yourself; so, in writing, the properest manner is to show an attempt at humour, which will pass upon most for humour in reality. To effect this, readers must be treated with the most per-ed twist; he wore by his side a sword with a fect familiarity; in one page the author is to make them a low bow, and in the next to pull them by the nose; he must talk in riddles, and then send them to bed, in order to dream for the solution. He must speak of himself, and his chapters, and his manner, and what he would be at, and his own importance, and his mother's importance, with the most unpitying prolixity; now and then testifying his contempt for all but himself, smiling without a jest, and without wit professing vivacity. Adieu.

day, you find him in rags; if the next, in embroidery. With those persons of distinction of whom he talks so familiarly, he has scarcely a coffee house acquaintance. However, both for the interests of society, and perhaps for his own, Heaven has made him poor, and while all the world perceive his wants, he fancies them concealed from every eye. An agreeable companion, because he understands flattery; and all must be pleased with the first part of his conversation, though all are sure of its ending with a demand on their purse. While his youth countenances the levity of his conduct, he may thus earn a precarious subsistence but when age comes on, the gravity of which is incompatible with buffoonery, then will he find himself forsaken by all; condemned in the decline of life to hang upon some rich family whom he once despised, there to undergo all the ingenuity of studied contempt, to be employed only as a spy upon the servants, or a bugbear to fright the children into obedience.

Adieu.

LETTER LIV.

TO THE SAME.

the world laughs at me, I laugh at the world, and so we are even. My Lord Trip, Bill Squash the Creolian, and I, sometimes make a party at being ridiculous; and so we say and do a thousand things for the joke's sake. But I se you are grave, and if you are for a fine grave sentimental companion, you shall dine with me and my wife to-day; I must insist on't: I'll introduce you to Mrs Tibbs, a lady of as elegant qualifications as any in nature; she was bred, but that's between ourselves, under the inspection of the Countess of All. night. A charming body of voice; but no more of that, she will give us a song. You shall see my little girl too, Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Tibbs, a sweet pretty creature! I design her for my Lord Drumstick's eldest son; but that's in friendship, let it go no farther; she's but six years old, and yet she walks a minuet, and plays on the guitar immensely already. I intend she shall be as perfect as possible in every accomplishment. In the first place, I'll make her a scholar: I'll teach her Greek myself, and learn that language purposely to instruct her; but let that be a secret."

Thus saying, without waiting for a reply, he took me by the arm, and hauled me along. We passed through many dark alleys and winding ways; for, from some motives to me unI AM apt to fancy I have contracted a new known, he seemed to have a particular averacquaintance whom it will be no easy matter to sion to every frequented street; at last, howshake off. My little beau yesterday overtook ever, we got to the door of a dismal-looking me again in one of the public walks, and slap-house in the outlets of the town, where he inping me on the shoulder, saluted me with an formed me he chose to reside for the benefit of air of the most perfect familiarity. His dress the air. was the same as usual, except that he had more powder in his hair, wore a dirtier shirt, a pair of temple spectacles, and his hat under his arm. As I knew him to be a harmless amusing little thing, I could not return his smiles with any degree of severity; so we walked forward on terms of the utmost intimacy, and in a few minutes discussed all the usual topics preliininary to particular conversation.

The oddities that marked his character, however, soon began to appear; he bowed to several well-dressed persons, who by their manner of returning the compliment, appeared perfect strangers. At intervals he drew out a pocket book, seeming to take memorandums before all the company, with much importance and assiduity. In In this manner he led me through the length of the whole walk, fretting at his absurdities, and fancying myself laughed at not less than him by every spectator.

We entered the lower door, which ever seemed to lie most hospitably open; and I began to ascend an old and creaking staircase, when, as he mounted to show me the way, he demanded, whether I delighted in prospects; to which answering in the affirmative, “ Then," says he, "I shall show you one of the most charming in the world, out of my window: we shall see the ships sailing, and the whole country for twenty miles round, tip top, quite high. My Lord Swamp would give ten thousand guineas for such a one; but as I sometimes pleasantly tell him, I always love to keep my prospects at home, that my friends may visit me the oftener."

By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would permit us to ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously pleased to call the first floor down the chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice from within demanded, who's When we were got to the end of our proces- there? My conductor answered that it was sion, "Blast me," cries he, with an air of viva-bim. But this not satisfying the querist, the city, "I never saw the park so thin in my life before? there's no company at all to-day; not a single face to be seen.' No company! interrupted I peevishly; no company where there is such a crowd? why, man, there's too much. What are the thousands that have been laughing at us but company? "Lord, my dear," returned he, with the utmost good humour, "you seem immensely chagrined; but blast me, when

voice again repeated the demand; to which he answered louder than before; and now the door was opened by an old woman with cautious reluctance.

