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the confequence? and after the lofs of two or three lives, fuppofe the affaulters had been conquerors, where must they have carried their prize? Would not the country have been raised? Would not they have been pursued? Befides, was not the young lady going to Dublin? A city that unhappy man was too well acquainted with. He knew it is fituated near the fea; that a wellconcerted plan laid there for carrying off the lady going home in a fedan chair from fome vifit, by bribing the chairmen, and having a boat ready on the quays, might with fome degree of probability have been executed.

But without all doubt, he made all his accomplices and affiftants believe, that his defign was only to take the young lady away, whom he declared to be his wife; but the contrary appeared on the trial. There it was fworn by one of the evidences, Mr. Afh, that this unhappy wretch had vowed long ago to murder Mr. Knox and his whole family; and this fact evidently appeared, that he had not made the leaft provifion for carrying her off that day, nor once demanded her at the coachfide.

Agreeable to the fentence, Mr. McNaughton, with his accomplice Dunlap, were executed on Tuesday the 15th of December 1761, .near Strabane in the county of Tyrone. McNaughton walked to the place of execution, but being weak of his wounds, was fupported between two men. He was dreffed in a white flannel waistcoat trimmed with black buttons and holes, a diaper night-cap tied with a black ribbon, white ftockings, mourning buckles, and a crape tied on his arm. He defired the executioner to be fpeedy,

and the fellow pointing to the ladder, he mounted with great fpirit. The moment he was tied up, he jumped from it with fuch vehemence, as fnapped the rope, and he fell to the ground, but without diflocating his neck, or doing himself much injury. When they had raised him on his legs again, he foon recovered his fenses; and the executioner borrowing the rope from Dunlap, and fixing it round M'Naughton's neck, he went up the ladder a fecond time, and tying the rope himself to the gallows, he jumped from it again with the fame force, and appeared dead in a minute.

Thus died the once univerfally admired M'Naughton, in the 38th year of his age! deferted by all who knew him, in poverty and ig. nominy!

M'Naughton not liking, he faid, either the principles or doctrine of the clergyman who firft went to prepare him for death, because it feems, he made things too terrible to him, Mr. Burgoyne fucceeded. As no carpenter could be found to make the gallows, the fheriff looked out for a tree proper for the purpose, and the execution muft have been performed on it, had not the uncle of the young lady, and fome other gentlemen, made the gallows and put it up. The fheriff was even obliged to take a party of foldiers and force a fmith to take off his bolts; otherwife he must have been obliged, contrary to law, to execute him with his bolts on. The fpectators, who faw him drop, when the rope broke, looked upon it as fome contrivance for his efcape, which they favoured all they could by running away from the place, and leaving it open. The populace would not probably

have

have been fo well difpofed towards him, had they known of his horrid defigns of murder; but they had been perfuaded that he only meant to get poffeffion of his wife.

The foregoing account muft naturally fuggeft fome reflections on the high abfurdity of thofe fathers, who, having handfome marriageable daughters, contract friendships with agreeable young gentlemen, and invite them to be intimates, without intending they should be hufbands to, or wishing them to fucceed with, their daughters! Are not the eyes, by fuch means, directed to their natural pleafing objects? And is not love moft likely to be the certain and natural confequence? When they meet alone in the garden or the grove, will not love be their fubject? How much more ridiculous and abfurd muft fuch fathers appear, who, when the difcovery is made, are furprized and exafperated, at what they themselves have brought about! It may be affirmed, that this very mistake has been the caufe of more real mischiefs, than any other that can be named. It were to be wifhed therefore, that all thofe, who have been guilty of fo great an error, would not only fincerely repent of, but publickly own it, as fuch a confeffion might prove warning to others.

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feveral perfons under the fpecious pretext of turning Roman Catholic. From thence he went to Zante, where he called himself a Swede, and contracted feveral debts. Going afterwards to Smyrna, he gave himfelf out in public for a Hanoverian; but he told fome people in pretended confidence that he was a Swede, and the natural fon of a great prince deceafed. He took the name of Charles Frederick, Count de Taube; giving to underftand that he had been obliged to fly his country for an affair of flate: He ftaid two years at Smyrna, living on fome generous perfons, whom he likewife defrauded of fums of money. From thence paffing to Conftantinople, he acted the fame part there for eighteen months. At last he quitted that place all of a fudden, in the month of September 1761, after contracting many debts, and carrying away fome jewels belonging to different ladies, and fome diamond rings. He alfo took away a fquare gold fnuff-box of English make, for rapee, which he never takes, and a gold watch made at Paris. He fpeaks Italian tolerably well, but French, German, and English much better, and a little Swedish. He has been fufpected to be a Jew, because he reads and writes a little Hebrew; but he is otherwife illiterate, and very ignorant.

