food, it will attack a neft of wafps, or wild bees; and, in spite of their stings, fucceed in carrying off the combs.

As the fox is inimical to all other animals, fo the various tribes of nature seem leagued against him. The dog hunts him with peculi ar acrimony; and even birds feem to take a pleasure in betraying his fteps, in expofing him to the hoftility of the pack, or announcing his approach to the object of his pursuit.

Among the various tribes of wild quadrupeds, none are more fubject to the influence of climate than the fox; and the varieties are almoft as numerous as in any of the domeftic animals, Zoologifts have enumerated feveral diftinct fpecies, as well as varieties; there feems, however to be a general conformity between them all: equally fond of petty robbery, and equally ufelefs, their chafe affords paftime for the hunters, who only come in for carrion at last. The skin, however, is valuable, and in fome fpecies procures confiderable fums.

THE ARCTIC FOX, OR ISATIS.

The fur of this fpecies is fofter than that of the common fox, and the tail is fofter and more bushy. Some of these animals are blue, and others vary their colour, according to the feafon. The hair is uniformly longer in winter than in fummer, as is common with refpect to all animals that inhabit cold climates.

The arctic fox abounds in Norway, Siberia, and Lapland, in Greenland and Spitzbergen; and has moftly the habitudes of the common kind. It preys on eggs, aquatic fowls, and even fish; but, when it gets fcent of the lemings making one of their migrations, then the arctic fox deferts its ufual haunts; and, pursuing the course of those fingular little animals, preys on them to the last.

GENERAL WASHINGTON.

WE would fain believe that the whole of General Washington's will has been perufed

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by no man without fome portion of that calm and pleasurable elevation which uniformly leaves us better and wifer beings. It would have been deeply interesting, confidered only as the last deliberate act of a life fo beneficial to the human race; but independently of this fublime affociation, it is in itself an affecting and most instructing compofition. Like all the former manifeftations of his character, it gives proof that a folid greatness may exist, and make itself felt, without any admixture of wildnefs, without any obtrufive appeals to the imagination: it gives proof, confolatory and infpiriting proof, how many virtues, too often deemed incompatible with each other, a thinking and upright mind may unite in itself. It were fcarcely too much to affirm of this will, that all the main elements of public and private morals, of civil and domestic wisdom, are conveyed in it either directly or by implication. It is, indeed, no less than an abftract of his opinions and feelings, as a patriot, friend, and relation; and all arifing naturally and unoftentatiously out of the final difpofal of a fortune not more honourably earned than benefi

cently employed. Appertaining to his character, as the American patriot, more exclufively than the other pages of his will, is the plan and endowment of a central university. The motives which impelled the General to this bequeft, he has ftated, with fuch beauty and precifion, as scarcely leave any thing for the philofopher or the eulogift to add. We can only fubjoin to the advantages fo ably enumerated, that` fuch an institution must be eminently ferviceable to America, as having a direct tendency to foften and liberalife the too great commercial spirit of that country, in as far as it will connect the pleasures and ambition of its wealthier citizens, in the most impreffible period of life, with objects abstract and unworldly; and that while by friendships and literary emulations it may remove local jealoufies, it will tend to decorate the American character with an ornament hitherto wanting in it, viz. genuine local attachments, unconnected with pecuniary interefts.

Of a mixed nature, partly belonging to the patriot, and partly to the mafter of a family, is the humane, earnest, and folemn with con

cerning the emancipation of the flaves on his eftate. It explains, with infinite delicacy and manly fenfibility, the true caufe of his not having emancipated them in his life time; and fhould operate as a caution against those petty libellers, who interpret the whole of a character by a part, instead of interpreting a part by the whole. We feel ourselves at a lofs which

moft to admire in this interefting paragraph, the deep and weighty feeling of the general principle of univerfal liberty; or the wife veneration of those fixed laws in fociety, without which that univerfal liberty must forever remain impoffible, and which, therefore, muft be obeyed even in thofe cafes, where they suspend the action of that general principle; or, laftly, the affectionate attention to the particular feelings of the flaves themfelves, with the ample provifion for the aged and infirm. Washington was no "architect of ruin !”

In the bequests to his friends, the compofition evidences the peculiar delicacy and correctness of his mind. The high value which he attached to his old friend, Dr. Franklin's legacy of the gold-headed cane, by bequeathing