་ ber, are restored by the warmth of the fire to their motion and elasticity. The souls, espeproper cially of our controversial and political writers, it is well known, are much allied to gunpowder; they lose their force by too great an expansion; but kindled by the least spark of fire, they burst from their garrets with surprising report, to the great terror of a prime minister, or joy of a pastry-cook, and demolish a kingdom, or support a pye. The country, a few months in summer, has undoubtedly its charms; but those who have been locked up, like vegetables, the rest of the year, are then glad to shoot out in all their gaudy colours, and attend to the exercises of the body, rather than of the mind. Though they laugh at the absurdity of following a spaniel up to the knees in snow, they can now with pleasure move obsequious to a jack on a bowling-green. The country is then the scene of action, and nature too luxuriant to herself to permit others to be sedate; so that, I believe, the lively descriptions we meet with of rural pleasures, are of tener written from a remembrance, than under the actual enjoyment of them, as most are said to draw up their travels when they are come home. Italy has received improvements from classic reading, which the classic ground never afforded; and the terrors of Etna have been heightened by the smoke of Newcastle. The robust, the busy, or unthinking part of the world, perhaps, are little sensible of the attractives of the hearth; but the men of speculation, the only men of authority in the point before us, look upon it as their most comfortable retreat. Wearied with the fatigues, or, what is worse, the impertinences of the day, they retire to their own home, as the mind does into her own breast, and solace themselves in the most cheerful part of it. Disguise and restraint are here laid aside, and the soul as well as the body appears the more beautiful for its dishabille. That quintessence of earthly happiness, which, in warmer climates, was expressed by sitting under one's own vine, is with us more sensibly felt by one's own fire-side. The Romans, though they received less benefit from culinary fire than we do, yet paid to it the greatest veneration; they had not only a public temple dedicated to the goddess of it, but the hearth in each house was peculiarly sacred to the Penates. Our old women retain still some marks of that superstition, who read the fates of families from a coal, and see a coffin or purse jump out, just as their fears or their hopes are VOL. I, uppermost; all which, though it shews the weakness of their brain, yet proves how much adapted the fire-side is to promote contemplation. But the fire is not only a friend to us in solitude; it is noted, to a proverb, to be always so in company; it brings us to a nearer converse with one another, by which means it promotes reconcilement between enemies, and mirth and society between friends. There is a sort of sullenness in the tempers of the English, which the fire softens as it does metals, and renders fit for use. How often has there been a room full of visitants, who could not furnish out an hour's conversation, for no other reason but because most of them were at too great a distance from the fire: the same assembly, brought into closer order, and nearer the grate, has proved wonderful good company: it has reminded me of the dogs in a chace (I hope I shall be pardoned my comparison), who open with less frequency when they spread round the field at first setting out; but when the game is started, and they have all one point in view, they run united in full cry. While I am speaking in praise of a sedentary life, I am not afraid to draw comparisons from the pleasures of the most active. Our fire-side dispels no less the gloominess of the brow, and throws upon the countenance not only the glow. ing ruddiness of youth, but its cheerfulness. Here I have seen a gay semicircle of ladies resemble the beauties of the rainbow, without its tears; and at other times, a galaxy of white aprons more enlivening than all the blue in the brightest sky. The bottle, which is generally supposed the greatest cement of good fellowship, occasions too often a turbulent kind of mirth; it is an opium to distempered brains, which puts them into strong agitations for a time, and then into as strong a sleep; whereas true spirits want no such invigorating helps. But I need say no worse of that treacherous friend to society, than that it excludes one sex from its company; and yet, united with that sex by the fire-side, how serene are our pleasures, and how innocent! We have laughter without folly, and mirth without noise thereby reflecting the beams of the sunny bank before us, we make the chimney-corner, I will not say, in Cicero's expression, the forge of wit, but in our modern philosophical term, the focus of it. I know very well I speak in behalf of the fireside to some disadvantage, at a time when we are going to be less sensible of its charms; but our inclinations towards it discover themselves very visibly at parting. How late in the year do we bring ourselves to forego so endearing a sight! And is not that month generally most fatal that threatens us with a divorce from it? How cheerfully, after four months' absence, which we ill sustain, do we run again to the embraces of our truest, our winter friend! For my part, these thoughts flow from a sense of gratitude for the past pleasure it has afforded me: whatever other effects they may have upon the reader, they will convince the fair-one, I hope, of my constancy, and that I am not too much disposed to worship the rising sun. From my fire-side, March 1. UNIVERSAL SPECTATOR, vol. iii. p. 37. The subject of this paper, and the mode in which it is treated, are both pleasing: but, perhaps, no modern writer has spoken with so much feeling and enthusiasm of the pleasures of a winter evening, and the comforts of the domestic fire-side, as our lamented Cowper. I am tempted to add a few of these interesting sketches. Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Oh, Winter! ruler of th' inverted year, |