fiction be offenfive to chriftian ears. I cannot therefore fufficiently admire the judicious difcernment of the great Fenelon, who raifed not his poem on the chriftian model, but chose to inftil into tender minds the pureft maxims of wisdom and virtue, under the agreeable veil of Pagan Mythology*. Had Geffner adopted not the measure only, but the fyftem likewife of this illustrious writer; the uncommon talents he difplays might perhaps have entitled him to a higher and more diftinguished feat in the Temple of Fame. After all that has been faid, it will give me no great uneafinefs, The Traveller, an Oriental Ápologue; from a collection of Oriental Apologues lately published. S foon as I perceived the firft Thould any perfon be able and Afparkling fires of day, I willing to convict me of an error. My vanity indeed, according to the common frailty of authors, might perhaps be mortified for a moinent: but my pleasure, as a reader, would be improved, and the humbling of my literary would, in fome measure, increase my national pride. For, as I efteem Milton's Paradife Loft, with all its imperfections, to be the nobleft mounted my afs, and took the path which leads to the high road of Babylon; fcarce was I there, when in raptures I exclaimed, O how mine eyes do wander with joy o'er yon green hills! with what delicious perfumes do thefe flow'ry meadows embalm the air! I am in a beautiful avenue, my *The French, in general, who cannot be reckoned deficient in tafte, nor bad judges of decorum and propriety, do not seem to approve the grafting of poetical fables on chriftian truths. This will appear from the following pallage in Brumoy, who is defervedly esteemed one of the moft fenfible and judicious of the French critics. Speaking of the ancient mythology, in his Difcours fur la Parallele des Theatres, he fays, "Ce pays fabuleux eft un climat univerfel, où les poëtes de toutes les nations devenus contemporains peuvent fe raffembler en citoyens, et s'entendre fans avoir befoin d'in terpréte. La Religion Chrétienne est trop refpe&table, et ses myflères font trop fublimes, pour fournir a la poefie un fupplement à la fable, comme le fouhaitent M. de Saint Evremond, et queiques uns après lui, aufli peu Poëtes que lui. Carles vrais Poëtes font bien éloignés d'admettre cette réforme chimérique. Il vaut mieux écouter Bouileau, qui dit très bien. De la Religion Chretienne les mystères terribles Art. Poët. Chant. 3. afs afs and I may retire under the fhade of its trees when it fhall feem good unto us. How ferene the heavens! how fine a day! how pure the air I breathe! well mounted as I am, I fhall arrive before dusk. Whilft I uttered thefe words, befotted with joy, I looked kindly down upon my afs, and gently ftroking him, From afar I fee a troop of men and women mounted upon beautiful camels, with a serious and difdainful air, All clothed in long purple robes, with belts and golden fringes, interfperfed with precious ftones. Their camels foon came up with me; I was dazzled by their fplendor, and humbled by their grandeur. Alas! all my endeavours to ftretch myself ferved only to make me appear more ridiculously vain. Mine eyes did measure them inceffantly; fcarce did my head reach their ancles: I was forely vexed from the bottom of my foul, nevertheless did I not give over following them. Then did I with that my afs could raife-himfelf as high as the higheft of camels, and fain would I have feen his long ears peep o'er their lofty heads. I continually incited him by my cries, I prefs'd him with my heels and my halter; and though he quickened his pace. yet fix of his iteps fcarce equalled one of the camels. In fhort, we loft fight of them, and I all hopes of overtaking them. What difference, cried I, between their lot and mine? Why are they not in my place? or why am I not in theirs? Wretch that I am! I fadly journey on alone upon the vileft and the floweft of animals; they, on the contrary.. happy they!.. would blush to have me in their train; so despicable am I in their eyes! Bufied in these reflections, and loft in thought, my ass finding I no longer preffed him, flackened his pace, and prefently flooped to feed upon the thiftles. The grafs was goodly; it feemed to invite him to reft; fo he laid him down: I fell; and like unto him who from a profound fleep awaketh in furprise, fo was I on a fudden awakened from my meditations. As foon as I got up, the voice of thousands came buzzing in my ears; I looked around, and behold a