testimony to the accurate delineation of the manners, laws, and customs, which these Arabian Tales discover. We hear, indeed, scholars, who, under the bondage of classical authority, declaim on the fictions of the Greek and Latin poets, speak of the Arabian Nights with contempt; but let such read the excellent introduction to the Tales, prefixed to a late translation of them, by a profound oriental scholar;* and if they then desist from reading them, and having read them are not highly pleased, I should suspect that such scholars may perhaps read Greek and Latin with skill, but their intellect and powers of fancy, and their candour, may be equally called in question.

Dependence.

This term is very often confined to that unfortunate state, where a poor man of spirit depends on a wealthy patron for support. It may be extended, however, to any situation in society, wherein a man becomes dependent on his neighbour for He who cannot pass an evening without a rubber at whist, must depend on at least three good friends to help him out: the lover of his bottle must have at least one associate. Thrice happy is the man who is enabled, by edu

amusement.

* Jonathan Scott, esq; interpreter to the late Governor Hastings.

cation and habit, to depend upon himself for his amusement and employment in business or literary pursuits, and to be "

nunquam minus solus quam

cum solus."

Mason and Gray.

These two friends so long cultivated the same fields of literature, that the taste of each partook of the same soil, as is discoverable in their writings and disposition. Finicalness in manner, and excessive love of finery in their phraseology, were the characteristics of both in their writings and demeanour; but Gray, being the superior poet, rose above the degrading parts of his character by a strength of genius, to which the other could never attain.

Parsimony and Extravagance.

It is truly laughable to hear persons rail at one error, and pass by the other in silence, and often with panegyric; though it is well known that the one may be practised with honesty, whilst the other must be at the expense of some persons more or less. Tacitus, or Rochefaucault, or Mandeville, would soon set this apparent folly in its true light, by saying rogues and knaves are benefited by the

folly of extravagance, and so praise it; and being the majority of mankind, carry the question quite hollow against the guarded and unproductive conduct of the parsimonious man.

Novels.

As these compositions, in the present times, have ceased to be romances or fictitious relations, but a real transcript of life, the authors of them should be particularly careful of making them faithful depositories of the facts in real life. They extend over immense regions of readers in middling life, who are influenced by their sentiments, and wish them to be their guides through those scenes with which they are likely to be conversant. They leave their superiors the interest they may take in the grander works of history and state politics, to which their humbler stations must necessarily continue them to be strangers.

Romans and Carthaginians.

When the former accused the latter people of being faithless" fides Punica," they forgot their own invasions and plots against other nations, and their attempts at universal monarchy by every mode of unjust usurpation. Virgil, however, did

not blush to record their ambition of governing all nations; but in very courtly lines has celebrated and praised their boundless appetite of reigning as Mistress of the World

Tu regere imperio gentes, Romane, memento:
Hæ tibi erunt artes, &c.

and leaves to other nations the meaner arts of sculpture, oratory, and astronomy. Surely it had been better for ancient Rome that Julius Cæsar had been an astronomer only, or an orator; and for modern Italy, that Bonaparte had been a fiddler instead of a warrior.

Reason and Instinct.

The admirable John Locke has well described human reason as brought from the infancy of ignorance to the maturity of aged instruction, and as a compound of repeated experiments. Instinet, we know, in beasts wants no discipline, and seems to act instantaneously, as the case requires; and some light may, perhaps, be thrown on the dispute, on the superiority of reason over instinct, by stating, that instinct seems to be "ready made" whilst reason wants a great deal of drilling, before it can perform its proper exercises.

Two dangerous Terms in Society.

There are not two words more fatal to human happiness, in public and private life, than “liberty” and "genteel." The first word sets a parcel of fools at continual variance for a state of superiority, to which they have no claim by the Constitution; and the last term raises, in private life, an ambition of expense, to which the purse of the individual is not adequate, and to which his rank in society has no just pretensions. The genteelo-mania makes a poor gentleman adopt many shifts to keep up appearances, and occasions many a blush at the feeble contrivances. In Ben Jonson's "Every one in his Humour," the efforts of Capt. Bobadil to hide his poverty on the visit of his genteeler, because richer, friend "Master Mathew," are truly comic. "The cabin is convenient," says the Captain, "but, Master Mathew, possess no man with knowledge of my lodgings;" which were, be was conscious, much below the gentility of the rank which he had assumed.

Rules for Thinking.

The great J. Locke has laid down an excellent method for rightly considering a subject. He advises that we should throw all our thoughts on