“Such are these: but when we compare the beasts of the field and the forest, they, instead of the harmless hoof, have feet which are _swift to shed blood_, (Rom. iii. 15.) sharp claws to seize upon their prey, and teeth to devour it; such as lions, tygers, leopards, wolves, foxes, and smaller vermin. “Where one of the Mosaic marks is found, and the other is wanting, such creatures are of a middle character between the wild and the tame; as the swine, the hare, and some others. Those that part the hoof afford us wholesome nourishment; those that are shod with any kind of hoof may be made useful to man; as the camel, the horse, the ass, the mule; all of which are fit to travel and carry burdens. But when the foot is divided into many parts, and armed with claws, there is but small hope of the manners; such creatures being in general either murderers, or hunters, or thieves; the malefactors and felons of the brute creation: though among the wild there are all the possible gradations of ferocity and evil temper. “Who can review the creatures of God, as they arrange themselves under the two great denominations of wild and tame, without wondering at their different dispositions and ways of life! sheep and oxen lead a sociable as well as a peaceful life; they are formed into flocks and herds; and as they live honestly they walk openly in the day. The time of darkness is to them, as to the virtuous and sober amongst men, a time of rest. But the beast of prey goeth about in solitude; the time of darkness is to him the time of action; then he visits the folds of sheep, and stalls of oxen, thirsting for their blood; as the thief and the murderer visits the habitations of men, for an opportunity of robbing, and destroying, under the concealment of the night. When the sun ariseth the beast of prey retires to the covert of the forest; and while the cattle are spreading themselves over a thousand hills in search of pasture, the tyrant of the desert is laying himself down in his den, to sleep off the fumes of his bloody meal. The ways of men are not less different than the ways of beasts; and here we may see them represented as on a glass; for, as the quietness of the pasture, in which the cattle spend their day, is to the howlings of a wilderness at night, such is the virtuous life of honest labour to the life of the thief, the oppressor, the murderer, and the midnight gamester, who live upon the losses and sufferings of other men.” But how would the Doctor have delighted in the first Lesson of that excellent man's Book of Nature,—a book more likely to be useful than any other that has yet been written with the same good intent. THE BEASTS.