yourself; so, in writing, the properest manner is to show an attempt at humour, which will pass upon most for humour in reality. To effect this, readers must be treated with the most perfect familiarity; in one page the author is to make them a low bow, and in the next to pull them by the nose; he must talk in riddles, and then send them to bed, in order to dream for the solution. He must speak of himself, and his chapters, and his manner, and what he would be at, and his own importance, and his mother's importance, with the most unpitying prolixity; now and then testifying his contempt for all but himself, smiling without a jest, and without wit professing vivacity. Adieu. LETTER LIII. FROM THE SAME. THOUGH naturally pensive, yet I am fond of gay company, and take every opportunity of thus dismissing the mind from duty. From this motive, I am often found in the centre of a crowd; and wherever pleasure is to be sold, am always a purchaser. In those places, without being remarked by any, I join in whatever goes forward; work my passions into a similitude of frivolous earnestness, shout as they shout, and condemn as they happen to disapprove. A mind thus sunk for a while below its natural standard, is qualified for stronger flights, as those first retire who would spring forward with greater vigour. Attracted by the serenity of the evening, my friend and I lately went to gaze upon the com pany in one of the public walks near the city. Here we sauntered together for some time, either praising the beauty of such as were handsome, or the dresses of such as had nothing else to recommend them. We had gone thus deliberately forward for some time, when, stopping on a sudden, my friend caught me by the elbow, and led me out of the public walk. I could perceive by the quickness of his pace, and by his frequently looking behind, that he was attempting to avoid somebody who followed: we now turned to the right, then to the left, as we went forward he still went faster, but in vain; the person whom he attempted to escape hunted us through every doubling, and gained upon us each inoment: so that at last we fairly stood still, resolving to face what we could not avoid. Our pursuer soon came up, and joined us with all the familiarity of an old acquaintance. My dear Drybone, cries he, shaking my friend's hand, where have you been hiding this half a century? Positively I had fancied you were gone to cultivate matrimony and your estate in the country. During the reply, I had an opportunity of surveying the appearance of our new companion: his hat was pinched up with peculiar smartness; his looks were pale, thin, and sharp; round his neck he wore a broad black riband, and in his bosom a buckle studded with glass; his coat was trimmed with tarnish ed twist; he wore by his side a sword with a black hilt; and his stockings of silk, though newly washed, were grown yellow by long service. I was so much engaged with the peculiarity of his dress, that I attended only to the latter part of my friend's reply, in which he complimented Mr Tibbs on the taste of his clothes, and the bloom in his countenance : Pshaw, pshaw, Will, cried the figure, no more of that, if you love me: you know I hate flattery, on my soul I do; and yet, to be sure, an intimacy with the great will improve one's ap pearance, and a course of venison will fatten; and yet, faith, I despise the great as much as you do: but there are a great many damn'd honest fellows among them; and we must not quarrel with one half, because the other wants weeding. If they were all such as my Lord Mudler, one of the most good-natured creatures that ever squeezed a lemon, I should myself be among the number of their admirers. I was yesterday to dine at the Duchess of Piccadilly's. My lord was there. Ned, says he to me, Ned, says he, I'll hold gold to silver, I can tell where you were poaching last night. Poaching, my lord, says I; faith you have missed already; for I staid at home, and let the girls poach for me. my way; I take a fine woman as some animals do their prey-stand still, and swoop, they fall into my mouth. That's Ah, Tibbs, thou art a happy fellow, cried my companion, with looks of infinite pity; I hope your fortune is as much improved as your understanding in such company? Improved, replied the other; you shall know, but let it go no farther, a great secret-five hundred ayear to begin with. -My lord's word of honour for it-his lordship took me down in his own chariot yesterday, and we had a tete-a-tete dinner in the country, where we talked of nothing else. I fancy you forget, Sir, cried I, you told us but this moment of your dining yesterday in town. Did I say so? replied he coolly; to be sure if I said so, it was so dined in town: egad, now I do remember, I did dine in town; but I dined in the country too; for you must know, my boys, I eat two dinners. By the bye, I am grown as nice as the devil in my eating. I'll tell you a pleasant affair about that: We were a select party of us to dine at Lady Grogram's, an affected piece, but let it go no farther; a secret: well, there happened to be no