oyster was what I wondered at most; it is the most extraordinary shell in the world. It resembles a pickax, with a very short handle and a long head. The body of the shell is in the place of the handle of the instrument, and is four inches and a half long, and one inch and a half in diameter. What answered to the head of the pickax was seven inches long, and three quarters of an inch in diameter. This head terminates at each end in a narrow obtuse point, is uneven at the edges, irregular in its make, and lies crosswise to the body: yet the valves shut in the closest and most elegant manner. The edges are deeply furrowed and plated, and the lines run in irregular directions. The colour without is a fine mixture of brown and purple; and within, a pearly white, with a tinge of Page  53
purple. This rare shell is an East-Indian, and whenever it appears at an auction is rated very high. I have known ten guineas given for a perfect one.

With a large quantity of these most beautiful shells, which are rarely seen in any collections, and with all the family of the pectens, the cardiae, the solens, the cylindri, the murexes, the turbines, the buccina, and every species of the finest genera of shells, Miss Noel formed a grotto that exceeded every thing of the kind I believe in the world; all I am sure that I have seen, except the late Mrs. Harcourt's in Richmondshire; which I shall give my Reader a description of, when I travel him up those English Alpes. It was not only, that Miss Noel's happy fancy had blended all these things in the wildest and most beautiful disposition over the walls of the rotunda; but her fine genius had produced a variety of grotts within her grotto, and falling waters, and points of view. In one place, was the famous Atalanta, and her delightful cave: and in another part, the Goddess and Ulysses's son appeared at the entrance of that grott, which under the appearance of a rural plainness had every thing could charm the eye: the roof was ornamented with shell-work; the tapestry was a tender

vine; and limpid fountains sweetly purled round.

An image of Epictetus and a remarkable Legend.
But what above all the finely fancyed works in Miss Noel's grotto pleased me, was, a figure of the Philosopher Epictetus, in the centre of the grott. He sat at the door of a cave, by the side of a