away to leave the girls to sit down to their plentiful supper, which was spread on a long table under the oak, without the green booth. This group of figures made an interesting addition to the scenery, when we got back to the Temple, and often attracted our attention while we were engaged in conversation.

CHAP. XXXV.

THE company were not soon weary of admiring the rustic building, which seemed raised as if by the stroke of a magician's wand, so rapidly had it sprung up. They were delighted to find that their pleasure was to be prolonged by drinking tea in the temple.

While we were at tea Mr. Stanley, addressing himself to me, said, I have always forgotten to ask you. Charles, if your high expectations of pleasure from the society in London had quite answered?'

·

I was entertained, and I was disappointed,' replied I. I always found the pleasure of the moment not heightened, but effaced by the succeeding moment. The ever restless, rolling tide of new intelligence at once gratified and excited the passion for novelty, which I found to be le grand poisson qui mange les fietits. This successive abundance of fresh supply gives an ephemeral importance to every thing, and a lasting importance to nothing. We skimmed every topic, but dived into none. Much desulto ry talk, but little discussion. The combatants skirmished like men whose arms were kept bright by constant use; who were accustomed to a flying fight, but who avoided the fatigue of coming to close quarters. What was old, however momentous, was rejected as duil, what was new, however insignificant, was thought interesting. Events of the past week were placed with those beyond the flood; and the very existence of occurrences which continued to be matter of deep interest with us in the country, seemed there totally forgotten.

'I found, too, that the inhabitants of the metropolis had a standard of merit of their own; that knowledge of the town was concluded to be knowledge of the world; that local habits, reigning phrases, temporary fashions, and an acquaintance with the sur face of manners, was supposed to be knowledge of mankind. Of course, he who was ignorant of the topics of the hour, and the anecdotes of a few modish leaders, was ignorant of human nature.' Sir John observed, that I was rather too young to be a praiser of past times, yet he allowed that the standard of conversation was not so high, as it had been in the time of my father, by whose reports my youthful ardour had been inflamed. He did not indeed sup

pose that men were less intellectual now, but they certainly were less colloquially intellectual. For this," added he, various reasons may be assigned In London man is every day becoming less of a social, and more of a gregarious animal. Crowds are as little favourable to conversation as to reflection. He finds, therefore, that he may figure in the mass with less expense of mind: and as to women they figure at no expense at all. They find that by mixing with myriads, they may carry on the daily intercourse of life, without being obliged to bring a single idea to enrich the common stock

← I do not wonder,' said I, that the dull and the uninformed love to shelter their insignificance in a crowd. In mingling with the multitude, their deficiencies elude detection. The vapid and the ignorant are like a bad play; they owe the little figure they make to the dress, the scenery, the music and the company. The noise and the glare take off all attention from the defects of the work." The spectator is amused, and he does not inquire whether it is with the piece or with the accompaniments. The end is attained, and he is little solicitous about the means. But an intellectual woman, like a well written drama, will please at home without all these aids and adjuncts, nay the beauties of the superior piece,. and of the superior woman, will rise on a more intimate survey. But you were going, Sir John, to assign other causes for the decline and fall of conversation.'

'One very affecting reason, replied he, is that the alarming state of public affairs fills all men's minds with one momentous object. As every Englishman is a patriot, every patriot is a politician. It is natural that that subject should fill every mouth, which occupies every heart, and that little room should be left for extraṇeous matter."

I should accept this,' said I, as a satisfactory vindication, had I heard that the same absorbing cause had thinned the public places or diminished the attraction of the private resorts of dissipation.'

There is a third reason,' said Sir John, polite literature has in a good degree given way to experimental philosophy. The admirers of science assert, that the last was an age of words, and that this is the age of things. A more substantial kind of knowledge has partly superseded these elegant studies, which have caught such hold on your affections.'

I heartily wish,' replied I, that the new pursuits may be found to make men wiser; they certainly have not made them more agreeable.'

It is affirmed,' said Mr. Stanley, that the prevailing philoso❤ phical studies have a religious use, and that they naturally tend to elevate the heart to the great Author of the Universe."

I have but one objection to that assertion," replied Sir John,

namely, that it is not true. This should seem indeed, to be their direct tendency; yet experiment, which you know is the soul of philosophy, has proved the contrary.'

He then adduced some instances in our own country, which I forbear to name, that clearly evinced, that this was not their neces sary consequence; adding, however, a few great names on the more honourable side. He next averted to the Baillies, the Condorsets, the D'Alemberts, and the Lalandes, as melancholy proofs of the inefficacy of mere science to make Christians.

Far be it from me,' said Sir John, to undervalue philosophical pursuits. The modern discoveries are extremely impor tant, especially in their application to the purposes of common life; but where these are pursued exclusively, I cannot help preferring the study of the great classic authors, those exquisite masters of life and manners, with whose spirit conversation, twenty or thirty years ago was so richly impregnated.'

I confess,' said I, that there may be more matter, but there is certainly less mind in the reigning pursuits. The reputation of skill, it is true, may be obtained at a much less expense of time and intellect. The comparative cheapness of the acquisition holds out the powerful temptation of more credit, with less labour. A sufficient knowledge of botany or chemistry to make a figure in company is easily obtained, while a thorough acquaintance with the historians, poets, and orators of antiquity requires much time, and close application.' But,' exclaimed Sir John, can the fashionable studies pretend to give the same expansion to the mind, the same elevation to the sentiments, the same energy to the feelings, the same stretch and compass to the understanding, the same correctness to the taste, the same grace and spirit to the whole moral and intellectual man?'

