times we live in. IT is aftonishing that the world ment of the divine goodnefs, not The folly of being dissatisfied with the As our divines feem to have left the duty of general humanity, and, indeed, every duty of which neither God nor man is immediately the object, to moral writers, and transferred it from divinity to polite literature, this author expreffes an honest and benevolent with, that fome perfon, whom providence has bleffed with riches, would found an annual lecture on the duty of clemency to brutes, and appoint an handfome falary for the preacher, upon condition that he fhould publifh a certain number of copies of his fermon, within a limited time; this, however, will be lefs neceffary if our clergy should take the hint and make it a fubject of their difcourfes upon proper occafions, particularly at Shrove-tide, when the most inhuman and infamous practice of throwing at cocks ufually takes place, notwithstanding the laws by which it may be reftrained, arifing from the negligence of thofe who should enforce them, and their inattention to the enormity of the crime. The perfon out of place, and who confequently wants to be in place, does not wonder that things go fo ill, when people of a certain rank and character, of a certain age, dignity, and experience in bufinefs, are not called upon to fteer the public veffel; and when, on the contrary, it is left to the conduct of new and unexperienced men. It was not fo formerly, when certain people (exactly like himself) were culled out to carry on the arduous affairs of the kingdom. He does not fay this from a defire of being, or a regret of not being, employed; but from a hearty and fincere affection for his dear country. Every body knows that be does not value nor want any employment, and that he defpifes the profits of one. But be that as it will, it is certain, that merit is not confidered in these days. The fublime author, who chufes to write in an unglazed garret, for the benefit of the air, laments grievously the neglect of literary merit. It was not fo formerly: there were then your Dorsets and your Halifaxes, who were at once poets and patrons; who elicited merit out of its modeft obfcurity, and rewarded it with civil employments. This is the true way of giving luftre to a government. Auguftus and Mecanas, who he be lieves were as wife as fome folks, practifed this method, and owed · their their glory to it. But where are now the patrons of letters? For his part, he declares, that he only writes for amusement, and not for intereft. The unpreferred doctor of divinity, with a prominent cheft, and large fluttering scarf, laments the deluge of vice, prophaneness, and immorality, that overwhelms and difgraces the prefent age. But how fhould it be otherwise, when favour is the only road to preferment, inftead of found learning. As for the bishops, he will fay nothing of them; but that, confidering their revenues, he thinks they might afford to labour harder in the vineyard than they do. The veteran officer, who says that he has had all his bones broken, though perhaps he has never served at all, bewails the decay of the true regular art of war. But how fhould it be otherwife, when boys are put at the head of armies! Wolfe took Louisbourg and Quebec, contrary to all the found rules of war; and, ftrictly speaking, he looks upon their taking, as blunders, and as null and void in themfelves. He compares Amherst and Wolfe to boys who rob orchards; and who do not take ladders and baskets with them, but most irregularly climb over the walls, and fwarm up the trees, and carry off the fruit; not without manifeft danger of their lives. There is an inferior fort of repairers of wrongs, and reformers of abufes, who fwarm in clubs and coffee-houses, and are properly haberdashers of small wares. Thefe gentlemen inveigh with great acrimony against the degeneracy of the times, and all thofe abufes in which they would, and cannot be sharers.' The pilferings of clerks in offices, the combination of tradefmen, the want of police in the streets, and a thoufand other irregularities; for every one of which, if they were but confulted, authorized, and, above all, employed and paid, they have infallible noftrums. But thefe are not times to hope for reformation, when people think only of their own intereft. For my own part, Sir, I admit that there are abufes which every honeft man muft wish were corrected, but at the fame time I confefs that I have no fpecific remedy to offer for their cure. By all I have read, both in facred and prophane hiftory, crimes and abufes have been co-æval with human nature; their modes only have varied in different ages of the world, and perhaps there never was a period fince the creation, when crimes and vices were lefs atrocious and fhocking than in the prefent age. Manners, now polished and foftened, have improved morals. Self-intereft was always the ruling paffion of all mankind; the old way of gratifying it was by murdering and poifoning; the new fashion is by deceit; and I confefs that I would rather be deceived than affaffinated or poisoned. I will