Empress of Ruffia. awhile enfnare us: but, after the first heat of our paffion is over, they ceafe to charm. Human nature ever feeks variety, and here variety fails. The fair, unskilled in the enchantments of modesty, in vain now folicits our attention, the eye lofes its luftre,as the diamond does its charms, by becoming familiar; every charm fades for want of novelty, and our admiration turns to difguft. Even the unhappy proftiture knows the power of modefty, and endeavours to affume it to catch the wary paflenger. Ö, ye fair, clothe yourselves in this amiable, all powerful, and all attractive virtue; it will arm your perfonal accomplishments with an irrefiftible force, and enhance thofe of your mind; it will give you a confcious fenfe of the dignity of your natures; and, by teaching you precaution, enable you to dif cover merit from affurance, and real love and affection from art and fpecious pretence. Reputation is your only fupport, and, whilst ye perfevere in the practife of modefty, ye will retain it in fpire of the venemous tooth of de 63 A prefent of the highest import S this auguft perfonage is at ance in the minds of the first monarchs in Europe, fhe cannot be an object of total indifference to any part of that fex to whom her wonderful endowments do fuch infinite honour. Nor do I think it informal, while the emprefs of Ruffia threatens to invade that grand and most beautiful metropolis belonging to the Turks, Conftantinople, to quote in this Magazine, dedicated to her fex, a prediction mentioned by Gibbon in his Fall of the Roman Empire. "There was at that time," fays the hiftorian, (meaning about the year nine hundred) a prophecy in Conftantinople which the vulgar of every rank believed, namely, that Ruffia fhall become mafters of that magnificent city. Perhaps," continues Gibbon, "the prefent generation may accomplifi the prediction." The late inhuman maffacre of the Turks by the foldiers of the empress at Ifmael, gives to us alfo a lively remembrance of the ferocious and barbarous manner with which the Turks, when formerly victorious, in that very country, treated all the unhapy unhappy vanquished. Gibbon tells us of one general who buried alive a whole gaurifon, confifting of four thoufand men, and another whofe DESCRIPTION OF delight it was to make pyramids of CRICKHOWEL CASTLE, the heads of thofe he put to death, and on one pyramid was the num ber of ninety thousand heads. Yet of one of thofe favage conquerors Gibbon tells the following rema: k able anecdote : Nevertheless, Mahmud, the ful tan, had fome virtues. Seated in his divan a fubject bowed before him, and accufed one of his Turkish fol diers of having driven him from his house and bed. Keep filence, replied Mahmud till his next viit, and then ourself in perfon will judge and punish the offender. BRE KNOCKSHIRE (Embellished with an elegant South View.) O F this cafle the remains are venerable, but the history is not easily to be acquired. Crickhowel is about two miles and a half beyond Blaen Lleveny castle, and is feated on the river Ufk, over which there is a bridge. It confifts of about an hundred houfes, one of which is a good and commodious inn. It is governed by a bailiff and two A little time after the man pre-burgeffes, has a fmall market on fented himself again before the fulsan, and he followed his guide, and having furrounded the house, to which he brought him, with his guards, he gave order every torch fhould be extinguifhed, and the criminal put to inllant death, who had been feized in the crime of rapine and adultery. No fooner was this and adultery. No fooner was this fentence executed, than the lights were, re-kindled, and Mahmud, on beholding the body of the deceased, fell protrafte in prayer, then demanded fome food of his hoft, which he devoured varocioufly. The man whofe injury was revenged could Thursdays, and a fair, held on May 12, for cattle. fheep, goats, and horfes. It is diftant from London one hundred and forty eight miles weft. There are in this town the remains of Alcfby calle, but it is uncertain who erected it. It has been an expenfive place, and we have given the plate as drawn from it in its prefent fituation. A THOUGHT.. Lot conceal his curiofity at this be- GRATITUDE may be jufly haviour, on which the fultan condefcended to tell him the motives of it. "I had reafon," said he, "to fufpect that none, except one of my fons, could dare to perpetrate fuch an outrage, and I extinguished the lights that my juftice might be blind and inexorable. My prayer was a thanksgiving on the difcovery of the offender, feeing that it was not one of my children; but fo painful has been my anxiety left he fhould prove fo, that I have paffed three whole days without food fince your first complaint." it is this generous principle that cements and harmonizes the minds of different perfons. It is a duty pointed out to us by the light of natural reafon; was it not enforced by Scripture, and fuggefted by the dictates of conscience, yet it is fuch a pleafing esercife of the mind, accompa nied with fuch internal fatisfaction and delight, that the duty is fuff ciently rewarded by the performance. ESSAY ESSAY on LAUGHTER. | things, and not words.-The unex By an AMATEUR. SOME have accounted laughter pected downfall of a chair or table, by which fome trifling mifchief is done in a ludicrous way, ufually excites their laughter in a very great S to be that property, power, or decices, their in a faculty which diftinguishes man from beaft.-But it is to be hoped there are faculties of more confequence to distinguish them, at the fame time that I confefs this to be a very just difference, confidering both man and beat under the general name of animal. No animal that we know of, except man, ever laughs; and for an obvious reafon; laughter is never excited unless when fomething is faid or done which appears to us to be witty, ridiculous, or ludicrous. A dog gives vifible marks of pleasure by bis countenance, and has expreffions of diffatisfaction and of forrow-but nothing that approaches to the fenfation we are fpeaking of, because there is no reflecting power in his mind to excite it. Monkeys are obferved to grin, which comes fo near to the appearance of the human grin, that it is a common term of reproach, "You grin like a monkey."-But as a monkey as well as every other animal is incapable of understanding, this differs very much from laughter. all the little wicked jokes and tricks they play upon another, fuch as pulling the chair from under a perfon juft about to fit down, jottling a companion fo as to make him fpill his punch or wine on his cloaths, and twenty other frolics of a fimilar kind. But the majority of laughers are thofe who have fome notion of wit and humour, though perhaps not in a very great degree, nor of the very beft kind. Such, though they may not relish the polifhed wit and fparkling conceits of our more refined humourifts, yet shake their fides heartily to all the borrowed, ftolen, or made jefts of Joe Miller and Ben Johnfon.-To please fome of the e the jeft must be very plain, and rather low; they do not cafily comprehend the fuperior degrees of wit, and though it be explained to them, they cannot laugh-the effect is loft. Profeffed wits and geniuses fometimes affect to be above laughter, though, like Falftaff, they are the caufe that there is laughter in Savages are not much ufed to other men." But this attempt to laughter for want of fubjects to ex-fupprefs laughter is truly pitiful; cite it. A favage, throughout life, they have probably heard it afferted is a much graver animal than a that frequent laughter is the fign civilized man. I have obferved of of a little mind, a pofition that is Indians juft imported, and begin- contradicted by the experience of ing to be familiarized with the lan-every man who has kept company guage and oddities of this country, with men of the greatest genius and that their laugh has fomething pe-greateft minds. I rather agree with culiarly wild and irregular, as if the Lavater, who fays, that "To abfaculty of laughter, long pent up ftain from laughing, and exciting from ufe, discharged itfelf violently. laughter, merely not to offend, or Very dull and very ignorant perfons to rife giving offence, is a power feldom laugh, for a reafon which is unknown to many a vigorous mind." obvious from what has been faid. I do not, however, ofer to defend As we examine the fcale of that laughter which is at the serious knowledge, we obferve that the expence of another. To hurt a lower clafs of people laugh moft at friend for the fake of a convulfive VOL. XXII. K breath |