train of grooms, jockies and ftable-boys follow the heels of our horfes and hounds in tight boots and leather breeches! each of which carries the clothes of fix men upon his back, cafed in one fkin of flannel under another, like the coats of an onion. The locomotive mania of an Englishman circulates his person, and of course his cash, in every quarter of the kingdom: A Frenchman takes a journey only when he cannot help it, an Englishman has no other reafon but because he likes it; he moves with every fhift of the weather, and follows the changes of the most variable climate in the world; a frosty morning puts him from his hunting, and he is in London before night; a thaw meets him in town, and again he fcampers into the country: He has a horfe to run at Epfom, another at Salisbury, and a third at York, and he must be on the spot to back every one of them; he has a ftud at Newmarket, a miftrefs in London, a fhooting-box in Norfolk, and a pack of fox-hounds in the New Foreft: For one wheel that real business puts in motion, pleasure, whim, ennui turn one hundred: Sicknefs, which confines all the reft of the world, fends him upon his travels; one doctor plunges him into the fea at Brighthelmstone, a fecond fteeps him in warm water at Buxton; and a third fends him to Bath; for the gentlemen of the learned faculty, whether they help us into life, or help us out of it, make us pay toll at each gate; and if at any time their art keeps us alive, the fine we must pay to their ingenuity makes the renewal in fome cafes too hard a bargain for a poor man to profit by. In all other countries upon earth earth a man is contented to be well and pay nothing for being fo, but in England even health is an expenfive article, as we are for ever contriving how to be a little better, and phyficians are too confcientious to take a fee and do nothing for it. If there is any thing like ridicule in this, it is against the patient and not against the physician I would wish to point it; it is in England that the profeffion is truly dignified, and if it is here accompanied with greater emoluments, it is proportionably practifed with fuperior learning; if life is more valuable in a land of freedom than in a land of flavery, why fhould it not be paid for according to its value? In defpotic ftates, where men's lives are in fact the property of the prince, all fubjects fhould in juftice be cured or killed at his proper charge; but where a man's house is his caftle, his health is his own concern. As to the other learned profeffion of the law, to its honour be it fpoken, there is that charming perplexity about it, that we can ruin one another and ourselves with the greateft certainty and facility. It is fo fuperior to all other fciences, that it can turn demonstration into doubt, truth into contradiction, make improbability put matter of fact out of countenance, and hang up a point for twenty years, which common fenfe would decide in as many minutes. It is the glorious privilege of the freemen of England to make their own laws, and they have made fo many, that they can neither count them up nor comprehend ther The parliament of England is without compari the most voluminous author in the world; and there is fuch a happy ambiguity in its works, that VOL. III. D. its its ftudents have as much to fay on the wrong fide of every queftion as upon the right: In all cafes of difcuffion it is one man's business to puzzle, and another's to explain, and though victory be ever fo certain, it is agreed between the parties to make a long battle: There must be an extraordinary faculty of expreffion in the law, when the only parts clearly understood are those which it has not committed to writing. I fhall fay very little in this place upon the facred profeffion of divinity: It is to be lamented that the church of England is not provided with a proper competency for all who are engaged in performing its functions; but I cannot clofe with their opinion, who are for stripping its dignities, and equalizing thofe fplendid benefices, which are at once the glory and support of its establishment. Levellers and reformers will always have the popular cry on their fide, and I have good reafon to know with what inveteracy a man is perfecuted for an opinion which oppofes it; and yet it is hard to give credit to the fincerity and difinterestedness of him who courts popularity, and deny it to the man who facrifices his repofe and ftands the brunt of abufe in defence of what he believes to be the truth. And now having fallen upon the mention of Popularity, I fhall take leave to addrefs that divinity with a few lines picked up from an obfcure author, which, though below poetry, are not quite profe, and on that account pretty nearly fuited to the level of their fubject. "O Popularity, “O Popularity, thou giddy thing! "What grace or profit doft thou bring Thou art not honefty, thou art not fame "I cannot call thee by a worthy name: "To fay I hate thee were not true; "Contempt is properly thy due; I cannot love thee and defpife thee too. Thou art no patriot, but the verief cheat "That ever traffick'd in deceit; "A ftate empiric, bellowing loud Freedom and phrenzy to the mobbing crowd; "And what car'it thou, if thou canst raife "Illuminations and huzzas, "Tho' half the city funk in one bright blaze? "A patriot! no; for thou dost hold in hate "Thou canst affect humility to hide "Thou haft no fenfe of nature at thy heart, "In truth and justice thou haft no delight, "Virtue thou doft not know by fight; D 2 . "But, as the chymift by his skill "Bullies, blafphemers, cheats or Jews "Thou doft but make a ladder of the mob, " 'Thou answer'ft" with a patient fhrug, N° LXXXVI. WHEN it had entered into the mind of Shakespear to form an hiftorical play upon certain events in the reign of Henry the fourth of England, the character of the Prince of Wales recommended itself to his fancy, as likely to fupply him with a fund of dramatic incidents; for what could invention have more happily fuggefted than this character, which hiftory prefented ready to his hands? a riotous diforderly young libertine, in whose nature lay hidden those feeds of heroifm and ambition, which were to burst forth at once to the astonishment of the world and to atchieve the |