-To pine,

Look pale, and all December tafle no wine. DRYDEN.

Virgil himself is strongly fufpected to

have lain in the streets, or on fome Roman bulk, when he speaks fo feelingly of a rainy and tempeftuous night in his well known epigram.

"There ought to be an hofpital found⚫ed for decayed wits,' said a lively Frenchman, and it might be called an • hospital of incurables."

Few, perhaps, wander among the laurels of Parnaffus, but who have reason ardently to with and to exclaim with Æneas, but without the hero's good fortune

Si nunc fe nobis ille aureus arbore ramus
Oftendat nemore in tanto!

O! in this ample grove could I behold
The tree that grows with vegetable gold.
PITT.

The patronage of Lelius and Scipio did not enable Terence to rent a house. Taffo, in a humorous fonnet addreffed

to his favourite cat, earnestly entreats hef to lend him the light of her eyes during his midnight ftudies, not being himself able to purchase a candle to write by. Dante the Homer of Italy, and Camoens of Portugal, were both banished and imprifoned. Cervantes, perhaps the most original genius the world ever beheld, perished by want in the streets of Madrid, as did our own Spencer at Dublin. And a writer little inferior to the Spaniard in the exquifitenefs of his humour and raillery, I mean Erafinus, after the city to city, and fren patron to patron, tedious wanderings of many years, from all, obtained no fettlement but with his praifed and promifed, and deceived by printer. At last,' fays he, in one of his epiftles, I fhould have been ad⚫vanced to a cardinalship, if there had " not been a decree in my way, by which

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thofe are fecluded from this honour, whofe income amounts not to three 'thousand ducats.'

I remember to have read a fatire in Latin profe, intitled-A Poet hath 'bought a house.' The poet having purchased a houfe, the matter was immediately laid before the parliament of poets, affembled on that important occafion, as a thing unheard of, as a very bad precedent, and of moft pernicious confequence; and accordingly a very severe fentence was pronounced against the buyer. When the members came to give their votes, it appeared there was not a

fingle perfon in the affembly who, through the favour of powerful patrons, or their own happy genius, was worth fo much as to be proprietor of a house, either by inheritance or purchase: all of them neglecting their private fortunes, confeffed and boafted, that they lived in lodgings. The poet was therefore ordered to fell his houfe immediately, to buy wine with the money for their entertainment, in order to make some expiation for his enormous crime, and to teach him to live unfettled and without care like a true poet.

Such are the ridiculous, and fuch the pitiable ftories related, to expofe the poverty of poets in different ages and nations; but which, I am inclined to think, are rather the boundless exaggerations of fatire and fancy, than the fober refult of experience, and the determination of truth and judgment: for the general pofition may be contradicted by numerous examples; and it may, perhaps, appear

on reflection and examination, that the art is not chargeable with the faults and failings of it's peculiar profeffors, that it has no peculiar tendency to make men either rakes or fpendthrifts, and that thofe who are indigent poets would have been indigent merchants and mechanics. The neglect of œconomy, in which great geniuses are fuppofed to have indulged themselves, has unfortunately given fo much authority and justification. to carelessness and extravagance, that many a minute rhymer has fallen into diffipation and drunkenness, becaufe Butler and Otway lived and died in an alehouse. As a certain blockhead wore his gown on one shoulder to mimic the negligence of Sir Thomas More, fo these fervile imitators follow their mafters in all that difgraced them; contract immoderate debts, because Dryden died infolvent; and neglect to change their linen, because Smith was a floven. • If I 'fhould happen to look pale,' fays Horace, all the hackney writers in Rome would immediately drink cummin to 'gain the fame complexion.' And I myfelf am acquainted with a witling who uses a glafs, only because Pope was near-fighted.

I can easily conceive, that a mind occupied and overwhelmed with the weight and immenfity of it's own conceptions, glancing with astonishing rapidity from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven, cannot willingly fubmit to the dull drudgery of examining the juftnefs and accuracy of a butcher's bill. To defcend from the widest and most comprehenfive views of nature, and weigh out hops for a brewing, must be invincibly difgufting to a true genius; to be able to build imaginary palaces of the most exquifite architecture, but yet not to pay a carpenter's bill, is a cutting mortification and disgrace; to be ruined by purfuing the precepts of Virgilian agriculture, and by plowing claffically, without attending to the wholesome monitions of low British farmers, is a circumftance that aggravates the failure of a crop, to a man who wishes to have lived in the Auguftan age, and defpifes the fyftem of modern husbandry.

