498 Chit'ChaL 



Vo?i Os, 'TIs so on all subjects : the essence of truth and 

 beauty is exhaled in conversation, while what is elaborately 

 written, seems merely the dregs. Try an interlocutory article, 

 where the spirit of the moment 



" One little ray flings through the darkling mind. 

 And let it gild each flitting thought minute 

 That passes through it, sparkling as it dies. 

 As erst in childhood's frolic day I've seen. 

 When right against some barn's old-boarded side 

 The evening sun flung warm his yellow rays. 

 Piercing each inlet hole, the airy motes 

 Blaze fitfully, in many a level beam." 



Dov. And the best of these is spoiled by writing. Who 

 can weave sunbeams ? — and what are gathered dew-drops ? 



Von Os. Natural history is felicitously suitable to this style, 

 from its exhaustless variety, and adaptability to all minds ; 

 admitting, even more forcibly, what Cicero so eloquently says 

 of Polite Literature, in his oration for the poet Archias, — 

 " as calling upon us at all times, ages, and places ; employing 

 our youth, amusing our age ; embellishing prosperity, con- 

 soling adversity ; delightful at home, and of easy carriage 

 abroad; soothing our leisure, shortening our fatigue, and 

 enlivening our retirement." 



Dov, True. And from the profuse efflux of works now 

 issued to illustrate it, of all sorts, sizes, and prices, it is like 

 to find its way more readily into the higher and lower ranks 

 of society, where it is about alike wanted. 



Von Os, The middle, in all ages and countries, have always 

 been the best informed, and most benevolent ; the highest and 

 lowest, the most ignorant and callous. 



Dov. Ray tells a humorous story, that, after the patiently 

 exploring commissioners, at the end of their long examin- 

 ations, deliberately confessed their utter ignorance to account 

 for the Goodwin Sands, an old man gravely asserted Ten- 

 terden steeple to be the cause. 



Von Os. Tenterden steeple ! 



Dov. Ay; Tenterden steeple: for that those sands first 

 appeared the year it was erected. 



Von Os. And the slightest interview with the mass of man- 

 kind, any hour, will prove the race of Tenterden philosophers 

 to be far from extinct. 



Dov. Particularly with regard to facts relative to natural 

 history : and this is the more lamentable, and perhaps the 

 more surprising, when we consider its unlimited adaptability 

 to all capacities, ages, sexes, and ranks ; and, moreover, the 

 absolute necessity of many parts of it to their intellectual 

 existence. 



