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tures, he wore a suit of armour, and called with fortitude, and to conform ourselves himself Julius Cæsar.

I asked who Julius Caesar was, and whether he had been famous for singing? They told me he was a warrior that had conquered all the world, and debauched half the women in Rome.

I was going to express my admiration at seeing him so represented, when I heard two ladies, who sat nigh me, cry out, as it were in exstasy, "O that dear creature! I am dying for love of him."

At the same time I heard a gentleman say aloud, that both the music and singing were detestable.

"You must not mind him," said my friend, "he is of the other party, and comes here only as a spy.”

"How!" said I, "have you parties in music?" "Yes," replied he, “it is a rule with us to judge of nothing by our senses and understanding, but to hear and see, and think, only as we chance to be differently engaged."

"I hope," said I," that a stranger may bc neutral in these divisions; and, to say the truth, your music is very far from inflaming me to a spirit of faction; it is much more likely to lay me asleep. Ours in Persia sets us all a-dancing; but I quite unmoved with this.”

am

"Do but fancy it moving," returned my friend," and you will soon be moved as much as others. It is a trick you may learn when you will, with a little pains: we have most of us learnt it in our turns." Lord Lyttelton.

$70. Patience recommended. The darts of adverse fortune are always levelled at our heads. Some reach us, and some fly to wound our neighbours. Let us therefore impose an equal temper on our minds, and pay without murmuring the tribute which we owe to humanity. The winter brings cold, and we must freeze : 'The summer returns with heat, and we must melt. The inclemency of the air disorders our health, and we must be sick. 1ere we are exposed to wild beasts, and there to men more savage than the beasts: and if we escape the inconveniences and danger of the air and the earth, there are perils by water, and perils by fire. This established course of things it is not in our power to change; but it is in our power to assume such a greatness of mind as becomes wise and virtuous men, as may enble us to encounter the accidents of life

to the order of Nature, who governs her great kingdom, the world, by continual mutations. Let us submit to this order; let us be persuaded that whatever does happen ought to happen, and never be so foolish as to expostulate with nature. The best resolution we can take, is to suffer what we cannot alter, and to pursue without repining the road which Providence, who directs every thing, has marked to us : for it is enough to follow; and he is but a bad soldier who sighs, and marches with reluctancy. We must receive the orders with spirit and cheerfulness, and not endeavour to slink out of the post which is assigned us in this beautiful disposition of things, whereof even sufferings make a necessary part. Let us address ourselves to God who governs all, as Cleanthes did in those admirable verses,

Parent of nature! Master of the world!
Where'er thy providence directs, behold
My steps with cheerful resignation turn;
Fate leads the willing, drags the backward on:
Why should I grieve, when grieving, I must
bear;

Or take with guilt, what guiltless I might share? Resignation to the will of God is true magThus let us speak, and thus let us act. nanimity. But the sure mark of a pusillanimous and base spirit, is to struggle and, instead of mending our own conduct, against, to censure the order of Providence, to set up for correcting that of our Maker. Bolingbroke.

§ 71. Patience exemplified in the Story
of an Ass.

ments of Monsieur Le Blanc, for a pica-
I was just receiving the dernier compli
was stopped at the gate-
sant voyage down the Rhone-when I

turned in with a couple of large panniers
'Twas by a poor ass, who had just
upon his back, to collect eleemosinary tur-
dubious with his two fore-feet on the in-
mip-tops, and cabbage leaves, and stood
side of the threshold, and with his two
hinder feet towards the street, as not
knowing very well whether he was to go
in or no.

Now, 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to strike—there is a patient endurance of sufferings, wrote so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage, which pleads so mightily for him, that it always disarms me; and to that degree, that I do not like to speak unkindly to him; on the contrary, meet him where I

will-whether in town or country-in cart or under panniers-whether in liberty or bondage--I have ever something civil to say to him on my part; and as one word begets another (if he has as little to do as 1-1 generally fall into conversation with him; and surely never is my imagination so busy as in framing his responses from the etchings of his countenance-and where those carry me not deep enough-in flying from my own heart into his, and seeking what is natural for an ass to think as well as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only creature of all the classes of beings below me, with whom I can do this: for parrots, jackdaws, &c.—I never exchange a word with them—nor with the apes, &c. for pretty near the same reason; they act by rote, as the others speak by it, and equally make me silent: nay, my dog and my cat, though I value them both-(and for my dog, he would speak if he could)-yet, somehow or other, they neither of them possess the talents for conversation-I can make nothing of a discourse with them, beyond the preposition, the reply, and rejoinder which terminated my father's and mother's conversation, in his beds of justice-and those uttered-there's an end of the dialogue

-But with an ass, I can commune for ever.

