4to.

The baron, who sat secure without the vortex of this tumult, was not at all dis

JOSEPH WARTON, D.D., pleased at seeing his companions involved born 1722, second Master of Winchester in such a calamity as that which he had School, 1755–66, and Head Master, 1766-93, already shared; but the doctor was con- Prebendary of London, 1782, died 1800, pubfounded with shame and vexation. After lished Oues, Lond., 1746. 4to; The Works having prescribed an application of oil to of Virgil in Latin and English, by C. Pitt the count's leg, he expressed his sorrow for and J. Warton, 1753, 4 vols. 8vo; an Essay the misadventure, which he openly ascribed

on Pope, 1756–62, 2 vols. 8vo; and an to want of taste and prudence in the painter,

edition of Pope's Works, 1797, 9 vols. Svo ; who did not think proper to return and make an apology in person; and protested The Adventurer, 1753–56, etc.

was author of twenty-four numbers of

See Rev. that there was nothing in the fowls which

John Wooll's Memoirs of J. Warton, 1806, could give offence to a sensible nose, the stuffing being a mixture of pepper, lovage, and assafotida, and the sauce consisting of

“ Warton's translation (of the Georgics] may in wine and herring-pickle, which he had used

many instances be found more faithful and concise instead of the celebrated garum of the Ro- matic freedom' by which Dryden reconciles us to

than Dryden's; but it wants that elastic and idiomans; that famous pickle having been pre- his faults, and exhibits rather the diligence of a pared sometimes of the scombri, which were scholar than the spirit of a poet.”—THOMAS CAMPa sort of tunny fish, and sometimes of the BELL: Specimens, 661. silurus or shad fish ; nay, he observed, that there was a third kind called garum hæma

CRITICS AND MORALISTS OF FRANCE. tion, made of the guts, gills, and blood of The character of the scholars of the presthe thynnus.

ent age will not be much injured or misrepThe physician, finding that it would be resented by saying that they seem to be impracticable to re-establish the order of the superficially acquainted with a multitude banquet by presenting again the dishes which of subjects, but go to the bottom of very had been discomposed, ordered everything to few. This appears in criticism and polite be removed, a clean cloth to be laid, and the learning, as well as in the abstruser scidessert to be brought in.

ences; by the diffusion of knowledge its Meanwhile he regretted his incapacity to depth is abated. Eutyches harangues with give them a specimen of the alicus or fish wonderful plausibility on the distinct merits meals of the ancients; such as the jusdia- of all the Greek and Roman classics, withbaton, the conger eel, which, in Galen's out having thoroughly and attentively peopinion, is hard of digestion; the cornuta rused or entered into the spirit and scope or gurnard, described by Pliny in his Natural of one of them. But Eutyches has diliHistory, who says the horns of many of rently digested the dissertations of Rapin, them were a foot and a half in length; the Bonhours, Felton, Blackwall, and Rollin: mullet and lamprey, that were in the highest treatises that administer great consolation estimation of old, of which last Julius Cæsar to the indolent and incurious, to those who borrowed six thousand for one triumphal can tamely rest satisfied with second-hand supper. He observed that the manner of knowledge, as they give concise accounts of dressing them was described by llorace in all the great heroes of ancient literature, the account he gives of the entertainment and enable them to speak of their several to which Mücenas was invited by the epic characters, without the tedious drudgery of cure Nasiedenus,

perusing the originals. But the characters Affertur squillos inter Murena natantes, &c.

of writers, as of men, are of a very mixed

and complicated nature, and are not to be And told them that they were commonly comprehended in so small a compass, such eaten with the chus Syriacum, a certain objects do not admit of being drawn in minanodyne and astringent seed, which quali- iature, with accuracy and distinetness. fied the purgative nature of the fish. Finally, To the present prevailing fashion for this learned physician gave them to under- French moralists and French critics may stand that though this was reckoned a lux- be imputed the superficial show of learning urious dish in the zenith of the Roman taste, and abilities of which I am complaining. it was by no means comparable in point of And since these alluring authors are become expense to some preparations in vogue about not only so fashionable an amusement of the time of that absurd voluptuary Helioga- those who call themselves the polite world, balus, who ordered the brains of six bun- but also engross the attention of academical dred ostriches to be compounded in one students. I am tempted to inquire into the

