ing-glass, so that I am vain enough to think I was as perfect in my part as most who had of tener frequented those diversions. You must understand I personated a devil, and that for several weighty reasons. First, because appear. ing as one of that fraternity, I expected to meet with particular civilities from the more polite and better-bred part of the company. Besides, as from their usual reception, they are called familiars, I fancied I should in this character be allowed the greatest liberties, and soonest be led into the secrets of the masquerade. To recommend and distinguish me from the vulgar, I drew a very long tail after me. But to speak the truth, what persuaded me most to this disguise was, because I heard an intriguing lady say, in a large company of females, who unanimously assented to it, that she loved to converse with such, for that generally they were very clever fellows who made choice of that shape. At length, when the long-wished-for evening came, which was to open to us such vast scenes of pleasure, I repaired to the place appointed about ten at night, where I found nature turned topsy-turvy, women changed into men, and men into women, children in leading-strings seven feet high, courtiers transformed into clowns, ladies of the night into saints, people of the first quality into beasts or birds, gods or goddesses. I fancied I had all Ovid's Metamorphoses before me. Among these were several monsters to which I did not know how to give a name;

"worse

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Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived, Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire." Milton. In the middle of the first room, I met with one drest in a shroud. This put me in inind of the old custom of serving up a death's head at a feast. I was a little angry at the dress, and asked the gentleman whether he thought a dead man was fit company for such an assembly; but he told me that he was one who loved his money, and that he considered this dress would serve him another time. This walking coarse* was followed by a gigantic woman with a high. crowned hat, that stood up like a steeple over the heads of the whole assembly. I then chanced to tread upon the foot of a female quaker, to all outward appearance; but was surprised to hear her cry out, "D-n you, you son of a upon which I immediately rebuked her, when all of a sudden, resuming her character, "Verily," says she, "I was to blame; but thou hast bruised me sorely." A few moments after this adventure, I had like to have been knocked down by a shepherdess, for having run my elbow a little inadvertently into one of her sides. She swore like a trooper, and threatened me with a very masculine voice; but I was timely taken off by a presbyterian parson, who told me in a very soft tone, that he believed I was a pretty fellow, and that he would meet me in Springgardens to-morrow night. The next object I saw was a chimney-sweeper made up of black crape and velvet, with a huge diamond in his mouth, making love to a butterfly. On a sudden I found myself among a flock of bats, owls, and lawyers. But what took up my attention

* Corpse.

most, was one dressed in white feathers that re presented a swan. He would fain have found out a Leda among the fair sex, and indeed was the most unlucky bird in the company. I was then engaged in a discourse with a runningfootman; but as I treated him like what he appeared to be, a Turkish emperor whispered me in the ear, desiring me "to use him civilly, for that it was his master." I was here interrupted by the famous large figure of a woman hung with little looking-glasses. She had a great many that followed her as she passed by me, but I would not have her value herself upon that account, since it was plain they did not follow so much to look upon her as to see themselves, The next I observed was a nun making an assignation with a heathen god; for I heard them mention the Little Piazza in Covent-garden. I was by this time exceeding hot and thirsty; so that I made the best of my way to the place where wine was dealt about in great quantities. I had no sooner presented myself before the table, but a magician seeing me, made a circle over my head with his wand, and seemed to do me homage. I was at a loss to account for his behaviour, until I recollected who I was; this however drew the eyes of the servants upon me, and immediately procured me a glass of excellent Champaign. The magician said I was a spirit of an adust and dry constitution; and desired that I might have another refreshing glass: adding withal, that it ought to be a brimmer. I took it in my hand, and drank it off to the magician. This so enlivened me, that I led him by the hand into the next room, where we danced a rigadoon together. I was here a little offended at a jackanapes of a scaramouch, that cried out, "Avaunt Satan;" and gave me a little tap on my left shoulder with the end of his lath sword. As I was considering how I ought to resent this affront, a well-shaped person that stood at my left-hand, in the figure of a bell-man, cried out with a suitable voice, "Past twelve o'clock." This put me in mind of bed-time. Accordingly I made my way towards the door, but was intercepted by an Indian king, a tall, slender youth, dressed up in a most beautiful party-coloured plumage. He regarded my habit very attentively, and after having turned me about once or twice, asked me "whom I had been tempting?" I could not tell what was the matter with me, but my heart leaped as soon as he touched me, and was still in greater disorder, upon my hearing his voice. In short, I found after a little discourse with him, that his Indian majesty was my dear Leonora, who knowing the disguise I had put on, would not let me pass by her unobserved. Her awkward manliness made me guess at her sex, and her own confes. sion quickly let me know the rest. This masquerade did more for me than a twelvemonth's courtship: for it inspired her with such tender sentiments, that I married her the next morning.