This man is of the middle fize, but rather under it; he is out in the right fhoulder, has a clear complexion, large features, black eyes, black hair, which he wears in a bag or a queue; he walks faft, is about 28 or 30 years of age, and enriched with every vice, except a paffion for gaming; he plays verv ill at games of commerce, and not play much at games of G NAT

NATURAL HISTORY.

Of animals living in folid bodies.

N Toulon harbour, and the

fuppofed to have got into it. The egg, whence it was formed, muft, by fome very fingular accident,

es, been

and perfectly entire. containing, in different cells, fecluded from all communication with the air, feveral living fhell-fish, of an exquifite taste, called Dayli, i. e. Dates: To come at these fish the ftones are broken with mauls. Alfo, along the coaft of Ancona, in the Adriatic, are ftones, ufually weighing about fifty pounds, and fometimes even more, the outfide rugged, and eafily broken, but the infide fo hard, as to require a frong arm, and an iron maul to break them; within them, and in feparate niches, are found fmall fhell-fish, quite alive, and very palatable, called Solenes, or Cappe lunghe: The facts are attefled by Gaffendi, Blondel, Mayol, the learned bishop of Sulturara, and more particularly by Aldrovandi, a physician, of Bologna; the two latter fpeak of it as a common fact, which they themselves faw.

In the volume for 1719, of the academy of sciences at Paris, is the following paffage:

"In the foot of an elm, of the bigness of a pretty corpulent man, three or four feet above the root, and exactly in the center, has been found a live toad, middle fized, but lean, and filling up the whole vacant fpace: no fooner was a paffage opened by splitting the wood than it fcuttled away very haftily; a more firm and found elm never grew; fo that the toad cannot be

firft growth. There the creature had lived without air, feeding on the fubftance of the tree, and growing only as the tree grew. This is attefted by Mr. Hubert, profeffor of philofophy at Caen."

The volume for the year 1731, has a fimilar obfervation, expressed in thefe words:

"In 1719 we gave an account of a fact, which, though improbable, was well attefted; that a toad had been found living and growing in the stem of a middling elm, without any way for the creature to come out or to have got in. M. Seigne, of Nantes, lays before the academy a fact just of the very fame nature, except that, instead of an elm, it was an oak, and larger than the elm, which ftill heightens the wonder. He judges, by the time requifite for the growth of the oak, that the toad must have fubfifted in it, without air, or any adventitious aliment, during eighty or a hundred years. M. Seigne feems to have known nothing of the fact in 1719.”

With the two foregoing may be claffed a narrative of Ambrofe Paré, chief furgeon to Henry III. king of France, who, being a very fenfible writer, relates the following fact, of which he was an eye-witness:

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Being, fays he, at my seat, near the village of Meudon, and over. looking a quarry-man, whom I had

fet

fet to break fome very large and hard ftones, in the middle of one we found a huge toad, full of life, and without any vifible aperture by which it could get there. I began to wonder how it received birth, had grown and lived; but the labourer told me, it was not the firft time he had met with a toad, and the like creatures, within huge blacks of ftone, and no vifible opening or fiffure.

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Obfervations of living toads, found in very hard and entire ftones, occur in feveral authors, particularly Baptift Fulgofa Doge of Genoa, the famous phyficians Agricola and Horftius, and lord Verulam others give very fpecious accounts of fnakes, frogs, crabs, and lobsters, being found alive, inclofed within blocks of marble, rocks, and large ftones.

Without attempting to explain facts fo very abftrufe and furprifing, yet,at the fame time, fo well authenticated, I fhall only indicate the inferences arifing from them.

1.That the teftaceous and cruftaceous fish, the toads, fnakes, frogs, or at the leaft the eggs, whence thefe different kinds of animals proceeded, were lodged in the trees at their firft growth, or in the foft mud, of which the ftones were afterwards

formed

2. That thefe animals thus enclofed within trees or ftones, or at leaft which come from eggs hatched in them, have fubfifted there ever fince, that is, 50, 100, 150 years, or perhaps even more, as lefs could not be required for the growth of the trees, or the formation of the ftones where they were found.

