counts collected from improper people.

Were one

to give a character of the English, from what the vulgar act and believe, it would convey* a strange idea of the English understanding. 77. Might

not the poem on the "Seasons" have been rendered more "uni," by giving out the design of nature in the beginning of winter, and afterwards considering all the varieties of seasons as means aiming at one end? 78. Critics must excuse me, if I compare them to certain animals called asses; who, by gnawing vines, originally taught the great advantage of pruning them. 79. Every good poet includes

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a critic; the reverse will not hold. 80. We want a word to express the " hospes" or hospita" of the ancients; among them, perhaps, the most respectable of all characters; yet with us translated "host," which we apply also to an innkeeper. Neither have we any word to express

"" amica," as

if we thought a woman always was somewhat more or less than a friend. 81. I know not where any latin author uses "ignotos" otherwise than as "obscure persons," as the modern phrase implies, "whom nobody knows." Yet it is used differently on Mrs. L's monument. 82. The philosopher, who considered the world as one vast animal, could esteem himself no other than a louse upon the back of it. 83. Orators and stagecoachmen, when the one wants arguments and the other a coat of arms, adorn their cause and their coaches with rhetoric and flower-pots.

84.

It is idle to be much assiduous in the perusal of inferior poetry. Homer, Virgil, and Horace, give the true taste in composition; and a person's own im

Missionaries clap a tail to every Indian nation that dislikes them.

agination should be able to supply the rest. In the same manner it is superfluous to pursue infer'or degrees of fame. One truly splendid action, or one well-finished composition, includes more than all the results from more trivial performances. I mean this for persons who make fame their only motive. Very few sentiments are proper to be put into a person's mouth, during the first attack of grief. Every thing disgusts, but mere simplicity; the scriptural writers describe their heroes using only some such phrase as this: "Alas! my brother!" "Oh Absalom, my son! my son!" &c. The lamentation of Saul over Jonathan is more diffuse, but at the same time entirely simple.

ling is literally described by Martial:

❝ tremula piscem deducere seta."

Ang

From "ictum foedus" seems to come the English phrase and custom of striking a bargain.

I like Ovid's "Amours" better than his " Epistles." There seems a greater variety of natural thoughts: whereas, when one has read the subject of one of his epistles, one foresees what it will produce in a writer of his imagination. The plan of his "Epis

tles," for the most part, well designed.-The answers of Sabinus, nothing. Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention; but is the death of poetical. If a person suspect his phrase to be somewhat too familiar and abject, it were proper he should accustom himself to compose in blank verse: but let him be much on his guard against ancient Pistol's phraseology. Providence seems altogether impartial in the dispensation which bestows riches on one and a contempt of them on another. Respect is the general end for which riches, power,

place, title, and fame, are implicitly desired. When one is possessed of the end through any one of these means, it is not wholly unphilosophical to covet the remainder Lord Shaftesbury, in the genteel

me.

management of some familiar ideas, seems to have no equal. He discovers an eloigument from vulgar phrases much becoming a person of quality. His sketches should be studied, like those of Raphael. His " Enquiry" is one of the shortest and clearest systems of morality. The question is, whether you distinguish me, because you have better sense than other people; or whether you seem to have better sense than other people, because you distinguish One feels the same kind of disgust in reading Roman history, which one does in novels, or even epic poetry. We too easily foresee to whom the victory will fall. The hero, the knight-errant, and the Roman, are too seldom overcome. The elegance and dignity of the Romans is in nothing more conspicuous than in their answers to ambassadors. There is an important omission in most of our grammar-schools, through which what we read, either of fabulous or real history, leaves either faint of confused impressions. I mean the neglect of old geographical maps. Were maps of ancient Greece, Sicily, Italy, &c. in use there, the knowledge we there acquire would not want to be renewed afterwards, as is now generally the case. A person of a pedantic turn will spend five years in translating and contending for the beauties of a worse poem than he might write in five weeks himself. There seem to be authors who wish to sacrifice their whole character of genius to that of learning.

Boileau has endeavoured to prove, in one of his ad

mirable satires, that man has no manner of pretence to prefer his faculties before those of the brute creation. Oldham has translated him: my Lord Rochester has imitated him: and even Mr. Pope declares,

"That, reason raise o'er instinct how you can,

in this 't is God directs; in that 'tis man."

Indeed the "Essay on Man" abounds with illustra tions of this maxim; and it is amazing to find how many plausible reasons may be urged to support it. It seems evident that our itch of reasoning and spirit of curiosity, precludes more happiness than it can possibly advance. What numbers of deseases are entirely artificial things, far from the ability of a brute to contrive! We disrelish and deny ourselves cheap and natural gratifications, through speculative presciences and doubts about the future. We cannot discover the designs of our Creator. We should learn then of brutes to be easy under our ignorance, and happy in those objects that seem intended, obviously, for our happiness: not overlook the flowers of the garden, and foolishly perplex ourselves with the intricacies of the labyrinth. I wish but two editions of all books whatsoever. One of the simple text, published by a society of able hands: another with the various readings and remarks of the ablest commentators. To endeavour, all one's days, to fortify our minds with learning and philosophy, is to spend so much in armour that one has nothing left to defend. If one would think with philosophers, one must converse but little with the vulgar. These, by their very number, will force a person into a fondness for appearance, a love of money, a desire of power; and other plebeian pas

sions: objects which they admire, because they have no share in, and have not learning to supply the place of experience. Livy, the most elegant and principal of the Roman historians, was, perhaps, as superstitious as the most unlearned plebean. We see, he never is destitute of appearances, accurately described and solemnly asserted, to support particular events by the interposition of exploded deities. The puerile attentions to chicken-feeding in a morning and then a piece of gravity: "Parva sunt hæc, sed parva ista non contemnenda; majores nostri maximam hanc rem fecerunt." It appears from the Roman historians, that the Romans had a particular veneration for the fortunate. Their epithet, "Felix," seems ever to imply a favourite of the gods. I am mistaking, or modern Rome has generally acted in an opposite manner. Numbers amongst them have been canonized on the single merit of misfortunes. How different appears ancient and modern dialogue, on account of superficial subjects on which we now generally converse! add to this, the ceremonial of modern times, and the number of titles with which some kings clog and encumber conversation. The celebrated boldness of an eastern metaphor is, I believe, sometimes allowed for the inconsiderable similitude it bears to it's sub, ject. The style of letters, perhaps, should not rise higher than the style of refined conversation. Love-verses, written without real passion, are often the most nauseous of all conceits. Those written from the heart will ever bring to mind that delightful season of youth, and poetry, and love. Vir

gil gives one such excessive pleasure in his writings, beyond any other writer, by uniting the most perfect