conclude with one word of advice to thefe unmerciful cenfurers of the prefent times, from the statemenders at St. James's, down to the reformers of abuses in clubs and coffee-houfes, which, I hope, may mitigate their juft grief for the degeneracy of the prefent times. Let them begin at home, examine their own hearts, and root out from thence, if they can, the paffions of felf-love, pride, envy, hatred, and malice, the true and fecret motives of their cenfure; and when they have brought that about, they will 0 4 fee fee things in a very different light, take the world as it is, and drink their wine, their coffee, their punch, or their ale, with infinitely more comfort than they do at present. vere without hard-heartedness; in trifles tenacious; in friendships, blind and undifcerning; but little connected by the ties of blood, and oftentimes more willing to oblige a ftranger, than a relation: they are fincere without civility, and without In religion, Character of the English. From the unkindness morofe. T SCHEMER. "O what folly and infatuation muft we impute this unfteady behaviour, that in no one article of their lives or manners are the English directed by the principles of reafon? It is because not one in a thoufand acts upon any principle at all. With hearts of republicans, they pen the flattery of flaves; with inward grumbling and difcontent, they raife fupplies for half the powers of Europe; and yet with fuch a bafe attention to private intereft, that near a fifth part is fquandered in lotteries and brokerage. In the fame day, they will greedily attend to the bittereft invectives again their allies, and fpoil all the furniture of their diningrooms with clay candlesticks and farthing lights, in honour of their victories. With a gloomy fullennefs, they put on the fashions of their volatile neighbours; and at the fame time univerfally condemn and practise the fopperies of France. Without any true and honeft regard to their country, without any real public fpirit, they are brave even to rafhnefs, and courageous beyond the example of the firmeft patriots: The leaft turn of affairs, the moft trivial lofs, will make them fearful of an enemy whom they daily deride and defpife. In private life, they are faucy without imperioufhefs, generous without kindness, fe with little or no communion or fellowship, they profefs to be members of one church. They believe in Chrift, and yet neglect his inftitus tions. They acknowledge alfo two facraments in their church; that of baptifmn they look upon as necessary, more becaufe it gives them a name, than for any other reafon; and therefore the fponfors will give fe curity for the infant, without knowing or attending to the questions they are asked, or ever after exa mining the conduct and behaviour of the child committed to their charge. The other facrament, the Lord's fupper, is fuppofed very rightly to be a fervice which no one fhould engage in, that is not serious in his duty; and for this reason, not one in fifty ever goes near the communion-table; and by this behaviour confeffes to the world; that he is very willing to repent, or enter into a new course of life; fo that he would be thought a Chriftian, without performing the fervices of the church of Chrift. By this I mean only thofe who are feally church. men; for take the whole kingdom throughout, any one Sunday in the year, and you will find twenty at church, fifteen at different fchifm fhops, and the reft of the hundred in ale-houfes, counting-houfes, par ties of pleasure, or following the dos meftic occupations of the families they belong to. Í conceive this to be no partial eflimate of the manners of the Eng lith; and now we muft examine, whence comes this hydra-headed evil, which thus univerfally fprouts forth in every member of the community. One popular author has referred it to effeminacy; but we muft acknowledge him biaffed in his opinion, because the evil ftill continues, though that cause hath in many inftances ceased. Another of lefs note attributes it to fear; but that cause is not fufficiently general to be the main fpring of fuch va rious actions. No, the bafis of all the inconfiftencies of this undifciplined, unprincipled, unenlightened nation, is a falfe appetite for liberty; which has, through an unreasonable purfuit, degenerated into licentioufnefs. Ye are in all things, O Britons, a licentious people! Ye act upon that noble principle, which your mafter Satan established, when his refolute wit discovered fubjection to his Maker was fervile and difgraceful. Ye fay, ye are loyal fubjects: and yet the greatest courtiers among ye are the greatest republicans, nor will the greateft in your tribes refufe, in the fame hour, to fing fongs of triumph in honour of your fove reign, and utter the indecent rib baldries of difgufted traitors. What fervile fubmiffion do ye expect from thofe members who are to reprefent you; and how well pleafed are ye to level all authority, unto the dirt, even as low as yourselves? Ye fay, ye have a value for your country, and yet how few there are among you that would not facrifice it to party