3. That confequently they had

lived there much longer than animals of the fame fpecies when at liberty.

4. Yet, during all the time, their fole aliment has been the fap of the tree, or any moisture or liquor penetrating through the thickness of the ftones.

5. That they lived there without any other air than what was contained within their fcanty cells, which, even with regard to the fhell fish, these having a kind of refpiration, deferves fome enquiry; but borders on incredibility, with refpect to frogs, toads, and fnakes, whofe fenfible refpiration feems to require much more air.

6. That to this exclufion of all external air, the animals, thus enclofed, might perhaps owe their longævity; at leaft this agrees with the idea of the celebrated Bacon, who, in his Hifloria vitæ et mortis, canon 18, lays down the following rule as confirmed by experience. Aer exclufus confert ad longevitatem, fi aliis incommodis caveas.

7. Laftly, That inftinct taught thefe anima's to provide themfelves beforehand with niches proportioned to their utmost growth; or at leaft, as they grew, they had the fagacity to enlarge their niches, either by repelling, or gradually abrading

the fides which formed them.

Thefe confequences, I am aware, may appear incredible, and I own not without fome reafon; but, incredible as they may feem, they must be admitted, if we admit the facts, whence they are deduced, be true; and after fuch vouchers and atteftations, they are fcarce to be queftioned.

G 2

Some

Some account of the Mus Alpinus, Baubax, or Marmotte.

TH

HE celebrated cardinal Polignac, in his poein, entitled Anti-Lucretius, which was published about the year 1747, long after his death, has given a very extraor dinary account of an animal, which he calls a Polish animal, and named Baubax. He fays, that these animals are of two kinds, fome black, and fome of a yellowish red; that thefe two kinds keep feparate, and make war upon each other, drawing up in large bodies, and encamp ing like oppofite armies; that they engage, and fight defperately; and that the victors, whether the black or the red, take and carry away as many prifoners as they can; and, retaining them in captivity, employ them in domeftic drudgery, and other flavish bufinefs; fo that all the red which are found among the black, and all the black that are 'found among the red, are in a flate of the most abject fervitude. He adds, that when the mafter has made his hay, and other provifion, ready to be carried home, he lays the flave upon his back, and loads him with the forage as we do a waggon, and then drags him by the tail to his fubterraneous habitation, and continues this practice till all the ftore is laid up.

This account caufed great enquiry to be made after the animal, and the hiftory of it was at laft found in a book which the late Dr. Mead had in his library, entitled, Hiftoria naturalis curi fa regni Polonia, magni ducatus Lithuania annexarumque provinciarum: In tractus xx divif. Sandonnier 1721. Written by one Gabriel Rzaczinski, a jesuit.

Doctor Parsons, at the request of

the ingenious Peter Collinfon, efq; examined this hiftory, and found that Rzaczinski had claffed this animal among fubterraneous creatures, and given much the fame account of him as the cardinal has given, only that, inftead of mentioning the two kinds fighting, and making flaves of the prifoners taken in battle, he mentions only, that each kind makes flaves of fuch of the other kind as they difcover near their dwellings and magazines, as if they fuppofed them to be fpies. It appeared also, that the animal called by Polignac and Rzaczinski, Baubax, is the fame which Ray calls the Mus Alpinus, and Marmota: the Marmotte of the Alps, which has been often carried about here in a box, and fhewn by the Savoyards.

Mr. Collinfon then determined to write to his friend Mr. Klein, fecretary to the city of Dantzick, with a view either to get this account, fo extraordinary, confirmed or refuted; and Dr. Mead, knowing his intention, requested that he would endeavour to procure for him a fecond part of Rzaczinski's hiftory, which he heard had been published some time after the first.

Mr. Klein, in his anfwer to Mr. Collinfon, obferves, that the fame accounts of the Baubax, or Marmotte, had been given by Agricola and Spon, but that he himself always confidered them as fabulous ; for which, however, he feems to have no better reafon than because they are wonderful, and relate that of the Baubax which has not been obferved in any other brutes, and which feems to imply reafon and reflection. But instinct, in many inftances, directs brutes to do that which man does from reafon; and

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