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there was lefs union between the fexes; I mean, they were lefs togegether, lefs in fociety or company; the men were more fo: the meetings in clubs and taverns were more in vogue; convivial drinking formed more connexions, more friend. hip; the heavinefs of time on hand, which is one of the most powerful caufes of the unfolding of human perfectibility, excited men to cultivate their talents, to employ themfelves, to ftudy, to labour at the arts, to cabal, to project confpiracies: politics were the fubject of the converfations, which leifure, and a kind of neceffity for paffing away the time produced; they cenfured the government; they complained of it, confpired against it; and there were on fuch occafions friends to be found, who might be trusted; the great virtues and the great vices were more common.

Again, the men in thofe days not having, by means of the talifman of the cards, the opportunity of fatiating their eyes with the charms of women in full counter. view to them, over the green carpet, friendship and love were paffons; but, at prefent, thanks to thofe fame cards, there is little more left than gallantry: there may be found plenty of acquaintances, and not a fingle friend; a number of miftreffes, and not one beloved. A Mahometan that fhould behold, with Afiatic eyes, our great affemblies, would be unlucky enough to imagine that our European baihaws kept their feraglio in common. You will then find that play, which confounds, packs, and hues together men and women in fociety more than even it does the cards, must neceffarily relax and weaken the energy of love and friendship.

Add, that the efforts of a more effential kind, to get rid of the burthen of tedious time, muft be flackened by this trifling diverfion.

From the letting down these three great fprings, love, friendfhip, bufinefs, combine the effects, and calculate the produce. The fedentary life to which this external amufement reduces the two fexes, enervates the body; whence both in the natural and moral state of man, there refults a new fyftem of manners, temper, and constitu tion.

The magic of card-playing forms the common point of concourse of almost all the paffions in miniature. They all, as one may say, find in it their nourishment. Every thing indeed is microscopical, and more illufive than the common illufion. A confufed idea of good and bad luck prefents itfelf: vanity itself finds its account in it: play feems to establish a falfe fhow of equality among the players: it is the call that affembles in fociety the most difcordant, the most incongruous individuals; avarice and ambition are its movements; the univerfal tafte for pleafure flatters ittelf with procuring its fatisfaction by this amufement; the ladies being of the party, that love, of which gallantry takes the name in vain, must be of it too: the fphere of our pasfions becomes contracted, concentered and confined to a petty orbit; all the paffions put themfelves, as one may fay, into chains, or evaporate and exhauft themselves far from their fípring-head, and wide of their mark. Tine, heavy on hand, leifure, laziness, avarice, ambition and idleness, devour together in common a light unfubftantial food, which enervates their

force

force and activity; and as it is from the fermentation of the great paffions that there commonly refults more of evil than of good, human kind has gained more than it has loft. There are no longer great virtues, but then we do not fee fo many great crimes as formerly: affaffinations, poifon, and all the horrors of a civil war, are incompatible with the state of a nation, in which the men and women lofe fo great a part of their time at cards.

It is a general complaint, and not without reafon, that we no longer fee any of thofe great and powerful original geniufes, nor yet any of thofe heroic individuals, whofe patriotifm, whose virtues ennobled the human fpecies. But then how rare have not thefe prefents from heaven at all times been! Whereas that complication of crimes and horrors which dishonour human nature, was formerly fo common, that they hardly created any furprize. "A wicked man, an enemy," fays Zoroafter," fhall a hundred times a day find occafion of doing mifchief; and a virtuous perfon fhall not fometimes find an opportunity, once in a whole year, to do a good office to a friend." The mob of mankind think themselves difpenfed from imitating or following great models, of which they fee themfelves incapable; but they have only too much propensity to the fuffering themselves to be carried away with the torrent of bad examples.