troop ftill more numerous than the former. Thefe were mounted as poorly as myfelf; their linen tunics the fame as mine; their manners feemed familiar; I addreffed the nearest. Do your utmoft, fays I, you will never be able, mounted as you are, to overtake those who are a-head. of you. Let us alone, fays he, for that; the madmen! they rifk their lives; and for what? to arrive a few minutes before us. We are all going to Babylon; an hour looner or later, in linen tunic, or purple robes, on an afs, o. a camel, what matters it, when once one is arrived? nay, upon road, fo you know how to amuse yourfelf? the You, for example; what would R 3 have have become of you had you been mounted on a camel? your fall, fays he, would have been fatal. I fighed, and had nothing to reply. Then, looking behind me, how great was my furprise to fee men, women, and children following us a-foot, fome finging, others fkipping on the tender grafs; their poor backs bowed under their burdens. Then, cried I, transported beyond myself, They go to Babylon as well as I and is it they who rejoice and is it I who am fad? when on a fudden my oppreffed heart became light; and I felt a gentle joy flow within my veins. Ere we got in, we overtook the firftparty; their camels had thrown them; their long purple robes, their belts, and gold fringes interfperfed with diamonds, were all covered with mud. Then, ye powerful of the earth, even then it was I perceived the littleness of human grandeur; but the juft eftimation I made of it, did not render me infenfible to the misfortunes of others. fectly at accord with this poetic fentiment; for reflections on the obligations we have to a parent who has tranfmitted to us a comfortable inheritance, are certainly very likely to ftimulate us to take at least equal pains to transmit it entire, and in as good condition, to our pofterity; and if our parent has been a good husbandman, and left us the inheritance in a fruitful ftate, we have one of the ftrongest inducements to continue that induftrious culture, viz. the fear of shame. If he was no good hufbandman, we have a motive almost as ftrong, viz. Ambition; that it may be justly said, "this chief exceeds his father's fame." If an intercourse of mutual tendernefs betwixt the father and the fon has been preferved, the nobleft kind of inducement will actuate us, viz. a defire that every thing inherited may appear a monument of the kindness of the parent, and the gratitude of the child. If the anceftor and fucceffor have lived together upon the inheritance, a much stronger motive ftill to good agriculture will arife hence; for, as Mr. Pope rightly obferves in fome part of his collection of letters, we cannot miss even an old ftump, with which we have long been acquainted, without fome degree of regret. In the place then which we have lived in long with a parent, who affectionately loved and was loved by us, we cannot view an object which will not awake the memory of fome tender scene, and make us love, and therefore cultivate to the utmoft of our power, the ground which fuggefts fuch pleafing and inftructive melancholy. Such - Such encouragement is it to agriculture, and confequently fuch advantage to the ftate, that men poffefs an inheritance derived from their parents, and on which themfelves and parents have lived! I know a courtier, a man of tafte and letters, who, though generally confined by the nature of his employment in and about town, yet endeavours every fummer to bring down his eldest fon from Westminster-fchool to his country feat, poffeffed and lived upon by his ancestors for feveral generations," that he may learn to love it," as he expreffes himfelf. And furely it is reasonable to fuppofe, that the heirs of fo many ancient families would not have mortgaged, or even fold, their paternal eftates to discharge debts of gaming, &c. if they had been taught to love their country-feats by fpending as much of their infancy, childhood and youth at them, as was confiftent with the fcheme of a liberal education. I read over Tully's philofophical works this fpring, and was much ftruck by the beauty of a paffage in the fecond book of laws, which I marked when I read it, in order to give these reflections, which it fuggefted. I will now tranfcribe the paffage for the fake of the learned, who may not have the book at hand, or may not readily find it; and give a free tranflation of it for the lake of the unlearned. Atticus, having obferved the beauty of the place they were in, a villa of Tully's, acknowledges, that he used to wonder that his friend was fo much delighted with 66 this ruftic retirement: but now, that he has feen it, he wonders if Tully, when absent from Rome, is any where elfe. Tully answers, Ego verò cum licet plureis dies abeff, præfertim hoc tempore anni, et amanitatem hanc et falubritatem fequor: rarò autem licet. Sed nimirum me alia quoque caufa delectat, que te non attingit ita.