it proceeded from avarice or curiofity, whether they were fold to the antiquarian or the brazier, is exceedingly to be lamented, as it is a kind of facrilege which has been, I fear, univerfally prevalent, having had occafion to remark this violation of fepulture in a great number of churches and cemeteries in various parts of the kingdom.

These brief obfervations forced themfelves upon my attention while I was walking up the middle aifle of this church, but it was foon arrested by an object of still more speculative importance, namely, a monument at the upper end of the north aifle, representing, in a kind of niche, a figure at a desk writ ing. This I found, by the inscription, was the effigy of that diligent collector of domeftic antiquities, John Stow, who died the 5th of April 1605, at the age of eighty. This monument feems to be of itone; but Mr. Styrpe fays, "he was told by an ingenious perfon that it was only of burnt clay (Terra Cotta) painted." This it is impoffible now to difcover without injuring the figure. So many coats of paint have been laid on, one very lately, by the directors of the works of this fabric, that the traces by which the different operations of the chiffel or modelling ftick might have been difcerned, are now totally obliterated; but if it be really compofed of burnt earth, of which, upon the authority of Styrpe, I have fcarce any doubt, there is one very natural obfervation arifes in the mind, which is, that the art of making figures in artificial ftone, that was thought to have been invented about the year 1769 *, was of a much more ancient date, even in this kingdom: in Italy we know it was practifed in the days of Michael Angelo †·

It is a curious circumitance, but one that is certainly extremely difcredit

able to the age in which this ingenious and laborious antiquarian, John Stow, lived, that after dedicating the greateft part of a life extended far beyond the ufual period of existence to literary refearches, to ftudies in which the public was effentially interested, and the nation ultimately benefited; after having, with infinite folicitude and anxiety, collected materials, and compofed volumes, which thewed in a new point of view the grandeur, the im portance, the opulence of his native city; this excellent author should, when fuffering under the tortures of an excruciating difeafe, and upon the very verge of the grave, have been obliged to ask alms of his fellow-citi. zens and countrymen: yet howsoever ftrange this may feem, it is neverthelefs true, that in the year 1604, this worthy Citizen obtained from that learned Monarch, and great encourager of learning, James the First, a licence to collect the charitable benevo lence of well-difpofed people" for his fubfiftence. In this Brief, his various labours for forty-five years, fpent in compofing his Chronicles, and alfo eight years dedicated to his Survey of London, his merit, and his age, are recited, and power is given to him, or his deputies, to afk charity at the dif ferent churches through a great number of counties and cities in England, with an exhortation and perfuafion to perfons to contribute. This was in the fecond year of the King. Another Brief had been granted, of the fame tenor and to the fame effect in the first. A letter from the King on the fame fubject is also extant, on the back of which feven thillings and fixpence was fet down as the fubfcription of the parish of St. Mary Wool noth, with the churchwarden's name indorfed.

"He died," faith his hiftorian, "on the fifth of April following, in lefs than fix months after. So that it is feared the poor man had made but little progrefs in his collection." The remark upon this tranfaction is obvious, that it is fingular that this very extraordinary mode of relieving the diftreffes of fo ingenious and learned an individual, while any other could have been fuggefted, fhould ever have been adopted; and it neither prepoffeffes us with a very favourable idea

of the liberality of the Court, or City, towards men of letters, when one of the eminence of Stow was, in his extreme old age, obliged to ask charity in a manner the publicity of which mit have exceedingly hurt his feelings, and have been, from the tardiness of the means taken to relieve him, fuffered to languith under the preffure of a difeafe, the pains of which were, perhaps, rendered more acute by the accumulated evils of poverty and difappointment.

