1796.] Origin of the Human Voice.—Birger’s Poems. Tift 
receives 118. 8d. per week from the pa- 
rith ; this is, undoubtedly, a very comfort- 
able addition, and contributes to make a 
large family what it always ought to be, 
but frequently is not, a bleffing, and not 
a burden. ‘The fum neceffary for this 
diftribution is enforced—for there are 
people, whofe dormant generofity is not 
to be awakened by the loud voice even 
of thefe hard times—the fum is erforced 
by arate. Asthe {mall payers, however, 
are not all of them farmers, and confe- 
quently reap no benefit from the high 
. price of corn, and as fome of the {mall 
tarmers had fold their corn before it had 
rifen to the prefent enormous value; a 
voluntary fubfcription has been raifed, in 
order to refund fuch as appeared to re- 
quire affiftance. ‘ 
I fhall trefpafs on your patience a lit- 
tle longer, in mentioning a few particu- 
lars of our expenditure: cue 
it, The average number of fuch as 
receive the benefit of our weekly diftri- 
_ bution, is 282. 
2d, Ihe number who contribute to- 
wards it, is 56. 
3d, From the 17th of Nov. 179s, the 
day on which the plan was firft adopted, 
to the sth of March, 1796 (including 
about fixteen weeks) it has coft us 
1871, 178. 63d. which is not quite 12]. a 
week. 
4th, The numbers of {mall payers who 
are refunded, is 11, and they have receiv- 
ed among them 5]. 12s. 8d. N.B. This 
number if the high price of grain conti- 
nues, muft probably be encreated; but as 
this contribution is voluntary, it is not 
put into a rate. ; 
It may not be improper to add, per- 
chaps, that at the early part of the feafon, 
anticipating a fearcity, we bought fix 
latts of potatoes, and fell them tothe poor. 
at is. 4d. a buthel, or 1d. a quarter. 
We annually lay in a ftock of coals, and 
they are now felling every Sunday before 
fervice, at, rod. a buthel: the potatoes 
are fold at the fame time. 
The farmers, Sir, receive.the benefit 
of thefe dear times, and they are the 
_ perfons who ought to alleviate the dif. 
trefles which the times occafion. With 
us they have come forward with be. 
coming alacrity and good will; may that 
alacrity and that good will in the caufe 
of humanity—be univerial and everlaft- 
ing ! i dad 
Hetherfet, N cena : 
March 8, 1796. 3... wre Ny 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
MR. EDITOR, 
M2* I have leave to propofe to the 
confideration of your philofophical 
readers, the following difficulty concern. 
ing the place in which the human voice 
is formed? ‘The well-known ftory of 
the pippin-woman, whofe head, after 
being chopped off by the edge of the ice 
in a hole on the frozen Thames, into 
which the had flipped, cried pip, Arp, as 
it went fliding along, feems to prove that 
the voice is formed in the mouth and up- 
per part of the windpipe; an opinion 
alio confirmed by the illuftrious fact of 
the head of Orpheus calling on the 
name of Eurydice, as it rolled down the 
Hebrus. From Ovid’s tale of Philomela, 
we learn that even the tongue by itfelf 
(at leaft the female tongue) has the fa. 
culty of muttering after it is cut our. 
On the other hand, an undeniable tefti- 
mony, that of the Jefuir Miffionary, 
Pere Avril, may be brought to prove, 
. that the trunk is able to {peak after the 
head is amputated. For a Brabangon 
gentleman, and a good catholic, being 
decapitated at Mofcow, for the crime of 
homicide, was heard by his confeffor to 
~ utter the facred words * Jefus, Maria,”’ 
from the wound of his neck, after his 
head had been feparated from his body. 
Now, Sir, being accuftomed to pay 
the higheft deference to writtez authori- 
ties, 1 feel myfelf much at a lofs how to 
reconcile thefe apparently contradiGiory 
accounts, and fhall be happy in affiftance 
to enable me to fettle my belief. 
Your’s, 
March 3, 1796. SCRUTATOR. 

For the Monthly Magazine, 
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE POEMS OF 
G. A. BURGER, 
[ By the Tranflator of Goethe's Iphigenia | 
in Tauris. | 
G ODFRED Auguftus Birger was 
born in 1748, at AicherflebenS and 
is employed as receiver of the land-tax 
at Wollmerfhaufen. In 1779, was made 
the firft Colleétion of his Poems, which 
had feverally appeared in _ periodical 
mifcellanies; and in 1789, that which 
hes before me. They confift partly of 
fongs, fonnets, elegies, fables, and other 
fhort pieces, comic and ferious; and 
partly of ballads, many of which are 
tranflated, with improvements, from’ 
Englith originals. Dryden’s Gutfeardo 
and Sigifunda, the Child of Elle, ang 
se e rne 
