wear a cont whofe furface refracts the rays of the fun more obliquely than they fancy is agreeable to the faith of a chriftian.

:

Nor is this the blackeft picture of your licentious behaviour ye have thofe among ye who call themfelves men of fenfe and reafon. You, gentlemen, are free agents; you love a freedom and liberty of thought, and therefore you will ridicule the fcripture, and try its facred doctrines by the teft of mummery and laughter: the next thing you fet about, will be to try your Maker in the fame fcales, and to put up the Creator of this univerfal frame as the laughing-stock of wits and buffoons. This is a glorious liberty indeed! and this you call the freedom of the will, and the noble faculty of a difcerning reafon.

I hope, my pupils, you will not think me tedious: The fubject I have in hand is of confequence, and requires fome thought and recollection. I know, indeed, you are moft of you great adverfaries to any thing prolix; every fubject, every undertaking, must now be done in an hurry, or your licentious fpirits rife into ferment, and boil with hafty indignation. A fermon defigned to promote the falvation of your fouls, if it laft half an hour, tires and fatigues you to death. An expedition, if it go not againft wind and tide, in fpite of ficknels and climate is confidered as loft, defeated, and overthrown. A peace, if it be not made juft at the time ye would have it, feems to be protracted, in order to enflave you, and reduce you to beggary and rags; and ye allo, merry citizens, join in the common humour of impatiency; and, if ye can't find contractors, like bottle conjurors, to promife

you miracles, and a bride in five years time, grow desperate for want of your play-thing, and ftorin at the dilatory mafon for not covering, with the utmoft difpatch, that pro. fufion of bad Latin which ye have juft fenfe enough to with buried in the earth. But, alas! ye are all aground; no carpenter nor mafon now can be found in the world, madheaded enough to bind himself to the execution of impoffibilities: is this not then licentioufnefs?

But now for the scheme to reme dy this evil: in the first place, as to your religion.Make it not the tool of faction: continue not in error because it is the fashion of your friends; nor too nicely and rigoroufly infilt upon trifles, and neglect the effentials of brotherly love, charity, faith, hope, and humility. Remember, an open hand makes not charity without an open heart; and that ftubbornness is the very oppofite of an humble mind. Judge not vainly of your own perfuafion; and if you are in a private ftation, remember it is your business to reform at home, nor fet about reforming others till you have brought yourself up to the true christian ftandard: and obferve this general rule, that all authority is derived from God, whether civil or paftoral. Therefore he that sets up for a teacher or governor upon his own foundation, advances his claim upon the fame principle which Satan urged againft the dominion of the Almighty. As to teachers; indulge not ticklish ears, gape not, like the Athenians, after novelties every day, and be not given to change, except where you find doctrines offered to you that are inconfiftent with the gospel of your maiter. Set not your clergy, like prize.

fighters,

fighters, to contend in ale-houfes for your pulpits; nor wear out, by perpetual elections and oppofitions, that harmony and love which is the very cement of chriftianity. Exercife not your religion by ftarts and fits, but daily, univerfally, and confiftently; and encourage not those writers, or writings, which manifeftly tend only to abuse the most facred ordinances of God.

Do not, in politics, blindly follow any party to extreme; be not bafely fervile, nor licentiously faucy. Know and acne ledge that fubordination is the neceffary cement of a ftat; for if all parts are alike, they cannot be framed into different ufes an' members. Have more fenfe and prudence than to talk of matters which you do not underfland; rather dly fuffer, than hurt the public faith; for however fpecious that argument may appear, that home is to be firft confulted, yet ought the faith of the nation to be kept facred and inviolable. But in th fe things, as private men, ye have no concern. If you profefs yourfelves to be patriots, remember, you may do more good by a dif paffionate choice of a worthy honeft member to reprefent you, than by learned harangues for feven years on continental measures over a difh of coffee or bottle of port. careful of your choice of a good man; and when you have got him, be not ready to hear the idle tale of every fool against him; for politics, in private, take a caft from the relater, and are varioufly reprefented according to the various interefts of mankind. Look upon your fovereign with reverence, and be not defirous of diminishing the dignity of his perfon or crown. When your nobility will give you