THERE

is no diverfion which has maintained its ground, in fpite of the fickleness of fashion, fo uniformly as Card-playing. Other diverfions have rifen, fucceeded for a time, then declined into difufe; but cards ftill are in general eftimation. Few families are entirely without them, and few individuals can acquit themselves of having fyent many hours in playing them. They have interfered at times with every other amufement; nay, with the neceffary engagements of our relative tations. Politicians have been known to continue at the card-table when the Senate demanded their attention; nd a magnificent card-party, at the house of a woman of quality, has left" an Account of empty Boxes" at the theatre. Dancing has not unfrequently been interrupted by a hand at quadrille; and thofe whofe tongues it is not eafy to restrain at other times, voluntarily fubject themselves for hours to the profound Glence of whift. Cards, it has been faid, have spoiled converfa tion. It might with greater propriety be faid, that they have entirely banithed it. Those attainments are not now de. fired which gave fcope for converfa. tion and to fupply the defect, cards are called for. Thofe who could have difcovered no talents at remark, or repartee, can now play a good hand; and thus fo many men and women, who would otherwife have been ufelefs to company, are placed in a situation where they may appear to advantage at the card table!

With converfation, I will not hesi tate to fay, that cards have in a great measure destroyed good-humour. Thofe who are eager in the game, and without a certain portion of zeal it is impoffible

to play, fit down to play with a mutuał declaration of hoftilities, which commence immediately on the trump card being proclaimed. The object, then, is to make the most of the game. But the oppofte party, perhaps, are fuc. cefsful: uneasiness begins to arife in the breaft, which in a little time fwells with anger and envy. It needs no very able phyfiognomist to read the mind in the eye, if there were no other indications. The flush in the face, the biting of the lip, the finothered-What shall I fay? Oath! Certainly fomething approaching to it-the difcontented air in throwing down the card-all thefe fufficiently indicate, that the mind is in a state of agitation not very friendly to good-humour, to benevolence, or to virtue. Thete fymptoms are chiefly difcernible where the fum played for is confiderable. But why men and wo men, poffeffed of reason, thould affemble to hazard a lofs which may affect them, and call this divertion, is with me a folecifm; and I leave it to be explained by thofe who are acquainted with the pleasure of loting more money than they can afford.

It is not to be denied, nor fhall I attempt to deny, that I have hitherto had the fair-fex principally in view. My fair readers will not accufe me of taking up an opinion hattily against them, nor of urging cenfure with feverity. But the truth is, and to me a very unpleasant truth, that parents are very generally to blame, for being fo ready to finish this branch of education in their daughters. Cards are introduced too frequently in families of middling rank, and fums of mo ney are played for, which cannot always be spared by the lofing party. Time,

the

the most precious gift of Heaven, is wafted in the most unprofitable of all amusemenis-an amufement which is innocent only where the fum played for is trifling, and where the time confumed is fhort; but abfolutely pernicious both to the head and heart, where the fum is fo great as to engage the affections, and where the time confumed is more than can be fpared from the regular hours of fleep. Converfation would not flag if cards were not expected. But because they are expected, people do not give themselves the trouble to cultivate the arts of converfation. Who would qualify himfelf to fhine in converfation, when he may fupply the place of wit and learning by a pack of cards? And what young lady will give herself any uneafinefs to appear pleafing by the charms of converfation, when the can do it at fo eafy a rate as playing a rubber of whift?

The effect of that interest which we take in the cards is not temporary. By frequent repetition it becomes habitual, and the, who perhaps first fat down to a harmless game at cards, as it is termed, becomes in time an accomplifhed gamester; and her innocent, her meek, her benevolent temper, is left at the mercy of the four bouours or the odd trick. There are no bad paffions which cards do not excite in fome degree-a reflection which ought never to be forgotten by thofe whofe tafk it is to rear the female mind. All the mischiefs which arife from cardplaying, when cards become inviting, may not happen to fome individuals, but they are all to be dreaded, fince what has happened to one may happen to another.

But there is a confideration which

ought to have its weight with the fair-fex; and this is, that they feldom or never appear to advantage in the eyes of men while at the card table. It is by affociating with ladies in company that love is produced, that love which ends in the most endearing of all connexions. Let us figure to ourfelves a young gentleman who has feen a lady he has a liking to. He wishes to know if her mind anfwers to her face; if her difpofition be correfpondent to his ideas of the agreeable; and, in a word, whether the be fuch a one as he can with prudence choose to be his companion for life. If he never fees. this lady but at the card-table, and never has a nearer intercourse than being her partner at whift, when nothing must be fpoken, how is he to judge of her? 1 leave this cafe to the confideration of my readers. It is not an uncommon one, and deferves fome attention.

