justified in keeping no measures with such a character, I authorise you to insert the following list in one of your periodical essays, if you think it worth your notice. Dec. 25, 1778. Being Christmas-day, lent to Tom Varnish a clean shirt and a sermon for the occasion. Jan. 3. A crown for a Christmas-box to Jenny. - 31. Corrected a declamation for him, by making a new one. March 1. Lent him a pair of worsted gloves, during the hard frost. April 4. Paid Mr. Gangrene for the setting of his collar-bone; also his forfeits to the Free-and-easy Club. June 22. Aug. 28. Oct. 6. March 3, July 15. Aug. 7. Paid two-thirds of the expence of Jenny's misfortune. Saved him from drowning, in a scheme down the river to Henley. Lent him a pair of boots, a whip, and a shilling for the 1779. Puffed him off to Sir H. O'N. by whose interest he Saved him from a challenge from the Rev. Dr. Patrick A multitude of little services have escaped my recollection; but these will be sufficient to shew, that the Dean of has clean forgotten Tom Varnish, and Tom Varnish's friends. Be so good as to make a memorandum of this letter; and if I perceive any future changes in this self-tormentor, I will not fail to give you some farther accounts of him. Yours ever, ANTHONY TRUEMAN. I thought there was so much honesty and good sense in this letter, that I determined to make a present of it to my readers; and though the catalogue which my friend Trueman has sent me, may seem to bear rather too hard upon the Reverend Dean, yet a pride of this sort does so eminently misbecome a teacher of Christianity, and betrays such a corruption of heart, that I cannot think the punishment improper either in kind or degree. For my part, with my sedate habits, and sober complexion, these frightful transformations of my countrymen surprise me strangely. For as, in my own family, whole generations have exactly agreed, and the father has regularly reproduced himself in the son, I am the more astonished to see a man so much at variance with himself, There must certainly have been some witchcraft in Tom Varnish's history, which puts me very much in mind of the poet's account of the metamorphosis of Atlas into a mountain; his beard and hair shot up into a huge forest; his shoulders and hands became ridges; his head supplied the place of a pinnacle; his bones were converted into rocks; then his whole person swelled out to a monstrous size, on which all the stars of heaven reposed. "Quantus erat mons factus Atlas: jam barba comæque Cicarella, in his life of Pope Sixtus Quintus, tells us, that that Pontiff used frequently to please himself with jesting upon the meanness of his origin. He would say, that he was domo natus perillustri; the cottage wherein he was born being so out of repair, that the sun shone through every part of it. Cicero, with more gravity, observes, Satius est meis gestis florere quam majorum auctoritatibus inniti, & ita vivere ut sim posteris meis nobilitatis initium & virtutis exemplum. "It is more honourable for me to be dignified by my own actions, than to lean upon the authority of my ancestors; and so to live, that I may be a fountain of nobility, and an example of virtue to my descendants." Our worthy Dean does not appear at present to feel all the force of these laudable sentiments; but I depend upon his coming over to our party, at some period of his life. When old-age and sickness press upon him, he will look around him, perhaps in vain, for his old friend Anthony Trueman, to refresh his mind with the pleasing recollections of his youth, and to talk with him about young Jenny and the old tree. Yesterday, as I was pursuing my reflexions on this subject, it occurred to me, that some good advice to such characters as I have been describing, might be conveyed in the notion of a letter from a man's former self to his present self, which might run as follows: "WORSHIPFUL SIR, "Though perhaps you recollect, with no great cordiality or esteem, the person who now takes the liberty of addressing you, I feel so much interest in your honour and happiness, that I cannot refuse myself the satisfaction of laying before you some truths which you may turn greatly to account. I own, I cannot but complain bitterly of the contempt with which you treat a person born of as good a family as yourself, and bred to the same expectations, and one too whom you formerly loved better than your father or mother, and as much as your own life. "If I am rightly informed, sir, you have extended this illiberal conduct to my friends, and have represented Mr. Shortland as a person of mean condition, to whom, nevertheless, you are in a great measure obliged for your present elevation. As to myself, be assured, şir, your efforts to cast oblivion and obscurity around me, will only mal me the more noticed; and that, whatever comparisons shall be made, they will be to the disadvantage of yourself. I do not conceive in what circumstances you pretend to be my superior, except in the base article of wealth. You may be a greater man, but you have not so much ease, so much leisure, so much youth, so much health, so much strength, so many real friends, and so much content. I am pretty sure, too, that a certain lady whom we have both addressed, prefers in her own breast my little farm to your fine house and your laced liveries; but I respect your happiness so much, that I would resign her to you, if you would but adopt a more amiable and rational way of thinking. "I shall never make any farther overtures towards a reconciliation; but shall always be ready to embrace you whenever you feel yourself disposed to sink this aukward distance between us. You will be most likely to find me, on such an occasion, in the poplar-groves behind your house, or on the terrace just out of the village, at the hours of nine and ten in the evening, particularly if it be moon-light. Be assured you will never hear of me at any public places, for crowds are my abomination. I am sensible that the pride and deceit of these corrupt resorts, first produced the melancholy separation that has taken place between us. I knew what was to be my fate from the moment that old Lady Margaret Mildmay whispered in your ear the words, "seducing arts," and "delicate situations." Ever since these ominous phrases, you have kept me at the most mortifying distance; but finding it rather