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THE MOURNING MOTHER.

For the Bee.

FROM heav'n's wide concave, where serenely mild
The eye of mercy beams upon the blest,
Look down ano'nted spirit of my child,

And view the anguish of a parent's breast.

Yet rather turn from misery and woe,

Thou dearest offspring of connubial love; Nor let a mother's wretchedness below,

One moment dash thy happiness above.

Oh nature! thou my aching bosom arm,

With force of soul to play my trying part; Thou who with magic hand hast fix'd the charm, That twists a child so strongly round the heart.

Dear, lost Eliza! in thy infant years,

When sweetness lisping prattled o'er its toys, One smile of thine would difsipate my fears, And fill my bosom with a thousand joys.

Thy winning softnefs and thine artless truth,
The starting tears from misery have stole ;
Supplied the buried hufband of my youth,

The first and last pofsefsion of my sɔul.

Thou wert that all which fortune had bestow'd,
T'endear this transient and unreal stage;
To smooth life's weary and fatiguing road,
And chear alike infirmity and age.

What scenes of fancied pleasure would I trace,
Thy little race of prattlers to attend ;
And pass the short remainder of my days,

A grandchild's parent, and a daughter's friend.

Delusive dreams! return to glad my years;
O rise again in all your form so fair!
Dejection now for happiness appears,

And grief array'd by solitude and care.

Pardon just heav'n!-But where the heart is torn,
The human drop of bitterness will stel;

Nor can we lose the privilege to mourn,
Till we have lost the faculty to feel.

VOL. Xi.

Religion come! thou sister of the skies,
And quickly lift thy salutary rod;
Nor let this daring argument of sighs,

Too boldly tax the justice of my God.

O! make me, then, all-seeing pow'r, resign'd
Thy awful fiat humbly to receive;

And O! forgive the weakness of a mind

Which feels as mortal, and as such must griève.

And you, ye dames! your soft'ning tears employ,
You who can paint the sorrows of the blow;
For who that ne'er throbb'd with a mother's joy,
Can guefs the depth, the wildness of her woe. W. W.

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EPITAPH ON LADY AB-R—V―Y.

YOUNG, thoughtless, gay, unfortunately fair,
Her pride to please, and pleasure, all her care;
With too much kindness, and too little art,
Prone to indulge the dictates of her heart;
Flatter'd by all, solicited, admir'd,
By women envied, and by men desir'd;
At once from all prosperity fhe's torn,

By friends deserted, of defence forlorn,
Expos'd to talkers, insults, want, and scorn.

By ev'ry idle tongue her story told,

The novel of the young, the lecture of the old,
But let the scoffer or the prude relate,
With rigour or despight, her hapless fate,
Good nature still to soft compassion wrought,
Shall weep the ruin, whilst it owns the fault.
For if her conduct, in some steps betray'd,
To virtue's rules too little rev'rence paid;
Yet dying still the fhow'd (so dear her fame,)
She could survive the guilt, though not the fhame;
Her honour dearer than her life the prov'd,
And dearer far than both, the man the lov'd.

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THOUGHTS ON THE PRODUCTION OF NITRE.

FEW phenomena have occurred that are more unaccount. able than those which relate to the production of nitre; and the experiments that have been made on this subject have afforded results extremely different, in circumstances that seemed to be efsentially the same. Hence it hap pens that the same procefs which produces abundance of nitre in one country, will yield none at all in another, though conducted with equal care.

I have never yet heard of an attempt to account for this singular peculiarity. It is in general supposed that nitre is a fofsil production; that it is generated in greatest abundance in fat vegetable mould, which has been impreg nated with animal substances; but though rich vegetable mould, impregnated with animal substances, yields nitre on some occasions in abundance, in other situations it has been found to afford none at all. This seems to af ford a satisfactory proof that animal impregnation alone is not the essential circumstance for the production of nitre.

Vegetable mould is originally generated by the decaying of vegetable substances in it. This position I believe will not be disputed. If so, as there are a variety of ve getables that pofsefs qualities extremely different from: each other, it ought to follow that the soil which has been. generated by the decayed vegetables, of one kind, may be very different, in certain respects, from the soil that has been produced by the decomposition of vegetables of an other clafs, though they may be both equally capable of rearing the common kinds of plants that grow in Europe.. Two soils, therefore, may be equally rich, considered as to their vegetative power, which are extremely difsimilar in other respects..

On this principle I think it is pofsible to account for the phenomenon already remarked. Nitre may be produced by the decaying of certain plants, and not by others. Some light is thrown upon this subject by the ollowing remarks and experiments, published in the fourth volume of the Memoirs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres, of Brufsels, by M. Van Bochaute.

'It is well known,' he observes, that borrage, bus glofs, parietaria, and sunflower, öften contain a good deal of saltpetre; but this is afforded in still greater quantities by several kinds of chenopodium, as appears by the following experiments:

'

'Two years ago,' says he, I made the analysis of a plant of the class pentandria, order digynia, which is called by some chenopodium ambrosioides Mexicanum, and by others botrys ambrosioides Mexicanum. Having visited the extract made from it in the balneum marie, some days af terwards, we were surprised to find the surface of that extract altogether covered with oblong chrystals, which upon examination with a glafs, we found to be prismatic, like that of the best saltpetre. They detonated when thrown upon a burning coal, and fused. We put some of the extract upon a red hot fhovel; it detonated and fused also, leaving behind it a good deal of fixed vegetable alkali. We even went farther: we put some of the dried plant upon the same fhovel; it fused and detonated also. We tried in the same manner the botrys ambrosioides vulgaris, and this plant fused and detonated the same as the Mexiana. In fine, we procured the same plant from different apothecaries, they all fused and detonated equally with the other. From hence, adds he, we have concluded, that these two plants are very nitriferous; and that their conomy is a natural nitrerie, (nite e work.) This, says

he, is the more certain, as the botrys vulgaris is known to grow for ordinary, upon a dry sandy soil, which does not appear to contain saltpetre.?

The author recommends these plants to the attention of chemists, as deserving farther investigation. It is experience alone that can ascertain whether these plants could be cultivated with profit only for this purpose.

In the mean while I cannot help thinking it natural to conclude, that if these plants had long been suffered to be decomposed in the soil, the mould might thus become im pregnated with saltpetre, from which it may be extracted by a proper process.

INTELLIGENCE RESPECTING ARTS, AND AGRICULTURE Sheep of Colchis.

COLONEL FULLERTON, so well known for his active exertions in the military line in India, has, for some time past, be-come a peaceful citizen, applying his active talents to the About improvement of agriculture and manufactures. two years ago, he imported from Colchis that breed of fheep so long famed in story for their fleece. It appears, from his experience that this fleece is more to be valued on account of the quantity than the quality of the wool. It is of the long combing sort. The animals themselves are strong made and hardy. Their lambs in particular are found to thrive better, and to fatten more easily, than those of other breed with which he had an opportu nity of comparing them.

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New improvement in the iron manufacture.

He has also discovered an improvement in the process of smelting iron, that promises to prove highly beneficial to that manufacture in this country. Its effects that it will considerably diminish the quantity of fuel consu

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