As remote, however, as, on the firft fuperficial view, thefe principles appear from my thesis, you can hardly, Sir, not feel how applicable they are to the fupport of my fystem. The infatuation of a

frivolous amufement, which deceives and eludes the effects of the paffions, weakens the enthufiafm of the head and heart: by which means the virtues are often lopped of their growth; but then the vices, and efpecially the crimes which are in greater number, are fill more fo. So that I do not in the least contradict what I learnt from thofe I am proud to call my mafters in thinking. I have ftill by heart a fine stroke of Monfieur Diderot on the paffions. Thefe are his own words:

"Men are for ever declaiming against the paffions; they impute to them all the pains incident to mankind; not remembring that they are also the fource of all its pleasures. There is nothing but the paffions, and the very great paffions too, that can elevate the foul to great things: without them there is no fublime, either in manners or in works. The polite arts relapfe into infancy, and virtue herself becomes trifling. The cool fober paffions form only common men. Friendship does not rife beyond circumfpection, if the dangers of a friend leave my eyes open to my own. The paffions damped or deadened degrade extraordinary men; and conftraint deftroys the greatnefs and energy of nature."

Now, while I admit and adopt thefe fublime ideas, I think I may venture at the fame time to affert, that card-playing has nevertheless prepared the human head and heart for receiving the impreffions, which the progrefs of knowledge, and of the new lights thrown upon things. might operate on the government, and on manners. Not impoffibly, in procefs of time, we may come to do without this fcaffolding: and then

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virtue and reafon may take a nobler flight. This paradox may not perhaps, be unworthy of your reflections: I could almoft wish there was a programma made of it, in your academy, viz. "Whether or no the invention of card-playing, the progrefs of this amufement, and its univerfality, have contributed to change the manners in Europe ?"

There would be ample matter for a learned, profound pen to defcant on the games or diverfions of the ancients, their nature, their effects and their effential differences from the kinds of play, which prevail in the prefent ftate of society: then, on coming to the epoch of Charles the Sixth, when card-playing paffes for having been invented, to follow its progrefs, and to obferve the infenfible degrees of alteration in the manners, which have, as one may fay, attended that progrefs.

May I beg you, Sir, to let me know your opinion on this, and to remain perfuaded, that I am conftantly your admirer, as well as

Your most humble, and
moft obedient fervant,
I. P.

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the land of Egypt was not a depri vation of the light of the great luminary bodies, nor was the light in the dwellings of the children of Ifrael a greater emanation of luftre than what was natural. This is not to be understood in a literal, but allegorical fenfe-that the Ifraelites had wisdom and understanding, while the Egyptians were loft in ftupidity and ignorance."

From this manufcript of profound antiquity I fhall make a curious extract it was written, according to the belt tradition, by an Egyptian priest, secretary when Amenophis reigned in Egypt, who is fuppofed to be the very Pharoah that was afterwards drowned in the Red-Sea.

"In our own times (fays the philofophic hiftoriar.) there fell a terrible darkness upon the land of Egypt. As I was educated in all the myfteries of human knowledge and philofophy, my foul was infpired, from its love of wisdom, to enquire into the cause of fo furprifing a phænomenon. I travelled through the divifions of light and darkness, and marked out the land of Goshen, in which there was perfect light. I made a scheme of this unaccountable eclipfe, and of the places which it shadow'd, and fhadow'd not; for fo admirable was it to behold, that many places were totally dark, when the very next adjoining were totally light. To perform this, was only in the power of philofophy. I had long before compofed for my private fpeculation two mirrors, which fhould give me light in the deepest of darkness, and reprefent a true scene of every thing that paffed. The fages, who found out and used these mirrors, called them the eyes of wisdom.

By

By the affiftance of thefe eyes I ventured boldly into the royal paJace of Amenophis the King, altho' every way to approach it was utter darkness. After I had entered into the inner court, I faw fome apartments irradiated with a bright fplendor, and others hid in myfterious obfcurity. How furprized was I, ye gods! to find the apartments of most of the chief ministers enjoying a perfect light, while their unhappy matter the King was buried in an inconceivable obfcurity. How, O ye powers, who rule over kings, did my heart beat, my knees tremble, my hair stand erect, to fee your vicegerent Amenophis the King fit quietly concealed at the corner of a clofet! What did I Witness, O ye powers. I did the duty of a good and faithful subject -I informed his majefty, that his minifters and fervants kept him in the dark, while they enjoyed all the happiness of light. But, ah! unhappy, credulous prince! he anfwered, they have told me all the people have no more light than I; Ray, even that I enjoy more than they. Whom should I believe, but my fervants? am not I lord over them? dare they play the mock with royalty? Begone-speak not against my fervants. To accufe them is accufing my judgment, who made choice of them.

