Virtuofo's Credulity-London aggrieved. 55 At the court, the cenfor gave it as his opinion, in the cafe of B-T that the court had no jurifdiction over the fubjects of Grubftreet, unlefs in the cafes A of blafphemy, fedition, fcurrility, and indecency. Moulders. But the moft extraordinary miracle of all that happened about this time, and which would not have been mentioned if it was not well attefted, was a jugler's going into a quart bottle. About this time likewife we are affured that a fet of attorneys clerks, apprentices, players, fidlers, taylors, fhoemakers, and other mechanics met together to enquire into the truth of religion in a place called Robin's Wood. With fome reflexions on this mixture of truth and B falfehood, in which the real fact is no more to be difcovered than the feed in the plant that, is produced from it, the author introduces the following ftory, which was communicated to him by a noble duke lately dead: - N° 16, a defence of the English against the flander of an eminent French writer, who fays that the prefent English no! more refemble their ancestors in the days of Oliver Cromwell, than the modern Italians refemble the ancient Romans. There is alfo in this paper a letter figned Axylus; in which are thefe extraordinary paragraphs :' I often exprefs great gratitude to 'the almighty, that I was born in a 'country where I can reflect with conftant pleasure on the freedom, the wealth, and indeed every political happinefs of the people. I again exult> that I live in that very age when they enjoy all these bleffings in the pureft manner. I look up with unfeigned I gratitude to the authors, under heaDven, of these bleffings to us. With E A certain nobleman taking the air C one day on the downs near Salisbury,. faw among the Baras there, one of a ⚫ larger fize than the reft; This, faid a gentleman prefent, is, I fuppofe, the dormitory of fome giant. The noble-man, who was a great lover of a jett, took the hint, and, when they returned home, immediately dispatched a 'paragraph to be inferted in a particular news paper, which he knew was conftantly taken in by a certain virtuofo in that country; in which paragraph it "was affirmed, "That the bones of a "certain giant, fuppofed to have been, "when alive, near ten foot high, were "found in a bara near Salisbury, and "were then in the poffeffion of a certain "clergyman, who was mentioned by "name." The joke had its effect with the virtuofo, who immediately dif 'patched a man and horfe for the bones to the clergyman, whofe patron he was; nor did it ceafe there, but the fame filly ftory was literally tranflated into French, and on the authority of the news-paper, tranfmitted to pofterity as 'a real fact, in a very voluminous work ' in folio, foon after published in France. -At the court of criticifm all obfcene, pictures were condemned. N° 13. Contains feveral trifling letters to the author; and the court of criticifm is adjourned. N° 14. is a parallel between flander and murder, through the several degrees of both. The court is not mentioned. thefe views I frequent the court, and a "certain levee in Arlington-freet, with more devotion than any of the candidates for preferment. "Of all my life, I think, I never en'joyed fo happy a winter as this laft, in which there hath been fuch perfect unanimity among all parties, and the 'fole attention of all our great men seems to have been the good of the public. "Within this laft fortnight too I have been extremely delighted. The hap'pinefs which within that time hath accrued to a private family, hath alEnoble, generous, duke! How worthy moft intoxicated me with joy. That of the highest bleffings of life! In my opinion, how fure of them!'-At the court of criticifm a complaint is exhibited against a fcoundrel dreffed like an officer, who, in order to make room in the two-fhilling gallery at Cevont Garden Gplay-houfe, cried out fire. N° 15. An account of the government of the ftage confidered as a state, H and faid to be the only one in which the talents of men are confidered and applied to that for which they are most fit. The plan of policy purfued by Mr Garrick and his coadjutor is recommended as a pattern to all cotemporary princes. • Graves of thofe flain in the wars. 1 5.6 -Greater quantities of wines will be brought from the out ports to London, mix'd with low French wines at Guernfey, to the great detriment of his and the ruin of the majefty's revenue, fair trading merchants, who have not lately been able to import near their A former quantities, as the custom-house books can testify. Yours, CIVICUS. Mr. URBAN, Rudder fupply'd-Weather and Diseases Beg leave to inform the public thro' I your Magazine of an expedient which was fuccessfully tried on board the Elizabeth, from Jamaica, burthen 160 ton, Charles Seaton mafter, after fhe had B loft her rudder in a torm lat. 43.47. diftant from the lizard point about 500 leagues; as the knowledge of this happy invention may be of infinite fervice to fhips in the fame unfortunate circumftances; I hope you will not deny my requeft, Yours P. Mayo. C WE took an old cable almoft 4 inches Obfervations on the Weather; continued BAROMETER. Greatest varia the 9th from tion in one day 3. 8. to 29.5. 29. Common ftation 30. o. THERMOMETER. Higheft 51. 24th inft. Wind S. E. The wind during this month kept generally betwixt the S. E. and N. Ŵ. points, feldom continuing in any one two days together. As in the preceding month the quickfilver funk unusually with a northerly, fo it has kept up/ with a foutherly wind in as remarkable manner, though the caufe has not hitherto appeared fo evidently. The weather has in general been inclined to fair, clear, and temperate, tho' interrupted with some smart trofts, heavy rains, fnow and hail; but thefe were of fhort duration. The fmall-pox continued to be the principal epidemic of the feafon, tho' in general of a benign kind. Children and young perfons, unless the conDtitution is very unfavourable, get thro' it very well, and the height to which the weekly bills are fwelled, ought to be confidered in the prefent cafe as an argument of the frequency, not fatality of this diftemper. For from what has occurred to the writer of these observations, as well as what he has been able to learn from fome of the oldeft practitioners, this disease has feldom, if ever, been known to be more general, or fo mild and favourable as it is at prefent. in diameter, cut it off in 9 lengths 12 feet long, and lafh'd them one to the other till the breadth was about 4 feet, then lafh'd mall fpars across to keep them ftiff. To the part next to the ftern poft, and the back of the rudder was lafh'd ftuddle-fail booms the whole length (fquare pieces of timber would have done as well) to keep it from bending. When let down into the water, 2 guides were falten'd near the bottom, and z hear the top of the rudder, and brought up on each fide of the vellel to hold it to the ftern poft. In order to fix it at firft, a tackle was falten'd to the upper part, and also to a yard which was laid from the mizenmaft over the ftern, which yard we railed up, and then hoifted the rudder over the itern, which we were obliged often to do to fix fresh guides. Steering tackles we fix'd near the outfide of F the rudder,which being brought up each fide the ftern, fteer'd her almoft as well as a proper rudder. COL ARTIFICIAL RUDDER. 