Come, Honesty! said I—seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt him and the gate-art thou for coming in or going out?

The ass twisted his head round to look up the streetWell-replied I-we'll wait a minute for thy driver.

He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the opposite way

I understand thee perfectly, answered Iif thou takest a wrong step in this affair, he will cudgel thee to death- -Well! a minute is but a minute, and if it saves a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill spent.

He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and in the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and unsavouriness had dropt it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and pick'd it up again-God help thee, Jack! said I, thou hast a bitter breakfast on't-and many a bitter day's labour-and many a bitter blow, I fear, for it's wages--'tis

all bitterness to thee, whatever life is to others.And now thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter, I dare say, as soot-(for he had cast aside the stem) and thou hast not a friend perhaps in all this world, that will give thee a macaroon.———— -In saying this, I pulled out a paper of them, which I had just purchased, and gave him one-and at this moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me, that there was more of pleasantry in the conceit, of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon-than of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act.

When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I press'd him to come in-the poor beast was heavy loaded-his legs seemed to tremble under him--he hung rather backwards, and, as I pulled at his halter, it broke short in my hand-he look'd up pensive in my face-" Don't thrash me with it--but if you will, you may."If I do, said I, I'l! be d—d.

The word was but one half of it pronounced, like the abbess of Andoüillet's— (so there was no sin in it)--when a person coming in, let fall a thundering bastinado upon the poor devil's crupper, which put an end to the ceremony.

Out upon it!

cried Ibut the interjection was equivocal-and, I think, wrong placed too

for the end of an osier, which had started out from the contexture of the ass's pannier, had caught hold of my breeches pocket as he rushed by me, and rent it in the most disastrous direction you can ima gine so that the Out upon it! in my opinion, should have come in here. Sterne. $72. Players in a country town de

scribed.

The players, you must know, finding this a good town, had taken a lease the last summer of an old synagogue deserted by the Jews; but the mayor, being a presbyterian, refused to licence their exhibitions: however, when they were in the utmost despair, the ladies of the place joined in a petition to Mrs. Mayoress, who prevailed on her husband to wink at their performances. The company immediately opened their Synagogue theatre with the Merchant of Venice; and finding a quack doctor's zany, a droll fellow, they decoyed him into their service; and he has since performed the part of the Mock Doctor, with universal applause. Upon his revolt,

the

the doctor himself found it absolutely necessary to enter of the company; and, having a talent for tragedy, has performed with great success the Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet.

The performers at our rustic theatre are far beyond those paltry strollers, who run about the country, and exhibit in a barn or a cow-house: for (as their bills declare) they are a company of Comedians from the Theatre Royal; and I assure you they are as much applauded by our country critics, as any of your capital actors. The shops of our tradesmen have been almost deserted, and a crowd of weavers and hardwaremen have elbowed each other two hours before the opening of the doors, when the bills have informed us, in enormous red letters, that the part of George Barnwell was to be performed by Mr. —, at the particular desire of several ladies of distinction. "Tis true, indeed, that our principal actors have most of them had their education at Covent-garden or Drury-lane; but they have been employed in the business of the drama in a degree but just above a scene-shifter. An heroine, to whom your managers in town (in envy to her rising merit) scarce allotted the humble part of a confidante, now blubbers out Andromache or Belvidera; the attendants on a monarch strut monarchs them selves, mutes find their voices, and message-bearers rise into heroes. The humour of our best comedian consists in shrugs and grimaces; he jokes in a wry mouth, and repartees in a grin: in short, he practices on Congreve and Vanbrugh all those distortions which gained him so much applause from the galleries, in the drubs which he was obliged to undergo in pantomimes. I was vastly diverted at seeing a fellow in the character of Sir Harry Wildair, whose chief action was a continual pressing together of the thumb and fore-finger, which, had he lifted them to his nose, I should have thought he designed as an imitation of taking snuff: but I could easily account for the cause of this single gesture, when I discovered that Sir Harry was no less a person than the dexterous Mr. Clippit, the candle-snuffer.

