gayer provinces of study as frivolous and unworthy; but they are both mistaken---every branch of the tree has its value--every avenue to knowledge leads to the highest of all possible objects; they all conduct to the same end, the improvement of the human understanding, and, in that, of the happiness of the whole human race.

By caution many men contrive to cut very respectable figures with very humble pretensions---the whole effort of such men is to seize an occasion---they never let themselves down the stream of a wide and general conversation---they wait for an eddy to bring a light object within their reach. Such persons never fight but with all the odds in their favour, they never strike but upon a vantage ground, and only combat a weak enemy--these men do much with little, and, never risking any thing, put out every shilling of their small capital at compound interest.

At the close of this course, and which terminates also the lectures of the season, I feel myself called upon to notice a new Institution of this nature at the other end of the capital. Thoroughly convinced as I am of the great utility of such institutions, it is my earnest wish that they may all flourish and promote the knowledge of science among us---and this I have no doubt they will do, so long as they are managed upon the enlightened principles which govern our own, and consequently have lecturers of ability, to read upon the different branches of learning. I have heard a good deal of what appears to me sour and flimsy reasoning against such institutions. What,' say these objectors, 'would you have the whole community Newtons and Lockes? can you hope to produce any thing more than a race of smatterers in learning?' To this I answer, we all begin by' being smatterers---what I hope and believe to be the result of these institutions is, that some are called to consider subjects, upon which before they bestowed little or no attention, and that a disposition to study has here found assistance and direction. Is it nothing, I ask, to interest such an assemblage in a question of science, of taste, or morals? If it did nothing beyond, is it nothing to relieve the mind from its worst enemy, idleness? Such a mode of reasoning is extremely perverse, and would he thought absurd upon any other occasion. What! will you do no good because you cannot do all? If you plant 50,000 young oaks in so

many acres is not your chance greater than if you plant only 10? If I were to be cast upon a foreign shore, and should discover myriads of eggs, should I infer from this the scarcity of fowls ?---or would it be fair to argue that wherever there was a multitude of children men and women were a rare commodity? It were a waste of valuable time to combat a shadow like this. Let us therefore proceed to multiply the means of knowlege, and conspire, for the noblest of all purposes, the attainment of truth---convinced that we there acquire a good which can never be sullied or changed---against which calamity, and poverty, and disease, shall never prevail, the only consolation in our dejection, the proudest boast of our exaltation---the distinguishing attribute of our nature, and the rational end and object of our existence.

PERSONAL IDENTITY.

WE are born, it is said, with the seeds or principles of dissolution in our frame, which continue to operate from our births to our deaths; so that in this sense we may be said to die daily. But, I think, we may be said to die daily in another sense; and that is, in the change we are always undergoing in our persons, tempers, and manners, which makes us, in the different stages of our lives, quite different beings ---which makes, if I may so say, one self to be continually dying, while another self is as continually growing out of it.

Let me illustrate this reflection, by what gave rise to it.---A boy of three years old was playing before me the other day, upon whom a matron gazed with uncommon fondness, because he bears a striking resemblance to what her own son, who is fifteen, was at that age; and who, it is certain, would not now excite in her the fonduess, that this strange child does. She owned it was so; and I told her what I supposed to be the reason, viz. that she viewed the little boy as the image of a being, who once existed, but whom she now considered as no more; and recollected only with that desiderium or longing fondness, with which we call up the images of departed friends or relations. And, added I, "there "is between the two objects not the difference which at "first sight there may seen to be: for your son at "three years old, whom this little boy resembles, was

66

as different from what he is now, as if he were a "different being. Nay, though a being with his name "and connections hath grown out of him, and still sub"sists, was he not really a different being? and is not "his then-self dead, as his now-self will be twenty 66 years hence?"---It seems to me, that this sentiment and reasoning may be applied to every moment of our lives by the continual flux our material part is in, we are every moment laying aside one self and assuming another self, every moment dying and reviving. Death therefore is not so much laying aside our old bodies (for this we have been doing all our lives) as ceasing to assume new ones.

