courfe, painted before me in the way of he has written to the works of this poet, reafons very ingeniously, and I imagine for the most part very rightly, upon the caufe of this extraordinary phænomenon; but I cannot altogether agree with him, that fome improprieties in language and thought which occur in thefe poems have arifen from the blind poet's imperfect conception of vifual objects, fince fuch improprieties, and much greater, may be found in writers even of an higher clafs than Mr. Blacklock, and who, notwithstanding, poffeffed the faculty of feeing in its full perfection. Here is a poet doubtlefs as much affected by his own defcriptions as any that reads them can be; and yet he is affected with this ftrong enthufiafm by things of which he neither has, nor can poffibly have any idea, further than that of a bare found; and why may not thofe who read his works be affected in the fame manner that he was, with as little of any real ideas of the things defcribed? The fecond inftance is of Mr. Saunderfon, profeffor of mathematics in the univerfity of Cambridge. This learned man had acquired great knowledge in natural philofophy, in aftronomy, and whatever sciences depend upon mathematical kill. What was the most extraordinary, and the moft to my purpose, he gave excellent lectures upon light and colours; and this man taught others the theory of thofe ideas which they had, and which he himself undoubtedly had not. But the truth is, that the words red, blue, green, answered to $99. The real Characteristics of the Whig him as well as the ideas of the colours themselves; for the ideas of greater or leffer degrees of refrangibility being applied to thefe words, and the blind man being inftructed in what other respects they were found to agree or to disagree, it was as eafy for him to reafon upon the words, as if he had been fully mafter of the ideas. Indeed it must be owned he could make no new difcoveries in the way of experiment. He did nothing but what we do every day in common difcourfe. When I wrote this laft fentence, and ufed the words every day. and common difcourfe, I had no images in my mind of any fucceffion of time; nor of men in conference with each other: nor do I imagine that the reader will have any fuch ideas on reading it. Neither when I spoke of red, blue, and green, as well as of refrangibility, had I thefe feveral colours, or the rays of light paffing into a different medium, and there diverted from their and Tory Parties. When we compare the parties of Whig and Tory to thofe of Roundhead and Cavalier, the most obvious difference which appears betwixt them, confifts in the principles of paffive obedience and indefeasible right, which were but little heard of among the Cavaliers, but became the univerfal doctrine, and were eiteemed the true characteristic of a Tory. Were these principles pushed into their most obvious confequences, they imply a formal renunciation of all our liberties, and an avowal of abfolute monarchy; fince nothing can be a greater abfurdity than a limited power which must be refitted, even when it exceeds its limitations. But as the moft rational principles are often but a weak counterpoife to paffion, 'tis no wonder that thefe abfurd principles, fufficient, according to a celebrated author, to fhock the common § 100. Painting dijagreeable in Women. A lady's face, like the coat in the Tale of a Tub, if left alone, will wear well; but if you offer to load it with foreign ornaments, you deftroy the original ground. common fenfe of a Hottentot or Samoiede, nouncing monarchy; and a friend to the were found too weak for that effect. The fettlement in the proteftant line. Tories, as men, were enemies to opprefHume's Eays. fion; and alfo, as Englishmen, they were enemies to defpotic power. Their zeal for liberty was, perhaps, lefs fervent than that of their antagonists, but was fufficient to make them forget all their general principles, when they faw themselves openly threatened with a fubverfion of the ancient government. From these fentiments arofe the Revolution; an event of mighty confequence, and the firmest foundation of British liberty. The conduct of the Tories, during that event and after it, will afford us a true infight into the nature of that party. In the first place, they appear to have had the fentiments of a True Briton in them in their affection to liberty, and in their determined refolution not to facrifice it to any abstract principles whatsoever, or to any imaginary rights of princes. This part of their character might juftly have been doubted of before the Revolution, from the obvious tendency of their avowed principles, and from their almost unbounded compliances with a court, which made litt'e fecret of its arbitrary defigns. The Revolution fhewed them to have been in this respect nothing but a genuine court party, fuch as might be expected in a British government; that is, lovers of liberty, but greater lovers of monarchy. It muit, however, be confeft, that they carried their monarchical principles farther, even in practice, but more fo in theory, than was, in any degree, confiftent with a limited government. Secondly, Neither their principles nor affections concurred, entirely or heartily, with the fettlement made at the Revolution, or with that which has fince