assafœtida in the sauce to a turkey, upon which, says I, I'll hold a thousand guineas, and say, done first, that-but dear Drybone, you are an honest creature, lend me half-a-crown for a minute or two, or so, just till-but hearkee, ask me for it the next time we meet, or it may be twenty to one but I forget to pay you. When he left us, our conversation naturally turned upon so extraordinary a character. His very dress, cries my friend, is not less extraordinary than his conduct. If you meet him this day, you find him in rags; if the next, in em- | the world laughs at me, I laugh at the world, broidery. With those persons of distinction LETTER LIV. TO THE SAME. as a I AM apt to fancy I have contracted a new acquaintance whom it will be no easy matter to shake off. My little beau yesterday overtook me again in one of the public walks, and slapping me on the shoulder, saluted me with an air of the most perfect familiarity. His dress was the same as usual, except that he had more powder in his hair, wore a dirtier shirt, a pair of temple spectacles, and his hat under his arm. As I knew him to be a harmless amusing little thing, I could not return his smiles with any degree of severity; so we walked forward on terms of the utmost intimacy, and in a few minutes discussed all the usual topics preliminary to particular conversation. and so we are even. My Lord Trip, Bill You Thus saying, without waiting for a reply, he took me by the arm, and hauled me along. We passed through many dark alleys and winding ways; for, from some motives to me unknown, he seemed to have a particular aver. sion to every frequented street; at last, however, we got to the door of a dismal- dismal-looking house in the outlets of the town, where he informed me he chose to reside for the benefit of the air. We entered the lower door, which ever seemed to lie most hospitably open; and I began to ascend an old and creaking staircase, when, as he mounted to show me the way, he demanded, whether I delighted in prospects; to which answering in the affirmative, " Then," says he, "I shall show you one of the most charming in the world, out of my window: we shall see the ships sailing, and the whole coun The oddities that marked his character, how-try for twenty miles round, tip top, quite high. ever, soon began to appear; he bowed to several well-dressed persons, who by their manner of returning the compliment, appeared perfect strangers. At intervals he drew out a pocket book, seeming to take memorandums before all the company, with much importance and assiduity. In this manner he led me through the length of the whole walk, fretting at his absurdities, and fancying myself laughed at not less than him by every spectator. When we were got to the end of our procession, "Blast me," cries he, with an air of vivacity, "I never saw the park so thin in my life before? there's no company at all to-day; not a single face to be seen." No company! interrupted I peevishly; no company where there is such a crowd? why, man, there's too much. What are the thousands that have been laughing at us but company? " Lord, my dear," returned he, with the utmost good humour, "you My Lord Swamp would give ten thousand guineas for such a one; butas I sometimes pleasantly tell him, I always love to keep my prospects at home, that my friends may visit me the oftener.” By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would permit us to ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously pleased to call the first floor down the chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice from within demanded, who's there? My conductor answered that it was him. But this not satisfying the querist, the voice again repeated the demand; to which he answered louder than before; and now the door was opened by an old woman with cautious reluctance. When we were got in, he welcomed me to his house with great ceremony, and turning to the old woman, asked where was her lady "Good troth," replied she in a peculiat seem immensely chagrined: but blast me, when | dialect, "she's washing your twa shirts at the next door, because they have taken an oath | and, after having shown my respect to the house, against lending out the tub any longer." "My two shirts," cried he in a tone that faltered with confusion, "what does the idiot mean?" " I ken what I mean weel enough," replied the other: "she's washing your twa shirts at the next door, because" " Fire and fury, no more of thy stupid explanations," cried he; "go and inform her we have got company. Were that Scotch hag to be for ever in my family, she would never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent of her's, or testify the smallest specimen of breeding or high life; and yet it is very surprising too, as I had her from a parliament man, a friend of mine from the Highlands, one of the politest men in the world; but that's a secret." We waited some time for Mrs Tibbs'arrival, during which interval I had a full opportunity of surveying the chamber and all its furniture; which consisted of four chairs with old wrought bottoms, that he assured