son who collected alms, came round: as he passed, he bowed to the cross; he then bowed to the cardinal, and afterward bowed to the new archbishop. The whole nation is taught to bow: the church to the crucifix, the law to the state, the people to the bayonet, and church, law, state, people, and bayonet, to the citizen first consul. "After the ceremony of consecration' was over, monsieur Fésch gave a stage embrace, equally or even more unmeaning and unfelt, to the cardinal and to the assisting bishops. He ought to have embraced the tailor, who so kindly dressed him and tied his shoes. I forgot myself: the latter office was performed by a menial of still inferior rank. In France, wherever there is ceremony, each man accu rately knows his place and office. This is a knowledge which other re publics cannot boast. "With respect to the motley crowd without the choir, they stood wedged together behind two rows of soldiers; their bodies motionless, but their tongues in full activity." CLASSICAL 1 CLASSICAL AND POLITE CRITICISM. EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE of W. CowPER, Esq. [From his LIFE by W. HAYLEY, Esq. Vol. III.] Vita, labore, dedit mortalibus.” "Excellence is providentially placed beyond the reach of indolence, that success may be the reward of industry, and that idleness may be punished with obscurity and disgrace. So long as I am pleased with an employment, I am capable of unwearied application, because my feelings are all of the intense kind; I never received a little pleasure from any thing in my life; if I am delighted, it is in the extreme. The unhappy consequence of this temperature is, that my attachment to any occupation seldom outlives the novelty of it. That nerve of my imagina tion, that feels the touch of any particular amusement, twangs under the energy of the pressure with so much vehemence, that it soon becomes sensible of weariness and fatigue. Hence I draw an unfa vourable prognostic, and expect that I shall shortly be constrained to look out for something else. Then, perhaps, I may string the harp again, and be able to comply with your demand. "Now for the visit you propose to pay us, and propose not to pay us; the hope of which plays upon your paper, like a jack-o-lantern upon the ceiling. This is no mean simile, for Virgil, you remember, uses it. 'Tis here, 'tis there, it vanishes, it returns, it dazzles you, a cloud interposes, and it is gone. However just the comparison, I hope you will contrive to spoil it, and that your final determination will be to come. As to the masons you expect, bring them with you-bring brick, bring mortar, bring every thing, that would oppose itself to your journey-all shall be wel come. I have a green-house that is too small; come and enlarge it; build me a pinery; repair the gar den-wall, that has great need of your assistance; do any thing; you cannot do too much; so far from thinking you and your train troublesome, we shall rejoice to see you, upon these, or upon any other terms you can propose. But to be serious-You will do well to consider, that a long summer is before you that the party will not have such another opportunity to meet, this great while-that you may finish your masonry long enough before winter, though you should not begin this month; but that you cannot always find your brother and sister Powley at Olney. These, and some other considerations, such as the desire we have to sce you, and the pleasure we exFect from seeing you all together, may and I think ought to overcome your scruples. "From a general recollection of lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, I thought, and I remember I told you so, that there was a striking resemblance between that period and the present. But I am now reading, and have read three volumes of Hume's History, one of which is engrossed entirely by that subject. There I see reason to alter, my opinion, and the seeming resemblance has disappeared, upon a more particular information. Charles succceded to a long train of arbitrary princes, whose subjects had tamely acquiesced in the despotism of their masters, till their privileges were all forgot. He did but tread in their steps, and exemplify the principles in which he had been brought up, when he oppressed his pple. But just at that time, unapply for the monarch, the subject began to see, and to see that ne had a right to property, and freedom. This marks a sufficient difference between the disputes of that day, and the present. But there was another main cause of that rebellion, which, at this time, does not operate at all. The king was devoted to the hierarchy; his subjects were puritans, and would not bear it. Every circumstance of ecclesiastical order and dis. cipline was an abomination to them, and in his esteem an indis pensible duty; and though at last, he was obliged to give up many things, he would not abolish episcopacy, and till that were done, his concessions could have no conciliating effect. These two concurring causes were indeed suffi cient to set three kingdoms in a flame. But they subsist not now, nor any other, I hope, notwithstanding the bustle made by the patriots, equal to the production of such terrible events. "Yours, my dear friend, "TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. "My dear friend, "If authors could have lived to adjust and authenticate their own text, a commentator would have been an useless creature. For instance-if Dr. Bentley had found, or opined that he had found, the word tube, where it