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should so correctly report Dr. Johnson's discourses and opinions, and yet make such foolish observations on them. When Boswell differs from his great friend, his objections are below all criticism. Sir J. Reynolds has indeed observed, in one of his discourses, that the habit of copying great masters in the art of painting, if carried too far, not only impedes the artist's improvement, but benumbs his faculties. When Boswell is employed on an original subject, his History of Corsica, his pen is more fluent, and his mode of thinking more manly. The overshadowing genius of Johnson hurt the humble plant that endeavoured to flourish under it.

Reason and Instinct.

When metaphysicians involve themselves in distinctions about reason and instinct, methinks, poor mortals do not seem to fare so well as irrational animals. Beasts are provided with, instinct, to regulate their conduct, which it seems is another word for 66 reason ready made;" whilst man makes his own reason from scraps of experience, and in general a very indifferent manufacture it proves, and is often fabricated from very raw materials.

Errors and Misapprehensions.

These hallucinations of the mind (as Dr. Darwin calls them) arise from two very different causes,- -an abundance of fancy, or a dulness of intellect. Tom understands you, as he imagines, before you have half enounced your proposition; Jack not till a long time after you have finished it. Thus the faculty divide bilious cases into two kinds; one arising from too little, and the other from too much, bile; yet both are distempers.

Cicero and Lord Chesterfield.

When the pagan philosopher and the christian nobleman undertook to lay down rules for our conduct in life, how widely do they differ in their sentiments and directions. The letters of advice from his Lordship to his son partake much of the heathen; and Cicero, in his Offices, delivers sentiments and precepts worthy of a christian` divine. It must be acknowledged that both writers can boast of much eloquence of diction, and perspicuity of style, though their matter be so different.

Gibbon.

It has been asserted by Gibbon the historian, that no man is an hypocrite in his amusements,

but the truth of this apophthegm may be disputed. Fashion directs many of our sports; and she, tyrant like, presses many into her service against their will. I have seen many a sportsman return from the field rejoiced that the toil was surmounted, and that he was returning to a good dinner at the end of it, without his neck or his bones broken. He, no doubt, cursed, in his heart, an amusement, which neither his habits, his strength, his spirits, nor his pocket, qualified him to pursue; but which fashion commanded him to adopt.

Wine and Books.

Mr. Addison, in one of his Spectators, has said, that "Wine is not to be drank by every one that can swallow." The humour of this whole paper is not less manifest than the truth of this assertion. How few men become better in their tempers or minds, or in their health, by the use of wine, as it too often falls into abuse of it! Thus books are not to be read by all who can boast the privilege of a scholar; for how few men are so happy in their dispositions and taste, or so lucky in their teachers, as not to contract liking to books that corrupt

their morals, or bewilder their understandings.

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Bayle.

The following observation from this learned and acute biographer may have a very good tendency to put philosophy in a real point of view, and may be very useful in these times, when every whipster thinks himself a philosopher. "Philosophy may be compared to certain corrosive powders, that having consumed the proud and spongy flesh of a wound, they would corrode even the quick and sound flesh, rot the bones, and penetrate to the very marrow. Philosophy is proper at first to confute errors; but if she be not stopped there, she attacks truth itself; and when she has full scope, she generally goes so far, that she loses herself, and does not know where to stop."

At Home and Abroad.

These different states are true prosaic representations of the Allegro and Penseroso. Aristotle says that the love of variety is one instance of the infirmities of human nature. However this may be, it is certain that many a man on a visit and at home are different persons outwardly and inwardly. His dress is more spruce, and his humour more gay.

Scarce past the turnpike half a mile,
How all the country seems to smile.

Lloyd's Cit's Country Box.

Most

family men" are leaving a burden behind them, the swarming cares of domestic life, which are not without a sting, and yet I trust not without honey-sweets at times.

Democritus and Heraclitus.

The account of these eminent sages, under the opposite characters of the Laughing and Crying Philosopher, is too ridiculous to be credited by any one who knows that they were both emineut for their learning and wisdom, and not comic or tragic actors. The admission of the truth of such an account of two sages, thus ludicrously pourtrayed, could arise only from the observation of these opposite characters often appearing in common life, as the Poet has described them:

Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh, like parrots, at a bagpiper;

And others of such vinegar aspect,

Tha' they'll not shew their teeth in way of smile,
Thongh Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

Merchant of Venice, act i. scene 1.

Marriage.

"Other legislators, knowing that marriage is the origin of all relations, and consequently the first element of all duties, have endeavoured by every art to make it sacred. The Christian religion, by confining it to pairs, and by rendering that relation

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