be good by fome neceffity. And this neceffity of being good must be impofed upon minifters of state and counfellors, by their fovereigns, whose chief object and endeavours fhould be to promote the honour and welfare of their dominions, and to gain the affections of their people. This is in princes the higheft, and carries along with it all the other parts of wildom. Minifters of state contribute very "much to root out faction, and to fettle the minds of the people, when their own conduct is irreproachable; when it manifeftly appears by all their actions, that they take more care of the common in tereft, than to build up their own fortunes; when they are not over greedy for themselves; when they flew no endeavours to engrofs the prince, or to confine the royal favour only to their own private followers and creatures; when they do not so much confider who are their perfonal friends, as who beit love, and can beft ferve the publick; when they have difinterefted minds, clean hands, and fuch undaunted fpirits, as conftantly to pursue what is right, and to avoid what is wrong, without re. garding either to please or difplease, the great or little vulgar, with a courage that rifes from true fenfe and folid virtue; when they define to have power and intereft rather by their proper merits and endowments, than from the ftation they are in; and when they are of fuch a temper, that they can, like a Pitt and a Temple, with eale and fatiffaction quit thofe pofts, wherein they cannot be of fervice to the public, or which they can no longer bold with their own honour.-Such minifters only can cure and prevent civil diffentions, add strength to the prince, and luftre to the court. Therefore it is moft ruinous both to the king and the subject, and to themfelves, wherever men of mean, or no - abilities for government, venture to approach the throne, and fteer the helm of state. If they have not courage to face danger, nor prudence to avert it ; if they cannot bear with the heats, fol lies, and paffions of mankind; if they fhrink under perils, and are too much elated with profperity; if their genius be low and their thoughts high; if they have neither forefight, quick apprehenfion, nor folid judgment; they ought not, they should not prefume to take upon them the administration of the national affairs. Becaufe without excellent endowments, they deprive the prince of the confidence and affection of his fubjects, provoke them to wrath by bad measures; and alfo, it is impoffible for themselves long to keep their ground in a free country, where the injured people are inquifitive and jealous. Thus they may be called fortunes bubbles blown up, and suddenly blown down; and frequently have perifhed under the weight, which they were not ftrong enough to hear. On the contrary, it is impoffible to carry on a good and wife goverment, if he who acts well is not thoroughly perfuaded, that he shall be juftified; and that intrigues, false infinuations, and malicious whifpers, fhall never be luffered to bear him down, whofe integrity is perfect, and whose. conduct is without reproach. I fhall therefore take my leave of you for the prefent, with this obfervation : As it is not confiftent with the fafety of princes, their wisdom, nor indeed their duty to God, to let their perfonal kindneís to private men go fo far, as to defend minifters, who, by their unskilfulnefs, negligence, or, perhaps by high crimes, are become obnoxious to the whole people; fo in such cases, heretofore, refolute, wife and virtuous princes, have not regarded who were the majo rity, but where truth lay, and how the common welfare might be beft confulted. 8 church-yard, faid to be O. C. per bonam famam, &c. and to have fome reference to Oliver Cromwell, I beg leave to fet the matter right; the real state of the cafe being as follows: On the stone which stands lower than those about it, and near the foot way going to the south door of the church, are engraven the letters and words following, O. W. (the rents in the principles of the church of England, was taught to perfevere in the fame by you at Oxford, and God d-n me if ever I forfake them in London." From the LONDON MAGAZINE. Shenstone's Works. W. in the centre of the O, like a kind Of Books and Writers. From Mr. of cypher) per bonam famam & per inJamiam, ob. Jan. 31. An. Dom. 1994 86. i. e. "Obadiah, thro' evil report and good report, died 31 Jan. 1699, aged 86 years." This was no lefs a person than the famous Obadiah Walker, forty years fellow, and at length master of university college, and if not the author of the Whole Duty of Man, he, beyond a doubt, corrected the theets of the first edition from the press, then lodging in a court near St. Swithin's church, Cannon-street. He was also author of a well received treatife on Education, of an excellent book on the Latin Particles, and of many tracts in the intereft of the church of Rome. At the Revolution he left the college, came to London, and was taken into the house of his generous and grateful pupil, Dr. John Radcliffe, and there continued till his death. He was buried, at the doctor's expence, in Pancras church-yard, and the aforeinentioned tomb-ftone erected over his ashes. Mr. Walker frequently made ufe of all his rhetoric, and of every artifice his fertile mind could fuggeft, in order to reconcile the doctor to the church of Rome. Radcliffe was far from being the most patient man in the world; however he bore these attempts at his converfion, for fome time, with much compofure and fatisfaction; but one evening, over a bottle, the attack was again renewed, with more than ordinary vigour; the doctor put an end to the controversy, in the following words: "My good old master, you are welcome to my houfe, table, chariot, any thing; but you well know how I was born at Wakefield, bred up by my pa IT is often affected by pretenders to fingular penetration, that the affiftance fancy is fuppofed to