taken place. This part of their character may feem contradictory to the former, fince any other fettlement, in thofe circumftances of the nation, muft probably have been dangerous, if not fatal to liberty. But the heart of man is made to reconcile contradictions; and this contradiction is not greater than that betwixt paffive obedience, and the refiftance employed at the Revolution. A Tory, therefore, fince the Revolution, may be defined in a few words to be a lover of monarchy, though without abandoning liberty, and a partizan of the family of Stuart; as a Whig may be defined to be a lover of liberty, though without re Among other matter of wonder on my first coming to town, I was much furprised at the general appearance of youth ameng the ladies. At prefent there is no dif tinction in their complexions between a beauty in her teens and a lady in her grand climacteric; yet at the fame time I I could not but take notice of the wonderful variety in the face of the fame lady. I have known an olive beauty on Monday grow very ruddy and blooming on Tuelday; turn pale on Wednesday; come round to the olive hue again on Thurfday; and in a word, change her complexion as often as her gown. I was amazed to find no old aunts in this town, except a few unfashionable people, whom no body knows; the reft fill continuing in the zenith of their youth and health, and falling off, like timely fruit, without any previous decay. All this was a mystery that I could not unriddle, till on being introduced to fome ladies, I unluckily improved the hue of my lips at the expence of a fair-one, who unthinkingiy had turned her cheek; and found that my kiffes were given (as is obferved in the epigram) like thofe of Pyramus, through a wall. I then discovered, that this furprifing youth and beauty was all counterfeit; and that (as Hamlet fays) " God had given them one face, and they had made themselves another." I have mentioned the accident of my carrying off half a lady's face by a falute, that your courtly dames may learn to put on their faces a little tighter; but as for my own daughters, while fuch fashions prevail, they fhall ftill remain in Yorkshire, There, I think, they are pretty fafe; for this unnatural fashion will hardly make its way into the country, as this vamped complexion would not stand against the rays of the fun, and would inevitably melt away in a country-dance. The ladies have, in deed, been always the greatest enemies to their own beauty, and feem to have a defign against their own faces. At one time the whole countenance was eclipsed in a black black velvet mask; at another it was blotted with patches; and at prefent it is crufted over with plaifter of Paris. In thofe battered belles who ftill aim at conqueft, this practice is in fome fort excufable; but it is furely as ridiculous in a young lady to give up beauty for paint, as it would be to draw a good fet of teeth merely to fill their places with a row of ivory. Indeed fo common is this fashion among the young as well as the old, that when I am in a group of beauties, I confider them as fo many pretty pictures; looking about me with as little emotion as I do at Hudfon's and if any thing fills me with admiration, it is the judicious arrangement of the tints, and delicate touches of the painter. Art very often feems almost to vie with nature: but my attention is too frequently diverted by confidering the texture and hue of the skin beneath; and the picture fails to charm, while my thoughts are engroffed by the wood and canvafs. Connoiffeur. § 101. Advantages of well-directed Satire pointed out. A fatirift of true genius, who is warmed by a generous indignation of vice, and whofe cenfures are conducted by candour and truth, merits the applaufe of every friend to virtue. He may be confidered as a fort of fupplement to the legiflative authority of his country; as affifting the unavoidable defects of all legal inftitutions for regulating of manners, and striking terror even where the divine prohibitions themselves are held in contempt. The ftrongest defence, perhaps, against the inroads of vice, among the more cultivated part of our fpecies, is well-directed ridicule: they who fear nothing elfe dread to be marked out to the contempt and indignation of the world. There is no fucceeding in the fecret purposes of difhonefty, without preferving fome fort of credit among mankind; as there cannot exist a more impotent creature than a knave convict. To expofe, therefore, the falfe pretenfions of counterfeit virtue, is to difarm it at once of all power of mifchief, and to perform a public service of the most advantageous kind, in which any man can employ his time and his talents. The voice, indeed, of an honeft fatirist is not only beneficial to the world, as giving an alarm against the defigns of an enemy to dangerous to all focial intercourfe; but as proving likewise the most efficacious preventive to others, of affuming the fame character of diftinguished infamy. Few are fo totally vitiated, as to have abandoned all fentiments of fhame; and when every other principle of integrity is furrendered, we generally find the conflict is ftill maintained in this laft poft of retreating virtue. In this view, therefore, it fhould feem, the function of a fatirift may be juftified, notwithstanding