the mind than a lax and feeble compofition poffibly could do: befide, there is a danger, that, in accuftoming yourself to any mode of expreffion however common, or word however inelegant, a habit will be acquired, favourable to the natural indolence of man, of cloathing your thoughts in the most obvious language and in colloquial phrafes; feeking only to be perfpicuous, without any attention to either grace or harmony; and though one end may perhaps be attained by this, namely, the perfpicuous communication of the thing difcuffed, yet much would certainly be loft in the torpid state of mind with which that communication would be received. It is the energies of language which awaken, as it were, the very foul; which make the reader weep, laugh, or moralize with the author, and enter with spirit into his feelings, and the nicety of his calculations.

Nothing is more certain than that, if I would command the atten→ tion of my reader, or make him feel the force and propriety of my arguments, I muft awaken his mind, and in a manner transfuse the spirit with which I wrote the work into him: and this can be done only by an energetic and forcible mode of expreffion. I may probably intereft his curiofity to proceed with me in a difquifition on fome import ant topic, even though I ufe the moft plain and fimple ftyle, devoid of elegance, of ftrength, of harmony; but that would be all: and it is not impoffible, but that a reader of tafte would lay my book down with difguft, and efcape with pleafure from my fimplicity and inele

gance.

Every body knows how much more easily the mind commits to memory a terfe and pointed apophthegm than a diffuse and labour. ed defcription; and a book written in ftrong emphatic language, and well-rounded periods, will be more frequently quoted, and its precepts

more frequently applied to the test of experience, than when wire-drawn and frittered into endless fentences. Let us exemplify this by the following line from Young:

"When fuch friends part, it is the fur vivor dies."

Here is a beautiful idea compreffed in a few words, yet conveying to the mind a conception pregnant with a thoufand collateral images, and which the reader's fancy ramifies and enlarges at his pleasure,

Let us now view it in another light.

"When an efteemed and affec tionate friend is torn from us by death, it is we who feel all the calamities of the feparation; it is we, who, confcious of the lofs we have fuftained, hourly regret it; it is we, who, picturing to the imagination, yet weeping over his memory, all his virtues, his convivial excellences, his friendly attentions, his fympathizing forrows, feel in all its accumulated mifery the irrepara ble vacuity; it is we who die, in for ever weeping his death."

Here is a fimple amplification of the fame idea; yet who cannot perceive, the fupreme advantage which the original poffeffes over this last ?

The preceding obfervations may be particularly applied to epiftolary writing. Our letters to a friend, if on real fubjects, may be supposed to breathe the pureft and moft genuine fentiments of the heart, undifguifed by artifice; and it capnot furely become a question, whether or not we wish thofe fentiments to be fully apprehended, and vigorously entered into by our readers. The neceffity of clofe, compreffive, and energetic language to obtain this end has been fhewn.

I fhall conclude this letter with a quotation from Johnfon, in which he speaks my own fentiments with more elegance than I could poffibly do.

"That letters fhould be written with ftrict conformity to nature is true, because nothing but conformity to nature can make any compofition beautiful or juft. Whatever elevates the fentiments will confequently raife the expreffion; whatever fills us with hope or terror will produce fome perturbation of images, and fome figurative distortions of phrafe. Whereever we are studious to please, we are afraid of trusting our first thoughts, and endeavour to recommend our opinion by ftudied ornaments, accuracy of method, and elegance of style."

I remain, &c.

F.

A LITERARY CHARACTER.

HE is a man poffeffed of fome virtues, though not deftitute of many of the vices which disfigure Zuman nature. His heart is liberal, and his motives juft; but fortune forbids him to difplay the qualities of the one, and vicious perfons endeavour to vilify the other. Endowed with mental excellence fuperior to the general clafs of human beings, he feeks only the enlargement of virtue in his writings; and to this end alone are his feeble endeavours, directed.

His temper has become irafcible from intense study and reiterated misfortunes: eafily provoked in trifles to anger, the impetuofity of his mind foon fubfides if left to itfelf, but increafes when oppofed. Not gifted with fortitude, his heart foon tinks under dittrefs; and the apprehenfion of mifery paralyfes. the most active energies of his heart. Proud perhaps to a fault, he fcorns meannefs in himself and in others impreffed with a nice fenfe of honour, he is alive to the minuteft injury or infult, whether real or intended: he abhors injuftice, and never fails to caftigate it when found in others. Warm in his refentments, he can never bow

his feelings to others, even in those cafes where the first atonement ought to come from himself; but, on the contrary, his heart is ever open to reconciliation, when propofed in a proper manner. Diftinction is his idol, and this often leads him into eccentricities, which fools laugh at, and wife men pity: fond of colloquial eminence, he dreads an imaginary want of powers to fhine in that refpect; and, therefore, often fits filent in company, when topics are agitated on which his refearches and his genius might enable him to throw light. Active in his friendships, he never fhrinks from doing good, when the moft remote means are within his reach: defultory in study, his mind loves to expatiate upon numerous objects; whence he cannot be faid to poffefs folid information on any. Liberal in his conduct, pecuniary confiderations are with him only a measure of prudence, as he heartily detefts interestedness in engagements of mutual honour and liberality. Never prone to indulge in harsh opinions refpecting other people, he always makes it a rule to neglect reports, trusting to his own experience as the most fure guide. This is an amiable principle, but it often leads into misfortunes.