"I then repaired to the apartment of the chief butler, and demanded audience on affairs of the utmost importance to the nation. I was admitted into a splendid room, where I found the chief butler, accompanied by many chiefs and rulers of the land, at a more than

royal banquet. All was light, all was joy, all was triumph; they caroufed healths, and fang fongs of merriment on the darkness which prevailed in fo many places in the land. After fome time, the chief butler conducted me into another apartment, to enquire the business I came about.

"Moft honourable, by the king's favour I come to request a boon, which I think it is my duty to ask, and your duty to grant; I come as a petitioner for your royal master, and as an interceffor from the people; I come to defire, in this time of calamity, either to bring the king into this apartment of light, or elfe in compaflion let fome glimpse of light be conveyed to his all darkfome clofet." "A very pretty request truly, cried the chief butler. Ha! ha! ha! you are a wife man, verfed in the arcana of nature and philofophy; but were you in the leaft acquainted with the myfteries of ftate, you would not mention fo ridiculous a thing. You feem furprised; but know, Sir, the moment that I fhould let the king be in the light, I should be hanged. You fee we have great care upon us, great fatigue; and you fee he is at eafe. In short, he may eat, drink, and confirm our decrees equally in the dark as in the light." The chief butler, having thus anfwered me, retired to his companions. I was aftonished at the ingratitude and wickedness of the man; but, thought I, all whom the king delighteth to honour are not like unto the chief, butler. I went to the chief baker; I found him furrounded by priests

Chief butler and baker in Egypt were the chief minifters of state, as we find by the story of Jofeph.

and

and high-priests, legislators, commanders of armies, and princes of the land: I defired a private audience; it was granted; I urged my fuit as before to the chief butler. After fome paufe-"You know not, faid he, what you ask. I will be short and free-by fome light let into the cranny of one of our former prince's fkulls, an ancestor of mine was hanged, not an hundred years ago. You are a very honeft man, but, alas! no politician."

"Good God, cried I, on this repulfe, what myfteries, what incredible scenes are in the court of princes! If all the monarchs in the world share this prince's fate, how unhappy are their conditions? As for this poor prince, how do I compaffionate him, who has fo many fervants, and fo little help, I will return to him, and let him have

my heavenly mirrors of fight to af him." Accordingly haftened to the monarch: I reprefented to him the state of things, the light which his minifters enjoyed, and their reasons for keeping him in the dark. Lastly, I offered him my fpectacles, and told the effect of them. But, oh! ye immortal powers who rule over kings, whence, oh whence, could come this monarch's infatuation!" No," fays he, "I want them not; I will not have them; if I am in a little diftrefs, I must have a little patience, and my butler and my baker will help me out. The event fhewed the truth: they

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THO'Xantippe broke the head of Socrates with a pifs-pot, and he had temper to bear it, with this eafy remark, "That after thunder rain generally follows:yet, if we had the old fellow amongst us now, I believe we should try his philofophical patience on a Saturday. The rage of fcouring and cleanfing is not peculiar to our houfe, for I find all my friends complain of the univerfal deluge on a Saturday. In fhort, it is the vice of our ladies; and what they call being only clean, is a general inconvenience to bufinefs and health.

the Red Sea oor Amenophis into of our Saturdays, I believe it might

Thus ends this curious oriental fragment. "It is a profitable leffon for the kings of the earth.” It is a juft picture of all the chief Butlers and bakers upon the face

If I was to give the journal of one fuit half the houfes in town. The day of our cleaning begins, like the Sabbath of the Jews, on the Friday night, when we are ordered haftily and early to bed-that the dining room may be scrubbed

out ;

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