it thould be true (what an excellent moralift has afferted) that his chaftifements rather exafperate than reclaim thofe on whom they fall. Perhaps no human penalties are of any moral advantage to the criminal himfelf: and the principal benefit that feems to be derived from civil punishments of any kind, is their reftraining influence upon the conduct of others. It is not every man, however, that is qualified to manage this formidable bow. The arrows of fatire, when they are pointed by virtue, as well as wit, recoil upon the hand that directs them, and wound none but him from whom they proceed. Accordingly, Horace refts the whole fuccefs of writings of this fort upon the poet's being integer ipfe; free himself from those immoral ftains which he points out in others. There cannot, indeed, be a more odious, nor at the fame time a more contemptible character, than that of a vicious fatirift: Quis cœlum terris non mifceat & mare cœlo, Juv. the more delightful author. I am profited by both, I am pleased with both; but I owe more to Horace for my inftruction, and more to Juvenal for my pleasure. This, as I faid, is my particular tafte of thefe two authors: they who will have either of them to excel the other in both qualities, can fcarce give better reafons for their opinion, than I for mine; but all unbiaffed readers will conclude, that my moderation is not to be condemned. To fuch impartial men I muft appeal; for they who have already formed their judgment, may juftly stand fufpected of prejudice: and though all who are my readers will fet up to be my judges, I enter my caveat against them, that they ought not fo much as to be of my jury; or if they be admitted, 'tis but reason that they fhould first hear what I have to urge in the defence of my opinion. That Horace is fomewhat the better inftructor of the two, is proved hence, that his inftructions are more general, Juvenal's more limited fo that, granting that the counfels which they give are equally good for moral ufe, Horace, who gives the most various advice, and molt applicable to all occafions which can occur to us in the courfe of our lives; as including in his difcourfes not only all the rules of morality, but alfo of civil converfation; is undoubtedly to be preferred to him, who is more circumfcribed in his inftructions, makes them to fewer people, and on fewer occaflons, than the other. I may be pardoned for using an old faying, fince it is true, and to the purpose, Bonum quo communius eo melius. Juvenal, excepting only his firft fatire, is in all the relt confined to the expofing fome particular vice; that he lafhes, and there he flicks. His fentences are truly fhining and inftructive; but they are fprinkled here and there. Horace is teaching us in every line, and is perpetually moral; he had found out the kill of Virgil, to hide his fentences; to give you the virtue of them, without fhewing them in their full extent: which is the oftentation of a poct, and not his art. And this Petronius charges on the authors of his time, as a vice of writing, which was then growing on the age: Ne fententiæ extra corpus orationis emineant. He would have them weaved into the body of the work, and not appear embeffed upon it, and ftriking directly on the reader's view. Folly was the proper quarry of Horace, and not vice: and as there are but few notoriously wicked men, in comparison with a fhoal of fools and fops; fo 'tis a harder thing to make a man wife, than to make him honeft: for the will is only to be reclaimed in the one; but the understanding is to be informed in the other. There are blind fides and follies, even in the profeffors of moral philofophy; and there is not any one set of them that Horace has not expofed. Which, as it was not the defign of Juvenal, who was wholly employed in lashing vices, fome of them the most enormous that can be ima gined; fo, perhaps, it was not fo much his talent. Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico, tangit, & admiffus circum præcordia ludit. This was the commendation that Perfius gave him; where by vitium, he means thofe little vices which we call follies, the defects of human understanding, or at moft the peccadillos of life, rather than the tragical vices, to which men are hurried by their unruly paffions and exorbitant defires. But on the word omne, which is univerfal, he concludes with me, that the divine wit of Horace left nothing untouched; that he entered into the inmoft receffes of nature; found out the imperfections even of the most wife and grave, as well as of the common people; difcovering even in the great Trebatius, to whom he addreffes the firft fatire, his hunting after ba finefs, and following the court; as well as in the perfecutor Crifpinus, his impertinence and importunity. 