I have fcribbled this with as much hafte as zeal. Let my opinions be credited for the moment. A month will give irrefragable proof of their juftice. The world is a great rareefhow, in which you find a thousand gilded bawbles for one thing of sterling value. Be difcreet, flow, and cautious. You will foon walk with more alacrity and cheerfulness, when you know the pit-falls in your way. A little experience will make you as wife as I am, but I hope without my misfortunes. You will then feel how little you are to expect from a world, whose indifference may be measured by its refinement. You will learn how rare and how eftimable are fincere friends, and be convinced that prudence is wisdom, and virtue our only peranent good.

STUDIOSUS.

FOR THE MONTHLY ANTHOLOGY.

INEBRIATION

"Is a vice, which often ftains the characters of men of eminence, and debafes genius below the dulnefs of a brute."

AMONG the dangerous evils, which the moralift and the statesman have equally to deplore, INEBRIATION may be confidered as the most alarming. Fatal alike to reputation and to health, difgufting in its appearances and debafing in its effects, it has nevertheless grown into a custom, that by impending weight may bear down the pillars of our national profperity.

The frequent presence of its miferable victims has rendered the fight fo familiar, that we often pafs, without obfervation, the most abject and miserable condition, in which human nature can be placed. It is not, however, our present purpose to trace the progress of this vice through the lower classes of society; caufes natural at least, if not fatisfactory, may be affigned for the prevalence of a practice, which here requires fome strength of mind and fome fortitude to withstand. But when genius and worth, when talents and virtue, when a heart warmed with fympathy and glowing with benevolence, and a mind rich in every fentiment, which conftitutes excellence, falls a miferable victim of deadly inebriation, where fhall we look for a caufe adequate to the effect? To what corrupted principle of nature fhall be afcribed this melancholy degradation, this

contravention of Heaven's defign, this fubjugation of man's nobleft powers, this perverfion of his morals, deftruction of his health, annihilation of his reafon ?

To answer these questions, we fhould examine what there is in the nature of genius, talents, and fenfibility, that men poffeffed of their proud prerogatives are found so often yielding to a miferable vice in common with those, who have no more mind than feeling, and no other feeling, than what is produced by the lash. Genius revolves in a different orbit, it moves in diffimilar directions from the common bodies, that furround it. A man of genius is often characterized by strong paffions difdainful of dominion, and by ardent feelings impatient of restraint. He has generally a little world formed in his own imagination, which he is defirous of governing by himself. Commonly attended by an ardent ambition, which difdains mediocrity, and pants. for distinction, he is frequently met by the folly of the world with a force, which he is unprepared to withstand; an indifference is exhibited towards him more cruel than the warmest oppofition; and while he is preparing to ride on the whirlwinds. of contention, he remains neglected, unnoticed and unknown.

Thus too the man of feeling and benevolence; the chords of his heart, that would vibrate fweeteft melody if touched with care, produce the harshest discord when jarred by an unskilful hand. Imaginary distress fometimes becomes real, if he offers to affift; his proffered aid is treated with contemptuous indifference. Disappointments four the mind. Mifanthropy like a frost about the heart checks thofe pulfations, which were once in unison with the pains or pleasures of its friends.

To these characters INEBRIATION is fometimes a wifhed for opiate; a drug, which lulls in fweet oblivion the painful feelings of every disappointment. It becomes the laft refuge of dif trefs; it drowns recollection; and while the wifeft refort to it to deprive confcience of its fting, the man, who faints under the preffure of repeated difappointments, courts its lethargic influence on his past feelings, and its vivifying power in producing new.

DISAPPOINTMENT then is the cause why we have so often to mourn over genius, benevolence and worth thrown into magnificent ruins by the "foul fiend" INEBRIATION. Yes, fome earnest defire defeated, fome imaginary or real good destroyed, fome scheme of greatness vanished into air, often throws an impenetrable cloud over the future profpects of life. Happiness

is thought to be a vifionary fhade, which can never be folded in their arms; disappointment raises feelings too keen to be endured, and as if to show to what debasement humanity will bend, the intoxicating draught is taken and again repeated till faculty of the foul is paralized and deadened.

Is a man anxious for wealth? His enterprises may not fucceed, his exertions may fail; inftead of gaining from defeat, new motives for induftry, we often find him defpondent and defpairing, and confirming his paft misfortunes by a ruinous intemperance. Do the amiable virtues of female excellence warm the heart of fenfibility? The affection, which is liberally bestowed, often meets not with any return; oftentimes diffimilarity of fortune, family or connexions prevents an union, various other causes as frequently interfere, till hope languishes into defpair, and defpair drinks deep and often of intoxication's fpring.