or profit! How gay and loyal are the appearance of your tradefmen, yet inwardly how debafed by fmuggling, how cankered with debts! Public ftocks, and private loans, have filled near half your cities with idle gentlemen of pleafure, chiefly enlifted in the fervice of licentioufness. The retailed fcraps of difunited literature, which are jumbled together in every periodical paper, have made all the kingdom learned in every science; this teaches the mind to wander in uncertainty, and calls off the application which every individual fhould beftow folely upon his own bufinefs, into frivolous excurfions on the furface and fcum of learning. Drefs, fashion, and affectation, have put all upon an equality; fo that it is difficult to tell the milliner from her ladyfhip, my lord from the groom, or his grace in Pall-mall from the tallow chandler at Wapping. Nor is there to be found any alteration of this general plan in private families, or domeftic life: children making a flavery of dependance and obedience; and, taking advantage of the law of their country, renouncing the authority of their parents, as foon as they are able to crawl alone; wives in breeches; hufbands abroad; fervants in ruffles; and the whole house anarchy and confufion. Nay, to fuch a pitch of impudence are thofe mean hirelings arrived who drudge in the party-coloured badge of fubmiffion, that they will pit in the cup of their mafter's friend if he be not liberal to excefs; give him water for wine; and turn him out of doors as though they were letting out a pickpocket or a thief. But in religion the scene is ftill worfe and worfe; there licentioufnefs breaks out into fwarms of indigefted fectaries, who will lop off a branch from the mother.trunk becaufe a fingle leaf is faded or fickly; fuch as are offended because I wear wear a coat whofe furface refracts the rays of the fun more obliquely than they fancy is agreeable to the faith of a christian. Nor is this the blackeft picture of your licentious behaviour, ye have thofe among ye who call themselves men of fenfe and reafon. You, gentlemen, are free agents; you love a freedom and liberty of thought, and therefore you will ridicule the fcriptures, and try its facred doctrines by the tett of mummery and laughter the next thing you fet about, will be to try your Maker in the fame fcales, and to put up the Creator of this univerfal frame as the laughing flock of wits and buffoons. This is a glorious liberty indeed! and this you call the freedom of the will, and the noble faculty of a difcerning reafon. I hope, my pupils, you will not think me tedious: The fubject I have in hand is of confequence, and requires fome thought and recollec tion. I know, indeed, you are moft of you great adverfaries to any thing prolix; every fubject, every undertaking, must now be done in an hurry, or your licentious fpirits rife into ferment, and boil with hafly indignation. A fermon de figned to promote the falvation of your fouls, if it laft half an hour, tires and fatigues you to death. An expedition, if it go not against wind and tide, in fpite of ficknefs and climate, is confidered as loft, defeated, and overthrown. A peace, if it be not made juft at the time ye would have it, feems to be protracted, in order to enflave you, and reduce you to beggary and rags; and ye alfo, merry citizens, join in the common humour of impatiency; and, if ye can't find contractors, like bottle-conjurors, to promise you mi racies, and a bridge in five years time, grow defperate for want of your play thing; and form at the dilatory maton for not covering, with the utmost difpatch, that profusion of bad Latin which ye have jutt fenfe enough to wifh buried in the earth. But, alas! ye are all aground: no carpenter nor malon, now can be found in the world, mad-headed enough to bind himself to the execution of impoffibuities; is this not then licentiousness ? But now for the fcheme to remedy this evil: In the first place, as to your religion.-Make it not the tool of faction: continue not in error because it is the fashion of your friends; nor too nicely and.rigoroufly infift upon trifles, and neglect the effentials of brotherly love, charity, faith, hope, and humility. Remember, an open hand makes not charity without an open heart; and that ftubbornness is the very op pofite of an humble mind. Judge not vainly of your own perfuafion; and if you are in a private flation, remember it is your business to reform at home, nor fet about reform. ing others till you have brought yourself up to the true chriftian ftandard: and obferve this general rule, that all authority is derived from God, whether civil or paftoral. Therefore he that fets up for a teacher or governor upon his own foundation, advances his claim upon the fame principle which Satan urged against the dominion of the Almighty. As to teachers; indulge not ticklish ears, gape not, like the Athenians, after novelties every day, and be not given to change, except where you find doctrines offered to you that are inconfiftent with the gofpel of your mafter... Set not your clergy, like prize fighters, |