Let me add another illustration of the above, from an affair between two boys, in which there is nothing fictitious but the names. When William left London, and went into the North, he wept at parting with his friend and companion, Tommy. He enquired frequently and affectionately after Tommy; he longed to see him again; and, after two years absence, he did see him. But he did not meet him so warmly as was expected on the contrary, he looked dismayed, as if disappointed; and his behaviour to him was soinewhat cold and distant. Being asked the reason, he replied, that" this was not Tommy, at least the Tommy "he left; and that he should love him as well as "ever, if he looked more like Tommy." The truth is, Tommy's stature was increased, and his features altered; and William no longer acknowledged the identity of his friend, but thought him another person; at least the same as another person, because not presenting the idea he had been accustomed to be fond of. Just $0, I suppose, I may love my mother, under that image which she bore in 1758, when she died; but were my mother to be presented to me, all decrepit and withered with age, as she would have been now in 1807, I could scarcely fancy her the lively pretty woman, who used to caress me, and whom under that form I used to love. In short, she would appear a new person, a new being; and, though I might from reason esteem her as my mother, yet I should feel none of that love which instinct produces.

Upon the whole, therefore, did not Locke determine rightly, when he made personal identity to consist in eonsciousness?

S.

ALESANDRO STRADELLA.

SOME of the occurrences in the life of this celebrated Musician are so extraordinary, that I think they will be found not uninteresting to the readers of the Cabinet.

Stradella was, for several years, composer to the Opera at Venice, where his reputation as a musician was deservedly high, for he was not only an excellent composer, but a very fine singer and performer on the harp, with which he frequently used to accompany his songs on the stage.

A young lady, named Hortensia, although of a noble family of Venice, lived at this time in a disreputable way with a Venetian nobleman. She was exquisitely beautiful, and perfectly accomplished. Stradella, the most eminent professor in Venice, was her instructor in music. It was scarcely possible for such a man to have such a pupil without feeling some sensations different from those of a master, and she soon began to look on Stradella more as her lover than her instructor. Convinced that if they continued in Venice, the jealousy of the nobleman who was the former object of her affections must soon be excited, and well knowing the deadly spirit of revenge which such a discovery would infallibly generate, they resolved to leave the city privately. The plan was no sooner formed than executed. They left Venice by night, and travelled without stopping till they arrived at Rome. Here the vigilance of the Venetian soon discovered them, and he took the usual Italian method to revenge himself, by hiring two assassins, who were instructed to murder both Stradella and Hortensia; and in order to protect them from punishment, they were furnished with letters to the Venetian Ambassador at Rome. On their arrival there, they learned that an oratorio of Stradella's was, on the following day, to be performed in the church of St. John Lateran; they resolved accordingly to attend it, and to dispatch their victims on leaving the church. They had not been long seated before they began, in common with the rest of the audience, to admire the sublime composition then performing, with the excellence and grandeur of which they were so struck, that, seized with remorse at the deed they were about to perpetrate, they reflected with horror on the thought of assassinating

a man who could impart to his hearers such exquisite pleasure. They looked on Stradella as little short of a divinity, and instead of murdering, were almost prepared to adore him. When the oratorio was finished, as Stradella and Hortensia were leaving the church, they were accosted by the assassins, who, after thanking Stradella for the pleasure and delight they had just received from his music, disclosed to him the dread ful purpose on which they had been sent, and declared to him that, instead of taking away either his life or that of his mistress, they would employ every method for their preservation. They related all that had passed between themselves and the Venetian, and earnestly intreated that Stradella, and his fair companion, would leave Rome immediately, promising that they would deceive their employer by informing him that the objects of his vengeance had left Rome on the morning previous to their arrival. The loss of their reward, which was to have been very large, they considered as amply compen sated by the exquisite pleasure and gratification they had just received. Stradella and Hortensia, after expressing their gratitude to the preservers of their lives, determined on immediately quitting Rome, and seeking for safety at Turin. Their intended murderers returned to Venice, and informed their employer that the objects of his vengeance had left Rome for Turin, where the laws against assassins were so severe, that they had not dared to follow them; the house of the ambassador being the only place that could afford protection; advising him, at the same time, to give up the hope of their assassination, which they refused to undertake for any addition to their reward.

This disappointment served but to "whet the blunt"ed purpose" of the savage Venetian; he contrived to engage in his interest the father of Hortensia, who, with a mind still more diabolical and vindictive, united in the plot to be the murderer of his own daughter.

In order to effect this savage purpose, he himself, accompanied by two other ruffians, went to Turin, having been previously furnished with letters by the Venetian from the French Ambassador at Venice, to the Marquis of Villars, then French Ambassador at Turin, which requested his protection for the bearers, who were stated to be merchants.

On the arrival of Stradella and Hortensia at Turin,