draw from wine, is merely imaginary and chimerical: that all which the poets have urged on this head, is absolute rant and enthusiasm; and has no foundation in truth or nature. I am inclined to think otherwife: judgment I rea dily allow, derives no benefit from the nobleft cordial. But persons of a phlegmatick conftitution, have thofe excellencies often fuppreffed, of which their imagination is truly capable, by reafon of a lentor, which wine may naturally remove. It raifes low fpirits to a pitch neceffary for the exertion of fancy. It confutes the "Non eft tanti," fo frequently a maxim with fpeculative per fons. It quickens that ambition, or that focial biafs, which makes a person wish to fhine, or to please. Ask what tradition fays of Mr. Addifon's converfation. But inftances in point of converfation come within every one's obfervance. Why then may it not be allowed to produce the fame effects in writing? The affected phrases I hate moit, arê thofe on which your half-wits found their reputation. Such as pretty trifler, fair plaintiff, lovely architect, &c. Doctor Young has a furprizing knack of bringing thoughts from a distance, from their lurking places, in a moment's time. There is nothing fo difagreeable in works of humour as an infipid, unfup posted, vivacity; the very hufks of drollery; bottled fmall beer; a man out-riding his horfe; lewdness and impotence; a fiery actor in a phlegma tick scene; an illiterate, and ftupid preacher difcourfing upon Urim and Thummim, and beating the pulpit cufhion in fuch manner, as though he would make the duft and the truth fly out of it at once, An editor, or a tranflator, collects the merits of different writers; and, forming all into a wreath, bestows it on his author's tomb. The thunder of Demofthenes, the weight of Tully, the judgment of Tacitus, the elegance of Livy; the fublimity of Homer; the majesty of Virgil, the wit of Ovid, the propriety of Horace, the accuracy of Terence, the brevity of Phædrus, and the poignancy of Juvenal (with every name of note he can poffibly recall to mind) are given to fome antient fcribler, in whom affectation and the love of novelty difpofes him to find out beauties. Humour and Vanbrugh against wit and Congreve. The vacant skull of a pedant gene. rally furnishes out a throne and a temple for vanity. May not the custom of fcraping: when we bow, be derived from the antient cultom of throwing the fhoes backwards, off their feet? "A bird in the air fhall carry the tale, and that which hath wings thall tell the matter." Such is also the prefent phrafe" A little bird told it me," -fays nurfe. The preference which fome give to Virgil before Homer is often owingto complexion: fome are more formed to Enjoy the grand; and others the beautiful. But as for invention and fublimity, the most shining qualities of imagination, there is furely no comparison between them. Yet I enjoy Virgil more. Agreeable ideas rife in proportion as they are drawn from inanimates, from vegetables, from animals, and from human creatures. One reason why the found is fometimes an echo to the fenfe, is that the pleasantest objects have often the most harmonious names annexed to them. A man of a merely argumentative caft, will read poetry as profe; will only regard the quantum it contains of folid reafoning: juft as a clown attacks a defart, confidering it as fo much victuals, and regardless of thofe lively or emblematical decorations, which the cook, for many fleepless nights, has endeavoured to bestow upon it. Notwithstanding all that Rouffeau has advanced fo very ingeniously upon plays and players, their profeffion is, like that of a painter, one of the imitative arts, whole means are pleasure, and whole end is virtue. They both alike, for a fubfiitence, fubmit themfelves to public opinion: and the dif honour that has attended the laft, profeff., feems not eafily accountable. As there are evidently words in English poetry that have all the force of a dactyle, and if properly inferted, have no fmall beauty on that account, it seems abfurd to contract, or print them otherwife than at length. "The loofe wall tottering o'er the trembling" fhade," Ogilvy's Day of Judgment, "Trembling" has alfo the force, of a dactyle in a lefs degree-but cannot be written otherwise. I have sometimes thought Virgil fo remarkably mufical, that were his lines read to a musician wholly ignorant of the language, by a person of capacity to give each word its proper accent, he would not fail to distinguish in it, all the graces of harmony. I think I can obferve a peculiar beauty in the addition of a short fyllable, at the end of a blank verfe: I mean, however, in blank dialogue. In other poetry it is as fure to flatten; which may be difcerned in Prior's tranflation of Callimachus, viz.—“ the holy victim"-Dictaan hearst "thōu Birth, Great Rheă-Inferior Reptile-" &c. &c. for the tranflation abounds with them; and is rendered by that means profaick. The cafe is only, prose being an imitation of common life, the nature of an ode requires that it should be lifted fome degrees liigher. But But in dialogue, the language ought never to leave nature the leaft out of fight, and especially, where pity is to be produced, it appears to receive an advantage from the melancholy flow this fyHable occafions. Let me produce a few inftances from Otway's tragedy of the unhappy marriage; and, in order to form a judgment, let the reader fubfitute a word of equal import, but of a fyllable lefs, in the place of the inftances I produce. (Some inftances are num、 berlefs, where they familiarize and give an cafe to dialogue.) "Sure my ill fate's upon me" "With my poor parents, and at rest as "I never fee you now-you have been kinder." "Why was I made with all my fex's softness, Yet want the cunning to conceal its follies? I'll fee Caftalio-tax him with his falfhood?" Should you charge rough, May you be happy in a fairer bride, But none can ever