for their minuteness; to a good mind they afford consolation. Science, directed by virtue, is a god-like enlargement of the powers of human nature; and exalted rank is so necessary a finish to the fabric of society, and so invariable a result from its regular establishment, that, in respecting those whom the divine wisdom has set above us, we perform a duty such as we expect from our own inferiors, which helps to support the general order of society. But so very few, in proportion to the whole, can be enlightened by science, or exalted by situation, that a good mind draws comfort from discovering even the petty enjoyments permitted to those in the state we consider most abject and depressed. ------- CHAP. XXXII. Resources of madame—Provincial customs. IT may appear extraordinary, with so moderate an income as could, in those days, be derived even from a considerable estate in that country, how madame found means to support that liberal hospitality which they constantly exercised. I know the utmost they could derive from their lands, and it was not much. Some money they had, but nothing adequate to the dignity, simple as it was, of their style of living, and the very large family they always drew round them. But with regard to the plenty, one might almost call it luxury, of their table, it was supplied from a variety of sources, that rendered it less expensive than could be imagined. Indians, grateful for the numerous benefits they were daily receiving from them, were constantly bringing the smaller game, and in winter and spring, loads of venison. Little money passed from one hand to another in the country; but there was constantly, as there always is in primitive abodes, before the age of calculation begins, a kindly commerce of presents. The people of New-York and Rhode-Island, several of whom were wont to pass a part of the summer with the colonel’s family, were loaded with all the productions of the farm and river. When they went home, they again never failed, at the season, to send a large supply of oysters and all other shell-fish, which at New-York abounded; besides great quantities of tropical fruit, which, from the short run between Jamaica and New-York, were there almost as plenty and cheap as in their native soil. Their farm yielded them abundantly all, that in general, a musket can supply; and the young relatives who grew up about the house, were rarely a day without bringing some supply from the wood or the stream. The negroes, whose business lay frequently in the woods, never willingly went there, or any where else, without a gun, and rarely came back empty-handed. Presents of wine, then a very usual thing to send to friends to whom you wished to show a mark of gratitude, came very often, possibly from the friends of the young people who were reared and instructed in that house of benediction; as there were no