:

That Montaigne abounds in native wit, in graded into an abject slave of appetite and quick penetration, in a perfect knowledge of passion, and deprived even of her just and the human heart, and the various vanities indisputable authority. As a Christian, and and vices that lurk in it, cannot justly be as a man, I despise, I detest, such debasing denied. But a man who undertakes to trans- principles. mit his thoughts on life and manners to pos- Rochefoucault, to give smartness and shortterity, with the hopes of entertaining and ness to his sentences, frequently makes use amending future ages, must be either ex- of the antithesis, a mode of speaking the ceedingly vain or exceedingly careless, if he most tiresome and disgusting of any, by the expects either of these effects can be pro- sameness and similarity of the periods. And duced by wanton sallies of the imagination, sometimes, in order to keep up the point, he by useless and impertinent digressions, by neglects the propriety and justness of the never forming or following any regular plan, sentiment, and grossly contradicts himself. never classing or confining his thoughts, "Happiness," says he, consists in the taste, never changing or rejecting any sentiment and not in the things: and it is by enjoying that occurs to him. Yet this appears to what a man loves that he becomes happy; not have been the conduct of our celebrated by having what others think desirable.". The essayist: and it has produced many awk- obvious do rine contained in this reflection, is ward imitators, who, under the notion of the great power of imagination with regard writing with the fire and freedom of this to felicity : but, adds the reflector in a followlively old Gascon, have fallen into confused ing maxim, "We are never so happy or so rhapsodies and uninteresting egotisms. miserable as we imagine ourselves to be ;'

But these blemishes of Montaigne are tri- which is certainly a plain and palpable confing and unimportant compared with his tradiction of the foregoing opinion. And of vanity, his indecency, and his scepticism. such contradictions many instances might be That man must totally have suppressed the alleged in this admired writer, which evinatural love of honest reputation which is dently shew that he had not digested his 80 powerfully felt by the truly wise and thoughts with philosophical exactness and good, who can calmly sit down to give a precision. But the characters of La Bruyere catalogue of his private vices, and publish deserve to be spoken of in far different terms. his most secret infirmities, with the pre- They are drawn with spirit and propriety, tence of exhibiting a faithful picture of him without a total departure from nature and self, and of exactly portraying the minutest resemblance, as sometimes is the case in prefeatures of his mind. Surely he deserves tended pictures of life. In a few instances the censure Quintilian bestows on Deme-only he has failed, by overcharging his portrius, a celebrated Grecian statuary, that he traits with many ridiculous features that was "nimius in veritate, et similitudinis cannot exist together in one subject: as in quam pulchritudinis amantior ;' more stu- the character of Menalcas, the absent man, dious of likeness than of beauty.

which, though applauded by one of my preThough the maxims of the Duke de la decessors, is surely absurd, and false to Rochefoucault, another fashionable philoso- nature. This author appears to be a warm pher, are written with expressive elegance, admirer of virtue, and a steady promoter of and with nervous brevity, yet I must be her interest: he was neither ashamed of pardoned for affirming that he who labours Christianity, nor afraid to defend it: acto lessen the dignity of human nature de- cordingly, few have exposed the folly and stroys many efficacious motives for practis- absurdity of modish infidels, of infidels made ing worthy actions, and deserves ill of his by vanity and not by want of conviction, fellow-creatures, whom he paints in dark with so much solidity and pleasantry united : and disagreeable colours. As the opinions he disdained to sacrifice truth to levity and of men usually contract a tincture from the licentiousness. Many of his characters are circumstances and conditions of their lives, personal, and contain allusions which canit is easy to discern the chagrined courtier not now be understood. It is, indeed, the in the satire which this polite misanthrope fate of personal satire to perish with the has composed on his own species.

generation in which it is written : many According to his gloomy and uncomforta- artful strokes in Theophrastus himself, perble system, virtue is merely the result of haps, appear coarse or insipid, which the temper and constitution, of chance or of Athenians looked upon with admiration. vanity, of fashion or the fear of losing repu- A different age and different nation render tation. Thus humanity is brutalized ; and us incapable of relishing several beauties in every high and generous principle is repre the Alchymist of Jonson and in the Don sented as imaginary, romantic, and chimeri- | Quixote of Cervantes. cal ; reason, which by some is too much Saint Evremond is a florid and verbose aggrandized and almost deified, is here de- / trifler, without novelty or solidity in his re