me were his wife's embroidery; a square table that had been once japanned; a cradle in one corner, a lumber cabinet in the other; a broken shepherdess, and a mandarine without a head, were stuck over the chimney; and round the walls several paltry unframed pictures, which, he observed, were all his own drawing. "What do you think, Sir, of that head in the corner, done in the manner of Grisoni? there's the true keeping in it; it is my own face, and though there happens to be no likeness, a Countess offered me a hundred for its fellow; 1 refused her, for, hang it, that would be mechanical you know." The wife at last made her appearance, at once a slattern and a coquette; much emaciated, but still carrying the remains of beauty. She made twenty apologies for being seen in such odious dishabille, but hoped to be excused, as she had stayed all night at the gardens with the Countess, who was excessively fond of the horns. "And, indeed, my dear," added she, turning to her husband, "his lordship drank your health in a bumper."-" Poor Jack," cries he, "a dear good-natured creature, I know he loves me; But I hope, my dear, you have given orders for dinner; you need make no great preparations neither, there are but three of us; something elegant, and little will do; a turbot, an ortolan, a-" " Or what do you think, my dear," interrupts the wife," of a nice pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dressed with a little of my own sauce?"-"The very thing," replies he, "it will eat best with some smart bottled beer; but be sure to let us have the sauce his Grace was so fond of. hate your immense loads of meat, that is country all over; extremely disgusting to those who are in the least acquainted with high life." I according to the fashion of the English. by giving the old servant a piece of money at the door, I took my leave; Mrs Tibbs assuring me, that dinner, if I stayed, would be ready at least in less than two hours. LETTER LV. FROM FUM HOAM TO ALTANGI, THE DISCONTENTED WANDERER. THE distant sounds of music, that catch new sweetness as they vibrate through the longdrawn valley, are not more pleasing to the ear than the tidings of a far distant friend. I have just received two hundred of thy letters by the Russian caravan, descriptive of the manners of Europe. You have left it to geographers to determine the size of their mountains and extent of their lakes, seeming only employed in discovering the genius, the government, and disposition of the people. In those letters I perceive a journal of the operations of your mind upon whatever occurs, rather than a detail of your travels from one building to another; of your taking a draught of this ruin, or that obelisk; of paying so many Tomans for this commodity, or laying up a proper store for the passage of some new wilderness. From your account of Russia, I learn that this nation is again relaxing into pristine barbarity; that its great emperor wanted a life of a hundred years more, to bring about his vast design. A savage people may be resembled to their own forests; a few years are sufficient to clear away the obstructions to agriculture; but it requires many, ere the ground acquires a proper degree of fertility; the Russians, attached to their ancient prejudices, again renew their hatred to strangers, and indulge every former brutal excess. So true it is, that the revolutions of wisdom are slow and difficult; the revolutions of folly or ambition precipitate and easy. We are not to be astonished, says Con. fucius, *that the wise walk more slowly in their road to virtue, than fools in their passage to vice; since passion drags us along, while wisdom only points out the way. The German empire, that remnant of the majesty of ancient Rome, appears from your account, on the eve of dissolution. The members of its vast body want every tie of government to unite them, and seem feebly held together only by their respect for ancient insti. tutions. The very name of country and countrymen, which in other nations makes one of the strongest bonds of government, has been By this time my curiosity began to abate, and my appetite to increase: the company of fools may at first make us smile, but at last never fails of rendering us melancholy; I therefore pretended to recollect a prior engagement, I vol. i. p. 312. * Though this fine maxim be not found in the Latin edition of the morals of Confucius, yet we find it is as cribed to him by Le Conte Etat present de la Chine, here for some time laid aside; each of its inhabitants seeming more proud of being called from the petty state which gives him birth, than by the more well known title of German. This government may be regarded in the light of a severe master and a feeble opponent. The states which are now subject to the laws of the empire, are only watching a proper occasion to fling off the yoke, and those which are become too powerful to be compelled to obedience, now begin to think of dictating in their turn. The struggles in this state are, therefore, not in order to preserve, but to destroy the ancient constitution: if one side succeeds, the