You will laugh to see how strangely the parts of a play are cast. They played Cato; and their Marcia was such an old woman, that when Juba came on with his" Ilail! charming maid!"— the fellow could not help laughing. Another night I was surprised to hear an

eager lover talk of rushing into his mistress's arms, rioting on the nectar of her lips, and desiring (in the tragedy rapture) to "hug her thus, and thus, for ever;" though he always took care to stand at a most ceremonious distance. But I was afterwards very much diverted at the cause of this extraordinary respect, when I was told that the lady laboured under the misfortune of an ulcer in her leg, which occasioned such a disagreeable stench, that the performers were obliged to keep her at arms length. The enter tainment was Lethe; and the part of the Frenchman was performed by a South Briton; who as he could not pronounce a word of the French language, supplied its place by gabbling in his native Welsh.

The decorations, or (in the theatrical dialect) the properties of our company, are as extraordinary as the performers. Othello raves about in a checked handker chief; the ghost in Hamlet stalks in a postilion's leathern jacket for a coat of mail; and Cupid enters with a fiddle-case slung over his shoulders for a quiver. The apothecary of the town is free of the house, for lending them a pestle and mortar, to serve as the bell in Venice Preserv'd: and a barber-surgeon has the same privilege, for furnishing them with basons of blood to besmear the daggers in Macbeth. Macbeth himself carries a rolling-pin in his hand for a truncheon; and, as the breaking of glasses would be very expensive, be dashes down a pewter pint-pot at the sight of Banquo's ghost.

A fray happened bere the other night, which was no small diversion to the audience. It seems there had been a great contest between two of those mimic heroes, which was the fittest to play Richard the Third. One of them was reckoned to have the better person, as he was very roundshouldered, and one of his legs was shorter than the other; but his antagonist carried the part, because he started best in the tent scene. However when the curtain drew up, they both rushed in upon the stage at once; and, bawling out together," Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths," they both went through the whole speech without stopping.

$73.

Connoisseur.

Players often mistake one efect for another.

The French have distinguished the ar tifices made use of on the stage to deceive

the

$74. True Pleasure defined.

of

the audience, by the expression of Jeu de bias on the opposite side, and to preserve, Theatre, which we may translate, "the jug-in all their behaviour, the appearance gle of the theatre." When these little arts sentiments contrary to those which they are exercised merely to assist nature and set naturally incline to. Thus, as we are naher off to the best advantage, none can be turally proud and selfish, and apt to assume so critically nice as to object to them; but the preference above others, a polite man when tragedy by these means is lifted into is taught to behave with deference towards rant, and comedy distorted into buffoonery; those with whom he converses, and to yield though the deceit may succeed with the up the superiority to them in all the commultitude, men of sense will always be of- mon incidents of society. In like manner, fended at it. This conduct, whether of the wherever a person's situation may naturalpoet or the player, resembles in some sort ly beget any disagreeable suspicion in him, the poor contrivance of the ancients, who 'tis the part of good manners to prevent it mounted their heroes upon stilts, and ex- by a studied display of sentiments directly pressed the manners of their characters by contrary to those of which he is apt to be the grotesque figures of their masks. Ibid. jealous. Thus old men know their infirmities, and naturally dread contempt from youth: hence well-educated youth redouble their instances of respect and deference to their elders. Strangers and foreigners are without protection, hence, in all polite countries, they receive the highest civilities, and are entitled to the A man is first place in every company. lord in his own family, and his guests are, in a manner, subject to his authority, hence he is always the lowest person in the company; attentive to the wants of every one; and giving himself all the trouble, in order to please, which may not betray too visible an affectation, or impose too much constraint on his guests. Gallantry is nothing but an instance of the same generous refined attention. As nature has given man the superiority above woman, by endowing him with greater strength both of mind and body, 'tis his part to alleviate that superiority, as much as possible, by the generosity of his behaviour, and by a studied deference and complaisance for all her inclinations and opinions. Barbarous nations display this superiority, by reducing their females to the most abject slavery; by confining them, by beating them, by selling them, by killing them. But the male sex, among a polite people, discover their authority in a more generous, though not a lest evident manner; by civility, by respect, by complaisance, and in a word, by gallantry. In good company, you need not ask, who is master of the feast? The man who sits in the lowest place, and who is always industrious in helping every one, is most certainly the person. We must either condemn all such instances of generosity, as foppish and affected, or admit of gallantry among the rest. The ancient Muscovites wedded their wives with a whip instead of a wedded ring. The same peo