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flections. What more can be expected from these two commentators may be. To conone who proposed the dissolute and affected template these exalted geniuses through Petronius for his model in writing and liv- such mediums is like beholding the orb of ing?

the sun, during an eclipse, in a vessel of As the corruption of our taste is not of water. But let him eagerly press forward equal consequence with the depravation of to the great originals: "juvet integros acour virtue, I shall not spend so much time cedere fontes ;" * his be the joy t' approach on the critics, as I have done on the moral- th' untasted springs." Let him remember ists, of France.

that the Grecian writers alone, both critics llow admirably Rapin, the most popular and poets, are the best masters to teach, in among them, was qualified to sit in judgment Milton's emphatical style, “ What the laws upon Homer and Thucydides, Demosthenes, are of a true epic poem, what of a dramatic, and Plato, may be gathered from an anec- what of a lyric; what decorum is; which is dote preserved by Menage, who affirms upon the grand masterpiece to observe. This his own knowledge that Le Fevre of Sau- would make them soon perceive what demur furnished this assuming critic with the spicable creatures our cominon rhymers and Greek passages he had occasion to cite, playwrights be; and shew them what reliRapin himself being totally ignorant of that vious, what glorious and magnificent use language. The censures and the commen- might be made of poetry, both in divine and dations this writer bestows are general and human things.” indiscriminate ; without specifying the rea- The Adventurer, No. 49, Tuesday, April sons of his approbation or dislike, and with- 24, 1753. out alleging the passages that may support

On Good-BREEDING. his opinion: whereas just criticism demands, not only that every beauty or blemish be There are many accomplishments which, minutely pointed out in its different degree though they are comparatively trivial, and and kind, but also that the reason and foun- may be acquired by small abilities, are yet dation of excellencies and faults be accurately of great importance in our common interascertained.

course with men. Of this kind is that genBossu is usually and justly placed at the eral courtesy which is called Good-breeding; head of the commentators on Aristotle's a name by which, as an artificial excellence, Poetics, which certainly he understood and it is at once characterized and recommended. explained in a more masterly manner than Good-breeding, as it is generally employed either Beni or Castelvetro: būt in one or two in the gratification of vanity,—a passion instances he has indulged a love of subtilty almost universally predominant,-is more and groundless refinement. That I may not highly prized by the majority than any be accused of affecting a kind of hatred other; and he who wants it, though he against all the French critics, I would ob- may be preserved from contempt by inconserve that this learned writer merits the attestable superiority either of virtue or of tention and diligent perusal of the true parts, will yet be regarded with malevoscholar. What I principally admire in lence, and avoided as an enemy with whom Bossu is the regularity of his plan and the it is dangerous to combat. exactness of his method ; which add utility It happens, indeed, somewhat unfortuas well as beauty to his work.

nately, that the practice of good-breeding, Brumoy has displayed the excellencies of bowever necessary, is obstructed by the the Greek Tragedy in a judicious and com- possession of more valuable talents; and prehensive manner. llis translations are that great integrity, delicacy, sensibility, faithful and elegant; and the analysis of and spirit, exalted genius, and extensive those plays which, on account of some cir- learning, frequently render men ill-bred. cumstances in ancient manners, would shock Petrarch relates that his admirable friend the readers of this age, and would not there- and contemporary, Dante Alighieri, one of fore bear an entire version, is perspicuous the most exalted and original geniuses that and full. Of all the French critics, he and ever appeared, being banished his country, the judicious Fénelon have had the justice and having retired to the court of a prince to confess, or perhaps the penetration to per- which was then the sanctuary of the unceive, in what instances Corneille and 'Ra- fortunate, was held at first in great esteem; cine have falsified and modernized the char- but became daily less acceptable to his acters, and overloaded with unnecessary patron by the severity of his manners and intrigues the simple plots of the ancients. the freedom of his speech. There were at