'Tis true, he expofes Crifpinus openly as a common nuisance; but he rallies the other as a friend, more finely. The exhortations of Perfius are confined to noblemen; and the ftoick philofophy is that alone which he recommends to them: Juvenal exhorts to particular virtues, as they are opposed to thofe vices against which he declaims; but Horace laughs to fhame all follies, and infinuates virtue rather by familiar examples than by the feverity of precepts. This laft confideration feems to incline the balance on the fide of Horace, and to give him the preference to Juvenal, not only in profit, but in pleasure. But, after all, I must confefs that the delight which Horace gives me is but languifhing. Be pleased till to understand, that I fpeak of my own tafte only: he may ravifh other men; but I am too ftupid and infenfible to be tickled. Where he barely grins himself, and, as Scaliger fays, only fhews his white teeth, he cannot provoke me to any laughter. His urbanity, that is, his good-manners, are to be commended, but his wit is faint; and his falt, if I may dare to fay fo, almost infipid. Juvenal Juvenal is of a more vigorous and mafculine wit: he gives me as much pleasure as I can bear he fully fatisfies my expectation: he treats his fubject home: his fpleen is raifed, and he raises mine: I have the pleasure of concernment in all he fays: he drives his reader along with him: and when he is at the end of his way, I willingly ftop with him. If he went another stage, it would be too far, it would make a journey of a progrefs, and turn the delight into fatigue. When he gives over, 'tis a fign the fubject is exhausted, and the wit of man can carry it no farther. If a fault can be juftly found in him, 'tis that he is fometimes too luxuriant, too redundant; fays more than he needs, like my friend the Plain Dealer, but never more than pleases. Add to this, that his thoughts are as juft as thofe of Horace, and much more elevated. His expreffions are fonorous and more noble, his verfe more numerous, and his words are fuitable to his thoughts, fublime and lofty. All thefe contribute to the pleasure of the reader; and the greater the foul of him who reads, his tranfports are the greater. Horace is always on the amble, Juvenal on the gallop; but his way is perpetually on carpet-ground. He goes with more impetuofity than Horace, but as fecurely; and the swiftness adds more lively agitation to the spirits. Dryden. § 103. Delicate Satire not eafily hit off. How eafy is it to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! but how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without ufing any of thofe opprobrious terms! To fpare the groffnefs of the names, and to do the thing yet more feverely, is to draw a full face, and to make the nofes and cheek ftand out, and yet not to employ any depth of fhadowing. This is the mystery of that noble trade, which yet no mafter can teach to his apprentice: he may give the rules, but the scholar is never the nearer in his practice. Neither is it true, that this fineness of raillery is offenfive. A witty man is tickled while he is hurt in this manner; and a fool feels it not. The occafion of an offence may poffibly be giver, but he cannot take it,if it be granted, that in effect this way does more mifchief; that a man is fecretly wounded; and though he be not fenfible himself, yet the malicious world will find it out for him: yet there is ftill a vast difference betwixt the flovenly butchering of a man, and the fineness of a ftroke that feparates the head from the body, and leaves it ftanding in its place. A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch's wife faid of her fervant, of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging: but to make a malefactor die fweetly, was only belonging to her husband. I wish I could apply it to myself, if the reader would be kind enough to think it belongs to me. The character of Zimri in my Abfalom, is, in my opinion, worth the whole poem: tis not bloody, but 'tis ridiculous enough and he for whom it was intended, was too witty to refent it as an injury. If I had railed, I might have fuffered for it justly; but I managed mine own works more happily, perhaps more dexterously. I avoided the mention of great crimes, and applied myself to the reprefenting of blind fides, and little extravagancies, to which, the wittier a man is, he is generally the more obnoxious. It fucceeded as I wished; the jeft went round, and he was out in his turn who began the frolic. Ibid. $104. The Works of Art defective in entertaining the Imagination. If we confider the works of nature and art, as they are qualified to entertain the imagination, we fhall find the laft very defective, in comparison of the former; for though they may fometimes appear as beautiful or ftrange, they can have nothing in them of that vattnefs and immenfity, which afford fo great an entertainment to the mind of the beholder. The one may be as polite and delicate as the other, but can never fhew herself so auguft and magni. ficent in the defign. There is something more bold and masterly in the rough careless ftrokes of nature, than in the nice touches and embellishments of art. The beauties of the most stately garden or palace lie in a narrow compafs, the imagination immediately runs them over, and requires fomething elfe to gratify her; but, in the wide fields of nature, the fight wanders up and down without confinement, and is fed with an infinite variety of images, without any certain ftint or number. For this reafon we always find the poet in love with a country life, where nature appears in the greatest perfection, and furnishes out all thofe fcenes that are most apt to delight the imagination. Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus et fugit Hic fecura quies, et nefcia fallere vita. But |