a legitimate power to please, without any appeal to critical discussions. Yet how to lay out a garden has been of late much subjected to controversy; some contend for smooth walks and lawns, others for wild and abrupt paths and hillocks, and some quote pictures as our infallible guides to arrange our home-stall scenery. Surely such varieties, not to say absurdities, of opinion prove the truth of the adage, that we must not dispute about tastes, for taste must mean what pleases the palate of a variety of persons. "Poscunt vario diversa palato”—which, to translate Horace, in plain English must be, that we have all palates, but different degrees of taste annexed to them. Evils of Hard Study. There are three evils against which a man addicted to literary pursuits should guard himself, viz. pedantry, the bane of good manners; misanthropy, equally hostile to the understanding and taste; and, in the third place, weariness and exhaustion of the intellectual powers, which cause epilepsies, and other bad disorders. Proper relax. ations will obviate these maladies. Walking in pleasant gardens, manual arts, music, and painting, and even perfuems, have been found remedies to over-laboured intellects: exercise is above all VOL. I. remedies. The ancients had their groves and their porticoes, in which they took the air whilst they conversed with their pupils. The classical allegory that the Muses loved to live on a high hill is sufficiently intelligible; and that the free air of the country is favourable to the cultivation of literature, is well known to every one who, long confined in a city, has breathed for a time the purer air of meadows and plains. To know when our low spirits arise from physical or moral causes, is one of the greatest secrets in the art of managing our health and happiness. Logic. It may be an useful caution to some readers to observe, that when any accusation is brought against logic, it means not to arraign the general use of this art, but some treatise or treatises which tend rather to weaken than invigorate the reasoning powers of man. For he who has cultivated with success his faculty of ratiocination, must be a better chemist, politician, &c. than one who has neglected to do so, and exposed his mind to the unsteady lights of conjecture and undisciplined reason. Excessive Praise and Censure. Plutarch has written a treatise on purpose to teach the distinction between a friend and`a fat terer. No author of antiquity has suffered more than Aristotle from foolish admirers and excessive flatterers, so that those who have endeavoured to suppress these exaggerated panegyrics have fallen into the opposite extreme of unjust censure and unjustifiable disapprobation. Every real scholar will acknowledge the truth of an observation in one of Congreve's plays, though ludicrously stated, "that Aristotle was not so great a fool as some people have taken him for." Practice. How many persons are contented to acknowledge that they have bad memories, "I can remember nothing I read," &c. ; yet the same persons are very unwilling to be thought deficient in knowledge and acquirements. But surely this is to boast of possessing edifices, which they say have no foundation. If we really are in earnest in our complaints of memory, let us cultivate it diligently and discreetly, and we shall find a daily improvement in it, and cease to talk, but remember Pope's line Wits have short memories, and blockheads none. Pleasures. That susceptibility of cheap and innocent pleasures, which some persons invariably maintain, is the best proof of a soundness of mind, and of an healthy stimulus which is impressed on it. When the body is in a vigorous state, the enjoyment of simple food and potations is familiar to it; when it becomes vitiated and infirm, plain dishes no longer give pleasure, but violent stimulants are sought with eagerness. The same morbid process takes place in the mind from long indulgence in vicious pursuits, cheap and innocent pleasures become insipid, and destructive excesses sink the mind in shapeless dissipation. How divinely sings the poet of the true scale of philosophy Brave conquerors for so you are, That war against your own affections, And the huge army of the world's desires. Love's Labour Lost. Good Sense and Good Conduct. It were to be expected from arguments à priori, that a sensible man would be a man of rational conduct, and that, according to the fanciful notions of the ancient philosophers, the wise and good man would be one and the same person. This would happen, were it not for the passions, which education and intellect seem able indeed to controul, but seldom are seen to do so. Satire draws man with a more faithful hand than philesophy, and Pepe has said truly, Our depths who fathoms or our shallows, finds Gulliver's Travels. By an acute observation of an elegant scholar and most amiable man, the misanthropic spirit of this satire is laid in the Red Sea," and the wit of it totally rendered of none effect. Speaking of this work, Mr. Harris says, "the absurdity in this author (a wretched philosopher, though a great wit) is well worth remarking. In order to render the nature of man odious, and the nature of beasts amiable, he is compelled to give human characters to his beasts, and beastly characters to his men; so that we are to admire the beasts, not for being beasts, but amiable men; and to detest the men, not for being men, but detestable beasts." -Philolog. Enq. Connoisseur. To form a judgment of pictures, it seems reason sonable, no doubt, that the connoisseur should be acquainted with the original subjects. Yet how many persons, who have scarcely seen more of nature than the Parks and Kensington Gardens, give their opinions of the beautiful landscapes of the Poussins and Claude, and venture their criti |