Let no one, however, deceive himself in the same court many players and buffoons, thinking that he can gain a competent gamesters and debauchees, one of whom, knowledge of Aristotle or Sophocles from distinguished by his impudence, ribaldry, Bossu or Brumoy, how excellent soever and obscenity, was greatly caressed by the rest; which the prince suspecting Dante not will not find himself considered as the object to be pleased with, ordered the man to be of good-breeding by others. There is, howbrought before him, and having highly ex- ever, a species of rusticity which it is not tolled him, turned to Dante, and said, “I less absurd than injurious to treat with conwonder that this person, who is by some tempt; this species of ill-breeding is become deemed a fool, and by others a madman, almost proverbially the characteristic of a should yet be so generally pleasing, and scholar; nor should it be expected that he so generally beloved; when you, who are who is deeply attentive to an abstruse celebrated for wisdom, are yet heard without science, or who employs any of the great pleasure, and commended without friend- faculties of the soul, the memory, the imship:"-" You would cease to wonder,” re-agination, or the judgment, in the close plied Dante, “if you considered that con- pursuit of their several objects, should have formity of character is the source of friend studied punctilios of form and ceremony, ship.” This sarcasm, which had all the and be equally able to shine at a rout and force of truth, and all the keenness of wit, in the schools. That the bow of a chronolwas intolerable; and Dante was immediately oger, and the compliment of an astronomer, disgraced and banished.

should be improper or uncouth, cannot be But by this answer, though the indigna- thought strange to those who duly consider tion which produced it was founded on the narrowness of our faculties and the imvirtue, Dante probably gratified his own possibility of attaining universal excellence. vanity as much as he mortified that of Equally excusable, for the same reasons, others; it was the petulant reproach of are that absence of mind, and that forgetfulresentment and pride, which is always re- ness of place and person, to which scholars torted with rage; and not the still voice of are so frequently subject. When Louis XIV. reason, which is heard with complacency was one day lamenting the death of an old and reverence: if Dante intended reforma- comedian, whom he highly extolled, “Yes," tion, his answer was not wise : if he did replied Boileau, in the presence of Madam not intend reformation, his answer was not Maintenon (Scarron's widow, and aftergood.

wards wife of Louis XIV.)," he performed Great delicacy, sensibility, and penetra- tolerably well in the despicable pieces of tion do not less obstruct the practice of Scarron, which are now deservedly forgotten good-breeding than integrity. Persons thus even in the provinces."'. qualified not only discover proportionably As every condition of life, and every turn more faults and failings in the characters of mind, has some peculiar temptation and which they examine, but are more disgusted propensity to evil, let not the man of upwith the faults and failings which they dis- rightness and honesty be morose and surly cover : the common topics of conversation in his practice of virtue ; let not him whose are too trivial to engage their attention : delicacy and penetration discern with disthe various turns of fortune that have lately gust those imperfections in others from happened at a game of whist, the history of which he himself is not free, indulge pera ball at Tunbridge or Bath, a description petual peevishness and discontent; let not of Lady Fanny's jewels and Lady Kitty's learning and knowledge be pleaded as an vapours, the journals of a horse-race or a excuse for not condescending to the common cock-match, and disquisitions on the game offices and duties of civil life; for as no man act, or the scarcity of partridges, are sub- should be well-bred at the expense of his

jects upon which men of delicate taste do virtue, no man should practise virtue so as not always choose to declaim, and on which to deter others from imitation. they cannot patiently hear the declamation The Adventurer, No. 87, Tuesday, Septemof others. But they should remember that ber 4, 1753. their impatience is the impotence of reason and the prevalence of vanity; that if they sit silent and reserved, wrapped up in the ADAM SMITH, LL.D., contemplation of their own dignity, they will, in their turn, he despised and hated born at Kirkaldy, Scotland, 1723, studied at by those whom they hate and despise; and the University of Glasgow, 1737-40, and at with better reason, for perverted power Balliol College, Oxford, 1740-47, Professor ought to be more odious than debility. of Logic in the University of Glasgow, 1751To hear with patience, and to answer with 52, and Professor of Moral Philosophy, 1752civility, seems to comprehend all the good-63, a Commissioner of his Majesty's Customs breeding of conversation ; and in proportion in Scotland, 1778, Rector of the University as this is easy, silence and inattention are of Glasgow, 1787, died 1796. He was the without excuse.

author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, He who does not practise good-breeding | etc., Lond., 1759, 8vo, late editions, Edin.,