We are affected with delightful sensations, when we see the inanimate parts of the creation, the meadows, flowers, and trees, in a flourishing state. There must be some rooted melancholy at the heart, when all nature appears smiling about us, to hinder us from corresponding with the rest of the creation, and joining in the universal chorus of joy. But if meadows and trees in their cheerful verdure, if flowers in their bloom, and all the vegetable parts of the creation in their most advantageous dress, can inspire gladness into the heart, and drive away all sadness but despair; to see the rational creation happy and flourishing, ought to give us a pleasure as much superior, as the latter is to the former in the scale of beings. But the pleasure is still heightened, if we our selves have been instrumental in contributing to the happiness of our fellow-creatures, if we have helped to raise a heart drooping beneath the weight of grief, and revived that barren and dry land, where no water was, with refreshing showers of love and kindness. Seed's Sermons.

$75. How Politeness is manifested. To correct such gross vices as lead us to commit a real injury to others, is the part of morals, and the object of the most ordinary education. Where that is not attended to, in some degree, no human society can subsist. But in order to render conversation and the intercourse of minds more easy and agreeable, good-manners have been invented, and have carried the matter somewhat farther. Wherever nature has given the mind a propensity to any vice, or to any passion disagreeable to others, refined breeding has taught men to throw the

and

ple

ple in their own houses, took always
the precedency above foreigners, even fo-
reign ambassadors. These two instances
of their generosity and politeness are much
of a-piece.
Hume's Essays.

76. The Business and Qualifications of
a Poct described.

"Wherever I went, I found that poetry was considered as the highest learning, and regarded with a veneration somewhat approaching to that which man would pay to the angelic nature. And it yet fills me with wonder, that, in almost all countries, the most ancient pocts are considered as the best whether it be that every other kind of knowledge is an acquisition, gradually attained, and poetry is a gift conferred at once; or that the first poetry of every nation surprised them as a novelty, and retained the credit by consent which it received by accident at first: or whether, as the province of poetry is to describe nature and passion, which are always the same, the first writers took possession of the most striking objects for description, and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left nothing to those that followed them, but transcriptions of the same events and new combinations of the same images. Whatever be the reason, it is commonly observed, that the early writers are in possession of nature, and their followers of art: that the first excel in strength and invention, and the latter in elegance and refinement.

I was desirous to add my name to this illustrious fraternity. I read all the poets of Persia and Arabia, and was able to repeat by memory the volumes that are suspended in the mosque of Mecca. But I soon found that no man was ever great by imitation. My desire of excellence impelled me to transfer my attention to nature and to life. Nature was to be my subject, and men to be my auditors: I could never describe what I had not seen: I could not hope to move those with delight or terror, whose interests and opi

nions I did not understand.

"Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw every thing with a new purpose; my sphere of attention was suddenly magnified; no kind of knowledge was to be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest and flower of the valley. I observed with equal care the crags of the rock, and the

pinnacles of the palace. Sometimes I an dered along the mazes of the rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of the summer clouds. To a poet nothing can be useless. Whatever is beautiful, and his imagination: he must be conversant whatever is dreadful, must be familiar to with all that is awfully vast, or elegantly little. The plants of the garden, the an mals of the wood, the minerals of the earth, and meteors of the sky, must all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible variety: for every idea is useful for the enforce ment or decoration of moral or religious truth: and he who knows most will have most power of diversifying his scenes, and of gratifying his reader with remote allusions and unexpected instruction.

"All the appearances of nature I was therefore careful to study, and every coun try which I have surveyed has contributed something to my poetical powers."

"In so wide a survey," said the prince, you must surely have left much unob served. I have lived, till now, within the circuit of these mountains, and yet cannot walk abroad without the sight of something which I never beheld before, or never heeded.

"The business of a poct,” said Imlac, "is to examine not the individual, but the species, to remark general properties and large appearances: he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the fo rest. He is to exhibit in his portraits of nature such prominent and striking features as recal the original to every mind; and must neglect the minuter discriminations, which one may have remarked, and another have neglected, for those characteristics which are alike obvious to vigilance and carelessness.

"But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet: he must be ac quainted likewise with all the modes of life. His character requires that he estimate the happiness and miscry of every condition, observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the human mind as they are modified by various institutions, and accidental is fluences of climate or custom, from the sprightliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude. He must divest himself of the prejudices of his age or country; he must consider right and wrong in their ab stract and invariable state; he must dire gard present laws and opinions, and rise to

general

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