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tions. We are totally changed into creatures of art and affectation. Our perception is abused, and even our fenfes are perverted. Our minds lofe their native force and flavour. The imagination, sweated by artificial fire, produces nought but vapid bloom. The genius, inftead of growing like a vigorous tree, extending its branches on every fide, and bearing delicious fruit, refembles a ftunted yew, tortured into fome wretched form, projecting no fhade, difplaying no flower, diffufing no fragrance, yielding no fruit, and affording nothing but a barren conceit for the amufement of the idle Spectator.

Thus debauched from Nature, how can we relish her genuine productions? As well might a man diftinguish objects through a prifm, that prefents nothing but a variety of colours to the eye; or a maid pining in the green fickness, prefer a bifcuit to a cinder. It has been often alledged that the paffions can never be wholly depofited; and that by appealing to thefe, a good writer will always be able to force himself into the hearts of his readers: but, even the ftrongeft paffions are weakened; nay, fometimes totally extinguished by mutual oppofition, diffipation, and acquired infenfibility. How often, at the theatre, is the tear of fympathy and the burit of laughter repreffed by a ridiculous fpecies of pride, refufing approbation to the author and actor, and renouncing fociety with the audience? This feeming infen. fibility is not owing to any original defect. Nature has ftretched the ftring, tho' it has long ceafed to vibrate. It may have been displaced and diftrated by the violence of

pride: it may have loft its tone through long difufe; or be fo twisted or overftrained, as to produce the most jarring difcords. If fo little regard is paid to nature, when fhe knocks fo powerfully at the breaft, fhe must be altogether neglected and defpifed in her calmer mood of ferene tranquility, when nothing appears to recommend her but fimplicity, propriety, and innocence. A perfon must have delicate feelings that can taste the celebrated repartee in Terence: Homo fum; nihil humani a me alienum puto. “I am a man; therefore think I have an intereft in every thing that concerns humanity." A clear, blue fky, fpangled with ftars, will prove an infipid object to eyes accustomed to the glare of torches, tapers, gilding and glitter: eyes that will turn with difguft from the green mantle of the fpring, so gorgeoufly adorned with buds and foliage, flowers and bloffoms, to contemplate a gau dy filken robe ftriped and interfected with unfriendly tints, that fritter the maffes of light, and diftract the vifion, pinked into the moft fantailic forms, flounced, and furbelowed, and fringed with all the littleness of art unknown to elegance.

Thofe ears that are offended by the notes of the thrush, the blackbird, and the nightingale, will be regaled and ravished by the fqueaking fiddle touched by a musician who has no other genius than that which lies in his fingers: they will even be entertained with the rattling of coaches, and the alarming knock by which the doors of fashionable people are fo loudly distinguished. The fenfe of fmelling that delights in the fccnt of excrementitious aniIii z

mal

mal juices, fuch as mufk, civet, and urinous falts, will loathe the fragrance of new-mown hay, the fweetbriar, the honey-fuckle, and the rose. The organs that are gratified with the taste of fickly veal bled into a palfey, crammed fowls, and dropfical brawn, peafe without fubftance, peaches without tafte, and pineapples without flavour, will certainly nauseate the native, genuine, and falutary tafte of Welch beef, Banftead mutton, and barn door fowls, whofe juices are concocted by a natural digeftion, and whofe flesh is confolidated by free air and exercife. In fuch a total perverfion of the fenfes, the ideas must be mifreprefented; the powers of the imagination difordered, and the judgment, of confequence, unfound. The dif ease is attended with a falfe appetite, which the natural food of the mind will not fatisfy. It will prefer Ovid to Tibullus, and the rant of Lee to the tenderness of Otway. The foul finks into a kind of sleepy ideotifi; and is diverted by toys and baubles, which can only be pleafing to the moft fuperficial curiofity. It is enlivened by a quick fucceffion of trivial objects, that gliften and dance before the eye; and, like an infant, is kept awake and infpirited by the found of a rattle. It must not only be dazzled and arroufed, but also cheated, hurried, and perplexed by the artifice of deception, bufinefs, intricacy, and intrigue; a kind of low juggle, which may be termed the legerdemain of genius. In this ftate of depravity the mind cannot enjoy, nor indeed, diftinguifh the charms of natural, and of moral beauty and decorum. The ingenuous blufh of native innocence, the plain lan

guage of antient faith and fincerity, the chearful refignation to the will of heaven, the mutual affection of the charities, the voluntary refpe&t paid to fuperior dignity or station, the virtue of beneficence extended' even to the brute creation; nay, the very crimfon glow of health, and fwelling lines of beauty, are defpifed, detefted, fcorned, and ridiculed as ignorance, rudeness, rufticity, and fuperftition. Thus we see how moral and natural beauty are connected; and what importance it is, even to the formation of taste, that the manners fhould be feverely fuperintended. This is a talk which ought to take the lead of fcience; for we will venture to fay, that virtue is the foundation of tafte; or, rather, that virtue and taste are built upon the fame foundation of fenfibility, and cannot be disjoined without offering violence to both. But virtue must be informed, and tafte inftructed: otherwife they will both remain imperfect and ineffectual.