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1819, 1854, p. 8vo, Lond., 1853, p. 8vo; An with which the shepherd clips the wool. Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the The miner, the builder of the furnace for Wealth of Nations, Lond., 1776 (some 1777), smelting the ore, the feller of the timber, 2 vols. 4to; best edit., hy J. R. MacCulloch, the burner of the charcoal to be made use Lond., 1828, 4 vols. 8vo, and 1839, '46, '50, of in the smelting-house, the brick-maker, *57, 8vo; Essays on Philosophical Subjects, the brick-layer, the workmen who attend with Account of the Author by Dugald the furnace, the millwright, the forger, the Stewart, Lond., 1795, 4to. The Works Com-smith, inust all of them join their different plete of Adam Smith, with Life by Dugald arts in order to produce them. Were we to Stewart, Lond., 1811-12, 5 vols. 8vo.

examine in the same manner all the different “The great name of Adam Smith rests upon the parts of his dress and household furniture, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth the coarse linen shirt which he wears next of Nations, perhaps the only book which produced his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, an immediate, general, and irrevocable change in the bed which he lies on, and all the differsome of the most important parts of the legislation of all civilized states."-SIR J. MACKINTOSH : Dis

ent parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate sert, on Progress of Ethic. Philos., Encyc. Brit.

at which he prepares his victuals, the coals “The Wealth of Nations combines both the which he makes use of for that purpose, dug sound and enlightened views which had distin

from the bowels of the earth, and brought to guished the detached pieces of the French and him, perhaps, by a long sea and a long land Italian Economists, and, above all of Mr. Hume, carriage, all the other utensils of the kitchen, with the great merit of embracing the whole sub- all the furniture of his table, the knives and ject, thus bringing the general scope of the prin forks, the earthen or pewter plates upon ciples into view, illustrating all the parts of the inquiry by their combined relations, and confirin

which he serves up and divides his victuals, ing their soundness in each instance by their ap

the different hands employed in preparing plication to the others.”—Lord Brougiam: Lives his bread and his beer, the glass window of Philos. T'ime of George III., ed. 1855, 263. which lets in the heat and the light, and

keeps out the wind and the rain, with all DivisiON OF LABOUR.

the knowledge and art requisite for preparing Observe the accommodation of the most

that beautiful and happy invention, without common artificer or day-labourer in a civil which these northern parts of the world ized and thriving country, and you will could scarce have afforded a very comfortperceive that the number of people of whose able habitation, together with the tools of industry a part, though but a small part: ducing those different conveniences; if we

all the different workmen employed in prohas been employed in procuring him this accommodation exceeds all computation. The examine, I say, all these things, and conwoollen coat, for example, which covers the sider what a variety of labour is employed day-labourer, as coarse and rough as it may

about each of them, we shall be sensible appear, is the produce of the joint labour of

that, without the assistance and co-operation a great multitude of workmen. The shep

of many thousands, the very meanest person herd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber in a civilized country could not be provided, or carter, the dyer, the scribbler, the spin- even according to, what we very falsely imner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with agine, the easy and simple manner in which many others, must all join their different he is commonly accommodated. Compared, arts in order to complete even this homely indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of production. Ilow many merchants and car

the great, his accommodation must no doubt riers, besides, must have been employed in appear extremely simple and easy ; and yet transporting the materials from some of

it may be true, perhaps, that the accommothose workmen to others, who often live in dation of a European prince does not always a very distant part of the country! How

so much exceed that of an industrious and much commerce and navigation in partic- frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the ular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail- latter exceeds that of many an African makers, rope-makers, must have been em- king, the absolute masters of the lives and ployed in order to bring together the different liberties of ten thousand naked savages. drugs made use of by the dyer, which often

An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes come from the remotest corners of the world!

of the Wealth of Nations. What a variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce the tools of the meanest of those workmen! To say nothing of such complicated machines as the ship of the SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the born 1723, educated at Pembroke College, loom of the weaver, let us consider only what | Oxford, entered the Middle Temple, 1741, a variety of labour is requisite in order to Bachelor of Civil Law, 1745, called to the form that very simple machine, the shears, 1 bar, 1746, Doctor of Civil Law, 1750, Vi

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