sun; receive their light from the distribution of his rays, and derive their comfort from his benign agency. The sun, which seems to perform its daily stages through the sky, is in this respect fixed and immoveable; 'tis the great axle of heaven, about which the globe we inhabit, and other more spacious orbs, wheel their stated courses. The sun, though seemingly smaller than the dial it illuminates, is abundantly larger than this whole earth, on which so many lofty mountains rise, and such vast oceans roll. A line extending from side to side through the centre of that resplendent orb, would measure more than eight hundred thou sand miles; a girdle formed to go round its circumference, would require a length of millions. Were its solid contents to be estimated, the account would overwhelm our understanding, and be almost beyond the power of language to express. Are we startled at these reports of philosophy? Are we ready to cry out in a transport of surprize, "How mighty is the Being who kindled such a prodigious fire, and keeps alive from age to age such an enormous mass of flame!" let us attend our philosophic guides, and we shall be brought acquainted with speculations more enlarged and more inflaming. This sun, with all his attendant planets, is but a very little part of the grand machine of the universe: every star, though in appearance no bigger than the diamond that glitters upon a lady's ring, is really a vast globe, like the sun in size and in glory; no less spacious, no less luminous, than the radiant source of the day: so that every star is not barely a world, but the centre of a magnificent system; has a retinue of worlds, irradiated by its beams, and revolving round its attractive influence, all which are lost to our sight in unmeasurable wilds of ether. That the stars appear like so many diminutive and scarce distinguishable points, is owing to their immense and inconceivable distance. Immense and inconceivable indeed it is, since a ball, shot from a loaded cannon, and flying with unabated rapidity, must travel at this impetuous rate almost seven hundred thousand years, before it could reach the nearest of these twinkling luminaries. While, beholding this vast expanse, I learn my own extreme meanness, I would also discover the abject littleness of all terrestrial things. What is the earth, with all Fer ostentatious scenes, compared with this astonishing grand furniture of the skies? What, but a dim speck, hardly per ceivable in the map of the universe? It is observed by a very judicious writer, that if the sun himself, which enlightens that part of the creation, was extinguished, and all the host of planetary worlds, which move about him, were annihilated, they would not be missed by an eye that can take in the whole compass of nature, any more than a grain of sand upon the seashore. The bulk of which they consist, and the space whichthey occupy, is so exceedingly little in comparison of the whole, that their loss would leave scarce a blank in the immensity of God's works. If then, not our globe only, but this whole system, be so very diminutive, what is a kingdom or a country? What are a few lordships, or the so much admired patrimonies of those who are styled wealthy? When I measure them with my own little pittance, they swell into proud and bloated dimensions: but when I take the universe for my standard, how scanty is their size, how contemptible their figure! they shrink into pompous nothings. Spectator. $108. The Character of Toby Bumper. It is one of the greatest advantages of education, that it encourages an ingenuous spirit, and cultivates a liberal disposition. We do not wonder that a lad who has never been sent to school, and whose faculties have been suffered to rust at the hall-house, should form too close an intimacy with his best friends, the groom and the game-keeper; but it would amaze us to see a boy well educated cherish this ill placed pride, of being, as it is called, the head of the company. A person of this humble ambition will be very well cantent to pay the reckoning, for the honour of being distinguished by the title of 'the gentleman, while he is unwilling to asst ciate with men of fashion, lest they should be his superiors in rank or fortune; or with men of parts, lest they should exceed him in abilities. Sometimes indeed it happens that a person of genius and learning will stoop to receive incense of mean and illiterate flatterers in a porter-house and cyder cellar; and I remember to have heard of a poet, who was once caught in a brothel, in the very fact of reading bis verses to the good old mother, and a circle of her daughters. There are some few, who have been led into low company, merely from an affecta tion of humour, and from a desire of seeing the droller scenes of life, have descended to associate with the meanest of the mob, and picked their cronies from lanes and alleys. The most striking instance I know of this low passion for drollery, is Toby Bumper, a young fellow of family and fortune, and not without talents, who has taken more than ordinary pains to degrade himself; and is now become almost as low a character, as any of those whom he has chosen for his companions. Toby will drink purl in a morning, smoke his pipe in a night-cellar, dive for a dinner, or eat black puddings at Bartholomew-fair, for the humour of the thing. He has also studied, and practises, all the plebeian arts and exercises, under the best masters; and has disgraced himself with every impolite accomplishment. He has had many a set-to with Buckhorse; and has now and then the honour of receiving a fall from the great Broughton himself. Nobody is better known among the hackney-coachmen, as a brother-whip; at the noble game of prison-bars, he is a match even for the natives of Essex and