(called a lodge) where they consulted about carrying on the works which their master and warden had undertaken: for they were chiefly employed in raising cathedrals, chapels, and other buildings of the like kind. A company of Free Masons, (as I am led to conclude from the second and third indentures), to their immortal honour, contracted for building different parts of the chapel. They have left, I am told, in the course of their work, certain marks well known to all adepts of their society. What these monuments of masonry may be, I am unable to declare; but refer my reader, if he is learned in the secrets of the fraternity, to an inspection of every mysterious token about the building. One thing, however, I shall mention, which has often been observed,—that in the south porch of the chapel there are three steps, at the west door five, and in the north porch seven. These are numbers, with the mystery, or at least the sound of which, free masons are said to be particularly, well acquainted.

It is observable that, notwithstanding the encouragement Free Masons received from Henry VI. by being employed in erecting his magnificent chapel, An act passed in the third year of his reign, for suppressing their assembling, or holding chapters, in any part of his dominions; it being the prevailing opinion of those times, that their meetings were held for the sake of making an extravagant addition to the wages of the working masons. But a favourable report being made to his majesty, by some of his nobility, who had been admitted into the brotherhood, he afterwards received them into his favour, and shewed them marks of a particular respect. The act itself remains, I believe, as yet unrepealed. J. S.

SELECT SENTENCES.

INNOCENCE, and guilt, how wide are your extremes!-Yet, your appearance, sometimes, how similar!-Perhaps the nicest eye cannot, on some occasions, distinguish your effects on the human countenance. Frost, and fire, will equally redden the face-even to burning the skin!

TAKE care never to shew your mind otherwise than in full dress-unless its dishabille be adjusted with all the care and decorum requisite to render it interesting and elegant.

FALSEHOOD goes on one leg only-truth upon two.

An indiscreet man is like an unsealed letter. Every body may read him.

IDLENESS has no advocate-but many friends,

Do nothing in the moment of wrath-unless you would put to sea in the midst of a tempest.

THE first work gives celebrity to the author. After that the author gives celebrity to his works.

MODESTY often passes for errant haughtiness; as, what is deemed spirit in an horse often proceeds from fear.

To say a person

plays a good fiddle.

writes a good style, is as pedantic as to say, he

THE writer who gives the best idea of what may be called the genteel in style, is, perhaps, Lord Shaftesbury-then Mr. Addisonand Dr. Swift. In the genteel management of some familiar ideas, Lord Shaftesbury's sketches should be studied like those of Raphael,

A POET who fails in writing becomes a morose critic. The weak insipid white wine, makes, at length, good vinegar.

THE ridicule with which some people affect to triumph over their superiors is, as though the moon, under an eclipse, should pretend to laugh at the sun.

A MISER, if honest, can only be honest bare-weight."-Welllet it be so. Then is the balance just-and to be just is to be virtuous and useful. Ah! let not those who are blessed with high intellectual powers, smile on the praise due to correct œconomy! -Great mental resources should teach people to be high minded, delicately minded, yet strongly minded. Too high minded to let their expences exceed their resources; too delicately minded to enjoy any gratification unsuitable with those resources. Too strong minded not to endure with content necessary deprivations. If mental resources can teach these things, how incalculably valuable are they to their possessor!

"

"THE passions," Madame de Montier informs us, "rise up only against those who faintly oppose them. To a vigorous defence they are sure to submit. He who is under the necessity of plucking nettles, avoids the sting only by seizing them boldly. While he who attacks them more gently, and cautiously, feels how painful it is to eradicate evil dispositions with faintness and irresolution.

1

Ir may now be doubted, whether any congregation in Great Britain (says Dr. Beattie), could maintain its gravity, if it were to hear such a sermon as Sutton's "caution for the credulous," 1696. "Here have I undertaken one, who hath overtaken many. A machia villian, or, rather, a matchless villain. One that professeth himself to be a friend, when he is indeed a fiend. His greatest amity is but dissembled enmity. Though I call him but a plain flatterer, for I mean to deal very plainly with him; some compare him to a devil. If he be one, these words of Solomon are a spell to expel him. Wring not my words to wrong my meaning. I do not go about to crucify the sons of men, but the sins of men. Some flatter a man for their own private benefit; this man's heart thou hast in thy pocket. For if thou find in thy purse, to give him presently, he will find in his heart, and love thee everlastingly.

HISTORY is a romance that is believed; romance, an history that is not believed.

WHOEVER expects pity by complaining to his physician, is as foolish as they are, who, having lost money at cards, complain of ill luck to their companions the winners. If none were ill or unfor tunate, how would physicians, or gamesters, get money.

