prevent their brother from starving, out of the profits of a little shop which they were then obliged to set up for their support.

The abuse of the terms used by my friend, in regard to the character of this unfortunate man, would be sufficiently striking from the relation I have given, without the necessity of my offering any comment on it. Yet the misapplication of them is a thousand times repeated by people who have known and felt instances, equally glaring, of such injustice. It may seem invidious to lessen the praises of any praiseworthy quality; but it is essential to the interests of virtue, that insensibility should not be allowed to assume the title of good-nature, nor profusion to usurp the honours of generosity.

The effect of such misplaced and ill-founded indulgence is hurtful in a double degree. It encourages the evil which it forbears to censure, and discourages the good qualities which are found in men of decent and sober characters. If we look into the private histories of unfortunate families, we shall find most of their calamities to have proceeded from a neglect of the useful duties of sobriety, economy, and attention to domestic concerns, which, though they shine not in the eye of the world, nay, are often subject to its obloquy, are yet the surest guardians of virtue, of honour, and of independence.

Be just before you are generous, is a good old proverb, which the profligate hero of a much-admired comedy is made to ridicule, in a well-turned, and even a sentimental period. But what right have those squanderers of their own and other men's fortunes to assume the merit of generosity? Is parting with that money, which they value so little, generosity? Let them restrain their dissipation, their riot, their debauchery, when they are told that these bring ruin on the persons and families of the honest

and the industrious; let them sacrifice one pleasure to humanity, and then tell us of their generosity and their feeling. A transient instance, in which the prodigal relieved want with his purse, or the thoughtless debauchee promoted merit by his interest, no more deserves the appellation of generosity than the rashness of a drunkard is entitled to the praises of valour, or the freaks of a madman to the laurels of genius.

In the character of a man, considered as a being of any respect at all, we immediately see a relation to his friends, his neighbours, and his country. His duties only confer real dignity, and, what may not be so easily allowed, but is equally true, can bestow real pleasure. I know not an animal more insignificant, or less happy, than a man without any ties of affection, or any exercise of duty. He must be very forlorn, or very despicable, indeed, to whom it is possible to apply the phrase used by my friend, in characterising the person whose story I have related above, and to say, that he is no one's enemy but his own.-V.

N° 24. SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1779.

Non satis est pulchra esse poëmata; dulcia sunto.-Hor. NATURE is for ever before us. We can, as often as we please, contemplate the variety of her productions, and feel the power of her beauty. We may feast our imaginations with the verdure of waving groves, the diversified colours of an evening sky, or the windings of a limpid river. We may dwell with rapture on those more sublime exhibitions of nature,

the raging tempest, the billowy deep, or the stupendous precipice, that lift the soul with delightful amazement, and seem almost to suspend her exertions. These beautiful and vast appearances are so capable of affording pleasure, that they become favourite subjects with the poet and the painter; they charm us in description, or they glow upon canvas. Indeed, the imitations of eminent artists have been held on an equal footing, in regard to the pleasure they yield, with the works of Nature herself, and have sometimes been deemed superior. This subject deserves attention: how it happens, that the descrip-tions of the poet, and the imitations of the painter, seem to communicate more delight than the things they describe or imitate.

In estimating the respective merits of nature and of art, it will readily be admitted, that the preference, in every single object, is due to the former. Take the simplest blossom that blows, observe its tints or its structure, and you will own them unrivalled. What pencil, how animated soever, can equal the glories of the sky at sun-set? or can the representations of moonlight, even by Homer, Milton, and Shakspeare, be more exquisitely finished than the real scenery of a moonlight night?

If the poet and painter are capable of yielding superior pleasure, in their exhibitions, to what we receive from the works of their great original, it is in the manner of grouping their objects, and by their skill in arrangement. In particular, they give uncommon delight, by attending not merely to unity of design, but to unity, if I may be allowed the expression, in the feelings they would excite. In the works of Nature, unless she has been ornamented and reformed by the taste of an ingenious improver, intentions of this sort are very seldom apparent. Objects that are gay, melancholy, solemn, tranquil,

impetuous, and fantastic, are thrown together, without any regard to the influences of arrangement, or to the consistency of their effects on the mind. The elegant artist, on the contrary, though his works be adorned with unbounded variety, suggests only those objects that excite similar or kindred emotions, and excludes every thing of an opposite, or even of a different tendency. If the scene he describes be solemn, no lively nor fantastic image can have admission: but if, in a sprightly mood, he displays scenes of festivity, every pensive and gloomy thought is debarred. Thus the figures he delineates have one undivided direction; they make one great and entire impression.

To illustrate this remark, let us observe the conduct of Milton in his two celebrated poems, Allegro, and Il Penseroso.

In the Allegro, meaning to excite a cheerful mood, he suggests a variety of objects; for variety, by giving considerable exercise to the mind, and by not suffering it to rest long on the same appearance, occasions brisk and exhilarating emotions. Accordingly, the poet shews us, at one glance, and, as it were, with a single dash of his pen,

Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray,
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks and rivers wide.

The objects themselves are cheerful; for, besides having brooks, meadows, and flowers, we have the whistling ploughman, the singing milk-maid, the mower whetting his scythe, and the shepherd piping beneath a shade. These images, so numerous, so various, and so cheerful, are animated by lively contrasts we have the mountains opposed to the

meadows, Shallow brooks and rivers wide.' Add to this, that the charms of the landscape are lightened by the bloom of a smiling season; and that the light poured upon the whole is the delightful radiance of a summer morning:

Right against the eastern gate,

Where the great sun begins his state,
Rob'd in flames of amber light,

The clouds in thousand liv'ries dight.

Every image is lively; every thing different is withheld all the emotions the poet excites are of one character and complexion.

:

Let us now observe the conduct of his Il Penseroso. This poem is, in every respect, an exact counterpart to the former. And the intention of the poet being to promote a serious and solemn mood, he removes every thing lively; Hence, vain deluding joys!' He quits society; he chooses silence and opportunities for deep reflection; Some still removed place will fit.' The objects he presents are few. In the quotation, beginning with Russet lawns,' there are eight leading images: in the following of equal length, there is only one.

To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heav'ns wide pathless way;
And oft, as if her head she bow'd,

Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

The sounds that can be, in any respect, agreeable to him, must correspond with his present humour: not the song of the milk-maid, but that of the nightingale; not the whistling ploughman, but the sound of the curfew. His images succeed one another slowly, without any rapid or abrupt transitions, without any enlivening contrasts; and he will have no other light for his landscape than that of the moon :