on the whole play, though the best of his comedies, and that wherein the character of a jealous man, Kitely, is excellently pourtrayed. My Lord Bacon has shrewdly said, that books do not teach the use of books; and Jonson well exemplified the apophthegm. Friendship. What Ovid said of love may with equal truth be repeated on the subject of friendship Nec eadem sede morantur Majestas et amor. For love admits no master to controul Equality is the latitude in which friendship takes root most readily; and at a certain distance from this equatorial line, the intercourse between friends is seen to cool. In the higher stations of life, as in the upper regions of the air, a certain quantity of cold unrespirable air is soon felt by the balloon adventurers into these currents of a more elevated atmosphere. "Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici," says a writer very conversant with the great and very familiar with them. Cocknies. 1 Persons who have lived all their years in a large, city have been often ridiculed for their concerns. ignorance and contempt of rural objects and The strongest example of the general truth of this censure was shewn in the answer of a Frenchman to his friend, who asked him, after a rural excursion, how he liked the Rhine. "It is very well," replied the Parisian, “for a country river." A singular observation was made by a person of a similar description on great rivers, viz. that it was a marvellous instance of the kind-. ness of Providence to place large rivers so near to large towns. Country Residence. Every educated man of small fortune has found in a country residence the great difficulty, if not impossibility, of procuring the company of a man of sense and talents. Men of no "mark or like lihood" are more easily obtained than got rid of, who are ready "to bestow all their tediousness upon you, and would be, if they had twice as much." If your neighbour is a man of talents or acquirement, he has pursuits elsewhere; if he be ambitious, he is attending on his patron; if indigent, on his bookseller and editor; and if he is ingenious and idle, he is forming schemes to kill time, and drive away spleen. Passionate Men. Persons who are cursed with very irritable dispositions, yet endowed with good talents, in their attacks and conduct of them resemble old generals. They carry on their quarrels with great discretion; advance whenever they think it prudent, as far as they think they are not in imminent peril; and retire quietly, and discreetly, when they see more danger approach than they are willing to encounter. Men, who now and then only skirmish in anger, act like raw recruits; desirous to shew that they are not cowards, they shew too much boldness, or rather rashness, and commit themselves to the enemy, whose fury is under the most regular command and ancient discipline. Arguments in Conversation. Though many persons are very fond of supporting their occasional positions and opinions in common talk by arguing the question in point, yet how few are qualified, either by understanding or temper, to conduct this mode of controversy. With men in common, your opposing a single opinion is considered as a general attack upon their understanding, and though little interested in the subject in debate, yet in their mode of con ducting it they are most warmly concerned. In what is called polite company, that is, of men experienced in life, all arguing is looked upon as ill breeding, and a proof of the grossest pedantry. Romances and Novels. The readers of these first kind of compositions delight in the embattled castle, as the lover of modern novels is pleased with the honeysuckled cottage. With regard to the essential difference between the writers, with respect to the delineation of manners and characters, they are very opposite indeed. This difference may be illustrated by the titles of two celebrated modern novels, "Man as he is," and "Man as he is not." Amadis de Gaul differs as much from an Innamorato in a modern novel, as a spruce villa from a gothic mansion. Low Company. When a writer of fictitious history, "who has all the world before him where to choose," delights in introducing characters of humble life and dissipated minds, he either supposes that the public taste requires of him such personages, or he is fond of them himself. In both cases, the author thinks that he is justifiable in giving such speeches, sentiments, and actions as seem suitable to his characters. Hence much scenery, oratory, and description, very hurtful to the minds of young persons, occur in their favourite course of reading modern novels. Dr. Smollet is particularly objectionable in this point of introducing his reader to very low company. Ludicrous Mistake in Terms. Brydone relates, that in passing some river in Italy, a passenger in the boat observed, "that that great man Julius Cæsar had crossed this river." 'He must have been a great man,' replied one of the watermen, for the river is thirty feet deep in some places.' Mr. J. Spense, in his "Anecdotes," relates another of the same kind:-" Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller, when the painter's nephew came in, who was a Guinea trader. 'Nephew,' said Kneller, you have the honour of seeing the two greatest men in the world.' 'I do not know how great you may be,' said the Guinea man, 'but I don't like your looks: I have often bought a man much better than both of you together, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas."" * According to Horace, Reddere persona scit convenientia cuique. |