332 MISCELLANEOUS TIiovenrs. X XV. The Skeleton. YOUNG Tramarinns was just returned from his travels abroad, when he invited his uncle to his lodgings on a Saturday noon ; his uncle was a substantial trader in the city, a man of sincere goodness, and of no contemptible understanding; Crato was his name. The nephew first entertained him with learned talk of his travels. The conversation happened to fall upon anatomy, and speaking of the hand, he mentioned the carpus and metacarpus, the joining of the bones by many hard naines, and the periosteon which covered them, together with other Greek words which Crato had never heard of. Then he shewed him a few chriosities he had collected; but anatomy being the subject of their chief discourse, he dwelt much upon the skele- tons of a hare and a partridge ; " Observe, sir, said he, how firm the joints ! how nicely the parts are fitted to each other ! How proper this limb for flight, and that for running ! and how wonderful the whole composition !" Crato took due notice of the most considerable parts of those animals, and observed the chief remarks that his nephew made; but being detained there two hours without a dinner, assuming a pleasant air, he said, " I wish these rarities had flesh upon them, for I begin to be hungry, nephew, and you entertain me with nothing but bones." Then he carried home his nephew to dinner with him, and dismissed the jest. The next morning his kinsman Tramarinus desired him to hear a sermon at such a church, for I am informed, said he, the preacher will be my old schoolmaster. It was Agrotes, a country minister, who was to fulfil the service of the day, an honest, a pious, and an useful man, who fed his own people weekly with divine food, composed his sermons with a mixture of the instructive and the pathetic, and delivered them with no improper elocution. Where any difficulty appeared in the text or the subject, he usually explained it in a very natural and easy manner, to the understanding of all his parishioners; lie paraphrased on the most affecting parts largely, that he might strike the conscience of every hearer, and had been the happy meansof the salvation of many : But he thought thus with him- self, " When I preach at ;London, I have hearers of a wiser rank, 1 must feed them with learning and substantial sense, and must have my discourse set thick with distinct sentences and new matter." He contrived therefore to abridge his composures, and to throw four of his country sermons together to make up one for the city, and yet he could not forbear to add a little Greek in the beginning : He told the auditors how the text was to be explained, he set forth the analysis of the words in order, *hewed the hoti and the dioti, (that is, that it was so, and why it was so) with touch learned criticism (all which he wisely left out in the country ;) then he pronounced the doctrine distinctly, and
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