selves an immortal name, by drawing a face, or painting a landscape; by laying down on a piece of canvass a representation only of what nature had given them originals? What applauses will he merit, who first made his ideas sit to his pencil, and drew to his eye the picture of his mind! Painting represents the outward man, or the shell; but cannot reach the inhabitant within, or the very organ by which the inhabitant is revealed. This art may reach to represent a face, but cannot paint a voice. Kneller can draw the majesty of the queen's person; Kneller can draw her sublime air, and paint her bestowing hand as fair as the lily but the historian must inform posterity, that she has one peculiar excellence above all other mortals, that her ordinary speech is more charming than song.

But to drop the comparison of this art with any other, let us see the benefit of it in itself. By it the English trader may hold commerce with the inhabitants of the East or West Indies, without the trouble of a journey. Astronomers seated at a distance of the earth's diameter asunder, may confer; what is spoken and thought at one pole, may be heard and understood at the other. The philosopher who wished he had a window in his breast, to lay open his heart to all the world, might as easily have revealed the secrets of it this way, and as easily have left them to the world, as wished it. This silent art of speaking by letters, remedies the inconvenience arising from distance of time, as well as place; and is much beyond that of the Egyptians, who could preserve their mummies for ten centuries". This preserves the works of the immortal part of men, so as to make the dead still useful to the living. To this we are

m Mummies have lasted, for certain, above twenty centuries. A

beholden for the works of Demosthenes and Cicero, of Seneca and Plato: without it the Iliad of Homer, and Eneid of Virgil had died with their authors; but by this art those excellent men still speak to us.

• I shall be glad if what I have said on this art, gives you any new hints for the more useful or agreeable application of it.

'I am, SIR,' &c.

I shall conclude this paper with an extract from a poem in praise of the invention of writing, written by a lady".' I am glad of such a quotation, which is not only another instance how much the world is obliged to this art, but also a shining example of what I have heretofore asserted, that the fair sex are as capable as men of the liberal sciences; and indeed there is no very good argument against the frequent instruction of females of condition this way, but that they are but too powerful without that advantage. The verses of the charming author are as follow:

Blest be the man! his memory at least,

Who found the art thus to unfold his breast;
And taught succeeding times an easy way
Their secret thoughts by letters to convey;
To baffle absence, and secure delight,
Which till that time was limited to sight.
The parting farewell spoke, the last adieu,
The less'ning distance past, then loss of view,
The friend was gone which some kind moments
And absence separated, like the grave.
When for a wife the youthful patriarch sent,
The camels, jewels, and the steward went,
And wealthy equipage, though grave and slow:
But not a line, that might the lover show.

n Q. by whom?

gave,

The ring and bracelets woo'd her hands and arms,
But had she known of melting words, the charms,
That under secret seals in ambush lie

To catch the soul, when drawn into the eye;
The fair Assyrian had not took his guide,
Nor her soft heart in chains of pearl been ty❜d".?

The MSS. and the receipts and prescriptions of the late Dr. Samuel Wall, with a large quantity of his electuary, drops, and other his medicines, prepared by himself in his lifetime, which were delivered after his death into the hands of Mr. John Wilson, late of Charles-street, Westminster, surgeon, since deceased, are now in the hands of Mr. Francis Wheatley, apothecary, in Leicester-fields.-Guard. in folio, No. 175. See Tat. No. 26. let. i. supposed to be written by A. Henley, esq.

ttt Importance of Dunkirk considered, by Steele, 2d edit. Ibidem.

I LATELY took a particular friend of mine to my house in the country, not without some apprehension that it could afford little entertainment to a man of his polite taste, particularly in architecture and gardening, who had so long been conversant with all that is beautiful and great in either. But it was a pleasant surprise to me, to hear him often declare, he had found in my little retirement that beauty which he always thought wanting in the most celebrated seats, or if you will villas, of the nation. This he described

* POPE'S,

See final notes on Nos, 10, and 11,

to me in those verses, with which Martial begins one

of his epigrams:

• Baiana nostri villa, Basse, Faustini,
Non otiosis ordinata myrtetis,
Viduaque platano, tonsilique buxeto
Ingrata lati spatia detinet campi;
Sed rure vero barbaroque lætatur.'

EP. lviii. 3.

Our friend Faustinus' country seat I've seen :
No myrtles, plac'd in rows, and idly green,
No widow'd platane, nor clip'd box-tree, there,
The useless soil unprofitably share;

But simple nature's hand, with nobler grace,
Diffuses artless beauties o'er the place.'

There is certainly something in the amiable simplicity of unadorned Nature that spreads over the mind a more noble sort of tranquillity, and a loftier sensation of pleasure, than can be raised from the nicer scenes of Art.

This was the taste of the ancients in their gardens, as we may discover from the descriptions extant of them. The two most celebrated wits of the world have each of them left us a particular picture of a garden; wherein those great masters, being wholly unconfined, and painting at pleasure, may be thought to have given a full idea of what they esteemed most excellent in this way. These, one may observe, consist entirely of the useful part of horticulture, fruittrees, herbs, water, &c. The pieces I am speaking of, are Virgil's account of the garden of the old Corycian, and Homer's of that of Alcinous. The first of these is already known to the English reader, by the excellent versions of Mr. Dryden and Mr. AddiThe other having never been attempted in our language with any elegance, and being the most beautiful plan of this sort that can be imagined, I shall here present the reader with a translation of it.

son.

The Garden of Alcinous, from Homer's Odyss. vii.
Close to the gates a spacious garden lies,
From storms defended and inclement skies:
Four acres was the allotted space of ground,
Fenc'd with a green inclosure all around.
Tall thriving trees confess the fruitful mould;
The red'ning apple ripens here to gold;
Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows,
With deeper red the full pomegranate glows:
The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear,
And verdant olives flourish round the year.
The balmy spirit of the western gale

Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail :
Each dropping pear a following pear supplies,
On apples apples, figs on figs arise;
The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,
The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow.

• Here order'd vines in equal ranks appear,
With all the united labours of the year.
Some to unload the fertile branches run,
Some dry the black'ning clusters in the sun.
Others to tread the liquid harvest join,

The groaning presses foam with floods of wine.
Here are the vines in early flow'r descry'd,
Here grapes discolour'd on the
discolour'd on the sunny side,
And there in Autumn's richest purple dy'd.

• Beds of all various herbs, for ever green,

In beauteous order terminate the scene.

Two plenteous fountains the whole prospect crown'd; This through the gardens leads its streams around, Visits each plant, and waters all the ground: While that in pipes beneath the palace flows, And thence its current on the town bestows; To various use their various streams they bring, The people one, and one supplies the king.'

Sir William Temple has remarked, that this description contains all the justest rules and provisions