In every other subject, one of the branches of the auditory nerve inosculates with the muscles of the eye, the tongue, and the nose, as well as the heart and præcordia; but in the instance before us, we could discern a connection only with the tongue, at the root of which there was a spring of prodigious elastic power, and a vast provision of oily globules, which supplied a perpetual mucilage to prevent friction, and wear and tear. In the tuba eustachiana or palate tubes, there was a sort of distillation, which turned the taste of every thing sour, and which when the lady was alive, inundated the mouth with such a supply of pungent mucus, as kept that region in a perpetual irritation, and preserved the tongue, like a rod, in pickle. All my readers have heard of the labyrinth of the ear, in which are the semicircular canals, those very curious passages through which sounds are admitted. These three canals are of different sizes, according to the degrees of sound which they are fitted to receive. They have been denominated the major, minor, and minimus; and upon these we tried several experiments. A great list of names, distinguished in the world, were repeated by the experimenter as loud as was possible; and it was plain that the bad were received by the largest tube to afford room for exaggeration, while the good and the brave could find entrance only through the smallest duct, in which there was but scanty room for the slenderest endowments to pass.

At this moment a person present, notorious for his wicked wit and indecent calumnies desired to be permitted to whisper in the ear. As I happened to be next to him, I thought I heard a word or two of treason fall from him: and immediately a hollow kind of noise seemed to be retured from the concha, that gave me the idea of the deafening sound of a

horn in a diving bell, while every one in the room confessed a kind of mortal chill about the præcordia. Our most interesting experiments were made upon the tympanum, or drum of the ear, which the limits of my paper will not allow me to relate. There was nothing very particular indeed in the construction of this part. There were, as usual, the two membranes, with their four little bones and attendant muscles, to produce such tension or relaxation of this organ as the different sounds required. We could perceive that the membrane was only stretched when a scandalous speech was uttered, and the chord with which it is furnished would only vibrate to certain words. While our attention was directed to this part, somebody or other happened to mention lady Languish's pad; upon which, such a tremulous motion was given to the chord, as astonished every beholder, and a vast quantity of oily globules seemed to be secreted at the place where it is joined to the nerve of the tongue. Methought at this moment our anatomist took up a horn, like the figure of Alexander's tube preserved in the Vatican, and pronounced the name of the queen upon the throne: immediately the ear sent forth a sound like that of a trumpet, and vanished into air. The imaginary noise awoke me; and the first thing I did, after feeling for both my ears, was to make minutes in my pocket-book of all that had passed in this shadowy scene.

No. 67. SATURDAY, AUGUST 24.

ψεῦδος δὲ μισεῖ πᾶς σοφὸς καὶ χρήσιμος.

Every sound and good man abhors a lie.

THE night before last, as I was sitting in the great chair at the meeting of our society, the following extraordinary letter was brought to me from the post-office, which being of an official nature, I read it out to the gentlemen present, who are pleased to

take a more than common interest in the concerns of this paper.

66

TO THE REV. SIMON OLIVE-BRANCH.

"SIR,

"I am one of those enlighted reasoners of the present day, that have raised themselves above the prejudices of their forefathers, and have framed a philosophy of the most comfortable, accommodating, and practicable sort, and which requires none of those unreasonable and painful sacrifices by which Nature is traversed and outraged in her plainest institutes and designs. Although the fundamental points of this amiable philosophy are simple and few, yet I have only time to present you with the leading principle on which its excellence is founded. I set out with concluding, that in studying to make ourselves happy we fulfil one of the most evident indications which Providence has given us of his will,

and the principal end of our creation. In the prosecution of this end, nothing is unwarrantable but what encroaches upon the general plan; for as the happiness of all mankind is equally the concern of our Maker, his great scheme must not be interrupted for any private advantage to an individual. Thus where I destroy more happiness than I procure to myself, I make, or attempt to make, a subtraction from the sum of happiness conceded to mankind; but where I render one person only a victim to my own felicity, the account with Providence is exactly balanced, provided indeed the gain and loss are in equal propor

tion.

66

Nothing can be more simple, intelligible, and just, than this system of philosophy, in which one mystery only is contained, involving indeed something like a contradiction; though I have no doubt but that in the plan of reconcilement we are pursuing, we shall find some compromise between reason and nature in this particular. It seems, I say, something like a contradiction, that since the promotion of his private happiness is so entirely the duty of every individual, there should be so much in the general system to disappoint this purpose, and that the interests of all mankind should not coalesce to this one great object of our being. Abating this little difficulty, nothing can be more satisfactory than the proposition on which our reasonings are grounded; and the simplicity which accompanies its further developement recommends it powerfully to the judgements of those who, with a resolute independence of thinking, are determined to believe nothing they do not exactly comprehend, or cannot with ease reduce to the standard of their feelings.

"Nature has given us passions-and these passions were given us, no doubt, to be indulged. It is our duty, therefore, to indulge them as far as we can,

without opposing the like duty enjoined to the rest of our species. Between man and man there is a tacit convention, within the limits of which our passions and appetites may sport at large; and the only barrier to pleasure is pleasure. Thus, in this elegant and liberal philosophy, virtue and vice have none but merely relative distinctions, and indeed are not cognisable as virtue and vice till they begin to promote or interrupt the happiness of society. It seems as if there were a certain measure of felicity distributed among mankind; and if we have robbed an individual of his due proportion, we have only to make it out to Providence by taking upon ourselves what remains on the balance. What a delicious atonement is this! and out of what a plain principle of equity it arises! What encouragement and certainty it lends to repentance! while it renders our duty our delight, and our religion a regale. Adieu, under such a system, to the secret torments of conscience, and that inward sense of depravation. which in ordinary and unphilosophical minds are attached to the free indulgence of those appetites which nature has given us. Adieu to those shallow prejudices which, by supposing absurd distinctions where none exists, overwhelm the mind with unreasonable terrors, and make our very thoughts susceptible of stain and criminality.

you

"I have observed, Sir, with great regret, that have adopted, in their full extent, these unhappy prejudices, and have applied them to almost all the pursuits and actions of our lives. There is one very important subject, however, which has as yet escaped your pen, and which I would fain rescue from that illiberal partiality with which the rest have been treated. You are to know, Sir, that from earliest youth I have ever detested partiality and persecution of every kind: and I see no reason why what you are pleased