Many poets, however, may be found, who have condefcended to the cares of ceconomy, and who have conducted their families with all the parfimony and regularity of an alderman of the last cen.

tury; who have not fupercilioufly dif dained to enter into the concerns of common life, and to subscribe to and study certain neceffary dogmas of the vulgar, convinced of their utility and expedien cy, and well knowing that because they are vulgar, they are therefore both important and true.

If we look backwards on antiquity, or furvey ages nearer our own, we shall find feveral of the greatest geniuses fo far from being funk in indigence, that many of them enjoyed fplendor and honours, or at leaft were fecured against the anxieties of poverty, by a decent competence and plenty of the conveniences of life.

Indeed, to purfue riches farther than to attain a decent competence, is too low and illiberal an occupation for a real genius to defcend to: and Horace wifely afcribes the manifeft inferiority of the Roman literature to the Grecian, to an immoderate love of money, which neceffarily contracts and rufts the mind, and difqualifies it for noble and generous undertakings.

Æschylus was an officer of no small rank in the Athenian army at the celebrated battle of Marathon; and Sophocles was an accomplished general, who commanded his countrymen in feveral most important expeditions: Theocritus was careffed and enriched by Ptolomy; and the gaiety of Anacreon was the refult of eafe and plenty: Pindar was better rewarded for many of his odes, than any other bard ancient or modern, except perhaps Boileau for his celebrated piece of flattery on the takingNamur:Virgil at laft poffeffed a fine house at Rome, and a villa at Naples: Horace,' fays Swift in one of his lectures on ceconomy to Gay, 'I am fure kept his coach:' Lu can and Silius Italicus dwelt in marble palaces, and had their gardens adorned with the most exquifite capital ftatues of Greece: Milton was fond of a domeftic life, and lived with exemplary frugality and order: Corneille and Racine were both admirable mafters of their families, faithful husbands, and prudent œconomifts: Boileau, by the liberalities of Lewis, was enabled to purchase a delightful privacy at Auteuil, was eminently skilled in the management of his finances, and despised that affectation which arrogantly aims to place itself above the neceffary decorums and rules

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fenfes but the understanding. As I could not fufpend the force of thefe motives, I laboured to direct them towards other objects; and in the eighth century I had so far fucceeded, as to produce a prevailing opinion, that the worship of images was of more mo* ment than moral rectitude.' It was decred by a pope and council, that to speak of them with irreverence was a forfeit of falvation, and that the offender fhould, therefore, be excommunicated: thofe who oppofed this decree were perfecuted with fire and fword; and I had the fatisfaction not only of fupplanting virtue, but of propagating mifery by a zeal for religion. I mult not, however, arrogate all the honour of an event which fo much exceeded my hopes; for many arguments in favour of images were drawn from a book entitled Pratum Spirituale, in which it is affirmed, that having long tempted a hermit to incontinence, I offered to defift if he would cease to worfhip an image of the Virgin; and that the hermit having confulted an abbot, whether to accept or refufe the condition, was told, that it was more eligible to commit incontinence, than to neglect the worship of images: and I declare, upon my honour, that the facts, as far as they relate to me, did never happen, but are wholly invented by the ingenious author. That falvation had very little connection with virtue, was indeed an opinion which I propagated with great diligence; and with fuch fuccefs, that Boniface, the apostle of Germany, declared the benefit of facraments to depend upon the qualifications of thofe by whom they were administered; and that a Bavarian monk having ignorantly baptized in thefe words' Baptizo te in nomine patria filia et fpiritua fancta,' all fuch baptifms were invalid. Against knowledge, however, I never failed to oppofe zeal: and when Vigilius afferted, that the earth being a sphere, there were people upon it the foles of whofe feet were directly oppofite to each other; the fame father Boniface reprefented him to the pope as a corruptor of the Chriftian Faith; and the pope concurring with Boniface, foon after excommunicated a bishop for adopting to dangerous an opinion, declaring him a heretic, and a blaf phemer against GOD and his own foul. In thefe inftances my fuccefs was the more remarkable, as I verily believe Bo

niface himself intended well, because he died a martyr with great conftancy.

I found, however, that while the Gofpels were publicly read, the fuperftructure which I had built upon them was in perpetual danger: I therefore exerted all my influence to difcontinue the prac tice, and at length fucceeded, though Ariftotle's Ethics were fubstituted for them in fome northern churches; but against Ariftotle's Ethics I had not equal objections.