How happy I shall be in a wife taken out of a masquerade, I cannot yet tell; but I have reason to hope the best, Leonora having assured me it was the first, and shall be the last time of her appearing at such an entertainment.

'And now, sir, having given you the history

learning of that place, at his death left her but a very small portion, in which also she suffered great hardships from the injustice of her two brothers. This forced her upon a journey to Constantinople, where she had a relation who represented her case to Pulcheria in order to obtain some redress from the emperor. By this means that religious princess became acquainted with Athenais, whom she found the most beautiful woman of her age, and educated under a long course of philosophy in the strictest virtue, and most unspotted innocence. Pulcheria was charmed with her conversation, and immediately made her reports to the emperor, her brother Theodosius. The character she gave, made such an impression on him, that he desired his sister to bring her away immediately to the lodgings of his friend Paulinus, where he found her beauty and her conversation beyond the highest idea he had framed of them. His friend Paulinus converted her to Christianity, and gave her the name of Eudosia; after which the emperor publicly espoused her, and enjoyed all the happiness in his marriage which he promised himself from such a virtuous and learned bride. She not only forgave the injuries which her two brothers had done her, but raised them to great honours; and by several works of learning, as well as by an exemplary life, made herself so dear to the whole empire, that she had many statues erected to her memory, and is celebrated by the fathers of the church, as the ornament of her sex.

In my last Saturday's paper I supposed a mole-hill inhabited by pismires or ants, to be a lively image of the earth, peopled by human creatures. This supposition will not appear too forced or strained to those who are acquainted with the natural history of these little insects; in order to which I shall present my reader with the extract of a letter upon this curious subject, as it was published by the members of the French academy, and since translated into English. I must confess I was never in my life better entertained than with this narrative, which is of undoubted credit and authority.

'In a room next to mine, which had been empty for a long time, there was upon a window a box full of earth, two feet deep, and fit to keep flowers in. That kind of parterre had been long uncultivated; and therefore it was covered with old plaster, and a great deal of rubbish that fell from the top of the house and from the walls, which, together with the earth formerly imbibed

with water, made a kind of dry and barren soil. That place lying to the south, and out of the reach of the wind and rain, besides the neighbourhood of a granary, was a most delightful spot of ground for ants; and therefore they had made three nests there, without doubt for the same reason that men build cities in fruitful and convenient places, near springs and rivers.

Having a mind to cultivate some flowers, I took a view of that place, and removed a tulip out of the garden into that box; but casting my eyes upon the ants, continually taken up with a thousand cares, very inconsiderable with respect to us, but of the greatest importance for them, they appeared to me more worthy of my curi osity than all the flowers in the world. I quickly removed the tulip, to be the admirer and restorer of that little commonwealth. This was the only thing they wanted; for their policy and the order observed among them, are more perfect than those of the wisest republics: and therefore they have nothing to fear, unless a new legislator should attempt to change the form of their government.

'I made it my business to procure them all sorts of conveniences. I took out of the box every thing that might be troublesome to them; and frequently visited my ants, and studied all their actions. Being used to go to bed very late, I went to see them work in a moon-shiny night; and I did frequently get up in the night, to take a view of their labours. I always found some going up and down, and very busy: one would think that they never sleep. Every body knows that ants come out of their holes in the day-time, and expose to the sun the corn, which they keep under ground in the night. Those who have seen ant-hillocks, have easily perceived those small heaps of corn about their nests. What surprised me at first was, that my ants never brought out their corn but in the night, when the moon did shine, and kept it under ground in the day time: which was contrary to what I had seen, and saw still practised by those insects in other places. I quickly found out the reason of it: there was a pigeon-house not far from thence: pigeons and birds would have eaten their corn, if they had brought it out in the day time. It is highly probable they knew it by experience; and I frequently found pigeons and birds in that place, when I went to it in a morning. I quickly delivered them from those robbers: I frighted the birds away with some pieces of paper tied to the end of a string over the window. As for the pigeons, I drove them away several times; and when they perceived that the place was more frequented than before, they never came to it again. What is most admirable, and what I could hardly believe, if I did not know' it by experience, is, that those ants knew some days after that they had nothing to fear, and began to lay out their corn in the sun. However, I perceived they were not fully convinced of being out of all danger; for they durst not bring out their provisions all at once, but by degrees, first in a small quantity, and without any great order, that they might quickly carry them away, in case of any misfortune, watching, and looking every way. At last, be ing persuaded that they had nothing to fear,

they brought out all their corn, almost every day, and in good order, and carried it in at night. 'There is a straight hole in every ant's nest, about half an inch deep, and then it goes down sloping into a place where they have their magazine, which I take to be a different place from that where they rest and eat. For it is highly improbable that an ant, which is a very cleanly insect, and throws out of her nest all the small remains of the corn on which she feeds, as I have observed a thousand times, would fill up her magazine, and mix her corn with dirt and ordure.