As a husband, he is fincerely affectionate, but never difplays any anile fondnefs; never expreffes the fame anxiety for trivial evils as for thofe of greater magnitude.--As a fon, he feels and practifes the moft facred of filial duties: he feels a real glow of exquifite happinefs, when he can difpel for one moment the anxious folicitude of his mother.---As a brother, he experiences every fentiment of fraternal love, and fincerely values fifter, who is in many refpects a prototype of himself.

Such a man there is, for this portrait is drawn with fidelity from the man himself!

A SYSTEM OF COSMOLOGY, INTENDED AS AN INTRODUC

TION TO THE GENERAL STU

DY OF HISTORY.

To the Editor of the Univerfal Mag. SIR,

A PROSPECTUS of your New Series having been lately put into my hands by a friend, I feel myself encouraged, by that fpirit of liberality and candour fo evidently the characteristic of it, to hope that the following humble contribution I take the liberty of offering to your better judgment may not be unworthy of a place in a work, the plan of which holds out fo fair a promife to the public of uniting thofe defirable purposes,--the diffufion of useful knowledge, and the rational employment of thofe hours, the relicts of time indifpenfably allotted to the various walks of life. My hopes of meeting with your approbation derive greater ftrength from an article in your Profpectus, promifing that antiquities, and thoughts on the manners of paft ages, will not be deemed unfitting: indeed, on reading that article, it immediately occurred to my mind, that a fhort fyftem of hiftorical cofmology, confifting of thoughts I had fome time ago thrown together, intended as an introduction to a larger work of another nature, might not be unacceptable in a work which will occafionally contain historical matter relating to every nation in the world; and that, as events respecting any particular nation occurred, the reader of the Univerfal Magazine would poffefs the advantage of having in the outlet of that work a general stock of information, to which he might turn for the origin and peopling, the manners and cuftoms, from the earliest period of that or any other nation; whereby thofe pleafing and philofophical reflections on the comparative improvément or debasement of manners, together with the probable fource

of national character which will occur on the retrofpect, would of neceffity be fuggefted to his imagination. In addition to which, it is obfervable that no chain of thought is fo pleafing to the mind of man as that of an orderly feries, whereby we are enabled to remount, at leaft as far as poffible, to the original idea: in which light, if I am fo fortunate as to appear to you to have fucceeded in any degree adequate to fuch an attempt, which it is with the greatest diffidence I afpire to, this effay may perhaps make no inelegant commencement of your New Series.

Many fyftems have been propofed refpecting the first peopling of the different parts of the globe, which have given rife to endless controverfy, as must be expected in matters of fuch remote antiquity, and fo blended with fable: wherefore, my intention is to keep within the limits of fuch accounts as can be collected on the best authority, and which are at the fame time fupported by the collateral evidence of exifting facts, as the immediate and neceffary confequences of the fuppofed previous events; whereby the veracity of the relation of fuch events becomes fufficiently fubftantiated. As, for example, when it is a fact that a certain language is in ufe in one part of the world exactly fimilar to that which had been antiently the vulgar tongue of a people fituated at an immenfe diftance, the account of their having at an early period fent a colony thither, becomes fufficiently fupported to demand our affent; a mode of proof, which has been employed by divines to great advantage in deducing the evidence of revealed religion: thus, when certain inftitutions and ceremonies were established among the Jews for particular purposes, and we find them till exifting, we can entertain no doubt of the truth of that hiftory which

Q

afferts them to have been instituted for thofe purposes.

I fhall trouble you with only one obfervation, more, before entering on the propofed plan, which is, that it is by no means my intention to incumber your pages with an epitome of antient hiftory; that is a work which has been carried into effect with great fuccefs by many very able hands, and is, befides, altogether foreign to the nature of your undertaking, and is by no means the object I have in view, which is merely that of laying before your readers a comprehenfive view of the firft germ or root, as it were, of all hiftories, which of courfe implies an account of the fpreading of mankind over the face of the earth, and of the march of the firft tribes to those parts where they formed fettlements; where we will leave them to thofe hiftorians who have related the affairs of the different nations of the world from that period; in theprofecution of which plan fhall carefully avoid all fyftem that is not fupported by facts, or a chain of events which can be no otherwife accounted for.

COSMOLOGY.

It has been fuppofed by fome, that mankind were in being previous to Adam; and that Mofes intended to give us the origin of the Jews only in his account of the formation of him: in fupport of which they alledge, that the curfe of a mark on Cain, his going into another country, marrying, and building a city there, are fufficient proofs of there having then existed an extenfive population; but, independently of the proofs which might be brought to evince that the book of Genefis was unquestionably intended as a general fyftem of cofmology, and not a mere introduction to the particular hiftory of the Jews, it is to be observed, that Mofes, confidered only as a hiftorian, gives his matter with that plainnefs and fimplicity which are the natural attendants on truth,without any obfervations or arguments, which the more artful and contriv ing fabulift would have thought neceffary; but as truth was his object, he gives us a plain narration of facts, in which we find that the firft patriarchs were gifted with a moft furprising longevity, which at once renders thefe accounts compatible, and does away all objections; for the number of men suppofed by the account to have been in the world about the time of the murder of Abel, may with the greatest probability have been the defcendants of Adam and Eve, whofe pofterity in the space of near one hundred and thirty years (for it was in that year of Adam's age that Seth, who was given in lieu of Abel, was born) might, by a fair calculation, be multiplied to many thoufands, confidering the primi tive fecundity, and that probably none had died in the interim.

After the deluge, a great longe vity, though not to the extent of that of the Antediluvian patriarchs, was neceffary, for the re

* Cudworth's Int. System.