ALBANO'S boy-angels and cupids are all so alike, that they seem to have been the children of the Flemish countess, who was said to be delivered of 365 at a birth.

EXPERIENCE becomes prescience.

NOTHING is more vain than for a woman to deny her age-she cannot deceive herself, who is the only person concerned about it. If a man dislikes a woman, because he thinks her of the age she is, he will only dislike her the more by being told she is younger than she seems to be, and, consequently looks older than she ought to do. The anno domini of her face will weigh more than that of her register. Q. Z.

I

POPULARITY.

DISDAIN as much a servile popularity, as I should a slavish submission to any prince or minister. The favour of the people may, I know, be acquired by humouring their prejudices, as well as that of a prince by humouring his passions; but this sort of favour is in neither case of any long duration. The people by their preju

dices, as well as the prince by his passions, generally soon lead themselves into some misfortune; and as soon as this happens, the parasite, in both cases, becomes hateful and contemptible."

This extract I made many years ago from a speech in a debate on the pension bill. If popularity is acquired by such means (and I am not prepared from experience to contradict it), it shews a radical defect in the constitution of all representative assemblies; for, as the purity of representation must depend on the suffrage of the people being influenced only by their opinion of the candidates, if their opinion is liable to be so biassed, the popular favourite, and not the firm patriot, an Alcibiades, and not an Aristides, will most likely be the object of their choice. This is a consideration well worth the attention of our modern reformers of the representation of the commons of Great Britain in parliament.

There cannot be a more honourable situation than that of a county member. What can be a greater honour, than to be selected by neighbours, friends, and equals, to watch over their political interests? But honourable as this trust is, it is also a trust attended with much personal inconvenience to him who is invested with it; and it is a mark of vanity and weak ambition rating its own abilities too high, or grasping too eagerly at provincial consequence, to be very solicitous for the attainment of it, especially as the honour of the situation entirely depends on the means by which it is acquired. A man who is very anxious for this situation, gives up his independence the moment he is declared a candidate. He must court every freeholder; he must attend every county meeting, either of business or pleasure; and as those voters on whose influence the election must chiefly depend, are his friends and companions, he must give up the frank manners of social life, in the common intercourse of friendship and hospitality, for the most guarded and cautious behaviour, as an excess of attention to one person is often considered as something worse than neglect to another. Who can reasonably suppose, that the man who gives up his own independence, to attain an honour which loses its finest polish by being too eagerly grasped, will be conscientiously solicitous to preserve the independence of others?

Shenstone observes twice in his essays, that a love of popularity is only a love of being beloved. But popularity is rarely considered as an end, but as a mean of obtaining some other end. A man who courts popularity generally resembles a venal beauty, who considers the power she has of making herself beloved, as subservient only to her avarice or her ambition. H. J. P.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE.

Qui monet quasi adjuvat.

The History of France, from the Year 1790, to the Peace concluded at Amiens in 1802, by John Adolphus, Esq. F. A. S. 8vo. 2 Vols. Kearsly.

AMID the dearth of literary excellence, which, notwithstanding the vast number of publications which daily issue from the press, we are sorry to see so generally prevalent; the volumes before us, from the pen of an author whose deep research, distinguished talent, and unwearied industry are never to be sufficiently applauded and admired, will be found to contain peculiar claims to attention and respect.

In the course of our literary labours it has been frequently our lot to peruse volumes, which embrace partial periods of that momentous era distinguished by the name of the French revolution : still, however, a work was wanting, which, at one view, should detail the particulars of, and delineate the characters of the actors in, those times of turbulence and anarchy, and, blending the materials to be derived from a variety of sources, present us with a clear and copious body of information, on scenes the most interesting, and events the most important.

To supply this desideratum appears to have been Mr. Adolphus's motive for undertaking the present work, in which no pains have been spared, no source of information neglected, to render it worthy of public patronage; and which, for depth of research, and soundness of judgment; perspicuity of narrative, and power of illustration, has rarely been equalled, and, perhaps, never surpassed.

After noticing, in his introduction, a variety of fanciful opinions with respect to the general circumstances from which the French revolution derived its origin, he proceeds to ascribe it to a faction long nourished in the academies and cities of France, connected with numerous societies through all parts of Europe, meditating a total change in manners, laws, and the course of public worship, and projecting an entirely new distribution of power among nations, with a general overthrow of all established authorities." The pernicious maxims of this sect (the actual existence of which, the researches of modern authors have rendered indisputable) were destined to commence their active operations during the reign of Louis XVI. whose virtues as well as errors, by a remarkable fatality, contributed equally to his overthrow.

D-VOL. XVII.