phy to support herself? The person least reserved in his censure of another's excess in equipage, is commonly the person who would exhibit the same if it had been within his power; the source of both being a disregard to decorum. Likewise he that violently arraigns, or fondly indulges it, agree in considering it a little too seriously.

Amid the most mercenary ages, it is but a secondary sort of admiration that is bestowed on magnificence.

An order of beauties, as of knights, with a style appropriated to them (as for instance, To the Right Beautiful Lady Such-a-one) would have as good a foundation as any other class, but would, at the same time, be the most invidious of any order that was ever instituted. The first maxim a child is taught, is that

"Learning is better than house and land;" but how little is it's influence as he grows up to ma turity! There is somewhat very astonishing in the record of our most celebrated victories: I mean, the small number of the conquerors killed in propor tion to the conquered. At Agincourt, it is said, were ten thousand, and fourteen thousand massacred. Liv. y's accounts of this sort are so astonishing, that one is apt to disbelieve the historian.-All the explanation one can find is, that the gross slaughter is made when one side takes to flight. A person that is disposed to throw off all reserve before an inferior, 'should reflect, that he has also his inferiors, to whom he may be equally communicative. It is im

possible for a man of sense to guard against the mortification that may be given him by fools, or heteroclite characters; because he cannot foresee thein. A wit-would cannot afford to discard a frivolous con

ceit, tho' it tend to affront you: an old maid, a country put, or a college pedant, will ignorantly or wil fully blunder on such hints as must discompose you.

Does he

Second

A man that is solicitous about his health, or apprehensive of some acute disorder, should write a jour nal of his constitution, for the better instruction of his physician. Ghosts have no more connection with darkness, than the mystery of a barber with that of a surgeon; yet we find they go together. Perhaps Nox and Chaos were their mythological parents. He makes a lady but a poor recompence who marries her, because he has kept her company long after his affection is estranged. not rather increase the injury? thoughts oftentimes are the very worst of all thoughts. First and third very often coincide. Indeed, second thoughts are too frequently formed by the love of novelty, of shewing penetration, of distinguishing ourselves from the mob, and have consequently less of simplicity, and more of affectation. This, however, regards principally objects of taste and fancy. Third thoughts, at least, are here very proper mediators. "Set a beggar upon horse-back, and he'll ride," is a common proverb and a real truth. The "novus homo" is an "inexpertus homo," and consequently must purchase finery, before he knows the emptiness of it experimentally. The established gentleman disregards it, through habit and familiariThe foppery of love-verses, when a person is ill and indisposed, is perfect ipecacuanha. Antiquity of family, and distinctions of gentry, have, perhaps, less weight in this age, than they had ever heretofore: the bend dexter or sinister; the chief, the canton, or the cheveron, are greatly out of date.

ty.

The heralds are at length discovered to have no legal authority. Spain, indeed, continues to preserve the distinction, and is poor. France (by their dispute about trading nobility) seems inclined to shake it off. Who now looks with veneration on the ante-diluvian pedigree of a Welchman? Property either is, or is sure to purchase distinction, let the king at arms, or the old maiden aunt, preach as long as either pleases. It is so; perhaps it ought to be so. All honours should lie open, all encouragement be allowed to the members of trade in a trading nation: and as the nobility find it very expedient to partake of their profits, so they, in return, should obtain a share in the others' honours. One would, however, wish the acquisition of learning was as sure a road to dignity, as that of riches.

OF BOOKS AND WRITERS.

It is often asserted, by pretenders to singular penetration, that the assistance fancy is supposed to draw from wine is merely imaginary and chimerical: that all which the poets have urged on this head, is absolute rant and enthusiasm; and has no foundation in truth or nature. I am inclined to think otherwise. Judgment, I readily allow, derives no benefit from the noblest cordial. But persons of a phlegmatic constitution have those excellencies often suppressed, of which their imagination is truly capable, by reason of a lentor, which wine may naturally remove. It raises low spirits to a pitch necessary for the exertion of fancy. It confutes the "Non est tanti," so frequently a maxim with speculative per

sons. It quickens that ambition, or that social bias, which makes a person wish to shine, or to please. Ask what tradition says of Mr. Addison's conversation? But instances in point of conversation come within every one's observance. Why then may it not be allowed to produce the same effects in writing? The affected phrases I hate most, are those on which your half-wits found their reputation. Such as "pretty trifler, fair plaintiff, lovely architect," &c. Doctor Young has a surprising knack of bringing thoughts from a distance, from their lurking places, in a moment's time.

There is nothing so disagreeable in works of humour as an insipid, unsupported, vivacity; the very husks of drollery; bottled small-beer; a man out-riding his horse; lewdness and impotence; a fiery actor in a phlegmatic scene; an illiterate and stupid preacher discoursing on urim and thummim, and beating the pulpit cushion in such a manner, as tho' he would make the dust and the truth fly out of it at once.

An editor, or a translator, collects the merits of different writers; and, forming all into a wreath, bestows it on his author's tomb. The thunder of Demosthenes, the weight of Tully, the judgment of Tacitus, the elegance of Livy, the sublimity of Homer, the majesty of Virgil, the wit of Ovid, the propriety of Horace, the accuracy of Terence, the brevity of Phædrus, and the poignancy of Juvenal (with every name of note he can possibly recal to mind) are given to some ancient scribbler, in whom affectation and the love of novelty disposes him to find out beauties. Humour and Vanbrugh against wit and Congreve. The vacant skull of a pedant generally furnishes out a throne and temple for vani

ity. May not the custom of scraping when we bow, be derived from the ancient custom of throwing their shoes backwards off their feet? The preference which some give to Virgil before Homer is often owing to complexion: some are more formed to enjoy the grand; and others, the beautiful. But as for invention and sublimity, the most shining qualities of imagination, there is surely no comparison between them. Yet I enjoy Virgil Agreeable ideas rise, in proportion as they are drawn from inanimates, from vegetables, from animals, and from human creatures. One reason why the sound is sometimes an echo to the sense is, that the pleasantest objects have often the most harmonious names annexed to them.

more.

A man of a merely argumentative cast will read poetry as prose; will only regard the quantum it contains of solid reasoning: just as a clown attacks a dessert, considering it as so much victuals, and regardless of those lively or emblematic decorations, which the cook, for many sleepless nights, has endeavoured to bestow on it. Notwithstanding all that Rousseau has advanced so very ingeniously on plays and players, their profession is, like that of a painter, one of the imitative arts whose means are pleasure, and whose end is virtue. They both alike, for a subsistence, submit themselves to public opinion: and the dishonour that has attended the last profession, seems not easily accountable.

As there are evidently words in English poetry that have all the force of a dactyle, and, if properly inserted, have no small beauty on that account, it seems absurd to contract, or print them otherwise than at length,