Run up and down from place to place, To gratify their friends' desires, From Bampfield Carew, to Moll Squires, The Grecian sages borrow'd this, out the simplicity of the one, or the refinement of the other. They are treacherous and cowardly, indolent and filthy; living upon carrion, and looking upon clothes as an incumbrance. In short, they are a disgrace to every government which tolerates their existence as a body. By Stat. 22 H. viii. and 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, the entrance of outlandish people, calling themselves Egyptians, into this kingdom, is prohibited on pain of death; and they are declared not entitled to the privilege of being tried per medietatem linguæ. They principally abound in Hungary, and their language appears to be a mixture of the Latin and Sclavonic: a dissertation on the gypsies was published in German, by Grellman, which has been translated into English by Mr. Raper, but the information contained in it is far from satisfactory. In the prevailing rage for researches into Oriental History, they are supposed to be a branch of the Indian degraded caste of the Parias, who emigrated from, or were expelled their country, in consequence of the invasion of Timour. 55 The Greeks were totally ignorant of the science of astronomy in the time of Herodotus, who, in mentioning an eclipse which took place in the midst of a battle between the Medes and Lydians, and finding no word in the Greek language to describe it, is compelled to resort to a periphrasis for that purpose. He says, that while the two armies were engaged, night suddenly took place of the day. Thales, he adds, predicted this event to the Ionians; and specified the From fertile Egypt, though the loan All men the voice of Fate might hear; What brings such business to their shop, year in which this change of day into night would take place. Thales probably had obtained his information from the Egyptian tables. 71 George Whitfield, one of the apostles of methodism, was born in Gloucester, in December, 1714, at the Bell Inn, which was then kept by his mother. At this Inn, until about the 18th year of his age, he was waiter; and in the memoirs of his own life, gives no favourable account of his conduct while in that menial capacity; his life, he says, was passed in a continual course of vicious habits; lying, lewdness, filthy talking, swearing, and foolish jesting; and he concludes his catalogue of offences with observing, that if traced from his cradle up to manhood, he could see nothing in himself but a fitness to be damned. His mother failing in business, he became utterly destitute, until through the in terest of a friend, he was admitted a Servitor at Oxford; he here acquired the character on which his future eminence was to be built. In the austerities of his devotion, and in the squalidness of his person, he almost equalled what is related Keeps up the humbug spiritual. of the Egyptian anchorites, or Indian faquirs: he describes himself as lying whole days and weeks prostrate on the ground in silent or vocal prayer; leaving off the eating of fruits, choosing the worst sort of food, thinking it unbecom ing a penitent to have his hair powdered, and wearing woollen gloves, a patch gown, and dirty shoes, to contract a habit of humility. Struck by the young man's piety and austerity of manner, Benson, then Bishop of Gloucester, made him a voluntary offer of ordination, which Whitfield accepted, and in June 1736 began his spiritual mission, preaching in the streets, in the fields, and in prisons; and his labours proved eminently successful. By his eloquence and his zeal the great body of the poorer and many of the middling and upper classes of society, were roused to a sense of their religious privileges and obligations. Wesley, also a churchman, at the same period, laid the foundation for his more elaborate and permanent system of religious domination, which occasioned a schism between him and Whitfield, and although diverging too much as one did to Arminianism, and the other to Hyper-Calvinism, England and America are still deeply indebted to both for the awakening impulse given by them to the highest faculties and purposes of our nature. Whitfield erected two extensive tabernacles, one in Tottenham Court Road, and the other in Moorfields; and was also chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon, and superintendent of the various chapels erected under her patronage. The influence of methodism, being extended by his nurturing care over all parts of this kingdom, his attention was engaged by America, whither he repeatedly went and prosecuted his mission with extraordinary success. In the new world which he had conquered, he was doomed to meet his fate; a violent asthma put a period to his life, in 1770, in the 56th year of his age, near Boston in New England, being his seventh visit to America. Fortunes of empires often hung (Time out of mind your seat of knowledge, Unless it first is planted there; And solid learning never falls 76 89 79 The College of Augurs consisted of fifteen persons of the first distinction in Rome: it was a priesthood for life, of a character indelible, which no crime could forfeit or efface. They presided over the auspices as the supreme interpreters of the will of Jove; and determined what signs were propitious, or otherwise. A powerful influence was by these means vested in the aristocracy, who thus were able to repress or check the precipitate measures of the people and their tribunes. Cicero, with the great body of philosophers and men of influence, considered the whole system as politically useful, and therefore gave it their support and countenance; for of the whole College of Augurs, there was but one man, Appius Claudius, who held with the people that the gods out of their goodness to man, had imprinted on the nature of things certain marks or notices of future events; as on the entrails of beasts, the flight of birds, thunder, and other celestial signs which, by long observation, and the experience of ages, had been reduced to an art, by which the meaning of each sign might be determined, and applied to the event that was signified by it. This was called artificial divination, by way of distinction from the natural, which was supposed to flow from an instinctive or native power implanted in the soul; which it exerted always with the greatest efficacy, when it was the most free and disengaged from the body, as in dreams and madness. Augustus with his wonted policy combined in his own person, the dignified and important functions of supreme pontiff, censor, and chief civil magistrate. Without the verge of college walls) When generals would their station keep, In matters, whether small or great, As amongst us, the holy seer 85 40 95 84 The poet's antipathy to colleges may be dated from his rejection by the university of Oxford, on account of his want of a competent skill in the learned languages. Instead of making proper replies to the questions proposed to him he not only launched out into satirical reflections on the abilities of the gentlemen whose office it was to make trial of his classical proficiency, but presumed to put some questions to the Examiner, which were of course indignantly declined, and the candidate very unceremoniously dismissed. 94 A flam more senseless than the rog'ry That out of garbages of cattle Presag'd th' events of truce, or battle HUDIBRAS, part ii. canto 3. |