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a common convex glass; so that there are twenty-seven thousand images formed on the retina* of this little animal. Mr. Leuwenhoek having prepared the eye of a fly for the purpose, placed it a little farther from his MICROSCOPE † than when he would examine an object, so as to leave a proper focal distance between it and the lens of his microscope; and then looked through both, in the manner of a TELESCOPE, at the steeple of a church which was 299 feet high, and 750 feet distant, and could plainly see, through every

*RETINA, is the Latin term for the innermost coat of the eye, on which images of external objects are formed. + MICROSCOPE, from two Greek words, signifying to see small things.

TELESCOPE, from two Greek words, signifying to see at a distance.

little lens, the whole steeple inverted, though not larger than the point of a fine needle; and then directing it to a neighbouring house, saw through many of these little hemispheres, not only the front of the house, but also the doors and windows, and could discern distinctly whether the windows were open or shut. So exquisite a piece of Divine mechanism is beyond all human comprehension!

CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER.

1590-1610.

The Sixteenth Century now was speeding on, To mingle with the flood of Ages gone!

When sportive children did the hint supply,
To draw the veil of distance from the eye!
Sage GALILEO toil'd with ardent hope,
And form'd, with organ pipes, a TELESCOPE !
Upturn'd-with rapture how his bosom swell'd
When JUPITER's four moons were first beheld!
The Telescope invented-to the view

The MICROSCOPE next offer'd wonders new !

BOVERICK.

This person-very great in very trifling things-was the first who made chains to yoke a flea! Besides his chain of 200 links, with its padlock and key, all weighing together less than the third part of a grain; this indefatigable minute artificer was the maker of a landau, which opened and shut by springs; it had six horses harnessed to it, a coachman sitting on the box, with

a dog between his legs, four inside and two outside passengers, a postillion riding one of the fore-horses, and was drawn with all the ease and safety imaginable by a welltrained flea! The inventor and executer of this trifling machine, bestowed on it, probably, as much time as was spent by Montgolfier in the construction of his balloon, or Watt in his important improvement of the steam engine. It did not, perhaps, cost the Marquis of Worcester more exertion to draw out his celebrated Century of Inventions ; or Newton more to write those learned queries which Maclaurin said "he could never read without feeling his hair stand on end with admiration." In the education of

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