But, ah! fweet maid, my counsel hear; What cruel anfwer have I heard! Go boldly forth, my fimple lay, FROM THE EUROPEAN MAGAZINE. The following performance, though bearing the name of a most respectable writer, has been fome time handed about in manufcript as the production of an excellent Hibernian dramatic author *. It has been frequently copied and given to particular friends, by one of whom an imperfect tranfcript. was committed to the press in Ireland. As it has been much fought after, you will oblige many of your readers by inferting this jeu d'efprit more correct than it has hitherto appeared. The author of it, who is known to entertain fentiments of the highest respect for the person whofe name he waggifhly affumes, will pardon the liberty taken with his work, when he reflects on the number of fons to whom the reading of it will afford enter per tainment. I am, &c. J. P. D. A TOUR TO CELBRIDGE, BY DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. THE love of variety is a paffion naturally implanted in the human breaft, nor perhaps is the rational fegregated from the brute creature, by any more difcernible difcrimination than an eager defire to vifit different countries, to explore new objects, Mr. Jerhfon.. and and to accumulate fresh materials for the versatility of contemplative investigation. Sir Thomas Brown fays, that were the regions of his second state of exiftence left to his election, he would choose to be the inhabitant of a planet, rather than of a fixed ftar. Without ftaying to examine, whether there is not more of humour than folidity in this whimfical preference, we may venture to pronounce that the faculties of the mind ftagnate by confinement, and that change of place will naturally produce viciffitude of ideas. There is, befides, this certain advantage in travelling; it makes us independent of other mens labour; obfervation refcues from prejudice, teaches to moderate credulity, and affifts to detect impofi tion. I was naturally led to thefe reflections by a retrospect to the occurrences of a day lately fpent in the vicinage of Dublin. Having vifited every thing worthy the notice of a ftranger in the metropolis of Ireland, and being fatigued by conviviality without converfation, fociety without felection, conftitutional bumpers, and ftale anecdotes, I determined to explore the banks of the Liffey, and to fearch among the amnicolifts for that entertainment which eluded my pursuit in the urbanity of the capital; letters, which the officiousness of friends, rather than any folicitation on my part, had put into my hands at my leaving London, ferved to introduce me among N 6 others others to two ladies who happened to be at that time refident in Dublin. The name of Mrs. Greville is too well known in the world of taste and fashion to depend for celebrity on the perishable memorial of a fugitive itinerary; and Mrs. Jephfon poffeffes all the powers of captivation, without brandishing any of the weapons of allurement. I had scarcely intimated to thefe ladies my fatiety of the town, and my wish for a rural excurfion, when Mrs. Greville offered me a place in her coach, which had been just ordered to the door to convey Mrs. Jephfon, a dignified clergyman, then prefent, and herself, to the feat of Co. lonel Marlay at Celbridge. The clergyman I afterwards found to be the brother of Colonel Marlay, whofe villa was to be the Calpe of our peregrination; as I liked the company I did not hesitate to accept the accommodation. Though we paffed with a rapid velocity over little more than three leagues of high road to Celbridge, I obferved many ftately manfions, many well difpofed enclosures, and more towering plantations than any eye but that of a native of Scotland could difcover in the black circumference of the whole Caledonian horizon. The pleafure I received from the tranfient contemplation of fuch fcenes, was often interrupted by the fight of tattered mendicants, who crawled from their hamlets of mud on the way fide, to howl for charity, or to gaze in torpid fufpenfion at the ordinary phænomenon of a paffing equipage. National reflections are always illiberal, and often ill founded; the poverty of the lower clafs of people in Ireland is generally imputed to laziness, but fagacity will not reft fatisfied with fuch a folution, efpecially when it is confidered that the rifque of a halter is intuitively preferable to the certainty of famine, and that the rags of these miferable bipeds might be mended with lefs trouble than they are worn; and in a fhorter time than, if they are fhaken off, they can again be indued. This remark must however occur to every fojourner in Ireland, that the tranfitions in the scale of opulence are by means gradual as in England, from abundance to competency, from luxury to convenience, from the elegancies to the neceffaries of life; but from fuperAuities to indigence, from the riot of profufion to the fouleft dregs of fqualidity and wretchednefs; fo that there feems to be few intermediate links in the great defcending chain of property. When the ftrepituofity of total progreffion rendered the modulation of ordinary difcourfe inaudible, the ladies and the dean had recourfe to fong, that we might not rely folely for our entertainment on the gratification of vision; the dean began by chaunting fome verfes of a fublime anthem, in a train of harmony, which might have excited extraordinary emotions in a Web fter |