feat of Mount-Stuart, Not they from kings but kings from them. Is this the subject of panegyric? Are these the benefactors of mankind, the guardians of the liberties of their country and of Europe, which the Naffau and Brunfwick race have cemented with their blood? If we are to judge of the ftem, by what has proceeded from it, a feries of cowardly and mercilefs tyrants, then it is indeed most accurfed; and I will affirm, because the English history proves it, that it had been happier for this country, if every Male Stuart had been ftrangled in the birth. Each reign of that family was one continued attack on our laws and conftitution. Since the acceffion of the moft illuftrious house of Brunswick, our liberties and the excellent conftitution of this country have been revered by the fovereign, equally with the most favourite branch of his prerogative. No one inftance can be alledged of an Englishman's fuffering, but from the just sentence of his country, fince the aufpicious dawn of the first of August 1714. I will therefore, as an Englishman, reverence the name of Brunswick, and hold in eternal contempt and infamy that of Stuart.

I observe that the garter has been the gift of virtue to her fons, for noble actions against the enemy, the Gaul fubdued, or for the blef

fings of concord and harmony restored among the citizens at home, or for manly worth, fuperior gifts of understanding, and unspotted virtue. I will not now invidiously point out under which clafs I would rank the Scottish Knight elect, because I think he has an equal right to all; only I will obferve, that the ftatutes of the order exprefly require him to be without reproach. But I regret exceedingly that the Knight elect did not keep to the northern order of his own countrymen, which he might have done without the least envy; and really there would be at present a peculiar propriety in it, from two very ftrong reasons, which I fhall leave my reader to find out from Elias Afhmole, that important but rather tedious. Windfor herald and hiftorian. The order of St. Andrew, or the Thistle, in Scotland, is rereported by John Lesley, bishop of Rofs, to take beginning from a bright cross in heaven, in fashion of that whereon St. Andrew fuffered martyrdom, which appeared to Hunstus king of the Picts (and to the Scots, whom Achaius king of Scotland fent to his affiftance) the night preceding the battle with Athelstan, king of England, OVER WHOM PREVAILING, they went in folemn proceffion to the Kirk of St. Andrew, to thank God and his apoftle for their victory, promising that they and their pofterity would ever bear the figure

of that cross in their enfigns and banners. Or if the reader chufes to afcribe it to the old allies of the Scots, the perfidious French, rather than to their ancient enemies the English, Afhmole is ftill my Authority. He says, from Menenius, There are some that refer the inftitution of the Thistle to the reign of Charles the Seventh, king of France, WHEN THE AMITY

WAS RENEWED BETWEEN BOTH KINGDOMS; that is, between France and Scotland.

At the election of a Knight into our most noble order, I think the inveftiture is made with the Garter and George, but the Star is not worn till the day of inftallation. All the trivial, fond records of the garter are filled with pompous accounts of the brightness of the far, and the irradiated virtues pourtrayed by it. I fhall not tire myself with tranfcribing any of them; nor will I mention the miferies which the new aurora borealis is thought to portend to this country, and which we already begin to feel. That ignis fatuus of glory (for fuch is the bafe phrafe of the BRITON) I fhould hope, is almoft burnt out. I will, only for a little while, advife the little fars to hide their diminished rays. I fhall conclude with four very good lines, written by a very mean author, the laft of which would be a moft excellent motto for the order.

Yet

Yet if beneath no real virtue reign,

On the gay coat the star is but a stain :
For could I whifper in his lordship's ear,
Worth only beams true radiance on the STAR.

Numb. XVII. Saturday, Sept. 25, 1762.

Its proper power to hurt each creature feels,
Bulls aim their horns, and affes lift their heels.

POPE.

TH

HE humourous Mr. Hogarth, the suppofed author of the Analyfis of beauty, has at last entered the lift of politicians, and given us a print of THE TIMES. Words are man's province, fays Pope, but they are not Mr. Hogarth's province. He fomewhere mentions his being indebted to a friend for a third part of the wording: that is his phrafe. We all titter the inftant he takes up a pen, but we tremble when we fee the pencil in his hand. I will do him the juftice to say, that he poffeffes the rare talent of gibbeting in colours, and that in moft of his works he has been a very good moral fatirift. His fort is there, and he should have kept it. When he has at any time deviated from his own peculiar walk, he has never failed to make himself perfectly K 4

ridi

ridiculous. I need only make my appeal to any one of his hiftorical or portrait pieces, which are now confidered as almoft beneath all criticifm. The favourite Sigifmunda, the labour of fo many years, the boasted effort of his art, was not human. If the figure had a refemblance of any thing ever on earth, or had the leaft pretence to meaning or expreffion, it was what he had feen, or perhaps made, in real life, his own wife in an agony of paffion; but of what paffion no connoiffeur could guefs. All his friends remember what tiresome difcourfes were held by him day after day about the tranfcendent merit of it, and how the great names of Raphael, Vandyke, and others, were made to yield the palm of beauty, grace, expreffion, &c. to him, for this long laboured, yet ftill, uninteresting, fingle figure. The value he himself fet on this, as well as on fome other of his works, almoft exceeds belief; yet from politenefs or fear, or fome other motives, he has actually been paid the moft aftonishing fums, as the price, not of his merit, but of his unbounded vanity.

The darling paffion of Mr. Hogarth is to fhew the faulty and dark fide of every object. He never gives us in perfection the fair face of nature, but admirably well holds out her deformities to ridicule. The reafon is plain. All