4c, Cleets nailed on the fhip's fide to keep the guide rope in its place. b A block to keep the rope from the hip's fide, E G The practice of inoculation feems to gain ground confiderably, and is generally performed in the manner, defcribed in Vol. xxi. p. 123. Could thofe who are employed in this affair be prevailed upon to communicate authentic accounts of their fuccefs, they woulddo an effential fervice to the public. Defcription of the PLATE. ble and spacious building, having a large fquare court at the entrance, with buildings round it; at the upper end of which court is a piazza, with buildings. overit, fultain'd by itone pillars, and behind the buildings there is a curious H garden which runneth down to the Thames; all which makes it a stately habitation, fit to receive fuch a perion of quality as is owner thereof, Animadverfions on Effays on the Characteristics. Mr URBAN, N reading a book publifhed fome 57 conceited and fantastical enough. Bot the opinion of thefe gentlemen, unless with people as conceited and fantastical as themfelves, can furely be but of little weight, as they have no authority for it but that of Elian, who, from the account he gives of it, appears to know as little of the matter as themselves. Neither Ælian, nor either of his aforefaid followers have, that I know, pretended to fay that the reputation or philofophy of Socrates (tho' that, in fact, is all my lord Shaftefbury fpeaks of) was fuppreffed or leffen'd by the comedy of the Clouds. And as to the person of the philofopher, Palmerius has indifputably proved that it was no way injured by that comedy; for if, as Alian fays, the author was hired to write it by the enemies of the philofopher, and this play was acted to found the people; had it fuccecded, they would certainly have brought him immediately before the magiltrate: but, as Palmerius obferves, it appears, from many paffages in this comedy, that it was compofed in the lifetime of Cleon, who, as Thucydides informs us, was kill'd Din the 10th year of the Peloponnefiar war, which was the second of the 89th Olympiad, when, according to Diodorus, Amynias was archon of Athens: yet the tryal of Socrates was not till the first year of the 95th Olympiad, no leis than 23 years after the death of Cleon; fo that the death of Socrates must be at leaft 24 or 25 years after the first acting of this comedy. time fince, entitled Eflays on the Characteristicks, I often thought on an obfervation of that noble writer, whole works the author of thefe effays has, without understanding them, prefumed to criticize; viz. that if his lordship's A writings be really fo inconfiftent and abfurd, as this effay-writer endeavours to represent them, He must be very indifferently employed, who has taken upon him to answer nonfenfe in form, ridicule what is itfelf a jeft, and put the world to read a fecond book for the B fake of the impertinences of a former. But, on the other hand, if they are, as they really are, a fyftem of the trueft and most ufeful philofophy, and inspire us, as they really do, with a generous love of truth, virtue and liberty, and an honeft deteftation of what- C ever is likely to obftruct us in the purfuit of either, what muit we think of a man who, in order to leffen the reputation of fuch a writer, labours to mislead a fuperficial or illiterate reader? Many inftances of this effay-writer's endeavours to do this might be produced, but one only (the cafe of Socrates) fhall be the fubject of this letter, which,as the defign of it is to viudicate fo juftlyadmired a writer as my lord Shaftesbury, you will not, I dare fay, think improper to be communicated to the publick in your magazine. His lordship, in his letter on Enthufiafm, faysThe divineft man who had ever appeared in the heathen world was, in the height of witty times, and by the wittiest of all poets, moft abominably ridiculed in a whole comedy written and acted on purpofe; but fo far was this from finking his reputation, or fuppreffing his philolophy, that they each increased the more for it, and he apparently grew to be more the envy of other teachers. The eflayift, in his remarks on this paffage, thinks proper to fay, That the wit of Ariftophanes was the moft formidable enemy that ever attacked the divine philofopher: this whetted the rage of a mified multitude, and ⚫ dragged to death that virtue which has ever fince been the admiration of mankind. In fupport of this af fertion, he fays, he has the concurrence of the great Mr Warburton, whom he dignifies with the appellation of the firit writer of the prefent age; and of another, who, he tells us, is of a turn (Gent. Mag. FEBRUARY, 1752.) E G H The effayift, in answer to this objecti on, cites a paffage from Brumoy, who as he tells us, after having examined the affair with the utmost candour, fays, that tho' this comedy did not give the finishing ftroke to Socrates, yet it might have indifpofed the minds of the people: (elle a pu indifpofer, it might have indifpofed, fays Brumoy); this, I fuppofe, the effayilt thinks an equivalent expreflion to did indifpofe. But this was not the cafe; for when Ariftophanes first brought this piece on the ftage, (which is fuppofed to be in the first year of the 89th Olympiad, when Ifarchus, or, as Diodorus Siculus calls him, Iparchus, was archon) it was damn'd, if you'll permit me to ufe a modern phrafe, by the audience, and the palm given by the judges to Cratinus and Amypfias, his competitors; and the ridicule, as ill-placed ridicule always will, fell where it deferved, on the poet. The ill fuccefs of this play he himself complains of, in the nex |