NUMBER.

PAGE.

LXXXIV. On natural and acquired taste :

Virgil's Eneid confidered; a paf

fage compared with one in Claudian. Ben Jonson's opinion of Shakespear: The fituation of more modern poet defcribed LXXXV. Advice to a man of landed property: Habits of life and expence in England particularized. A short view of the learned profeffions:

223

LXXXVII. Witty fayings of feveral antients.
Of Laberius and Publius Syrus,

Roman actors: A prologue of the

former, fpoken in the theatre be

fore Julius Cæfar

251

LXXXVIII. Comparative review of Rowe's

Fair Penitent with the Fatal

Dowry of Maffinger

LXXXIX. The same continued

XC. Conclufion of the review

263

272

XCI. Vifit to the house of a deceafed

friend; fome account of his death;

circumftances

NUMBER.

PAGE.

circumftances attending the death
of Antitheüs, the difbeliever

XCII. Anecdotes of Jack Gayless

302

XCIII. Author explains the motives of his work and concludes the third vo

lume

311

323

THE

THE

OBSERVER.

N° LXI.

Primum Graius homo mortales tollere contra

Eft oculos aufus and

(LUCRETIUS.)

At length a mighty man of Greece began

T'assert the natural liberty of man.

THE

(CREECH.)

HERE are fo many young men of fortune and spirit in this kingdom, who, without the trouble of reforting to the founder of their philofophy, or giving themselves any concern about the Graius home in my motto, have nevertheless fallen upon a practice fo confentaneous to the doctrines, which he laid down by fyftem, that VOL. III. B I much

I much question if any of his profest scholars ever did him greater credit, fince the time he firft ftruck out the popular project of driving all religion out of the world, and introducing pleasure and voluptuousness in its stead.

Quare religio pedibus fubjecta viciffim
Obteritur, nos exaquat victoria cœlo."

"We tread religion under foot and rife
"With felf-created glory to the skies."

So far from meaning to oppose myself to fuch a hoft of gay and happy mortals, I wish to gain a merit with them by adding to their stock of pleasures, and suggesting some hints of enjoyments, which may be new to them; a discovery which they well know was confidered by the kings of Perfia, (who practised their philosophy. in very antient times) as a fervice of fuch importance to all the fect, (who had even then worn out most of their old pleasures) that a very confiderable reward was offered to the inventor

of any new one. How the ftock at prefent ftands with our modern voluptuaries I cannot pretend to fay but I fufpect from certain symp-. toms, which have fallen under my observation, that it is nearly run out with fome amongst them; to fuch in particular I flatter myself my discoveries will prove of value, and I have for

their use compofed the following meditation, which I have put together in the form of a foliloquy, folving it step by step as regularly as any propofition in Euclid, and I will boldly vouch it to be as mathematically true. If there is any one poftulatum in the whole, which the trueft voluptuary will not admit to be orthodox Epicurifm, I will confent to give up my fyftem for nonfenfe and myself for an impoftor; I condition only with the pupil of pleasure, that whilst he reads he will reflect, that he will deal candidly with the truth, and that he will once in his life permit a certain faculty called reafon, which I hope he is poffeffed of, to come into use upon this occafion; a faculty, which, though he may not hitherto have employed it, is yet capable of fupplying him with more true and lafting pleafures, than any his philosophy can furnish.

I now recommend him to the following me ditation, which I have entitled

"I FIND myself in poffeffion of an eftate, "which has devolved upon me without any "pains of my own: I have youth and health to "enjoy it, and I am determined fo to do:: "Pleasure is my object, and I must therefore so "contrive as to make that object lafting and "fatisfactory:

B 2