1¢11.] Lviracts from the Portfolio of a Man of Leiters. 537 
that the family where he boarded :con- 
ducted all their business by his proclama- 
tion of time. 
HAD VIRGIL READ THE BIBLE? 
Virgil says, in-his third Georgic: :Pri- 
mus [dumaasreferam tibi Mantua palmas, 
It kas been contended, that by these: 
Idumean palms, Virgil means the beauties 
of Hebrew poetry; and that, in his Pollio, 
he realized this'trausplantauion, by bor- 
rowing from Isaiah, and other Jewish 
bards, their applicable “passages. Tlie 
Alexandrian version of ‘the Scriptures 
was accessible to Virgil. 
PROPHETIC! DREAM. 
In February, 1786, professor Meier, 
‘of Halle, was ‘sent forsby one of “his 
pupils, a medical student who lay dangér- 
ously ill. ‘The patient told) his doctor, 
that he should certainly die; having had 
a warning dream to that effect. . 1 wrote 
it down, he added, the morning after jit 
happened, and iaid it in a drawer, of 
_ which thisis the key: when I am gone, 
read it over. 
On the 4th of March the student died. 
Professor Meier opened the drawer. of 
the writing-desk, in which he found this 
narration: ase 
“J thought I was walking in the 
churchevard of Halle, and admiring the 
great number of excellent epitaphs, 
which are cut"@n the vrave stones there. 
-assing from one to another, | was struck 
by a plain tomb-stone, of which L went to 
read the inscription. With surprise I 
found upon it my own two forenames, 
and my surname, and that I died on the 
4th of March. With progressive anxiety 
I tried to read the date of the year; but 
I thought there was moss over the fourth 
cypher of 178—. I picked up'a stone to 
scrape the figures clean, and just as I 
began to distinguish a 6, with fearful pal. 
pitation I awoke.” 
Professor Meier related this anecdote 
in his lectures, as a proof of the influence 
» of the mind in disease ; this dream baving 
caused its own fulfilment, 
ia QUESTIONABLE MAXIM, . 
Be Dr. Hunter, of York, in his 286th 
laxim, says: Trade gives narrow notidns, 
a wide possessions. Is this antithesis 
tr The word narrow is applied espe- 
cially té two classes of notions : to those 
which respect pecuniary, and to those 
which respect religious, liberality.- How 
‘does trade operate on these points? 
If you want to have money given, or 
money lent, to an svretwn “Gia a 
“public purpose, the gift or the Joan is 
_ miore easily obtained of a tradesman than 
iy 4 
of a country-gentleman of twice the pro. 
perty. I appeal to every one who has 
been concerned in quests for charitable, 
political, or ornamental purposes. Pecu- 
miary niggardliness is so little the trades- 
man’s sin, that the motto of his purse is 
rather: Lightly come, lightly go. 
* And now for religious liberality—There 
are ten tradesmen who will s:gn a petition 
for Catholic emancipation, for the repeal 
of the ‘Test-act, for the naturalization of 
the Jews, or for withdrawing the Act of 
Uniformity,to one country-gentleman who 
will doit. The country-pentleman. pro~ 
vides for bis second son in the ehurch, 
ands regularly overawed by the learning, 
samcleawed by the alarms, of this ecclesi- 
astic son, ‘The churcliis always in dan- 
ger in the opinion: of a. land-owner, and 
every injustice is to. be. perpetrated jand 
-perpetuated in order to. preserve .the 
monopoly of preferment among her sons. 
Tu this respect again, land, uot. trade, 
gives Darrow motions, 
Let-us conciude Dr. Hunter's. maxim 
to be libellous and unfounded. 
-ROVIDENTIAL ESCAPE. 
The following narration, which occurs 
in Ploti’s Statturdshire, yp. 291, (folio, 
Oxford, 1685,) seems to have furnished 
one of our most popular poets with’ the 
fable of a beautiful ballad. "i 
** Among the unusual accidents tHat 
have attended the female sex, I may. 
reckon arrow. escapes from. death: 
whereof I met with one justly mentioned 
with admiration by every person at Leek, 
that happened not far off the Black Meer 
of Morridy, which, though famous for 
nothing for which it is commonly reputed 
so, as that it is bottomless, that nu catile - 
drink: of it, or birds settle on it, (all which 
I found false,) yet is so, for this signal 
deliverance. 
““A poor woman was enticed hither, in a 
dismal stormy night, by a bloody ruftian, 
who had first gotten her with child, and 
intended, in this remote inhospitable 
place, to have dispatched her by drown. 
ing. The same night, Providence so 
ordered it, there were several persons of 
low rank drinking in the aje-house at 
Leek; whereof one having been out, and 
observing the darkness, and other circuine 
stances of the weather, said. to the rest 
of bis companions, that he were a’stout 
man who would venture, in, such a wight, 
to vo to the Black Meerof Morridy. .Qne 
rephed that for.a crown he would-under- 
take it, The rest joining their pardes, 
said he should have bis demand, The 
bargain being struck, away he-went on 
, his 