When we were got in, he welcomed me to his house with great ceremony, and turning to the old woman, asked where was her lady' "Good troth," replied she in a peculiat dialect, "she's washing your twa shirts at

66

go and

the next door, because they have taken an oath | and, after having shown my respect to the house, against lending out the tub any longer." My according to the fashion of the English. by two shirts," cried he in a tone that faltered giving the old servant a piece of money at the with confusion, "what does the idiot mean?" door, I took my leave; Mrs Tibbs assuring I ken what I mean weel enough," replied theme, that dinner, if I stayed, would be ready at other: "she's washing your twa shirts at the least in less than two hours. next door, because-" "Fire and fury, no more of thy stupid explanations," cried he;" inform her we have got company. Were that Scotch hag to be for ever in my family, she would never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent of her's, or testify the smallest specimen of breeding or high life; and yet it is very surprising too, as I had her from a parliament man, a friend of mine from the Highlands, one of the politest men in the world; but that's a secret.

We waited some time for Mrs Tibbs' arrival, during which interval I had a full opportunity of surveying the chamber and all its furniture; which consisted of four chairs with old wrought bottoms, that he assured me were his wife's embroidery; a square table that had been once japanned; a cradle in one corner, a lumber cabinet in the other; a broken shepherdess, and a mandarine without a head, were stuck over the chimney; and round the walls several paltry unframed pictures, which, he observed, were all his own drawing. "What do you think, Sir, of that head in the corner, done in the manner of Grisoni? there's the true keeping in it; it is my own face, and though there happens to be no likeness, a Countess offered me a hundred for its fellow; 1 refused her, for, hang it, that would be mechanical you know."

The wife at last made her appearance, at once a slattern and a coquette; much emaciated, but still carrying the remains of beauty. She made twenty apologies for being seen in such odious dishabille, but hoped to be excused, as she had stayed all night at the gardens with the Countess, who was excessively fond of the horns. “And, indeed, my dear," added she, turning to her husband, "his lordship drank your health in a bumper."-" Poor Jack," cries he, "a dear good-natured creature, I know he loves me; But I hope, my dear, you have given orders for dinner; you need make no great preparations neither, there are but three of us; something elegant, and little will do; a turbot, an ortolan, a-" "Or what do you think, my dear," interrupts the wife," of a nice pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dressed with a little of my own sauce ?”—“ The very thing," replies he, "it will eat best with some smart bottled beer: but be sure to let us have the sauce his Grace was so fond of. hate your immense loads of meat, that is country all over; extremely disgusting to those who are in the least acquainted with high life."

LETTER LV.

FROM FUM HOAM TO ALTANGI, THE DISCON-
TENTED WANDERER.

THE distant sounds of music, that catch new sweetness as they vibrate through the longdrawn valley, are not more pleasing to the ear than the tidings of a far distant friend.

I have just received two hundred of thy letters by the Russian caravan, descriptive of the manners of Europe. You have left it to geographers to determine the size of their mountains and extent of their lakes, seeming only employed in discovering the genius, the government, and disposition of the people.

In those letters I perceive a journal of the operations of your mind upon whatever occurs, rather than a detail of your travels from one building to another; of your taking a draught of this ruin, or that obelisk; of paying so many Tomans for this commodity, or laying up a proper store for the passage of some new wilderness.

From your account of Russia, I learn that this nation is again relaxing into pristine barbar. ity; that its great emperor wanted a life of a hundred years more, to bring about his vast design. A savage people may be resembled to their own forests; a few years are sufficient to' clear away the obstructions to agriculture; but it requires many, ere the ground acquires a proper degree of fertility; the Russians, attached to their ancient prejudices, again renew their hatred to strangers, and indulge every former brutal excess. So true it is, that the revolutions of wisdom are slow and difficult; the revolutions of folly or ambition precipitate and easy. We are not to be astonished, says Confucius,*that the wise walk more slowly in their road to virtue, than fools in their passage to vice; since passion drags us along, while wisdom only points out the way.