government must become despotic; save them in distress, and without virtue to save themselves, their government is poor, and their private wealth will serve but to invite some neighbouring invader. I long with impatience for your letters from England, Denmark, Holland, and Italy; yet why wish for relations which only describe new calamities, which show that ambition and avarice are equally terrible in every region! Adieu. LETTER LVI. if the other, several states will subsist without FROM LIEN CHI ALTANGI, TO FUM HOAM, FIRST even nominal subordination; but in either case, the Germanic constitution will be no more. Sweden, on the contrary, though now seemingly a strenuous assertor of its liberties, is probably only hastening on to despotism. Their senators, while they pretend to vindicate the freedom of the people, are only establishing their own independence. The deluded people will, however, at last perceive the miseries of an aristocratical government; they will perceive that the administration of a society of men, is ever more painful than that of one only. They will fly from this most oppressive of all forms, where one single member is capable of controlling the whole, to take refuge under the throne, which will ever be attentive to their complaints. No people long endure an aristocratical government, when they can apply elsewhere for redress. The lower orders of people may be enslaved for a time by a number of tyrants, but upon the first opportunity, they will ever take a refuge in despotism or democracy. As the Swedes are making concealed approaches to despotism, the French, on the other hand, are imperceptibly vindicating themselves into freedom. When I consider that those parliaments (the members of which are all created by the court, the presidents of which can act only by immediate direction,) presume even to mention privileges and freedom, who till of late, received directions from the throne with implicit humility; when this is considered, I cannot help fancying that the genius of freedom has entered that kingdom in disguise. If they have but three weak monarchs more successively on the throne, the mask will be laid aside, and the country wil' certainly once more be free. When I compare the figure which the Dutch make in Europe with that they assume in Asia, I am struck with surprise. In Asia, I find them the great lords of all the Indian seas; in Europe, the timid inhabitants of a paltry state. No longer the sons of freedom, but of avarice: no longer assertors of their rights by courage but by negotiations, fawning on those who insult them, and crouching under the rod of every neighbouring power. Without a friend to PRESIDENT OF THE CEREMONIAL ACADEMY AT PEKIN IN CHINA. I HAVE frequently admired the manner of criticising in China, where the learned are assembled in a body to judge of every new publication; to examine the merits of the work, without knowing the circumstances of the author; and then to usher it into the world with proper marks of respect or reprobation. In England there are no such tribunals erected; but if a man thinks proper to be a judge of genius, few will be at the pains to contradict his pretensions. If any choose to be critics, it is but saying they are critics, and from that time forward, they become invested with full power and authority over every caitiff who aims at their instruction or entertainment. As almost every member of society has, by this means, a vote in literary transactions, it is no way surprising to find the rich leading the way here, as in other common concerns of life; to see them either bring the numerous herd of voters by their interest, or browbeating them by their authority. A great man says, at his table, that such a book is no bad thing. Immediately the praise is carried off by five flatterers, to be dispersed at twelve different coffee-houses, from whence it circulates, still improving as it proceeds, through forty-five houses; where cheaper liquors are sold; from thence it is carried away by the honest tradesman to his own fire-side, where the applause is eagerly caught up by his wife and children, who have been long taught to regard his judgment as the standard of perfection. Thus, when we have traced a wide extended literary reputation up to its original source, we shall find it derived from some great man, who has, perhaps, received all his education and English from a tutor of Berne, or a dancing master of Picardy. The English are a people of good sense; and I am the more surprised to find them swayed in their opinions by men who often, from their very education, are incompetent judges. Men who, being always bred in affluence, see the world only on one side, are surely improper judges of human nature they may indeed describe a ceremony, a pageant, or a ball; but how can they pretend to dive into the secrets dinals, with all their scarlet, and tricked out in of the human heart, who have been nursed up only all the fopperies of scholastic finery. in forms, and daily behold nothing but the same insipid adulation, smiling upon every face? Few of them have been bred