Qui didicit patriæ quid debeat, et quid amicis ; Quo fit amore parens, quo frater amandus et boffes;

Quod fit confcripti, qued judicis officium; quæ
Partes in bellum miffi ducis; ille profeció
Reddere perfonæ fcit convenientia cuique.
The critic, who with nice difcernment
knows
[owes;
What to his country and his friends he
How various nature warms the human

breast,

To love the parent, brother, friend, or guest;
What the great functions of our judges are,
Of fenators, and general fent to war;
He can diftinguish with unerring art,
The ftrokes peculiar to each different part.

HOR.

Thus we fee tafte is compofed of nature improved by art; of feeling, tutored by inftruction.

[To be continued.]

An

Mag.

An Account of New Books, Pamphlets, &c.

Every Man bis own Broker. By T. Mortimer. An Impartial Narration of the Reduction of
Pr. 2s. Hooper.

THIS

is a fhrewd farcaftic attack upon those moneyless adventurers of ChangeAlley, who, by the affiitance of effrontery, of private intelligence, and the art of cozening, fupport an extenfive credit, and vary our stocks and public funds as it happens best to fuit their purposes.

Mr. Mordaunt's Complete Steward. Pr. 128.
Sandby.

Mr. Mordaunt has here comprized in two volumes all the knowledge neceffary for the fteward, and indeed feems perfectly to understand the fubject; after which he undertakes to lay down direc

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The private Life of the Romans. Tranflated from the French of M. D'Arnay. Pr. 2s. 6d. DodЛley.

An entertaining fpirited production, tranflated with taste and accuracy. The Modern Part of an Univerfal Hiflory, &c. Vol. XXXI. Price 5s. Miliar.

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Our author makes no addition to what
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Wilfon:

Elegant, pathetic, and harmonious;
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Just as much to the purpose as any
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Poetical

itinerant pedlar, and exercifed his talents fo much to their advantage and fatisfaction, that they elected him their king, and had no caufe to repent of their choice. It was under his aufpices that they fhook off the yoke of the Avares, by whom they had been fubjected. He performed great exploits in the field; and at the fame time managed the domestic administration with furprising fagacity. Some French merchants having been plundered and murdered in the country of the Sclavonians; Dagobert fent an envoy to Samon, to demand fatisfaction, which the Sclavonian prince would have willingly given, had not he been afraid of difobliging his people, by delivering up the affaffins, who had powerful connexions. Befides, the French envoy behaved with intolerable infolence, and did not fcruple to call the whole Sclavonian nation a race of infidel dogs, even in their king's prefence. Samon, incenfed at this outrage, told him, that fince they were dogs, they could bite, and the French fhould foon feel the sharpness of their teeth. Dagobert refolved to anticipate his operations. He invaded Sclavonia with a numerous army, and finding Samón ad vantageously fituated, attacked his camp with great fury; but being repulfed in three fucceffive affaults, retired in great disorder, leaving his tents and baggage to the enemy, who made irruptions as far as Thuringia, and ravaged the country with fire and fword. The Saxons undertook to quell these invaders, provided Dagobert I would remit the tribute of black cattle, which they payed to France; and their propofal was accepted. They accordingly affembled their forces, and gave battle to the Sclavonians, by whom they were defeated. But the victors being routed in their turn, made advances to accommodation, and peace was re-established. Dagobert, imagining the Auftrafians would have more regard to the defence of their frontiers, if they enjoyed a king and court of their own, declared his infant fon Sigebert fovereign of that kingdom, fixed his refidence, and established his family at

Metz; and placed him under the direction of Cunebert, bishop of Cologne, and Adalgife, whom he created duke of the Auftrafian palace. The queen Nautilda being delivered of a fon called Clovis, the bishops and lords of Neuftria and Burgundy, defired that this infant should be appointed their king for the time being, and declared fucceffor to the whole French empire, Auftrafia excepted. They were gratified in these particulars, tho' not without great oppofition on the part of the Auftrafians.

