zing the pleasure arising from prospects or pictures? and the deaf man who shall exclaim against the charms of musical sounds? Well says the Bard of reason, Each want of happiness by hope supplied, Essay on Man. This preference in all men to their own pursuits and acquirements is quaintly ascribed by a French theologian to the mercy of God, "who has taught the frogs to be pleased with their own notes as musical."-See Father Francis Garesse, in his "Somme Theologique.” Conquest of Mexico. Montaigne, speaking of the Mexicans, commends their industry and skill in the arts, and their many virtues. "But as for devotion, observance of the laws, goodness, liberality, loyalty, and plain dealing, it was of service to us that we had not so great a share of those virtues as they for by this advantage they ruined, sold, and betrayed themselves. Take away, 1 say, this disparity from the conquerors, and you take from them all the source of so many victories."-Montaigne's Essays, vol. iii. chap. 6. This palpable irony of the honest old Gascon is as honourable to his character, as disgraceful to the European invaders of South America. The philosophy of the matter is explained by the following lines in a dramatic writer of some credit: Are not conquests good titles? Conquests are great thefts. Then would I rob for kingdoms; and if I obtained, fain would 1 see him that durst call the couqueror a thief. Lilly's Midas. Simplicity. This is one of many words that are more often used than understood. M. Fontenelle, in his Essay on Pastorals, talks much against superfluous ornament in the description of rural life and manners; and yet in his own pastorals all the shepherds and shepherdesses talk and think like ladies of fashion and petits maitres in the coteries of Paris. The late Mr. Mason the poet addresses simplicity, and invokes her aid in the beginning of his "Garden;" but the nymph did not listen to the poet, or Mr. Mason did not know what simplicity is, for his poem is very starch and artificial. The story of the statue, though a love story, is very far from possessing the least pretensions to any of the charms of natural simplicity.. A Lady Warrior. Virgil, though it is admitted, proves himself inferior to Homer in splendour of thought and fertility; yet in judgment he is now and then, perhaps, the superior to the old Grecian bard. On the first view of the passage, Virgil seems more judiciously to have assigned swiftness of foot to Camilla, than Homer did to Achilles; but when we come to consider that running swiftly was one of the great prize exercises in their Olympic games, Homer stands not only exempt from any dispraise, but shews fine judgment in giving to his great hero the epithet of swift-footed-an accomplishment which would have conferred eminent praises ou a candidate at the Olympic games. A Wise Saying of an Ancient. It is true that many sayings of the greater sages confer little credit on their morals, wit, or religion; as very many recorded by Diogenes, Laertius, and others, are cynical, obscene, impious, and dull-the latter quality being the most excusable. The following answer, however, of Chrysippus the stoic deserves to be written in letters of gold. When he was told by some persons that many spoke ill of him, he replied, “ I will 1 live in such a manner, that no one shall believe them." The purest treasure mortal times afford Men are but gilded or but painted clay. Shakespeare, Richard II. John Gay. This elegant poet, in his celebrated fable of the "Hare and many Friends," seems not happy in his comparison of love and friendship : Friendship, like love, is but a name, This singular position cannot be reconciled with our experience of the two different qualities of these passions thus introduced, unless we suppose that John Gay meant a poet's friend-a patron; to one undoubtedly it would be the poet's interest to "stint his flame," and exclusively confine his attentions. Picturesque. Perhaps nothing will more clearly mark out the difference between the picturesque and the beautiful, than the present dress of men in England. When we view a picture of the most comely and graceful man in this dress, and compare another figure in a Turkish habiliment, no one can be so little conversant with the pleasures of the eye, as not to prefer the foreign dress to the formality of the English one. We are indebted to the French for this unpicturesque form of our clothing; a people remarkably deficient in matters of taste, viz. poetry, music, painting, architecture, and sculpture. Syllogisms. How well has the author of Hudibras ridiculed these pedantic instruments to promote disputation, and which make it an endless contest and play of words: This pagan heathenish invention Is good for nothing but contention ; And then they fall to th' argument. On Dress. Canto 3. The utility and propriety of attending to this article in life's economy are daily shewn by the disgust which slovenness produces, and the respect which neatness inspires. A lawyer and a poet have given us wise observations on this subject. My Lord Coke was, as Lloyd reports, remarked |