strained every nerve in attendance on Colonel L. who never recovered the shock of his mother's death, his father's marriage, and the fate of his gallant brother, who had been to him as a second self. The urgency of service as an officer, and far more his fortitude, enabled him to sustain his arduous duties, but the damp sultry air of Carolina, occasioned another suppuration in his imperfectly healed lacerations. His surgeons urged him to return to Europe, but he could not bear the thoughts of leaving Lord Lord R. who was also in such a state of debility, as to be carried in a cart that he might not be separated from his retreating battalions. His lordship, ever more attentive to his friends than to himself, commanded Colonel L. to flee for his life from the noxious climate. "As commander-in-chief of these brave men," said Lord R. 66 my presence is a bounden duty; but your relation to them allows your absence, and, permit me to say, it would be culpable to sacrifice yourself. A ship for Leith, sails from the nearest port. I shall give you dispatches for government, and you must depart." Colonel L. obeyed:-but he expired in the arms of Lewis, seventeen days after embarking for Scotland. When Lewis arrived, he called on his late master's man of business at Edinburgh, to deliver some papers entrusted to him. Mr D. informed him, his master had bequeathed to him all the money he had saved since he entered the army. Lady L.'s fortune would amply provide for his brothers and sisters after their father's death.—The second lady had no children. And the sum left to Lewis, though independence for him, would be of no consideration to Lord L.'s family. To be continued. The Book of Nature laid Open. (Continued from p. 22.) "O Nature! all-sufficient! over all ! Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works!" "Still let my steady soul thy GOODNESS see, And with strong confidence lay hold on Thee." THE FORM OF THE EARTH. ON returning from my subterraneous excursion, my attention is naturally directed to the shape or form of that stupendous stupendous fabric, which contains so many convenient apartments, and is enriched by so many valuable materials ; and were I to trust to appearances as they present themselves to my limited power's of vision, I might be led to conclude (as was the opinion of some of the ancients) that the earth is a wide extended flat, bounded by the horizon. This belief, however, is now completely exploded, and the figure of the earth demonstrated to be globular by the voyages of a number of circumnavigators, from the days of the famous MAGELLAN down to those of our illustrious countryman Captain Cook.* By these voyagers it has been fully ascertained, that a vessel leaving Europe in a certain direction, may return to the point from whence she set out, without altering her course farther than is necessary to avoid intervening obstacles, or give her, what the sailor's call sea-room. The sphericity of the earth is also apparent from the circumstance, that two ships at sea, sailing in contrary directions till they lose sight of each other, first do so by the disappearance of the hulls and lower rigging, and afterwards of the higher sails and top-masts. The roundness, from North to South, is evident from the sinking of northern stars to the horizon, till they actually disappear to those who travel far southward; and from East to West by the difference of sun-rise in proportion as we go Eastward or Westward. The form of the earth being therefore proved by arguments the most incontrovertible, to be that of a globe or sphere, our next inquiry ought to be, How far the wisdom There is a strange coincidence in the manner by which these two illustrious commanders came by their death, both were cut off in the midst of their discoveries-both feil a sacrifice to their thirst after knowledge the former being murdered by the inhabitants of an island in the East-Indies, and the latter by the natives of Owhybee, in the Pacific Ocean. wisdom and goodness of the Almighty are manifest in that particular form? And this is highly apparent if we consider that this is the most capacious, compact, and durable of all figures,―the most convenient for a body in motion,— for the equal distribution of light and heat, for the proper disposal of land and water, as well as for the beneficial influence of the winds. The earth, which is the habitation of so many creatures, must be sufficiently capacious not only to contain them, but what is necessary for their preservation; and being, as it were, the basis of this sublunary creation, it must be so firmly and compactly girt together, as to be beyond the reach of accident to destroy any of its parts, till the fiat shall have gone forth, that, Time shall be no more. Had it been of an ANGULAR form, the points of the angles behoved to have been considerably weakened by their distance from the centre of gravity, and consequently would have been in continual danger of being loosened, or flying off, by the rapidity of the earth's diurnal motion round its axis; or had it been possible for them to have remained, what resistance must these angles have occasioned in the performance of that motion! What a continual state of perturbation and tempest in the air, must they have caused! How incommodious to the diffusion of light and beat, and for the wise and useful distribution of the waters! THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH. In casting my eyes abroad over the face of the earth, I observe it covered with two great bodies of LAND and WATER; but as it is to the appendages and productions of the former I mean first to direct my thoughts, 1 shall leave the consideration of Nature's mighty Reservoir, and the wonders of the Ocean, to an after occasion, and shall proceed to consider the magnificent scene which the dry land presents. The |