Be

an opportunity, by a proper exertion of their talents, honour them as the noble defcendants of an illuftrious race, and pay them the due diftinction which their birth and quality demand. Scorn not to be obliged, nor fret at an honest dependance. Your maxim is, that all mankind are free, and therefore you fet up for independency. My maxim is, that all mankind are bound by one common link, bound to aid and affift one another, and therefore I will receive with thanks, and, if poffible, repay with generofity. Good offices to one another are the common traffick of mankind; being connected through neceffity, we practice the duties of love, friend ip, and humanity. In private lie, be affable; know your place, your condition, your expences, and your income: put not the yearly profits of a precarious trade upon the fame footing with the rents of an eftate, or the ftatutable intereft of a certain capital flock; for this alfo leads to a licentious

equality. Remember that excellent chriftian rule, Whatsover ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them. Attend ferioufly each man to his own bufinefs, fo you will at'ain fuch perfection and knowledge, and thofe who deal with you will be led to put an entire confidence in your abilities; and let none of you expect more from man than nature, time, or the univerfal principles of things will permit.

Thus would I have you, my countrymen, inwardly diftinguithed; and as to outward diftinctions, I could alfo with them more certain and general. The flourishing trade and circumstances of the middling people in this kingdom have put all diftinctions of this kind entirely

afide, yet I could with that riches alone might not be the outward diftinction between man and man.

though complete fellows enough too in their way, yet were, by no means, half fo complete as the prefent fages of Great Britain. Nor is our ingenuity confined to the theory only, for in practice. we fhall

the Moderns.

I language

HAVE often been of opinion,

come what the Greeks and Latin are now, and any of our news-papers (which by the way is not very probable) have the good fortune to efcape the rage of times, and be perufed a millennium or two hence; the reader will not be a little furprized, in conning over the advertifements, to find the amazing perfection to which all things have been brought here, towards the middle of the eighteenth century. Indeed, in this refpect, the ancients were but mere novices to us; and notwithflanding the veneration which many ftill pretend to retain for antiquity, I will undertake to make it appear evident to every one who has his fenfes about him, that neither in the reigns of Auguftus or Trajan, put together, were there half the number of clever fellows exifting, as are in the fingle reign of George III. My proofs for this fhall be drawn from the aforefaid advertifements; in which we find complete hiftories, complete bodies of architecture, complete hufbandries, complete cookeries, complete juftices of the peace, complete militiamen, and complete rat-catchers. Let any man now only compare thefe, and the innumerable other complete things which this age has produced, with the pandects, digefts, and anthologies of old, and he will moft certainly own, at the very first fight, that the fages of Greece and Rome,

difeafe has its never-failing, infallible, grand fpecific, or univerfal remedy for all ages; and down from

reftorer of broken conftitutions, to the fagacious Mr.Tobit Earle, who, with equal fuccefs, prefides over fmoaky chimnies, we find them all ready to engage their honour for the efficacy of their respective per formances. In fhort, whether the point be to kill time, or deftroy fleas, we have the most infallible receipt always at hand for either; and the bookfellers, who, it must be allowed, of all the modern fages that this kingdom has produced, beft understand their own interest, feem fo thoroughly to have confidered the ftrict union there is between the foul and body, that the fame fhop which fells pills to purge me lancholy, now furnishes us alfo with a fafe and fpeedy remedy for almoft every kind of diftemper. Should it be objected, indeed, hereafter, by any ill-natured critic, who, repining at the inferiority of his own times, may have the confidence to tell his readers, that these were merely devices to catch the unwary; and, in fupport of his objection, produce the bills of mortality inferted in the very fame paper; I make no doubt but fome able commentator will arife, who, with much force of argument and difplay of literature, fhall prove that the faid bills of mortality, were only registers of fuch as, like the critic, had no confidence in thefe advertisements, and therefore quitted this life for an