As to the effect of card-playing on the men, it has been reprefented fo often in every moral writing, that little remains for me to fay. A gamefter is one who plays cards with a view to gain money, he will confequently avail himfelf of every artifice which long practice has taught him. A disposition more hoftile, a heart more malignant, than that of the profeffed gambler, cannot well be conceived. And yet it is frequently the cafe, that this difpofition has been cherished by flow degrees from infancy, from the time when mifguided parents were pleased to fee little mafter play his cards cleverly, and win his fchool fellows pocket-money. Molt great pices proceed from fmall beginnings, and this is one

of them.

I

MY LORD,

Great Titchfield freet, Sept. 12th, 1767. WAS unfortunately in the country when the Note which your Lordship did me the honour to fend arrived here.

I am, it is true, an author (and one of the oldest in England) by profeffion; but, for the first time, I feel myself at

VOL. XLII. SEPT. 1802,

a lofs for words to express the deep fenfe I have of your Lordship's generous propofal to embellifh the history of your country with obfervations and anecdotes, which will render it more picturefque, and, inttead of altering, give a stronger relief and a higher like nefs to its features.

Inftances of the il cuftumi, as the Italians A a

lians term the propriety of compofi. tion, are frequent with foreign writers, fuch as Siri and Brantome, and we have many amongst the English; but their authenticity is questionable; thofe, derived from fuch evidences as your Lordship mentions, must be indifputable, and fhall be treated with proper attention in any publication in which I am concerned.

Lord Lyttleton has undoubtedly been too hafty in pronouncing the Regiam Majeftatem to be a tranfcript of Glanville. I have given fome of my reasons in the laft Critical Review, where there is a typographical error of a hundred years. When that is rectified, it will appear that it was far from being impoffible for a man not to have lived in the time of David the Second and James the Firft, when the revifion. of the Regiam Majeftatem commenced. How then, in fo fhort a time, could the Members of the Scotch Parliament afcribe to David the First what be. longed to David the Second, as the fubfequent revisions were no more than continuations of the first ?

Is not the feal of your Lordship's Note a fignet of Mary Queen of Scots ? If fo, Queen Elizabeth had fome grounds for her complaints. It seems to be the feal of a Sovereign, I mean of

Scotland, and not of a woman under covert, which was her apology to Queen Elizabeth. As I fhall be very particular upon the hiftory of that unfortunate Princefs, I intend to write to fome friends, to know how the Memoirs that go under the name of Sir James Melville were midwiv'd into the world. Were they ever authenticated? Is the original MS. oftenfible? Were they not published roo years after the fuppofed author's death? Has their ftyle the fmalleft refemblance to that of his times? If I remember rightly (for it is above 40 years fince I faw the firft edition), one David Scot was the pub. lifher, and owns that he altered the language, but why did he not direct us to the original? But, perhaps, in publica commoda peccem; and, if your Lordship has had the patience thus far to advance in this fcroll, I am in the wrong to detain you upon paft Occurrences, when fuch torrents of living politics, fuch at least as pafs here, demand your attention, and therefore I fhall beg leave to beg the honour to profefs myself,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient,
And most obliged humble servant,
WILLIAM GUTHRIE,

THEM.

A

MONTH or two ago, you were pleased to infert in your Magazine a Vaccine Anecdote refpecting the Indian Warrior, denominated "LITTLE TURTLE," which I received from Profeffor Waterhoufe, of Bofton; you feem, therefore, entitled to any further particulars connected with this distinguifhed Chief of the Miamis.

This confideration encourages me to communicate an extract from a letter dated "City

1802," which I have on, July 12th,

received from my ingenious friend Dr. Thornton, refi. dent in that new metropolis. It is more valuable, as the information is fent to me by the Doctor without any knowledge of the previous communica

tion I had been furnished with from Boston.

