pose, where some of the most scientific men in the kingdom are thus unworthily employed. I went there one morning with J. and his wife,-whom you are not to suspect of going for any other purpose than to see the place. Part of the men were taking snuff to keep their eyes open, others more honestly asleep, while the la'dies were all upon the watch, and some score of them had their tablet and pencils, busily noting down what they heard, as topics for the next conversation party. "Oh!" said J. when he came out, in a tone which made it half groan half interjection, "the days of tapestry hangings and worked chair-bottoms were better days than these!-I will go and buy for Harriet the Whole Duty of Woman, containing the complete Art of Cookery." But even oxygen and hydrogen are not subjects sufficiently elevated for all. Mind and matter, free will and necessity, are also fashionable topics of conversation; plained, the nature of volition elucidated, and the extent of space and the duration of time discussed over a tea-table with admirable volubility. Nay, it is well if one of these orators does not triumphantly show you that there is nothing but misery in the world, prove that you must either limit the power of God or the goodness, and then modestly leave you to determine which. Another effect this of the general passion for distinction: the easiest way of obtaining access into literary society, and getting that kind of notoriety, is, by professing to be a metaphysician, because of such metaphysics a man may get as much in half an hour as in his whole life. At present the English philosophers and politicians, both male and female, are in a state of great alarm. It has been discovered that the world is over-peopled, and that it always must be so, from an error in the constitution of nature; that the law which says "Increase and multiply," was given without sufficient consideration; in short, that He who made the world does not know how to manage it properly, and therefore there are serious thoughts of requesting the English Parliament to take the business out of his hands. LETTER LXXII. Westminster Abbey on Fire.-Frequency of Fires in England.-Means devised for preventing and for extinguishing them; but not in use. WAS fortunate enough this morning to witness a very grand and extraordinary sight. As D. and I were walking towards the west end of the town, we met an acquaintance who told us that Westminster Abbey was on fire. We lost no time in going to the spot; the roof was just smoking sufficiently to show us that the intelligence was true, but that the building was no longer in danger. The crowd which had collected was by no means so great as we had expected.Soldiers were placed at the doors to keep ་་ out idle intruders, and admit such only as might properly be admitted. The sight when we entered was truly striking. Engines were playing in the church, and the long leathern pipes which conveyed the water stretched along the pavement. The roof at the joint of the cross, immediately over the choir, had fallen in, and the huge timbers lay black and smoking, in heaps, upon the pews which they had crushed. A pulpit, of fine workmanship, stood close by unhurt. Smaller fragments, and sparks of fire were from time to time falling down; and the water which was still spouted up in streams, fell in showers, and hissed upon the hot ruins below. We soon perceived that no real injury was done to the church, though considerable damage was inflicted upon the funds of the chapter.The part which was thus consumed had not been finished like the rest of the building; instead of masonry, it had been from some paltry motives of parsimony made of wood, and lined on the inside with painted |