7 799-] , Exiracts from the Port-falio of a Man of Letters. 
Sc. At Naples, in the church of the 
Minims, an agate on the altar-piece per- 
fectly fhews a St. Francis, with his beard, 
his capuchin, &c. with their proper co- 
lours ; but Mr. De Ja Lande, fuppofes, as 
it is fo very perfect, that it muft have béen 
affifted by art. It is probable too, that 
many others of ‘thefe lufus nature have 
undergone the fame operation. 
If we may rely on one Dinet, he tells 
us, that he has {een three ftones at Rome, 
in acolleétion, in which nature has been 
her own geographer, and has by thefe new 
kind of naps given an idea, in one ftone, of 
France, its moft remarkable rivers, towns, 
and provinées ; in another, of Italy with its 
mountains, &c.; and in thethird, of Spain. 
It is evident that the imagination mulft 
greatly affift thefe fingular productions. 
In fome of thefe.a herald has difcovered 
armorial bearings, coloured and blazoned ; 
and perhaps there is no one, endowed with 
much fancy, who could not in this‘man- 
ner perceive an analogy to his own fa- 
vourite object. 
There are, however, fome fingularities 
of this kind which are very pleafing. Some 
of thofe are, a piece of porphyry in the 
city of Aleppo; ‘in which appears an ox 
browzing, and before him,°a tree loaded 
with fruit like fmall quinces. At Snel- 
berg in Germany, in a copper mine was 
found a piece of this metal, on which was 
the figure of a man carrying achild, as St. 
Chriftopher is ufvally reprefented. The- 
vet faw in the church at Bethlem feveral 
columns of a tranfparent jafper, where he 
perceived the figures of.a number of birds, 
fifhes, fruits, and other objects, But the 
moft pleafing one [ recollect, is that fine 
and tranfparent Indian ftone of various co- 
lours, which he defcribes ; in oppofing, it 
to thelight, or rather to the beams-of the 
fun, he obferved clearly a man mounted 
on an elephant; the man wore a blue tur- 
_ban, a Morefco drefs, as red as fcarlet. 
The figures were fo corres, that it might 
have been mittaken for a picture. 

THEOLOGICAL STYLE. 
T collect for the reader’s amufement 
fome examples of the theological ftyle,-. 
which till very lately difgraced the writ- 
ings of our divines, and which is not yet 
banifhed from fome of a certain ftamp.— 
Matthew Henry, whofe Commentaries are 
well known, writes in this manner on 
_ Judges ix.— We are here told by what 
acts Abimelech got into the faddle—none 
_ would have dreamed of making fuch a fel- 
lozy as he king.—See how he has wheed- 
ded them inte the choice.—He hired into 
_ blifs by coming upon his own legs. 
efeig 
his fervice the /cum and fcoundrels of the 
country.—Jotham was really a fize gentle- 
man.—The Sechemites that fet Abime- 
lech up, were the firit to kick bim off.— 
The Sechemites faid all the ill they could 
of him in their table-talk; they drank 
héalths to his confufion.—/Well, Gaal’s 
intereft in Shechem is foon at an end.—! 
Exit Gaal. / 
L. Addifon, the father of the admirable 
_and refined writer, was one of the coarfett, 
‘in point of diétion, I have met with, even 
inhis own day. He tells us in his voyage 
to Baibary, that ‘¢a Rabbin once told 
him, among other heinous fluff, that he did 
not expect the felicity of the next world on 
the account of any merits but his own ; 
whoever kept the law would arrive at the 
It muft be confeffed, that the Rabbin 
(confidering he could not conf{cientioufly - 
have the fame creed as Addifon) did not 
deliver any very irrational fentiments, in’ 
that one of believing that other people’s 
“merits have nothing to do with our own ; 
and that we fhould walk on our own legs. 

LARGE HORSES. 
_ QOur ftatute-book contains a number of 
laws for promoting the breed of Jarge 
horfes. An Aét of Heury the Eighth 
(fince repealed) contains {ome very curi- 
ous regulations on this fubject. Every 
archbifhop and duke is obliged under pe- 
nalties to have feven trotting ftone-horfes 
for the faddle, each of which, at the age 
of three years, was to be fourteen hands 
high. Sumilar direétions follow with re- 
gard to the number, of the fame kind of 
horfes to be kept by perfons of other ranks 
and degrees ; the loweft clafs mentioned is 
that of a fpiritual perfon, having bene- 
fices to the amount of zool. per annum, 
or a layman whofe wife fhali wear any 
French hood, or bonnet of velvet: fuch 
were obliged to have one tratting ftone- 
horfe for the faddle. In the reign ‘of 
queen Elizabeth a bill was brought into 
the Houfe of Lords, but rejected on the 
fecond reading, for refraining the fuper- 
Jiuous ufe of coaches. 

ACT OF PARLIAMENT. 
A very extraordinary Aét of Parliament, 
and which probably ftands to this day un- 
repealed, was paffed in the 37th year of> 
Henry VIII, entitled, ‘* The Bill for the 
burning of Frames.’—The following is 
the Preamble vervatim:—‘* Whereas di- 
vers and fundry malicious and envious 
pertons, being men of evil and perverie 
difpoftions, and feduced by the initiga- 
AB2 tion 
2 