in that best of schools, the school of adversity; and by what I can learn, fewer still have been bred in any school at all. From such a description, one would think, that a droning duke, or a dowager duchess, was not possessed of more just pretensions to taste than persons of less quality; and yet whatever the one or the other may write or praise, shall pass for perfection, without farther examination. A nobleman has but to take a pen, ink and paper, write away through three large volumes, and then sign his name to the title-page; though the whole might have been before more disgusting than his own rent-toll, yet signing his name and title gives value to the deed; title being alone equivalent to taste, imagination, and genius. As soon as a piece, therefore, is published, the first questions are, Who is the author? Does he keep a coach? Where lies his estate? What sort of a table does he keep? If he happens to be poor, and unqualified for such a scrutiny, he and his works sink into irremediable obscurity; and too late he finds, that having fed upon turtle is a more ready way to fame than having disgusted Tully. The poor devil against whom fashion has set its face, vainly alleges, that he has been bred in every part of Europe where knowledge was to be sold; that he has grown pale in the study of nature and himself; his works may please upon the perusal, but his pretensions to fame are entirely disregarded: he is treated like a fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws the audience into raptures. The fiddler indeed may in such a case console himself by thinking, that while the other goes off with all the praise, he runs away with all the money: but here the parallel drops; for while the nobleman triumphs in unmerited applause, the author by profession steals off with-nothing. The poor, therefore, here, who draw their pens auxiliary to the laws of their country, must think themselves very happy if they find, not fame, but forgiveness and yet they are hardly treated; for as every country grows more polite, the press becomes more useful; and writers become more necessary, as readers are supposed to increase. In a polished society, that man, though in rags, who has the power of enforcing virtue from the press, is of more real use than forty stupid brahmins, or bonzes, or guebres, though they preached never so often, never so loud, or never so long. That man, though in rags, who is capable of deceiving even indolence into wisdom, and who professes amusement while he aims at reformation, is more useful in refined society than twenty car LETTER LVII. TO THE SAMF. As the man in black takes every opportunity of introducing me to such company as may serve to indulge my speculative temper, or gratify my curiosity, I was by his influence lately invited to a visitation dinner. To understand this term, you must know, that it was formerly the custom here for the principal priest to go about the country once a-year, and examine upon the spot, whether those of subordinate orders did their duty, or were qualified for the task; whether their temples were kept in proper repair, or the laity pleased with their administration. Though a visitation of this nature was very useful, yet it was found to be extremely troublesome, and for many reasons utterly inconvenient; for as the principal priests were obliged to attend at court, in order to solicit prefer. ment, it was impossible they could at the same time attend in the country, which was quite out of the road to promotion: if we add to this the gout, which has been time immemorial a clerical disorder here, together with the bad wine and ill-dressed provisions that must infallibly be served up by the way, it was not strange that the custom has been long discontinued. At present, therefore, every head of the church, instead of going about to visit his priests, is satisfied if his priests come in a body once a year to visit him; by this means the duty of half a-year is despatched in a day. When assembled, he asks each in turn how they have behaved, and are liked; upon which, those who have neglected their duty, or are disagreeable to their congregation, no doubt accuse themselves, and tell him all their faults; for which he reprimands them most severely. The thoughts of being introduced into a company of philosophers and learned men, (for such I conceived them,) gave me no small pleasure. I expected our entertainment would resemble those sentimental banquets, so finely described by Xenophon and Plato: I was hoping some Socrates would be brought in from the door, in order to harangue upon divine love; but as for eating and drinking, I had prepared myself to be disappointed in that particular. I was apprised that fasting and temperance were tenets strongly recommended to the professors of Christianity, and I had seen the frugality and mortification of the priests of the East; so that I expected an entertainment where we should have much reasoning and little meat. Upon being introduced, I confess I found no great signs of mortification in the faces or persons of the company. However, I imput |