us, in speaking of fruits and esculent vegetables, says--"This
species of food is that which is most suitable to man, as is evinced by
the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and of the hands."

SHELLEY, THE POET.

The following are the views of that eccentric, though in many respects
sensible writer, Shelley, as presented in a note to his work, called
Queen Mab. I have somewhat abridged them, not solely to escape part of
his monstrous religious sentiments, but for other reasons. I have
endeavored, however, to preserve, undisturbed, his opinions and
reasonings, which I hope will make a deep and abiding impression:

"The depravity of the physical and moral nature of man, originated in
his unnatural habits of life. The language spoken by the mythology of
nearly all religions seems to prove that, at some distant period, man
forsook the path of nature, and sacrificed the purity and happiness of
his being to unnatural appetites. Milton makes Raphael thus exhibit to
Adam the consequence of his disobedience:

'----Immediately, a place
Before his eyes appeared; and, noisome, dark,
A lazar-house it seemed; wherein were laid
Numbers of all diseased; all maladies
Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms
Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,
Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,
Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs,
Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,
And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,
Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.'

"The fable of Prometheus, too, is explained in a manner somewhat
similar. Before the time of Prometheus, according to Hesiod, mankind
were exempt from suffering; they enjoyed a vigorous youth; and death,
when at length it came, approached like sleep, and gently closed the
eyes. Prometheus (who represents the human race) effected some great
change in the condition of his nature, and applied fire to culinary
purposes. From this moment his vitals were devoured by the vulture of
disease. It consumed his being in every shape of its loathsome and
infinite variety, inducing the soul-quelling sinkings of premature and
violent death. All vice arose from the ruin of healthful innocence.

"Man, and the animals which he has infected with his society, or
depraved by his dominion, are alone diseased. The wild hog, the bison,
and the wolf are perfectly exempt from malady, and invari