Cheshire; and he is frequently engaged at the Artillery ground with Faulkner and Dingate at cricket; and is himself esteemed as good a bat as either of the Bennets. Another of Toby's favourite amusements is, to attend the executions at Tyburn; and it once happened, that one of his familiar intimates was unfortunately brought thither; when Toby carried his regard to his deceased friend so far, as to get himself knocked down in endeavouring to rescue the body from the surgeons. As Toby affects to mimic, in every particular, the art and manner of the vulgar, he never fails to enrich his conversation with their emphatic oaths and expressive dialect, which recommends him as a man of excellent humour and high fun, among the Choice Spirits at Comus's Court, or at the meeting of the Sons of sound Sense and Satisfaction. He is also particularly famous for singing those cant songs, drawn up in the barbarous dialect of sharpers and pick-pockets; the humour of which he often heightens, by screwing up his mouth, and rolling about a large quid of tobacco between his jaws. These and other like accomplishments frequently promote him to the chair in these facetious societies. Toby has indulged the same notions of humour, even in his amours; and is wellkuown to every street-walker from Cheapside to Charing-cross. This has given se veral shocks to his constitution, and often involved him in unlucky scrapes. He has been frequently bruised, beaten, and kicked, by the bullies of Wapping and Fleetditch; and was once soundly drubbed by a soldier for engaging with his trull. The last time I saw him he was laid up with two black eyes, and a broken pate, which he got in a midnight skirmish, about a mistress, in a night-cellar. Connoisseur. §109. Causes of national Characters. The vulgar are very apt to carry all national characters to extremes; and hav ing once established it as a principle, that any people are knavish, or cowardly, or ignorant, they will admit of no exception, but comprehend every individual under the same character. Men of sense condemn these undistinguishing judgments; though at the same time they allow, that each nation has a peculiar set of manners, and that some particular qualities are more frequently to be met with among one people than among their neighbours. The common people in Switzerland have surely more probity than those of the same rank in Ireland; and every prudent man will, from that circumstance alone, make a difference in the trust which he reposes in each. We have reason to expect greater wit and gaiety in a Frenchman than in a Spaniard, though Cervantes was born in Spain. An Englishman will naturally be thought to have more wit than a Dane, though 'Tycho Brahe was a native of Denmark. Different reasons are assigned for these national characters, while some account for them from moral, and others from physical causes. By moral causes I mean all circumstances which are fitted to work on the mind, as motives or reasons, and which render a peculiar set of manners habitual to us. Of this kind are the nature of the government, the revolutions of public affairs, the plenty or penury in which the people live, the situation of the nation with regard to its neighbours, and such like circumstances. By physical causes, I mean those qualities of the air and climate, which are supposed to work insensibly on the temper, by altering the tone and habit of the body, and giving a particular complexion; which, though reflection and reason may sometimes overcome yet will it prevail among the generality of mankind, and have an influence on their manners. That the character of a nation will very much depend on moral causes must be • evid nt. evident to the most superficial observer; since a nation is nothing but a collection of individuals, and the manners of individuals are frequently determined by these causes. As poverty and hard labour debase the minds of the common people, and render them unfit for any science and ingenious profession, so where any government becomes very oppressive to all its subjects, it must have a proportional effect on their temper and genius, and must banish all the liberal arts from amongst them. The same principle of moral causes fixes the characters of different professions, and alters even the disposition which the particular members receive from the hand of nature. A soldier and a priest are different characters in all nations and all ages, and this difference is founded on circumstances, whose operation is external and unalterable. The uncertainty of their life makes soldiers lavish and generous, as well as brave: their idleness, as well as the large societies which they form in camps or garrisons, inclines them to pleasure and gallantry; by their frequent change of company they acquire good breeding and an openness of behaviour; being employed only against a public and open enemy, they become candid, honest, and undesigning; and as they use more the labour of the body than the mind, they are commonly thoughtless and ignorant. "Tis a trite but not altogether a false maxim, that priests of all religions are the same; and though the character of the profession will not in every instance prevail over the personal character, yet is it sure always to predominate with the greater number. For as chemists observe, that spirits when raised to a certain height are all the same, from whatever materials they be extracted; so these men being elevated above humanity, acquire an uniform character which is entirely their own, and which is in my opinion, generally speaking, not the most amiable that is to be met with in human society; it is in most points opposite to that of a soldier, as is the way of life from which it is Hume's Essays. derived. §110. Chastity an additional Ornament to Beauty. There is no