began to spread their pallets, and when they had compleated The Spectator, nobody will difpute their having given a very finished pourtrait of the age they lived in. Where they stop tradition may begin; fo that I think an observing man, with all these aids and no fhort experience of his own to help them out, may form a pretty close comparifon in his own thoughts upon the subject. Here I must remind the reader that I am speaking of manners as they respect fociety. Now we can readily refer to certain times paft, when the manners of men in this country were infufferably boisterous and unpolished; we can point to the period, when they were as notoriously reserved, gloomy, dark and fanatical; we know when profligacy threw off all appearances, and libertinifm went naked as it were, into all focieties; we can tell when pedantry was in general fashion, when duelling was the rage, and the point of honour was to be defined by a chain of logic that would have puzzled Aristotle; we can turn to the time, when it was reputable to get drunk, and when the fine gentleman of the comedy entertains his mistress with his feats over the bottle, and recommends himself to her good graces by fwearing, blustering, and beating up the watch: We know there are fuch words in the language as fop and beau, and fome can remember remember them in daily ufe; many are yet living, who have had their full-bottomed wigs brought home in a chair, and many an old lady now crowds herself into a corner, who once hooped herself in a circle hardly less than Arthur's round table: Here I may be told that dress is not manners; but I muft contend that the manners of a man in a full-bottomed wig muft partake fomething of the stiffness of the barber's buckle; nor do I fee how he can walk on foot at his ease, when his wig goes in a chair. How many of us can call to mind the day, when it was a mark of good-breeding to cram a poor furfeited guest to the throat, and the most focial hours of life were thrown away in a continual interchange of folicitations and apologies? What a ftroke upon the nerves of a modeft man was it then to make his first approaches, and perform his awkward reverences to a folemn circle all rifing on their legs at the awful moment of his entry! and what was his condition at departing, when, after having performed the fame tremendous ceremonies, he faw his retreat cut off by a double row of guards in livery, to every one of whom he was to pay a toll for free paffage! A man will now find his fuperiors more acceffible, his equals more at their ease, and his inferiors more mannerly than in any time paft. The effects of public education, I education, travel and a general intercourse with mankind, the great influx of foreigners, the variety of public amufements, where all ranks and degrees meet promifcuoufly, the conftant refort to bathing and water - drinking places in the fummer, and above all the company of the fair fex, who mix fo much more in fociety than heretofore, have with many other conspiring causes altogether produced fuch an ease and fuavity of manners throughout the nation, as have totally changed the face of fociety, and levelled all those bars and barriers, which made the approaches to what was called good company fo troublesome, and obftructed the intercourse between man and man. Here then I fhall conclude upon this topic, and pass to the Arts, which I said were the ornaments of fociety. As I am perfuaded my argument will not be contested in this quarter, I need spend few words upon fo clear a point. If ever this country faw an age of artists, it is the present; Italy, Spain, Flanders and France have had their turn, but they are now in no capacity to difpute the palm, and England ftands without a rival; her painters, fculptors and engravers are now the only schools, properly fo called, in Europe; Rome will bear witness that the English artists are as fuperior in talents as they are in numbers to those of all na tions befides. I referve the mention of her architects as a feparate clafs, that I may for once break in upon my general rule by indulging myfelf in a prediction, (upon which I am willing to stake all my credit with the reader) that when the modeft genius of a Harrifon fhall be brought into fuller difplay, England will have to boast of a native architect, which the brightest age of Greece would glory to acknowledge. Τ N° XCV. Μακάριος ὅστις ουσίαν καὶ νοῦν ἔχει· Ασχημοσύνης γὰρ γίνετ ̓ ἐνίοις αἴτιος. (MENANDER. Circulatore.) "Abundance is a bleffing to the wife; HERE are fo many ftriking advantages in the poffeffion of wealth, that the inheritance of a great eftate, devolving upon a man in the vigour of mind and body, appears to the the eye of fpeculation as a lot of fingular felicity. There are fome countries, where no fubjec can properly be faid to be independant; but in a constitution so happily tempered as our's, that bleffing feems peculiarly annexed to affluence. The English landed gentleman, who can fet his foot upon his own foil, and say to all the world -This is my freehold; the law defends my right: Touch it who dare!-is furely as independant as any man within the rules of fociety can be, fo long as he encumbers himself by no exceedings of expence beyond the compafs of his income: If a great eftate therefore gives a man independance, it gives him that, which all, who do not poffefs it, feem to figh for." When I confider the numberlefs indulgencies, which are the concomitants of a great fortune, and the facility it affords to the gratification of every generous paffion, I am mortified to find how few, who are poffeffed of these advantages, avail themselves of their fituation to any worthy purposes: That happy temper, which can preserve a medium between diffipation and avarice, is not often to be found, and where I meet one man, who can laudably acquit himself under the teft of profperity, I could inftance numbers, who deport themselves with honour under the vifita |