puddle, called a bafon, in which is a little bank of rubbish, dignified with the name of ifland. Not a walk but is ftuck full of statues ; and temples and grottoes appear in every field. In fhewing you his grounds, he tells you the price of every statue; and every temple is honoured with the account of what it cost. Not fatisfied with being a man of tafte out of doors, he pretends to connoiffeurfhip and to literature, within. He fhews pictures painted, as he thinks, by mafters, whofe names he has not learned to pronounce. If doubts are started of their originality, Pomponius ftops all further, queftions by the mention of the fum he paid for. them. His library has its ftatues like his fields; it is furnished with a profufion of bronzes and bufts; and the books are as liberally gilded as the rest of his furniture. In talking of them (for he runs all risks to be thought a man of learning) he gets into the most ridiculous blunders. He miftakes a Greek for a Roman author; and, to fhew himself a philofopher, praises a writer, in the belief that he is an infidel, when, in fact, his books are written in defence of religion. The other day, fomebody happening to mention the World, he afked if the author, Mr. Fitzadam, was ftill alive, and if he had written any other book.

Drexelius

Drexelius and Clavius were miferable in the midst of their wealth; Pomponius is ridiculous in the enjoyment of his.

How much is it to be regretted, that thefè perfons had not, in their earlier years, received the benefit of a liberal education? Had their minds been cultivated in their youth, had they then acquired the first principles of elegance and tafte, they would have been enabled, after attaining a fortune, to have enjoyed it with propriety and dignity: while they were reaping the fruits of their honeft induftry and fuccefs, they might have been useful to others, and provedornaments to their country.

No 107. TUESDAY, May 16, 1780.

And love and war take turns like day and night.

ROWE.

N every art and science, practitioners com

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plain how often they are deceived by specious theories and delufive fpeculation. Learned men, in the folitude of their ftudies, are apt to imagine, that nothing which they can reconcile to their own ideas upon paper, can fail to be evinced by actual experiment, or to be reduced into eafy and conftant practice. But those who are to apply the doctrine to the fact, too often find, that what was infallible in the brain of the demonftrator, is fadly fallacious in the hands of him who is to execute it.

There is fomething, however, fo delightful in this art of theory-building, that the experience of a thousand difappointments will never be able to extinguish it. Nor, indeed, should any body wifh for its extinction, when it is remembered, that the perfon who builds is delighted with the expectation of fuccefs, and that other people are often little lefs pleased with tracing the difappointment. The laft are flattered by.

feeing

feeing the fuperiority of fcience thus levelled and brought down; the first folaces himself by imputing the failure to errors in the execution, and, fhutting his closet-door, returns to fresh theories and new fpeculation.

In the course of my reading, I have met with two theoretical descriptions, which pleased me fo much by the appearance they exhibited of felf-fatisfaction in the fages who compofed them, that I cannot refift the defire of laying them before my readers in this day's paper. The first I found in an obfcure author of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who, in tracing the progrefs of certain affections of the mind, thus perfonifies his ideas of Honourable Love.

"When a young man," fays he, "of illuftrious descent, rarely gifted by Nature in mind and body, the which he hath, through the care of his noble parents and his own fpecial industry, much helped by art, firft cometh from the retired haunts of learning into the refort of the world, he is fuddenly fmitten by the beauty and rare accomplishments of fome young damfel, of parentage no lefs honourable than his own, and of endowments no less precious than those wherewith himself is graced. He feeketh all opportunities of converse with, and of courtesy towards her; which neverVOL. III. theless

theless she, out of maiden fhyness, whereof her lady-mother hath well inftructed her, doth, with a determined ftatelinefs of afpect, moft constantly avoid; whereat the young man being grieved in his mind, but nowife damped in his love, he refteth not till by all means he render himself more worthy of her regard, not only by excelling in all gentlemanlike exercises, such as dancing, horsemanship, skill in his rapier, and the like, but likewise in all becoming softness of behaviour, and courtly niceness of speech, adding thereunto the study of sweet poefy, wherewith, in curious fonnets, he fpeaketh the praise of his miftrefs's manifold perfections. But she, nowife yielding to such flatteries, nor abating the rigour of her looks, he sometimes complaineth of his thraldom in more bitter terms, and for a while, as feeking freedom from his fair tyrant, fhunneth her company, and reforteth to that of jovial companions, much given to the sports of the field, and the joys of wine, thinking thereby to efface her image quite from his mind. But, after no great space, he groweth uneafy and unquiet, and, though ftoutly denying all allegiance to that dominion, whereof he hath fworn to be free, he goeth fecretly where he can again steal a glance of her lovely face, by one look of which being, as he deemeth, encouraged to better hope, he reneweth his suit with frefa

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