made among the descendants of Her
cules, and shewed, that the field, where
stood the temple in dispute, had es-
cheated to their King; that the proof of
it had been cut on stone, and still sub-
sisted in plates of brass." The original
of Hesiod's works was written or cut upon
sheets of leari, which were kept with the
utmost care in the temple of the Muses
in Boeotia. Had not these metals for-
merly been the depositaries of the laws,
the judicious Sophocles would not have
made Dejanira say, "I have performed
every thing in its full extent; an immu-
table law on tables of brass was never
more punctually observed." These ta-
bles were fastened to pillars in public
places; witness that mentioned by Audo-
cides to have been placed before the
Senate-house, and which authorized the
killing of that magistrate, who should
reign after the subversion of the common-
wealth. These inscriptions often con
tain a part of the history of states. Po-
lyænus relates, that Alexander found in
the palace in the kings of Persia a brass
column, on which were cut not only the
laws made by Cyrus, but a regulation
for the sumptuous table of his successors.
The Grecian conqueror had not probably
at that time begun to indulge in Asiatic
luxury; for, ordering the column to be
removed, he said to his friends, "that
documents of excess and intemperance
did not become the residence of a king."

To these metallic inscriptions we owe the preservation of several facts recorded by historians; the treaties of monarchs, the conventions of nations, and the alliances of ees. They have transmitted the genealogies and the epitaphs of great men. Through them we become acquainted with the prayers made to the Pagan deities for all kinds of calamity and distress; their thanksgivings for miraculous cures and preservations, favourable seasons and victories in war; and innumerable other ancient customs. In short, in these monuments, the different alphabetical and numerical letters of different times may also be observed, a frequent subject of them are those votive tables, of which the title was always in verse, as may be proved from that of Ärimnestus, and the following lines of the 8th book of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

But the

Latin inscriptions are in verse.
best proof of the value and authority of
these memorials is the care with which
they were collected by both Greeks and

Romans.

Among the moderns, Jos. Scaliger has taken the pains to reduce into tables those which had been collected before his time; and the name and sedulity of that prodigy of literature are surely a sufficient warrant for col0. lecting and studying them.

(To be continued.)

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.
SIR,

AM sorry I did not sooner pay atspondent, Mr. James Rudge, who, in a tention to the wishes of your correletter of January last, solicited information on the subject of the commonly quoted lines,

"He that fights and runs away," &c.

In August, 1784, a similar application was made by letter, signed Q. in the Morning Herald, which, with the answer I enclose you for insertion. Your's, &c. Plymouth, April 10, 1809.

For the Morning Herald.
No. I.

J. L.

Mr. EDITOR,-Every body knows the following most beautiful lines: "The man who fights and runs away, May live to fight another day; But he who is in battle slain, Can never rise to fight again."

Will any of our poetical correspondents be good enough to point out the author? If they should say that Butler was the author, and that they are in Hudibras, which twenty to one but they will, we request them to mention the page and the edition. A wager was some time ago made at Brookes's, of twenty to one, that the above lines were in Hudibras, and Dodsley was referred to as the arbiter. Dodsley laughed at the idea of a difficulty. "Every fool," says he, "knows that they are in Hudibras." "Will you be good enough then," says George Selwyn," to inforin an old fool, who is at the same time your wise worship's most humble servant, in what canto of Hudibras they are to be found." Dodsley took down the volume, but he Hence it is, that most of the ancient could not find the place. He promised

-— Dant munera templis ; Addunt et titulos; titulus breve carmen ha

bebat.

to

Mr. EDITOR,-In answer to your cor respondent Q. I. send for your insertion, an extract from the third canto, part the third of Hudibras, (lines 235 to 244) which I take to have been the original from whence the passage he alludes to was taken.

"Beside our bangs of man and beast,
Are fit for nothing now but rest,
And for a while will not be able
To rally, and prove serviceable;
And therefore I, with reason, chose
This stratagem to amuse our foes,
To make an hon'rable retreat,
And wave a total sure defeat;
For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain."

Your's, &c.

A CONSTANT READER.

For the Morning Herald.

No. III.

different quarter, impregnates, in a few days, the millions of ova she contains.These having been thrown out by her in shallow places, where instinct tells her the air, in the act of freezing, will reach them; she immediately covers them, and returns; and the little animal, contained in each ova, is in a short time able to swim and shift for itself. "He adds, page 29," it is uniformly found that the ova of the female, of many, if not of all the tribes of oviparous fishes, are impreg nated before thrown out."

The impregnation of the ova of fishes, before their being thrown out by the female, is to me, I confess, a new doctrine, and, as I have my doubts about it. I should be glad to know if this reverend correspondent of your's, or any of your readers, can tell me whether it be true or fulse. Your's, &c.

A NEW CORRESPONDENT. Hackney, Middlesex, May 2, 1809.

For the Monthly Magazine.

OBSERVATIONS on the POOR LAWS, and on the most effectual MEANS of providing for the POOR.

(Continued from p. 354.) T manifest the preambles

Mr. EDITOR, I am extremely happy I provisions of the several cats, passed

to inform your correspondent Q. that Dedsley is the old fool, and also that the author of those beautiful lines in your to day's paper, is not known; but that they are to be found in Pearch's Collection of Poems, 3d vol. 2d edit. page 34. I confess, a man may be ignorant of a fact, without being a fool; but a fool is always ignorant, and denies it too.

