beauty depends upon taste, and ugliness, to which we are accustomed, soon loses its hideousness, and by being constantly before us, wears at length the countenance of beauty. Thus vice would not be ugly, were we to see no examples to the contrary; and thus an innocent and pure mind, by associating with others whose flagrant and wicked intentions and pursuits render them hideous to the world, not only loses its native goodness, but by associating only with the bad, sees things according to their medium, and acts as they do. Young people are apt to set too high a value upon personal beauty, which is but the blossom of a day; but intelicctual perfections give dignity to deformity, and make it even pleasant to us. A well informed mind, a heart endued with the fixed and firm principles of virtue, can never lose its value; time will have no power over it; in proportion as the beauty of the face decreases, that of the mind gathers strength, and even in old age has power to charm, A complishe

complishments are pleasing, but these, without the necessary virtues of the mind, are only like a house well painted on the outside, while the interior of the building is filled with dirt and rubbish."

WALK X.

MRS. H. My dear children, I am going to Farmer Hudson's; put on your bonnets, and be ready to accompany me." Eliza.-"Mama we are both ready, but where is Frederick ?"

Mrs. H." With your father in the library: there are some new books just come down from London, and he is anxious to look over them."

Eliza." What new works, mama? what are their names?"

Mrs. H." Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, an English edition of Buffon's Natural History, Langhorne's Fables of Flora, and De Non's Picturesque Tour through Sicily and Malta."

Eliza." Sicily, that is where Mount Etna lies.

Mrs. H.-" Yes, my dear, a burning mountain that emits fire, smoke, and at tines

times great quantities of liquid lava.Vesuvius, in the kingdom of Naples, and Hecla, in Iceland, are likewise volcanos."

Eliza." To what is it owing, mama, that these mountains in particular should emit fire, and none else?","

Mrs. H.

Fifty or sixty feet below the surface of the earth, there has been proved to be such a degree of heat, as to cause suffocation, and extinguish light.-Hence it is generally supposed that there are concealed fires in every place under the earth, but no one can prove how these fires subsist, and upon what they depend for food; but certainly they have an excellent effect in preserving the seeds of the ground, and acting with regard to the earth, as the hot-house does upon plants in winter, These heats sometimes find places to vent themselves, as Etna and Vesuvius; the eruptions at these places have at various times been dreadful, sometimes they emit only a black heavy smoke, and are quiet for months and years together; but the

usual.

usual forerunner of an eruption is a hollow rumbling noise, and at times roaring as if the bowels of the mountain were con vulsed; thunder and lightning, attended` by an earthquake, then follows, flames are seen to proceed from the mountain, accompanied by torrents of burning lava, which running down in streams, overwhelms and destroys, all the vineyards, as well as towns and villages, that lie in its way. Yet even these eruptions, dreadful as they are, and terrible as are their effects upon mankind, are not without their advantages; for it has been observed, that the earth produces more abundantly after them than before, for the air previous to an eruption is stif ling and unwholesome; not a breeze agitates the leaf, or gives relief to the animal world, but an overwhelming heat seems to put a stop not only to vegetation, but almost to the functions of animal life; this the eruption and its consequences remove; the air becomes clear and pure, the ground is refreshed by salutary and wholesome

showers,