'The corn that is laid up by ants, would shoot under ground, if those insects did not take care to prevent it. They bite off all the buds before they lay it up; and therefore the corn that has lain in their nests will produce nothing. Any one may easily make this experiment, and even plainly see that there is no bud in their corn. But though the bud be bitten off, there remains another inconvenience, that corn must needs swell and rot under ground; and therefore it could be of no use for the nourishment of ants. Those insects prevent that inconvenience by their labour and industry, and contrive the matter so, that corn will keep as dry in their nests as in our granaries.

They gather many small particles of dry earth, which they bring every day out of their holes, and place them round to heat them in the sun. Every ant brings a small particle of that earth in her pincers, lays it by the hole, and then goes and fetches another. Thus, in less than a quarter of an hour, one may see a vast number of such small particles of dry earth, heaped up round the hole. They lay their corn under ground upon that earth, and cover it with the same. They perform this work almost every day, during the heat of the sun; and though the sun went from the window about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, they did not remove their corn and their particles of earth, because the ground was very hot, until the heat was over.

'If any one should think that those animals should use sand, or small particles of brick or stone, rather than take so much pains about dry earth; I answer, that upon such an occasion, nothing can be more proper than earth heated in the sun. Corn does not keep upon sand: besides, a grain of corn that is cut, being deprived of its bud, would be filled with small sandy particles that could not easily come out. To which I add, that sand consists of such small particles, that an ant could not take them up one after another; and, therefore, those insects are seldom to be seen near rivers, or in a very sandy ground.

As for the small particles of brick or stone, the least moistness would join them together, and turn them into a kind of mastic, which those insects could not divide. Those particles sticking together could not come out of an ant's nest, and would spoil its symmetry.

When ants have brought out those particles of earth, they bring out their corn after the same manner, and place it round the earth. Thus, one may see two heaps surrounding their hole, one of dry earth, and the other of corn; and 2 D

then they fetch out a remainder of dry earth, on which doubtless their corn was laid up.

'Those insects never go about this work but when the weather is clear, and the sun very hot. I observed, that those little animals having one day brought out their corn at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, removed it, against their usual custom, before one in the afternoon. The sun being very hot, and sky very clear, I could perceive no reason for it. But half an hour after, the sky began to be overcast, and there fell a small rain, which the ants foresaw; whereas, the Milan almanack had foretold there would be no rain upon that day.

'I have said before, that those ants which I did so particularly consider, fetched their corn out of the garret. I went very frequently into that garret. There was some old corn in it; and because every grain was not alike, I observed that they chose the best.

'I know, by several experiments, that those little animals take great care to provide themselves with wheat when they can find it, and always pick out the best; but they can make shift without it. When they can get no wheat, they take rye, oats, millet, and even crumbs of bread; but seldom any barley, unless it be in a time of great scarcity, and when nothing else can be had.

Being willing to be more particularly informed of their forecast and industry, I put a small heap of wheat in a corner of the room where they kept; and to prevent their fetching corn out of the garret, I shut up the window, and stopped all the holes. Though ants are very knowing, I do not take them to be conjurers; and therefore they could not guess that I had put some corn in that room. I perceived for several days that they were very much perplexed, and went a great way to fetch their provisions. I was not willing for some time to make them more easy; for I had a mind to know whether they would at last find out the treasure, and see it at a great distance; and whether smelling enabled them to know what is good for their nourishment. Thus they were some time in great trouble, and took a great deal of pains. They went up and down a great way, looking out for some grains of corn: they were sometimes disappointed, and sometimes they did not like their corn, after many long and painful excursions. What appeared to me wonderful was, that none of them came home. without bringing something: one brought a grain of wheat, another a grain of rye or oats, or a particle of dry earth, if she could get nothing else.

The window upon which those ants had made their settlement, looked into a garden, and was two stories high. Some went to the farther end of the garden, others to the fifth story, in quest of some corn. It was a very hard journey for them, especially when they came home loaded with a pretty large grain of corn, which must needs be a heavy burden for an ant, and as much as she can bear. The bringing of that grain from the middle of the garden to the nest, took up four hours; whereby one mav judge of the strength and prodigious labour of those little animals. It appears from thence, 18*