difficult to shake me off at once, you pinched, buckramed, and pomatumed me up to such a degree, that I could not hold out any longer. I have often tried to meet you since our total separation, but, as I have not been used to the smell of perfumes, I could never come within your atmosphere, except once, indeed, when, in flying from two unmanneredly catchpoles, you ran full against me in turning a corner, and did me the favour of jostling me into the kennel. "One thing, however, sir, I must insist upon, which is, that you will forbear any contemptuous insinuations respecting my friend Dick Shortland's family, since you cannot boast so good a one; and as to myself, sir, you cannot be ignorant that your great-grandfather was a chimney-sweeper, as well as my own; and that if it were not for that noble invention for which the world is indebted to a person who was great uncle to both of us, of liquid shining blacking for shoes, you could never have expected to maintain so much consequence in life, as even your neglected friend and humble servant, HUMPHRY QUONDAM." I cannot forbear following up this letter with an exhortation to my readers to reflect, that the humane and social duties press equally on all situations of life; and that, if prosperity deprive us of our unbought friendships, it must ever after remain in hopeless arrears to us, whatever degree of plenty it may shower into our bosoms: it has robbed us of the day-light, which no borrowed glare of lamps and crystals can supply. NATIONAL CHARACTER. HE POET, speaking of a good man, but not perfect, says, "Ev'n his failings lean'd to virtue's side." This line has often appeared to me to contain the character of the people in this country. I know none-I can remember none-of the worst errors into which we have fallen, that was not in its origimal principle, a failing "which lean'd to virtue's side." Even the present war, about which there is such a variety of opinions, may, I think, be traced-I mean their approbation of it, to the noble sentiment of compassion. I have heard it asserted, that a statesman said to a member of the French Convention, in the year 1792, "Save the life of your King, and the people of this country will not be easily persuaded to go to war with you." Be this true or false, I have always been of opinion that the atrocious murder of that unhappy Monarch raised in the minds of this nation a general sentiment of compassion; which, with concomitant circumstances, easily induced them to support the war. Cold and insensible men may find fault with this: but the pure sentiments of a feeling heart are ever to be revered. I have been more particularly induced to reflect on the amiable qualities of my countrymen, from observing those bursts of national generosity which appear upon every occasion of distress. These I attribute exclusively and wholly to the people, because they originate with them, and are not, in the first instance at least, promoted or proposed by Government. I have been calculating, that within the last two years, more than half a million of money has been raised by individuals towards alleviating distress of different kinds. To this must be added the perpetual contributions which support many hundred hospitals, dispensaries, &c. and the sums paid on the score of the poor rates. To these, again, must be added, those private contri butions, known only to God and the receiver, and we shall be convinced that no nation upon earth excels so eminently in the virtue of generosity. If this appear vanity, I will answer, it is truth; and I lay myself open to the contradiction of any person acquainted with the internal character of other nations. I have in vain sought for any thing like it. He Contrasted with this, let us look at regenerated France, that divine and ever-blessed nation! There we see a fellow come puffing and blowing for fifty miles into the Convention, to tell them that he has given a little money in charity to his friend's widow or children. receives the President's bug, and has deserved well of his Country! What is the miserable farce, but what thousands in this country do every day; although so far are they from bringing it to Parliament, that they would be ashamed if it were known even in the parish, In studying our National character, I have found nothing so prominent as generosity, and I have therefore set it down as our distinguished characteristic-and to the feelings, connected with generosity, I attribute much of the failures recorded in our political history; for the amiable weaknesses are always the prey of the cunning. SIR, F "aaoov xng, the strong or vigorous heart." ROM this description one would almost conclude that Homer had known the true and genuine use of the noblest muscle; though 1 am pretty confident that he did not.-Pray, were you present at the dissection of the lion that died in the Tower? If you were, you may easily conceive my meaning: for when I saw the heart of that bold animal, I immediately thought on the phrase of Homer, and of Shakspeare's "lion-hearted Richard;" the heart of the king of beasts being large, dense, and strong, in an amazing degree. Some naturalists tell us, that the hearts of timid animals are the largest: perhaps they mean that the cavities of the heart in deer, hares, &c. are preternaturally distended, by the refluent blood being driven into them, through the frequent acts of fear and trembling. And it is remarkable that, in the Iliad, Achilles insults Agamemnon, by telling him that he had the eyes of a dog, and the heart of a deer. Man, the lord of the creation, has no right, I think, to be called a timid animal; and man has as large an heart, and more brains, in proportion to his size, than any animal in nature. The elephant that was dissected some time ago is no exception: for though that "half-reasoning brute," as Pope stiles him, had ten pounds weight of brains, yet, when we consider the immense bulk of the creature, it had not so large a quantity in proportion as one of the human species. Again, a viper has, I believe, the least heart and largest liver of almost any animal; from which I conclude that it has less blood and more bile than any other; and I suspect that the apparent quantity of bile contributes in a great measure to form the viperine virus.An unexpected circumstance obliges me to break off abruptly. Yours, &c. |