After mentioning my "Obfervations on the Cow-Pock," he obferves, "The Prefident of the United States has been very inftrumental in propagating this ufeful knowledge in various parts of this country, and gave fome of the matter to LITTLE TURTLE, the celebrated Indian Chief, who commanded at the defeat of our General St. Clair. By a letter from the Interpreter, the Indians among the Miamis had inoculated three bundred, and they were arriving from all quarters to be inoculated when he wrote, he thought that as many more would receive the matter before the letter could arrive

here.'

here. I am in hopes that this disease will no longer be among the enemies of thefe poor people. The LITTLE TURTLE is not only one of their greatelt warriors, but one of the most polished and refined, as well as acute, of the Indians indeed he is confidered as a great orator. I took a very extenfive Vocabulary from him of the Miamis language for the Prefident; who had had one taken by Monfieur Volney before; but I did not find that Monfeur Volney's would be generally understood when I fpoke it. This might proceed from his making ufe of the Roman alphabet only, which is incapable of expreffing all the founds. Monfieur Volney, however, wrote a very ingenious piece, entitled "Simplification des Langues Orientales," which was intended to exemplify particularly the founds of the Arabic. I found that the Arabians have the two founds of the English th, as in thine, and in thin, vocal and afpirate; and I can trace thence the S of the Saxons, and 9 of the Greeks."

In one of your recent Magazines, you have given the Public, fome Memoirs of Thomas Jefferson, the prefent Supreme Magiftrate of the United States. In general, memoirs of characters, especially of the living, are too much in panegyric; but in the account you have given of the Prefident, you have fcarcely done justice to his merits; and the time, I prefume to predict, will arrive, when he who now occupies the chair of the late illuftrious Wathington, will not appear without luftre, even in that conftellation of American worthies, where a Wathington indeed, will for ever remain the mot brilliant ftar in the luminous galaxy.

Jefferfon, with the urbanity of a good heart, influencing a great mind, has not only been the preferver of the lives of the Indians, by the introduction of vaccine inoculation, but has taught the wandering tribes to cultivate the foil, rather than to roam the woods for fubfiftence; he has domefticated them by the introduction of fpinning-wheels, and various other implements of domeftic and agricul. tural utility; and has thus prepared them to receive the beneficent principles of the Chriftian religion.

It is not only from my correfpondents in Bofton, Washington, and New York, that I have received unequi

vocal and heartfelt eulogies of Jeffer fon, but my letters from Philadelphia are even more animated in eulogy, more cordial in gratitude, for his independent and falutary adminiftration. When we confider the fatality of the fmall-pox among the Indians, no man of feeling, however remote from the feat of his government, can refrain from approbation of his provident attention to the lives, and to the inftruction, of a defpifed, but not a degraded, race of human beings.

I cannot place the defolating ravages of this dreadful difeafe in a more forcible light, than is afforded in Mackenzie's Travels and Voyages, juit published; the relation, indeed, exhibits a more dreadful fcene of carnage than what happened many years ago in Greenland, and I requeit your insertion of it in this place.

In the "Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, in the Years 1789 and 1793," the Writer,

in defcribing fome fettlements by adthe following account of the dreadful venturers from Canada, has introduced havock by the fmall-pox among the Indians.

1

"Two of the establishments on the Affiniboin River were attacked, when feveral white men, and a greater num ber of Indians, were killed. In thort, it appeared that the natives had formed a refolution to extirpate the traders and, without entering into any further reafonings on the fubject, it appears to be incontrovertible, that the irregula rity purfued in carrying on the trade has brought it into its prefent forlorn fituation; and nothing but the greatest calamity that could have befallen the natives faved the traders from destruction: this was the fmall-pox, which fpread its deftructive and defolating power as the fire confumes the dry grafs of the field. The fatal infection Ipread around with a painful rapidity which no flight could efcape, and with a fatal effect that nothing could refift. It destroyed with its peftilential breath whole families and tribes; and the horrid fcene prefented to thofe who had the melancholy and afflicting opportunity of beholding it, a combination of the dead, the dying, and fuch as, to avoid the fate of their friends around them, prepared to difappoint

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