early

early grave; that our church-yards -and other depofitories of the dead, were but fo many fields of battle, or at least catacombs of those who had been flain in war; and that all who availed themfelves of the proffered prefcriptions lived to a vaft old age, when, like Tithonus, they were at laft worn away to grafshoppers, and hung up in bafkets for the confolation of the furviving relations. In confirmation too of this, I would have every advertifing empiric of the leaft eminence, provide himself with a number of wicker-bafkets, made of the toughest materials, and having labels of the fame affixed to them, containing the names of the feveral perfons who had been endowed with longevity by the help of their medicines; thefe to be fufpended in their laboritories: and as willow or ofier may be fuppofed to be equally durable with bread or packthread, which we all know to have been found entire in the ruins of Herculaneum; we may as reafonably conclude, that these baskets will, one day or other, fall into the a hands of fome judicious collector of a diftant age, who will confider them rivalled proficiency in the art of healing, and accordingly, give them a place among the moft venerable reliques of antiquity. Nor need thefe leaders of the faculty be in the Yeaft apprehenfive of any difgrace that may accrue to them from the above practice, even though it fhould be found out hereafter that there had never been fuch Anthropotettiges or human grafshoppers exifting, as thofe pretended to have been hung up in their bafkets; for in this, they have the example of Alexander the Great, to quote, by way of precedent, who, though undoubtedly as much a proficient in

as inconteftible remains of our un

On the country manners of the present age. From the GENIUS.

Ergo ubi me in montes et, in arcema ex urbe removi, Quid prius illustrem?-HOR.

Agration (as a great writer AT this feason of annual mifolemnly ftiles it), when the noble lord and the knight of the thire go down to their feveral feats, to fupport their intereft in the country; when the lawyer takes his circuit; when the right reverend diocefan appoints his vifitation; and when the humble out-rider aftride his faddle-bags, goes his rounds for fresh orders, to dealers and chapmen in the country-in a word, when bufinefs or pleasure carry thoutands out of town, it is no wonder that one or the other fhould have traniported the Genius almoft two hundred miles beyond the limits of the the reader with a curious detail of bills of mortality. I could oblige

my journey and adventures: I could tell him, that my publifher furnished me with one horie, and my printer with another, together with his devil in livery, for an attendant: But thefe and many other curious particulars must be deferred to fome future opportunity, that in the mean time I may have leifure to communicate fome few obfervations made en passant, on my fellow-fubjects refident in the country.

Notwithstanding the encomiums on a rural life, fown fo thick in the writings of poets and philofophers, we do not, in this degenerate age, think ourselves fure to breathe the pure air of innocence and ancient fimplicity, the minute we have got out of the fmoke of London; we do not perceive a gradual declenfion of vice at every mile-ftone, or difcover morality upon every hay-cock. The clown who works at plough and cart, nay even the tender of fheep, for whom we have fo much refpect in paftoral and romance, excite our veneration little more than a link-boy or an hackney-coachman. The very milk-maid, with her pail on her head, engages our efteem no more than her fellow-labourers, who carry the yoke about our ftreets; and fo little do we expect to find the manners of the golden age prevail among our ruftics, that we fee, without remorse or furprise, fome bumkin Phillis condemned to the gallows for the murder of her baftard child, or a refractory Damon committed to the house of correction, fet in the ftocks, or fent abroad for a soldier.

But though we have furmounted thefe prejudices, perhaps we ftill re-, tain fome antiquated ideas of the manners of the country, fcarce lefs remote from those which at picfent

reign there, than even the manners of Arcadia. We are apt to take it for granted, that there yet remains among them, a ftrong leaven of that roughnefs and rufticity, which was fo long confidered as their diftinguishing characteristic. It is fcarce half a century ago, fince the inhabitants of the diftant counties were regarded as a fpecies, almoft as different from thofe of the metropolis, as the natives of the Cape of Good Hope. Their manners, as well as dialect, were entirely provincial; and their drefs no more refembling the habit of the town, than the Turkish or Chinese. But time, which has inclofed commons, and ploughed up heaths, has likewife cultivated the minds, and improved the behaviour of the ladies and gentlemen of the country. We are no longer encountered with hearty flaps on the back, or preffed to make a breakfaft on cold meat and ftrong beer; and in the courfe of a tour of Great Britain you will not meet with a high crowned hat, or a pair of red stockings. Politenefs and tafte feem to have driven away the horrid fpectres of rudenefs and barbarity, that haunted the old manfion-house and its purlieus, and to have eftablished their feats in the country.

It is certainly to the intercourse between the town and country, of late fo much more frequent, that this extraordinary change must be imputed. Every traveller, that goes down to Cumberland, or Cornwall, carries in fome fort the town along with him: and inevitably leaves fome tincture of it behind him: and every vifit, which an honest ruftic pays to London, infenfibly files off fome of the rust of the dountry. Formerly, indeed, when that the roads were dark, and

the