During this period, therefore, my powers were neither diffipated by unfuc cefsful labour, nor rendered ufelefs by neceffary idlenefs: I had perplexed and confounded the moft fimple and falutary doctrines, with abfurd fubtilties and extravagant conceits; and I had armed with the weapons of fuperftition, and difguif ed with the tinfel of ceremony, that Religion which comprehended every precept in LOVE TO GOD, AND TO MAN; which gave no direction about divine worship, but that it should be performed IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH; or about SOCIAL VIRTUE, but that love of SELF fhould be the meafure of bounty to others. But there was ftill perfonal fanctity, though the doctrine and the difcipline of the church were become corrupt and ridiculous: zeal was ftillanimated by integrity, though it was no longer directed by knowledge; the fervice and the honour of GOD were still intended, though the means were miftaken. Many, indeed, gladly substituted gain for godliness; and committed every fpecies of wickedness, because they hoped to appropriate works of fupererogation that were performed by others: but there were fome who practifed all the feverities of erroneous piety, and fuffered the mortification which they recommended; so that I had still something to do, and was ftill encouraged to diligence by fuccefs.

But all thefe advantages depended upon ignorance; for the fecurity of ignorance, therefore, I affirmed, that the was the mother of devotion: a lye fo fuccessful, that it paffed into a proverb.

The period, however, arrived, when knowledge could be no longer fupprefs. ed; and I was under the most dreadful apprehenfions that all the abfurdities, by which I had diminished the influence and the beauty of Chriftianity, would now be removed: I could not conceive that U 2

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thofe motives which had produced abftinence and folitude, vigils, fcourgings, and the mortification of every appetite and every paffion, would fail to produce a more reasonable fervice; or become ineffectual, when the paths of duty appeared to be not only peaceful but pleafant. I did not, however, fit down in defpair; but the knowledge which I could not reprefs, I laboured to pervert. As the human intellect is finite, and can comprehend only finite objects, I knew that if all was rejected as incredible which was not_comprehended, I fhould have little to fear from a religion founded in Infinite Perfection, and connected with revelations which an Infinite Being had vouchfafed of himself. I, therefore, immediately oppofed reafon to faith: I threw out fubjects of debate which I knew could never be difcuffed; the affent of many was fufpended, in expectation that impoffibilities would be effected; and at last refufed in the fretfulness of difappointment. Thus infidelity gradually fucceeded to fuperftition: the hope and fear, the love, reverence, and gratitude, which had been excited by Chriftianity, and produced fuch aftonishing effects, were now felt no more; and as the most forcible motives to piety and virtue were again wanting, piety was wholly neglected, and virtue rendered more eafy and commodious: the bounds

of moral obligation included every day lefs and lefs; and crimes were committed without compunction, because they were not fuppofed to incur punishment.

Thefe evils, Mr. Adventurer, evils both in your eftimation and mine, I am afraid will continue if they cannot increafe. Difputation and fcepticismflourish without my influence, and have left no principle for me to counteract: the nuinber of my vaffals is indeed greatly increafed by the unfollicited wickedness of the prefent time; but this increase is not equivalent to the pleasure of feduction.

If the importance, therefore, of Chriftianity to mankind, fhall appear from it's having bufied me to fubvert it, and from the mifery which I fuffer in idlenefs, now my purpofe is unhappily effected; I hope they are not yet fo obdurate in ill, as to perfift in rejecting it merely in fpite to me; and destroy themfelves, only that I may not be amufed by attempting their deftruction. You fee, that I have fufficient benevolence to requeft, that they would regard their own intereft, at least as far as it is confiftent with mine; and if they refuse me, I am confident you will think they treat me with more feverity than I deferve.

I have the honour to be, Sir, your moft obedient and very humble Ser. vant,

SATAN.

Honour; and but few that might not have been equally mistaken, without producing equal mischief.

Honour is both a motive and an end: as a principle of action it differs from virtue only in degree, and therefore neceffarily includes it, as generofity includes juftice: and as a reward, it can be deferved only by thofe actions which no other principle can produce. To fay of another that he is a Man of Honour, is at once to attribute the principle and to confer the reward. But in the common acceptation of the word, Honour, as a

ftowed upon vice. Such, indeed, is the blindness and vaffalage of human reafon, that men are difcouraged from virtue by the fear of fhame, and incited to vice by the hope of honour.

Honour, indeed, is always claimed in fpecious terms; but the facts upon which the claim is founded, are often flagitiously wicked. Lothario arrogates the character of a man of honour, for having defended a lady who had put herself under his protection from infult at the rifque of life; and Aleator for fulfilling an engagement, to which the

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