THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 239 



expansion" — Now, I am not going to break a lance 

 with the genius who can advance so very self-evident a 

 proposition, as that a fox, after a hard and long run, 

 recovers his strength about his natural time for exer- 

 cise, like the appetite of an alderman at the sound of 

 the dinner-bell ! Mr. Smith, himself, does not lean to 

 such an opinion. I will not ask, whether it may, or 

 may not, be probable that some packs are, at such a 

 time, so much more tired than the fox, that they are 

 inchning towards their natural rest ; neither will I spHt 

 straws in considering whether the "it" conjoined to the 

 parenthesis, has reference to the dew, or the gate top ; 

 for the present, my purpose, hke that of the Rosicrucian, 

 is principally with the dew. 



The Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is, I believe, 

 generally taken as tolerable authority on such matters, 

 after relating the most remarkable experiments of pro- 

 fessors of the Royal Academy of Science, at Paris — 

 Doctor Dufay and M. Muschenbrock, the former of 

 whom vigorously maintained the ascent, and the latter 

 offered some shew of contention for the descent of the 

 dew — concludes, that " it must still remain dubious, whe- 

 ther the dew rises or falls." How unlucky for the En- 

 cyclopaedia, that it should have been published in a day 

 when no Mr. Smith existed, who could for ever have 

 determined the question ; then would it have had no 

 need of committing itself to the theories of these 