-A. Qua tandem ifta caufa eft ?-M. Quia, fi verum dicimus, hæc eft mea et hujus fratris mei germana patria. Hinc enim orti ftirpe antiquiffimâ fumus. Hic facra, bic bie magens, jorum multa veftigia. Quid plura? Hanc vides villam, ut nunc quidem eft, lautiûs ædificatam patris noftri ftudio; qui, cum effet infirmâ valetudine, hic fere atatem egit in literis. Sed hoc ipfo in loco quum avas viveret, et antiquo more parva effet villa ut illa Curiana in Sabinis, me fcito effe natum, Quare inst nefcio quid, at latet in animo, ac fenfu meo, quo me plus hic locus fortaffe delecter; fiquidem etiam ille fapientiffimus vir, Ithacam ut videret, immortalitatem fcribitur repudiaffe.-A. Ego vero tibi iftam juf tam caufam puto, cur buc libentiùs venias, atque hunc locum, diligas. Quin ipfe vere dicam, Sum illi villa amicior modò factus, atque huic omni folo, in quo tu ortus et procreatus es: movemur enim, nefcio quo pacto, locis ipfis in quibus eorum qaos diligimus, aut admiramur, adfunt veftigia." That is, "I run hither both for health and delight, when I can steal any number of days, especially at this feafon. This is too feldom in my power. But I have another caufe of delight, which does not touch you." Atticus enquires, Pray, what can that be?" Tully R 4 replies, replies, "To fay the truth, this is the native place both of myself and my brother here. Our family is very ancient. I fee many footsteps of our ancestors, of our family devotions, and connections. Why should I enumerate them? you fee this villa at prefent more elegantly built by the care of my father, who, having bad health, fixed in learned retirement here. I was born here in my grandfather's days, when this villa was fmall, like all its ancient neighbours, like that of Curius in the country of the Sabines. Hence there is (I know not what to call it) a fecret feeling of my mind, which makes this place more delightful to me; as the moft wife Ulyffes is faid to have preferred Ithaca to immortality." Atticus rejoins, "I think that is a good reafon for your fondnefs of this place. To fay truth, I have more affection for this villa and neighbourhood on a fudden, becaufe you was born here; for we are moved, I know not how, with places in which we fee the footfteps of thofe whom we love and admire." The love of places where we are born, or where they have lived whom we love and admire, is reprefented as a kind of mystery by Tully and Atticus; but the principles of true philofophy, that of Mr. Locke, have developed this mystery, and fhewn us how this love is accounted for by affociation of ideas. June 4, 1755. On the great abfurdity of declametions against Luxury; from M. Voltaire. against in verfe and in profe, for two thousand years paft, and it has been always cherished. UXURY has been declaimed What has not been said of the firft Romans, when those robbers ravaged and pillaged the harvests of their neighbours; when, in order to augment their poor villages, they deftroyed the poor villages of the Volfcians and the Samnites; those men were difinterested and virtuous! They could not then steal gold, filver, or diamonds, because there were none in the towns which they facked. Their woods and their marthes produced no partridges nor pheasants, and we applaud their temperance. When by degrees they had plundered and robbed from the bottom of the Adriatic gulph to the Euphrates, and had sense enough to enjoy the fruit of their rapines for feven or eight hundred years; when they cultivated every art, tafted every pleafure, and made even the vanquished alfo taste them, they then ceafed, it is faid, to be wife and good men. All thefe declaimers are reduced to prove that a robber ought never to eat the dinner he has taken, nor to wear the cloaths, nor to adora himself with the ring, he has ftolen. They must throw ali thefe (tis faid) into the river, if they would be deemed honeft men, rather fay, that they ought not to fteal. Condemn robbers when they plunder, but do not treat them like fools when they enjoy their good luck. When a great number |