Here have we to mourn the most melancholy effects of this perversion of nature. Youth with all his charms, "his blushing honours thick upon him," with all the talents, which had raised the fond expectation of friendship, and promised a future harvest of honour large as defire, by a cruel disappointment, fickens at future prospects; a gloomy despondency hangs upon the mind, he drowns his feelings in fpirituous poison, and wears out a miferable existence, encumbered with all the diseases to which intoxication gives rise.

Can we observe the wretched beings without a figh? Can we behold them without pity, and even while we cenfure their want of fortitude, we must commiserate their distress.

The melancholy inftances of confirmed inebriation, which come within our knowledge and are known to proceed from difappointment, should teach us to guard our feelings, to restrain thofe emotions, which concentrate our ideas of happiness to a fingle point. It should teach us to bear the little ills of life with firmnefs, and be armed with fortitude for greater evils. It fhould lead us in difficulty to feek for confolation from that religion, which has a balm for every wound, and treats the fufferer with a delicate tenderness which no art can equal; that speaks in the mild voice of affection, "Come, ye weary and heavy laden, and I will give you reft."

MEMOIRS

OF

WILLIAM COLLINS;

WITH OBSERVATIONS ON HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS. (Concluded from page 208.)

THE MANNERS. AN ODE.

FROM the fubject and fentiments of this ode, it seems not improbable, that the author wrote it about the time, when he left the univerfity; when weary with the pursuit of academical ftudies, he no longer confined himself to the fearch of theoretical knowledge, but commenced the scholar of humanity, to study nature in her works, and man in fociety.

The following farewel to science exhibits a very juft, as well as ftriking picture; for however exalted in theory the platonic doctrines may appear, it is certain that Platonifm and Pyrrhonism are nearly allied:

"Farewel the porch, whofe roof is feen
Arch'd with th' enlivening olive's green;
Where Science, prank'd in tiffued veft,
By Reafon, Pride, and Fancy dreft,
Comes like a bride, so trim array'd,

To wed with Doubt in Plato's fhade !"

When the mind goes in purfuit of vifionary fyftems, it is not far from the regions of doubt; and the greater its capacity to think abstractedly, to reafon and refine, the more it will be exposed to and bewildered in uncertainty.-From an enthusiastic warmth of temper, indeed, we may for a while be encouraged to perfist in some favourite doctrine, or to adhere to fome adopted fyftem'; but when that enthusiasm, which is founded on the vivacity of the paffions, gradually cools and dies away with them, the opinions it fupported drop from us, and we are thrown upon the inhospitable shore of doubt.-A striking proof of the neceffity of fome moral rule of wisdom and virtue, and some fyftem of happiness established by unerring knowledge and unlimited power.

In the poet's addrefs to Humour in this ode, there is one image of fingular beauty and propriety. The ornaments in the Vol. I. No. 6.

hair of Wit are of fuch a nature, and difpofed in fuch a manner, as to be perfectly fymbolical and characteristic:

"Me too amidst thy band admit,

There, where the young-ey'd healthful Wit,
(Whofe jewels in his crifped hair

Are plac'd each other's beams to fhare,
Whom no delights from thee divide)
In laughter loos'd attends thy fide."

Nothing could be more expreffive of wit, which confifts in a happy collision of comparative and relative images, than this reciprocal reflection of light from the difpofition of the jewels. "O Humour, thou whose name is known

To Britain's favour'd ifle alone!"

The author could only mean to apply this to the time, when he wrote, fince other nations had produced works of great humour, as he himself acknowledges afterwards.

"By old Miletus, &c.

By all you taught the Tufcan maids, &c."

The Milefian and Tufcan romances were by no means diftinguished for humour, but as they were the models of that species of writing, in which humour was afterwards employed, they are, probably for that reafon only, mentioned here.

THE PASSIONS;

AN ODE FOR MUSIC.

IF the mufic, which was compofed for this ode, had equal merit with the ode itself, it must have been the most excellent performance of the kind, in which poetry and mufic have, in modern times, united. Other pieces of the fame nature have derived their greatest reputation from the perfection of the mufic that accompanied them, having in themselves little more merit, than that of an ordinary ballad: but in this we have the whole foul and power of poetry-Expreffion that, even without the aid of mufic, ftrikes to the heart; and imagery of power enough to tranfport the attention without the forceful alliance of corresponding founds! what, then, must have been the effect of these united!

It is very obfervable, that though the measure is the fame, in which the mufical efforts of fear, anger and defpair are defcrib