I believe that man is a beast; that the soul is the body, and the body the soul; and that after death there is neither body nor soul.

I believe that there is no religion; that natural religion is the only religion; and that all religion is unnatural.

I believe not in Moses; I believe in the First Philosophy; I believe not the Evangelists; I believe in Chubb, Collins, Toland, Tindal, Morgan, Mandeville, Woolston, Hobbs, Shaftesbury; I believe in Lord Bolingbroke; I believe not St. Paul.

I believe not Revelation; I believe in tradition: I believe in the Talmud; I believe in the Alcoran; I believe not the Bible; I believe in Socrates, I believe in Confucius; I believe in Sanconiathon; I believe in Mahomet; I believe not in Christ. Lastly, I believe in all unbelief.

AN ADDRESS

TO BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.

My Lords and Gentlemen,

Ever since we have thought fit to take these kingdoms into our immediate care, we have made it our earnest endeavour to go hand in hand with your wisdoms in promoting the welfare and prosperity of the people. The important business of taxes, lotteries, marriages, and Jews, we have left to your weighty consideration: while ourselves have been employed in the regulation of fashions, the establishment of taste, and amendment of the morals. We have the satisfaction to find, that both our measures I have hitherto met with success: and the public affairs are at present in so prosperous a condition, that the national vices seem as likely to decrease as the national debt.

The dissolution of your assembly is now at hand; and as your whole attention will naturally be engaged

in securing to yourselves and friends a seat in the next parliament, it is needless to recommend to you, that heads should be broken, drunkenness encouraged, and abuse propagated; which has been found by experience to be the best method of supporting the freedom of elections. In the mean time, as the care of the nation must be left to us, it is necessary that, during this interval, our prerogative, as Censor-General, should be considerably extended, and we should be invested with the united powers of Lords and Commons.

When we are entrusted with this important charge, we shall expect, that every different faction shall concur in our measures for the public utility; that Whig and Tory, High-Church and Low-Church, Court and Country, shall all unite in this common cause; and that opposite parties in the body politic, like the arms and legs in the body natural, shall move in concert, though they are on different sides. In our papers, which we continue to publish on Thursdays, under the title of The Connoisseur, every misdemeanor shall be examined, and offenders called to the bar of the House. Be it therefore enacted, that these our orders and resolutions have an equal authority with acts of parliament: as we doubt not, they will be of equal advantage to the community.

The extraordinary supplies requisite for the service of the current weeks, and for the support of our own privy purse, oblige us to demand of you, that a sum, not exceeding two-pence, be levied weekly on each person, to be collected by our trusty and well-beloved the booksellers. We must also particularly request of you, that the same privilege and protection be extended to us, which is enjoyed by yourselves, and is so very convenient to many of your honourable members. It is no less expedient, that we should be secured from let or molestation: be it therefore provided, that no one presume to arrest, or cause to

be arrested, our person, or the persons of our publisher, printer, corrector, devil, or any other employed in our service.

We have only to add, that you may rely on our care and diligence in discharging the high trust reposed in us, in such manner as shall merit the thanks of the next parliament. We shall then recommend it to their consideration, whether it would not be for the interest of these kingdoms, that we should have a woolpack allotted us with the bishops, or be allowed a perpetual seat among the commons, as the representative of the whole people. But if this should be deemed too great an honour, it will, at least, be thought necessary, that we should be occasionally called in, like the judges, to give our opinion in cases of importance.

T.

TOWN, Connoisseur, Critic, and
Censor-General.

N° 10. THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 1754.

Νηπιον, ἐπω ἐιδοθ ̓ ὁμοις πολεμοιο,

Οὐδ' άγορεων, ἵνα τ' ἄνδρες ἄριπρεπέες τελέθεσι. HOMER.
What knows the stripling of the soldier's trade,
Beyond his regimentals and cockade?

LEARNING, as it polishes the mind, enlarges our ideas, and gives an ingenuous turn to our whole conversation and behaviour, has ever been esteemed a liberal accomplishment; and is, indeed, the principal characteristic that distinguishes the gentleman from the mechanic.

This axiom being universally allowed, I have often observed with wonder the neglect of learning that prevails among the gentlemen of the army; who, notwithstanding their shameful deficiency in this main requisite, are generally proposed as the most

exact models of good behaviour, and standards of politeness.

The art of war is no easy study: it requires much labour and application to go through what Milton calls the rudiments of soldiership, in all the skill of embattling, marching, encamping, fortifying, besieging, and battering, with all the helps of ancient and modern stratagems, tactics, and warlike maxims.' With all these, every officer should undoubtedly be acquainted; for mere regimentals no more create a soldier, than the cowl makes a monk. But, I fear, the generality of our army have made little proficiency in the art they profess; have learnt little more than just to acquit themselves with some decency at a review; have not studied and examined, as they ought, the ancient and modern principles of war;

Nor the division of a battle know,
More than a spinster.

SHAKSPEARE.

Besides the study of the art of war itself, there are many collateral branches of literature; of which, as gentlemen and as soldiers, they should not be ignorant. Whoever bears a commission in the army, should be well read in history. The examples of Alexander, Cæsar, or Marlborough, however illustrious, are of little concern to the generality of readers, but are set up as so many land-marks, to direct those who are pursuing the same course of glory. A thorough knowledge of history would furnish a commander with true courage, inspire him with an honest emulation of his ancestors, and teach him to gain a victory without shedding blood.

Poetry too, more especially that of the ancients, seems particularly calculated for the perusal of those concerned in war. The subject of the Iliad is entirely martial; and the principal characters are distinguished from each other chiefly by their different exertion of the single quality of courage. It was, I suppose, on account of this martial spirit, which

reathes throughout the Iliad, that Alexander was o captivated with it, that he is said to have laid it very night under his pillow. The principal chaacter in the Eneid is a general, of remarkable piety and courage; and great part of the poem is made up of war. These studies cannot, surely, fail of animating a modern breast, which often kindled such a noble ardour in the ancients.

If we look into the lives of the greatest generals of antiquity, we shall find them no mean proficients in science. They led their armies to victory by their courage, and supported the state by their counsels. They revered the same Pallas, as the goddess of war and of wisdom; and the Spartans in particular, before they entered on an engagement, always sacrificed to the Muses. The exhortations, given by commanders before the onset, are some of the most animated pieces of oratory in all antiquity, and frequently produced astonishing effects, rousing the soldiers from despair, and hurrying them on to victory. An illiterate commander would have been the contempt of Greece and Rome. Tully, indeed, was called the learned Consul in derision; but then, as Dryden observes, his head was turned another way. When he read the tactics, he was thinking on the bar, which was his field of battle.' I am particularly pleased with the character of Scipio Emilianus, as drawn by Velleius Paterculus, and would recommend it to the serious imitation of our modern officers. He was so great an admirer of liberal studies, that he always retained the most eminent wits in his camp: nor did any one fill up the intervals of business with more elegance, retiring from war only to cultivate the arts of peace: always employed in arms or study, always exercising his body with perils, or disciplining his mind with science. The author contrasts this amiable portrait with a description of Mummius; a general so little versed in the polite