[An. 634.] About this period, the Gaf cons having ravaged the country of Novempopulania, were encountered by the French forces, who drove them back with great slaughter to the Pyrenean mountains. Then they fent deputies to Paris to im plore the clemency of Dagobert, who granted their request; because they had taken fanctuary in the church of St. Denis, for whom the king had a great veneration. The inhabitants of Bretagne made an irruption into France, and Dagobert determined to chaftife them with the army which he had raised to reduce the Gafcons: but, before he proceeded to hoftilities, he fent St. Eligius, afterwards bishop of Noyon, as an ambassador to the court of Judicael, count of Bretagne, to demand fatisfaction. This prince was perfuaded to go in perfon to Paris, and make his fubmiffion to the king, who received him graciously, and all difputes were compromised.

[An. 638.] In a little time after this accommodation, Dagobert died of a dysentery at his pleasure house of Epinay, in the neighbourhood of Paris, in the thirtyfixth year of his age, and was buried in the abbey of St. Denis, to which he had been a great benefactor. He had enployed persons properly qualified, to collate and correct the laws of the feveral nations that were fubject to the French government; and by manifold wo ks of charity, attoned in fome measure for his lewdnefs and profligacy.

[To be continued.]

Eligius, or Elod, was first a gold-smith, then a monk, thirdly, a bishop, and fourthly, a faint.

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An Account of two Magnifient Proceffions, previous to the Coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn,

KING Henry VIII. having divorced

queen Catherine, and married Anne Boleyn, or Boloine, who was defcended from Godfrey Boloine, mayor of the city of London, and intending her coronation, fent to order the lord mayor, not only to make all the preparations neceffary for conducting his royal confort from Greenwich, by water, to the Tower of London, but to adorn the city after the moft magnificent manner for her paffage through it to Westminster.

In obedience to the royal precept, the mayor and common-council not only or dered the company of haberdafhe-s, of which the lord mayor was a member, to prepare a magnificent ftate-barge, but enjoined all the city corporations to provide themselves with barges, and to adorn them in the most superb manner, and efpecially to have them fupplied with good bands of

mufic.

On the 29th of May, the time prefixed for this pompous proceffion by water, the mayor, aldermen, and commons affembled at St. Mary Hill; the mayor and aldermen in fcarlet, with gold-chains, and thofe who were knights, with the collars of SS. At one they went on board the city barge at Billingfgate, which was most magnificently decorated, and attended by fifty noble barges, belonging to the feveral companies of the city, with each its own corporation on board; and, for the better regulation of this proceffion, it was ordered, that each barge should keep twice their lengths afunder.

Thus regulated, the city-barge was preIceded by another mounted with ordnance, and the figures of dragons and other monfters ceffantly emitting fire and smoke, with much noife. Then the city-barge, attended on the right by the haberdashers ftate-barge, called the Bachelors, which

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ments.

The other barges followed in regular order, till they came below Greenwich. On their return the proceff on began with that barge which was before the laft, in which were the major's and theriff's officers, and this was followed by thofe of the inferior companies, afcending to the lord mayor's, which immediately preceded that of the queen, who was attended by the bachelors or fate-barge, with the magnificence of which her majefty was much delighted; and being arrived at the Tower, fhe returned the lord mayor and aldermen thanks for the pomp with which he had been conducted thither.

Two days after, the lord mayor, in a gown of crimson velvet, and a rich collar of SS, attended by the sheriffs and two domeftics in red and white damask, went to receive the queen at the Tower of Lon'don, whence the fheriffs returned to fee that every thing was in order. The ftreets were just before new gravelled from the Tower to Temple-bar, and railed in on each fide, to the intent that the horfes fhould not flide on the pavement, nor the people be hurt by the horses; within the rails, near Grace-church, flood a body of Anfeatic merchants, and next to them the feveral corporations of the city in their formalities, reaching to the aldermen's ftation at the upper end of Cheapfide. On the oppofite fide were placed the city-conftables, dreffed in filk and velvet, with staffs in their hands, to prevent the breaking in of the mob, or any other disturbance. Or this occafion, Gracechurch-street and Cornhill were hung with crimson and fcarlet cloth, and the fides of the houfes of a place, then called Gold"fmith's Row, in Cheapfide, were adorned with gold brocades, velvet, and rich tapeftry.

The proceffion began from the Tower Fff with

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