charm in the female sex, that can supply the place of virtue. Without innocence beauty is unlovely, and quality contemptible; good-breeding degenerates into wantenness, and wit into im pudence. It is observed, that all the vir. tues are represented by both painters and statuaries under female shapes; but if any one of them has a more particular title to that sex, it is Modesty. I shall leave it to the divines to guard them against the opposite vice, as they may be overpowered by temptations; it is sufficient for me to have warned them against it, as they may be led astray by instinct. Spectator. §111. Chastity a valuable Virtue in a Man. But as I am now talking to the world yet untainted, I will venture to recommend chastity as the noblest male qualification. It is, methinks, very unreasonable, that the difficulty of attaining all other good habits, is what makes them honourable; but in this case the very attempt is become very ridiculous: but in spite of all the raillery of the world, truth is still truth, and will have beauties inseparable from it. I should, upon this occasion, bring examples of heroic chastity, were I not afraid of having my paper thrown away by the modish part of the town, who go no farther, at best, than the mere absence of ill, and are contented to be rather irreproachable than praise-worthy. In this particular, a gentleman in the court of Cyrus reported to his majesty the charms and beauty of Panthea; and ended his panegyric by telling him, that since he was at leisure, he would carry him to visit her. But that prince, who is a very great man to this day, answered the pimp, because he was a man of quality, without roughness, and said with a smile, " If I should visit her upon your introduction, now I have leisure, I don't know but I might go again upon her own invitation when I ought to be better employed." But when I cast about all the instances which I have met with in all my reading, I find not one so generous, so honest, and so noble, as that of Joseph in holy writ. When his master had trusted him so unreservedly (to speak it in the emphatical manner of the scrip ture) "He knew not aught he had, save the bread which he did eat," he was so unhappy as to appear irresistibly beautiful to his mistress; but when this shameless woman proceeds to solicit him, how gal lant is his answer! " Behold my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and hath committed all that he hath to my hand; there is none greater in the house than I, neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife." The same argument, which a base mind would have made to itself for committing the evil, was to this brave man the greatest motive for forbearing it, that he could do it with impunity: the malice and falsehood of the disappointed woman naturally arose on that occasion, and there is but a short step from the practice of virtue to the hatred of it. It would therefore be worth serious consider ation in both sexes, and the matter is of importance enough to them, to ask themselves whether they would change lightness of heart, indolence of mind, cheerful meals, untroubled slumbers, and gentle dispositions, for a constant pruriency which shuts out all things that are great or indifferent, clouds the imagination with insensibility and prejudice to all manner of delight, but that which is common to all creatures that extend their species ? A loose behaviour, and an inattention to every thing that is serious, flowing from some degree of this petulancy, is observable in the generality of the youth of both sexes in this age. It is the one common face of most public meetings, and breaks in upon the sobriety, I will not say severity, that we ought to exercise in churches. The pert boys and flippant girls are but faint followers of those in the same incli. nations at more advanced years. I know not who can oblige them to mend their manners; all that I pretend to, is to enter my protest, that they are neither fine gentlemen nor fine ladies for this behaviour. As for the portraitures which I would propose, as the images of agreeable men and women, if they are not imitated or regarded, I can only answer, as I remember Mr. Dryden did on the like occasion, when a young fellow, just come from the play of Cleomenes, told him, in raillery, against the continency of his principal character; If I had been alone with a lady, I should not have passed my time like your Spartan: "That may be," answered the bard with a very grave face; " but give me leave to tell you, Sir, you are no hero." Guardian. §112. The Characters of Gamesters. The whole tribe of gamesters may be ranked under two divisions: Every man who makes carding, dicing, and betting his daily practice, is either a dupe or a sharper; two characters equally the objects of envy and admiration. The dupe He plays, not that he has any delight in cards and dice, but because it is the fashion; and if whist or hazard are proposed, he will no more refuse to make one at the table, than among a set of hard drinkers, he would object drinking his glass in turn, because he is not dry. There are some few instances of men of sense, as well as family and fortune, who' have been dupes and bubbles. Such an unaccountable itch of play has seized them, that they have sacrificed every thing to it, and have seemed wedded to seven's the main, and the odd trick. There is not a more melancholy object than a gentleman of sense thus infatuated. He makes himself and family a prey to a gang of villains more infamous than highwaymen; and perhaps, when his ruin is completed, he is glad to join with the very scoundrels that destroyed him, and live upon the spoil of others, whom he can draw into the same follies that proved so fatal to himself. Here we may take a survey of the character of a sharper; and