For my own part,' replied I, so far from saying with Hamlet, "Man delights not me, nor woman neither," I confess, I have little delight in any thing else. The study of the human mind, is, of merely human studies, my chief pleasure. As a man, man is the creature with whom I have to do, and the varieties in his character interest me more than all the possible varieties of mosses and shells, and fossils. To view this compound creature in the complexity of his actions, as pourtrayed by the hand of those immortal masters, Tacitus and Plutarch; to view him in the struggle of his passions, as displayed by Euripides and Shakspeare; to contemplate him in the blaze of his eloquence, by the two rival orators of Greece and Rome, is more congenial to my feelings, than the ablest disquisition of which matter was ever the subject.' Sir John, who is a passionate, and rather too exclusive an admirer of classic lore, warmly declared himself of my opinion.

'I went to town,' replied I, with a mind eager for intellectual pleasure. My memory was not quite unfurnished with passages

which I thought likely to be adverted to, and which might serve to embellish conversation, without incurring the charge of pedantry. But though most of the men I conversed with were my equals in education, and my superiors in talent, there seemed little disposition to promote such topics as might bring our understandings into play. Whether it is that business, active life, and public debate, absorb the mind, and make men consider society rather as a scene to rest than to exercise it, I know not; certain it is that they brought less into the treasury of conversation than I expected; not because they were poor, but proud, or idle, and reserved their talents and acquisitions for higher occasions. The most opulent possessors, I often found the most penurious contributors.'

• Rien de trop,' said Mr. Stanley, was the favourite maxim of an author,* whom I am not apt to quote for rules of moral conduct. Yet its adoption would be a salutary check against excess in all our pursuits. If polite learning is undervalued by the mere man of science; it is perhaps over-rated by the mere man of letters. If it dignifies retirement, and exalts society, it is not the great business of life; it is not the prime fountain of moral excellence.'

'Well, so much for man,' said Sir John, but, Charles, you have not told us what you had to say of woman, in your observations on society.'

sex,

'As to woman,' replied I, I declare that I found more propensity to promote subjects of taste and elegant speculation among some of the superior class of females, than in many of my own The more prudent, however, are restrained through fear of the illiberal sarcasms of men, who, not contented to suppress their own faculties, ridicule all intellectual exertion in women, though evidently arising from a modest desire of improvement, and not the vanity of hopeless rivalry.'

encoun

Charles is always the Paladin of the reading ladies,' said Sir John. I do not deny it,' replied I, if they bear their faculties meekly. But I confess that what is sneeringly called a learned lady, is to me far preferable to a scientific one, such as tered one evening, who talked of the fulerum, and the lever, and the statera, which she took care to tell us was the Roman steelyard, with all the sang froid of philosophical conceit.'

'Scientific men, said Sir John, are in general admirable for their simplicity, but in a technical woman I have seldom found a grain of taste or elegance.'

I own,' replied I, "I should greatly prefer a fair companion, who could modestly discriminate between the beauties of Virgil and Milton, to one who was always dabbing in chemistry, and who

* Frederick the Great, King of Prussia.

came to dinner with dirty bands from the laboratory. And yet I admire chemistry too; I am now only speaking of that knowledge which is desirable in a female companion; for knowledge I must have. But arts, which are of immense value in manufactures, won't make my wife's conversation entertaining to me. Discoveries which may greatly improve dying and bleaching, will add little to the delights of our summer evening's walk, or winter fireside.'

The ladies, Lucilla especially, smiled at my warmth. I felt that there was approbation in her smile, and though I thought I had said too much already, it encouraged me to go on. I repeat that, next to religion, whatever relates to human manners, is most attracting to human creatures. To turn from conversation to composition. What is it that excites so feeble an interest, in perusing that finely written poem of the Abbé de Lille, "Les Jardins!" It is because his garden has no cultivators, no inhabitants, no men and women. What confers that powerful charm on the descriptive parts of Paradise lost? A fascination, I will venture to affirm, paramount to all the lovely and magnificent scenery which adorns it. Eden itself, with all its exquisite landscape, would excite a very inferior pleasure did it exhibit only inanimate beauties. 'Tis the proprietors, 'tis the inhabitants, 'tis the live stock of Eden, which seize upon the affections, and twine about the heart. The gardens, even of Paradise, would be dull without the gardeners. 'Tis mental excellence, 'tis moral beauty, which completes the charm. Where this is wanting, landscape poetry, though it may be read with pleasure, yet the interest it raises is cold. It is admired, but seldom remembered, praised, but seldom quoted. It leaves no definite idea on the mind. If general, it is indistinct; if minute, tedious.'

It must be confessed, said Sir John, that some poets are apt to forget that the finest representation of nature is only the scene, not the object; the canvass, not the portrait. We had indeed sometime ago, so much of this gorgeous scene-painting, so much splendid poetical botany, so many amorous flowers, and so many vegetable courtships; so many wedded plants; roots transformed to nymphs, and dwelling in emerald palaces; that some how or other truth, and probability, and nature, and man, slipt out of the picture, though it must be allowed that genius held the pencil'

In Mason's English Garden," replied I, Alcander's precepts would have been cold, had there been no personification. The introduction of character dramatizes what else would have been frig idly didactic. Thomson enriches his landscape with here and there a figure, drawn with more correctness than warmth, with more nature than spirit, but exalts it every where by moral allusion and religious reference. The scenery of Cowper is perpetu