love you, like Monimia." I should imagine, that, in fome or most of thefe examples, a particular degree of tenderness is owing to the fupernumerary fyllable; yet it requires a nice ear for the difpofition of it (for it must not be univerfal); and, with this may give at once an harmonious flow, and natural cafe and energy, tendernefs and variety to the language. A man of dry found judgment attends to the truth of a propofition ;a man of ear and fenfibility, to the mufic of the verfification: a man of a well-regulated tafte, finds the former more deeply imprinted on him, by the judicious management of the latter. It seems to me that what are called notes at the bottom of pages (as well as parentheses in writing) might be generally avoided, without injuring the thread of a difcourfe. It is true it might require fome addrefs to interweave them gracefully into the text; but how much more agreeable would be the effect, than to interrupt the I fhould but weep, and answer you reader by fuch frequent avocations? with fobbing." How much more graceful to play a "When thou art from me every place tune upon one fett of keys, with varied is defert," -"Surely Paradife is round me, And every fenfe is full of thy perfec tion. To hear thee speak might calm a mad man's frenzy, Till by attention, he forgot his for rows." "Till good men with him dead- a ftops, than to feek the fame variety, by an aukward motion from one fett to another? It bears a little hard upon our candour, that "to take to pieces" in our language fignifies the fame as " to expofe;" and "to expose" has a signification, which good nature can as little allow, as can the laws of etymology. The ordinary letters from friend to friend feem capable of receiving a better turn than mere compliment, frivo"Cropt this fair rofe, and rifled all lous intelligence, or profeffions of friendits fweetnefs." fhip continually repeated. The efta"Give me Chamont, and let the blifhed maxim to correspond with ease, world forfake me." has almost excluded every useful subject : ——“I have drank an healing but may not excefs of negligence difcover affectation, as well as its opposite extreme? There are many degrees of intermediate folidity betwixt a Westphalia ham, and a whip fyllabuh. draught For all my cares, and never more shall wrong thee." "When I am laid low in the cold grave forgotten I am aftonished to remark the defect of of ear, which fome tolerably harmonious poets difcover in their Alexandrines. It seems wonderful that an error fo obvious, and so very disguftful to a nice ear, fhould occur fo frequently as the following: "What feraph e'er could preach So choice a lecture as his wond'rous virtue's lore?" The pause being after the fixth fyllable, it is plain the whole emphasis of pronunciation is thrown upon the particle ǎs. It feems most amazing to me,, that this fhould be fo common a blunder. management to make it ferve the purposes of sense or happiness. When a nobleman has once conferred any great favour on his inferior, he ought thenceforth to confider that his requests, his advice, and even his intimations become commands; and to propose matters with the utmost tendernefs. The person whom he obliges has otherwife loft his freedom. Hac ego fi compellar imagine, cuncta refigno: Nec fomnum plebis laudo fatur altilium пес Otia divitiis Arabum liberrimamuto.” "Simplex munditiis" has been efteemed univerfally to be a phrase at once very expreffive, and of very difficult interpretation: at least not very capable to be explained without circumlocution. What objection, can we make to that fingle word, elegant ? which excludes the glare and multiplicity of ornamants on one fide, as much as it does dirt and rufticity on the other. The French use the word naive in O fuch a sense as to be explainable by no English word; unless we will fubmit to restrain ourselves in the application of the word fentimental. It means the language of paffion, or the heart; in The amiable and the fevere, Mr. Burke's fublime and beautiful, by dif ferent proportions are mixed in every character. Accordingly as either is predominant men imprint the paffions of love or fear. The best punch depends on a proper mixture of fugar and lemon. from the UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE. Curious Obfervations on a beautiful purple Dye. oppofition to the language of reflection, M. and the head. The most frequent mistake that is made seems to be that of the means for the end thus riches for happiness, and thus learning for fenfe. The former of thefe is hourly obfervable: and as to the latter, methinks this age affords frequent and furprizing inftances. It is with real concern, that I observe many perfons of true poetical genius, endeavouring to quench their native fire, that they may exhibit learning without a fingle spark of it. Nor is it uncommon to see an author translate a book, when with half the pains he could write a better; but the tranflation favours more of learning, and gives room for notes which exhibit more. Learning, like money, may be of fo base a coin, as to be utterly void of ufe; or, if sterling, may require good VOL. III. de Reaumur, in his difcourfe upon this fubject, read before the Royal Academy of Sciences, obferves, that notwithstanding what has been written by the Moderns concerning the purple colour, fo much valued by the Ancients, the nature of the liquor from which it proceeded, is very little known; and that the tracts relating to it are only a kind of commentary upon fome paffages of Aristotle and Pliny. Whoever defigns to make any difcovery in natural things, ought to confult Nature herfelf, rather than the Naturalifts. We find several particulars concerning the purple colour in the two authors juft now mentioned; but they are more proper to raise our curiofity than to fatisfy it. Though thefe authors, fays M. de Reaumur, have mentioned, in feveral places, that fhell fish, which afforded a |