that he may have no room to complain of foul play, let us begin with his excellences. You will perhaps be startled, Mr. Town, when I mentioned the excellences of a sharper; but a gamester, who makes a decent figure in the world, must be endued with many amiable qualities, which would undoubtedly appear with great lustre, were they not eclipsed by the odious character affixed to his trade. In order to carry on the common business of his profession, he must be a man of quick and lively parts, attended with a stoical calmness of temper, and a constant presence of mind. He must smile at the loss of thousands; and is not to be discomposed, though ruin stares him in the face. As he is to live among the great he must not want politeness and affability; he must be submissive, but not servile; he must be master of an ingenuous liberal air, and have a seeming openness of behaviour. These must be the chief accomplishments of our hero; but lest I should be accused of giving too favourable a like. ness of him, now we have seen his outside, let us take a view of his heart. There we shall find avarice the main spring that SH moves moves the whole machine. Every gamester is eaten up with avarice; and when this passion is in full force, it is more strongly predominant than any other. It conquers even lust; and conquers it more effectually than age. At sixty we look at a fine woman with pleasure, but when cards and dice have engrossed our attention, women and all their charms are slighted at five-and-twenty. A thorough gamester renounces Venus and Cupid for Plutus and Ames-ace, and owns no mistress of his heart except the queen of trumps. His insatiable avarice can only be gratified by hypocrisy; so that all those specious virtues already mentioned, and which, if real, might be turned to the benefit of mankind, must be directed in a gamester towards the destruction of his fellow-creatures. His quick and lively parts serve only to instruct and assist him in the most dexterous method of packing the cards and cogging the dice; his fortitude, which enables him to lose thousands without emotion, must often be practised against the stings and reproaches of his conscience, and his liberal deportment and affected openness is a specious veil to recommend and conceal the blackest villainy. It is now necessary to take a second survey of his heart; and as we have seen its vices, let us consider its miseries. The covetous man, who has not sufficient courage or inclination to encrease his fortune by bets, cards, or dice, but is contented to hoard up thousands by thefts less public, or by cheats less liable to uncertainty, lives in a state of perpetual suspicion and terror: but the avaricious fears of the gamester are infinitely greater. He is constantly to wear a mask; and like Monsieur St. Croix, coadjuteur to that famous empoisonneuse, Madame Brinvillier, if his mask falls off, he runs the hazard of being suffocated by the stench of his own poisons. I have seen some examples of this sort not many years ago at White's. I am uncertain whether the wretches are still alive; but if they are still alive, they breathe like toads under ground, crawling amidst old walls, and paths long since unfrequented. But supposing that the sharper's hypocrisy remains undetected, in what a state of mind must that man be, whose fortune depends upon the insincerity of his heart, the disingenuity of his behaviour, and the false bias of his dice! What sensations zmust he suppress, when he is obliged to smile, although he is provoked; when he must look serene in the height of despair; and when he must act the stoic, without the consolation of one virtuous sentiment, or one moral principle! How unhappy must he be, even in that situation from which he hopes to reap most benefit: I mean amidst stars, garters, and the various herds of nobility! Theirlordships are not always in a humour to play: they choose to laugh; they choose to joke; in the mean while our hero must patiently await the good hour, and must not only join in the laugh, and applaud the joke, but must humour every turn and caprice to which that set of spoiled children, called bucks of quality, are liable. Surely his brother Thicket's employment, of sauntering on horseback in the wind and rain till the Reading coach passes through Smallberry-green, is the more eligible, and no less honest occupation. The sharper has also frequently the mortification of being thwarted in his designs. Opportunities of fraud will not for ever present themselves. The false dice cannot be constantly produced, nor the packed cards always be placed upon the table. It is then our gamester is in the greatest danger. But even then, when he is in the power of fortune, and has nothing but mere luck and fair play on his side, he must stand the brunt, and perhaps give away his last guinea, as coolly as he would lend a nobleman a shilling. Our hero is now going off the stage, and his catastrophe is very tragical. The next news we hear of him is his death, atchieved by his own hand, and with his own pistol. An inquest is bribed, he is buried at midnight-and forgotten before sun-rise. These two portraits of a sharper, where in I have endeavoured to shew different likenesses in the same man, put me in mind of an old print, which I remember at Oxford, of Count Guiscard. At first sight he was exhibited in a full-bottomed wig, a hat and a feather, embroidered cloaths, diamond buttons, and the full court dress of those days; but by pulling a string the folds of the paper were shifted, the face only remained, a new body came forward, and Count Guiscard appeared to be a devil. Connoisseur. $118. The TATLER's Advice to his Sister Jenny; a good Lesson for young Ladies. My brother Tranquillus being gone out of town for some days, my sister Jenny sent |