seemed to present itself to you, and had judged the subject worthy of his critical acumen, he would either have jus tified the corrupt reading, or have substituted some invention of his own, in defence of which he would have exerted all his polemical abili ties, and have quarrelled with half the literati in Europe. Then suppose the writer himself, as in the present case, to interpose, with a gentle whisper, thus-If you look again, doctor, you will perceive, that what appears to you to be tube, is neither more nor less than the simple monosyllable ink; but I wrote it in great haste, and the want of sufficient precision in the charac ter has occasioned your mistake: you will be satisfied, especially when you see the sense elucidated by the explana 7 explanation. But I question, whe- critic useless. "James Andrews, who is my Michael Angelo, pays me many compliments on my success in the art of drawing; but I have not yet the vanity to think myself qualified to furnish your apartment. If I should ever attain to the degree of self-opinion requisite to such an undertaking, I shall labour at it with pleasure. I can only say, though I hope not with the affected modesty of the abovementioned doctor Bentley, who said the same thing, Me quoque dicunt "A crow, rook, or raven, has that you thought me entertaining, and clever, and so forth-now you must know, I love praise dearly, especially from the judicious, and those who have so much delicacy themselves, as not to offend mine in giving it. But then, I found this consequence attending, or likely to attend, the eulogium you bestowed-If my friend thought me witty before, he shall think me ten times more witty hereafter-where I joked once, I will joke five times, and, for one sensible remark, I will send him a dozen. Now this foolish vanity would have spoilt me quite, and would have made me as disgusting a letter-writer as Pope, who seems to have thought, that unless a sentence was weli turned, and every period pointed with some conceit, it was not worth the carriage. Accordingly he is to me, except in very few instances, the most disagreeable maker of epistles that ever I met with. I was willing, therefore, to wait till the impression your commendation had made upon the foolish part of me was worn off, that I might scribble away as usual, and write my uppermost thoughts, and those only. "You are better skilled in eccle"W. C." siastical law than I am-Mrs. P. desires me to inform her, whether a parson can be obliged to take an apprentice. For some of her hus TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. "June 8, 1780. band's opposers, at "My dear friend, "It is possible I might have indulged myself in the pleasure of writing to you, without waiting for a letter from you, but for a reason which you will not easily guess. Your mother communicated to me the satisfaction you expressed in my correspondence, threaten to clap one upon him. Now I think it would be rather hard, if clergymen, who are not allowed to exercise any handicraft whatever, should be subject to such an imposition. If Mr. P. was a cordwainer, or a breechesmaker, all the week, and a preacher only on Sundays, it would Cowper's fable of the Raven concluded this letter. seem seem reasonable enough, in that case, that he should take an apprentice, if he chose it. But even then, in my poor judgment, he ought to be left to his option. If they mean by an apprentice, a pupil, whom they will oblige him to hew into a parson, and, after chipping away the block that hides the minister within, to qualify him to stand erect in a pulpit-that, indeed, is another consideration— But still, we live in a free country, and I cannot bring myself even to suspect, that an English divine can ་ you was here, I have not a Latin book in the world to consult, or correct a mistake by; and some years have past since I was aschoolboy. "An English versification of a 'Apt emblem of a virtuous maid! possibly be liable to such compul-Graceful and useful all she does, "I thank you for your two inscriptions, and like the last the best; the thought is just, and fine-but the two last lines are sadly damaged by the monkish jingle of peperit and reperit. I have not yet translated them, nor do I promise to do it, though at some idle hour perhaps I may. In return, I send you a translation of a simile in the Paradise Lost. Not having that poem at hand, I cannot refer you to the book, and page; but you may hunt for it, if you think it worth your while. It begins Blessing, and blest, where'er she goes: 'Pure-bosom'd, as that watery glass, "And heav'n reflected in her face!" "Now this is not so exclusively applicable to a maiden, as to be the sole property of your sister Shuttleworth. If you look at Mrs. Unwin, you will see, that she has not lost her right to this just praise by marrying you. "Your mother sends her love to all, and mine comes jogging along by the side of it. 66 "Yours, "W. C." TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. "Dear sir, "June 12, 1780. that "We accept it as an effort of your friendship, that you could prevail with yourself, in a time of such terror and distress, to send us repeated accounts of your and Mrs. Newton's welfare: you supposed, with reason enough, we should be apprehensive for your safety, situated, as you were, ap parently, within the reach of so much danger. We rejoice that you have escaped it all, and that, except the anxiety which you must have felt, both for yourselves and others, you have suffered nothing upon |