The German empire, that remnant of the majesty of ancient Rome, appears from your account, on the eve of dissolution. The members of its vast body want every tie of government to unite them, and seem feebly held toIgether only by their respect for ancient institutions. The very name of country and countrymen, which in other nations makes one of the strongest bonds of government, has been

By this time my curiosity began to abate, and my appetite to increase: the company of fools may at first make us smile, but at last never fails of rendering us melancholy; I therefore pretended to recollect a prior engagement,

*Though this fine maxim be not found in the Latin edition of the morals of Confucius, yet we find it is as cribed to him by Le Conte Etat present de la Chine, vol. i. p. 312.

here for some time laid aside; each of its inhabitants seeming more proud of being called from the petty state which gives him birth, than by the more well-known title of German.

This government may be regarded in the light of a severe master and a feeble opponent. The states which are now subject to the laws of the empire, are only watching a proper occasion to fling off the yoke, and those which are become too powerful to be compelled to obedience, now begin to think of dictating in their turn. The struggles in this state are, therefore, not in order to preserve, but to destroy the ancient constitution: if one side succeeds, the government must become despotic;

save them in distress, and without virtue to save themselves, their government is poor, and their private wealth will serve but to invite some neighbouring invader.

I long with impatience for your letters from England, Denmark, Holland, and Italy; yet why wish for relations which only describe new calamities, which show that ambition and avarice are equally terrible in every region! Adieu.

LETTER LVI.

if the other, several states will subsist without FROM LIEN CHI ALTANGI, TO FUM HOAM, FIRST even nominal subordination; but in either case, the Germanic constitution will be no

more.

PRESIDENT OF THE CEREMONIAL ACADEMY AT
PEKIN IN CHINA.

I HAVE frequently admired the manner of criticising in China, where the learned are assembled in a body to judge of every new publication; to examine the merits of the work, without knowing the circumstances of the author; and then to usher it into the world with proper marks of respect or reprobation.

In England there are no such tribuna's erected; but if a man thinks proper to be a judge of genius, few will be at the pains to contradict his pretensions. If any choose to be critics, it is but saying they are critics, and from that time forward, they become invested with full power and authority over every caitiff who aims at their instruction or entertainment..

Sweden, on the contrary, though now seemingly a strenuous assertor of its liberties, is probably only hastening on to despotism. Their senators, while they pretend to vindicate the freedom of the people, are only establishing their own independence. The deluded people will, however, at last perceive the miseries of an aristocratical government; they will perceive that the administration of a society of men, is ever more painful than that of one only. They will fly from this most oppressive of all forms, where one single member is capable of controlling the whole, to take refuge under the throne, which will ever be attentive to their complaints. No people long endure an aristocratical government, when they can As almost every member of society has, by apply elsewhere for redress. The lower or- this means, a vote in literary transactions, it is ders of people may be enslaved for a time by no way surprising to find the rich leading the a number of tyrants, but upon the first oppor-way here, as in other common concerns of life; tunity, they will ever take a refuge in despo- to see them either bring the numerous herd of tism or democracy. voters by their interest, or browbeating them by their authority.

As the Swedes are making concealed approaches to despotism, the French, on the other hand, are imperceptibly vindicating themselves into freedom. When I consider that those parliaments (the members of which are all created by the court, the presidents of which can act only by immediate direction,) presume even to mention privileges and freedom, who till of late, received directions from the throne with implicit humility; when this is considered, I cannot help fancying that the genius of freedom has entered that kingdom in disguise. If they have but three weak monarchs more successively on the throne, the mask will be laid aside, and the country wil' certainly once more be free.

When I compare the figure which the Dutch make in Europe with that they assume in Asia, I am struck with surprise. In Asia, I find them the great lords of all the Indian seas; in Europe, the timid inhabitants of a paltry state. No longer the sons of freedom, but of avarice: no longer assertors of their rights by courage but by negotiations, fawning on those who insult them, and crouching under the rod of every neighbouring power. Without a friend to

A great man says, at his table, that such a book is no bad thing. Immediately the praise is carried off by five flatterers, to be dispersed at twelve different coffee-houses, from whence it circulates, still improving as it proceeds, through forty-five houses; where cheaper liquors are sold; from thence it is carried away by the honest tradesman to his own fire-side, where the applause is eagerly caught up by his wife and children, who have been long taught to regard his judgment as the standard of perfection.

Thus, when we have traced a wide extended literary reputation up to its original source, we shall find it derived from some great man, who has, perhaps, received all his education and English from a tutor of Berne, or a dancing master of Picardy.

The English are a people of good sense; and I am the more surprised to find them swayed in their opinions by men who often, from their very education, are incompetent judges. Men who, being always bred in affluence, see the world only on one side, are surely improper judges of human nature: they may indeed describe a ceremony, a pageant, or a ball;