Your's, &c.

POTUS.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

OF

Flate, I have seen Mr. Hall's name not unfrequently in your valuable miscellany. In page 28, of what he terms Discoveries respecting Ice, Heat, and Cold, published the other year, he tells us, "that salmon deposit the ova that produce their young in shallow water, where they find ice already formed; or where instinct tells them, that such will soon be the case. Under the covert, (he says) to us a cold, but to them a genial bed, the males throw out their spawn; which, being instantly taken in at the mouth by the females, always attending upon these occasions, and proceeding, not to the stomach, but to a MONTHLY MAG. 185.

for the better ordering of the poor, that the legislature always regarded their condition with much consideration and solicitude, and never remitted its endeavours to find out and enforce the best system of laws, as it appeared at the time, for their relief and management, consistently with the public welfare. Employment for all the able, and relief for the unable poor, were the injunctions of the act of the 43d Eliz. as we have seen, and the present enormous assessments for their maintenance are grounded on a departure from these injunctions of the statute, on a neglect of setting to work the parish poor, children, adults, and aged, according to their abi lities; and the weight of this heavy tax on the community will never be materially lightened but by a national establishment, whereby the overseers of parishes may be able to refer every one under their care, man, woman, and child, idle and in want, and neither sick nor impotent, to a place where divers works are carried on and prosecuted on a system of regular and productive industry, and so diversified, that the inmates, according to their ages and sexes, may be sorted together in the perform 4 M

ance

be placed as central as possible within the respective districts, and sundry works be carried on in them, so as to suit the different ages, capacities, and powers of the intended inmates, none of whom should be under five years of age, nor be otherwise in a state of positive impotency. None of these paupers would be permanently (meaning for the term of their lives) resident in these houses. The adults likely to continue longest, would be such as, though not unable to perform work or services calculated for them, under proper inspection, might, by bodily or mental defects, be disqualified from getting their livelihood at large; to which might be added, those who may be debarred by bad characters from getting customary work: next to these younger ones, of both sexes, of infirm constitutions, unfit for active life, might remain till perfected in some useful act, whereby to get their future living elsewhere. Ilealthy boys and girls, the offspring of parents who have more children than they can support, orphans and bastards, will for the most part be inmates from the time of admission till 15 or 14 years of age, to be then apprenticed according to the existing laws, or otherwise disposed of for their future welfare out of the house. The other able adults of both sexes, a few only, resident for want of work, would be continually fluctuating; to promote which, a system of communication throughout the respective districts may be settled, so that out-employment would soon be heard of for those who say they cannot get work, and the diligent performance of tasks enforced at the manufactory would leave no inducement for the idle to prefer it before their customary labour. The real interest of all these inmates would require a compleat separation of them, not only of sexes but of ages. The younger classes of children, boys and girls, should not exceed ten or eleven years of age, whilst the elder classes would csist of those from these ages till their departure. Of the adults, both men and women, those of notoriously bad characters, admissible only by necessity, should have no intercourse whatever with the others of their respective sexes; and since all the unable poor from age, accidents, or sicknesses, idcots, cripples, lunatics, or early childhood, would be provided for elsewhere, the number of inmates in the manufactories of the most populous districts would not at any given time be likely to exceed one fortieth, or, perhaps, one

The

fiftieth part of the population. buildings required, for each manufactory, should be calculated to hold from 500 to 1000 persons, according to the population of the district, and, besides, the dwelling parts would consist of shops and work rooms, store and warehouses, together with husbandry offices. The works to be carried on, within these buildings, should comprehend the several branches of the woollen, hemp, flax, iron, leather, straw, osiers, rushes, cotton, and perhaps silk, and other manufactures and trades, together with husbandry and domestic work; and from these sources full employment might be obtained, suited to the talents of the several inmates, without overcharging any branch or trade with too many hands. Some of the trades might be carried on for the benefit of the poor exclusively, to supply them with useful and necessary household goods, cloathing, and working tools, at reduced prices; others, with a view to greater profit. The kinds of work too may be preferred for employment in the different districts, so as to give facility to the prevalent manufactures of the division or county, and that there should be as little interference as possible to the prejudice of such manufacturers; many of the inmates, if applied for, might be engaged in their services, and who, being secured in these places from waste and damage of their materials, and sure of dispatch and welldirected execution of their work, would find it their interest to engage them under proper covenants; and these engagements would, as far as they extended, operate to release the directors of the district house from the trouble and charges of providing raw materials for the employment of the inmates. But that there should be at no time a want of such materials, in any district house to be pleaded in excuse for intermission of work, there should be established, at the most central manufactory in each county, a depot for materials, of most current requisition, such as hemp, flax, wool, leather, &c. These articles might be obtained in large masses, and consequently on the best terms, by tenders to the justices of the peace at the quarter sessions, in consequence of their advertisements for the same, and being warehoused would afford certain and cheap markets at all times in each county, so as to fulfil the demands of the several district houses therein. And in order that these paupers might exercise their tasks, under the best ari

vantages,