ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH LIFE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS AGO. THE BRITISH MUSEUM IN 1750. ES, doctor, I have seen the British Museum, which is a noble collection, and even stupendous if we consider it was made by a private man, a physician, who was obliged to make his own. fortune at the same time; but, great as the collection is, it would appear more striking if it were arranged in one spacious saloon, instead of being divided into different apartments which it does not entirely fill. I could wish the series of medals were connected, and the whole of the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms completed, by adding to each, at the public expense, those articles that are wanting. It would likewise be a great improvement with respect to the library if the deficiencies were made up by purchasing all the books of character that are not to be found already in the collection. They might be classed in centuries, according to the dates of their publication, and catalogues printed of them and the manuscripts, for the information of those that want to consult or compile from such authorities. I could also wish, for the honor of the nation, that there was a complete apparatus for a course of mathematics, mechanics and experimental philosophy, and a good salary settled on an able professor who should give regular lectures on these subjects. LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. But this is all idle speculation which will never be reduced to practice. Considering the temper of the times, it is a wonder to see any institution whatsoever established for the benefit of the public. The spirit of party is risen to a kind of frenzy unknown to former ages, or, rather, degenerated to a total extinction of honesty and candor. You know I have observed for some time that the public papers are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation. Every rancorous knave, every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half a crown or three shillings may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom without running the least hazard of detection or punishment. I have made acquaintance with a Mr. Barton, whom Jery knew at Oxford-a good sort of man, though most ridiculously warped in his political principles; but his partiality is the less offensive as it never appears in the style of scurrility and abuse. He is a member of Parliament and a retainer to the court, and his whole conversation turns on the virtues and perfections of the ministers who are his patrons. T'other day, when he was bedaubing one of those worthies with the most fulsome praise, I told him I had seen the same nobleman characterized very differently in one of the daily papers-indeed, so stigmatized that if one half of what was said of him was true he must be not only unfit to rule, but even unfit to live; that those impeachments had been repeated again and again, with the addition of fresh matter; and that, as he had taken no steps toward his own vindication, I began to think there was some foundation for the charge. "And pray, sir," said Mr. Barton, "what steps would you have him take? Suppose he should prosecute the publisher who screens the anonymous accuser and bring him to the pillory for a libel; this is so far from being counted a punishment in terrorem that it will probably make his fortune. The multitude immediately take him into their protection as a martyr to the cause of defamation, which they have always espoused. They pay his fine, they contribute to the increase of his stock, his shop is crowded with customers, and the sale of his paper rises in proportion to the scandal it contains. All this time the prosecutor is inveighed against as a tyrant and oppressor for having chosen to proceed by the way of information, which is deemed a grievance; but if he lays an action for damages, he must prove the damage. And I leave you to judge whether a gentleman's character may not be brought into contempt and all his views in life blasted by calumny without his being able to specify the particulars of the damage he has sustained. This spirit of defamation is a kind of heresy that thrives under persecution. The liberty of the press is a term of great efficacy, and, like that of the Protestant religion, has often served the purposes of sedition. A minister, therefore, must arm himself with patience and bear those attacks without repining. Whatever mischief they may do in other respects, they certainly contribute in one particular to the advantage of government; for these defamatory articles have multiplied papers in such a manner and augmented their sale to such a degree that the duty on stamps and advertisements has made a very considerable addition to the revenue." Certain it is a gentleman's honor is a very. delicate subject to be handled by a jury composed of men who cannot be supposed remarkable either for sentiment or impartiality. In such a case, indeed, the defendant is tried not only by his peers, but also by his party; and I really think that, of all patriots, he is the most resolute who exposes himself to such detraction for the sake of his country. As for the liberty of the press, like every other privilege, it must be restrained within certain bounds; for if it is carried to a breach of law, religion and charity, it becomes one of the greatest evils that ever annoyed the community. If the lowest ruffian may stab your good name with impunity in England, will you be so uncandid as to exclaim against Italy for the practice of common assassinatian? To what purpose is our property secured if our moral character is left defenceless? People thus baited grow desperate, and the despair of being able to preserve one's character untainted by such vermin produces a total neglect of fame; so that one of the chief incitements to the practice of virtue is effectually destroyed. Mr. Barton's last consideration-respecting the stamp-duty—is equally wise and laudable with another maxim which has been long adopted by our financiers; namely, to connive at drunkenness, riot and dissipation because they enhance the receipt of the excise, not reflecting that in providing this temporary convenience they are destroying the morals, health and industry of the people. AUTHORS. and impostors; and you could not name a single performance but what was tame, stupid and insipid. It must be owned that this writer had nothing to charge his conscience with on the side of flattery, for I understand he was never known to praise one line that was written even by those with whom he lived on terms of goodfellowship. This arrogance and presumption in depreciating authors for whose reputation the company may be interested is such an insult on the understanding as I could not bear without wincing. I desired to know his reasons for decrying some works which had afforded me uncommon pleasure, and, as demonstration did not seem to be his talent, I dissented from his opinion with great freedom. Having been spoiled by the deference and humility of his hearers, he did not bear contradiction with inuch temper; and the dispute might have grown warm had it not been interrupted by the entrance of a rival bard, at whose ap I should renounce politics the more will ingly if I could find other topics of conversation discussed with more modesty and candor, but the demon of party seems to have usurped every department of life. Even the world of literature and taste is divided into the most virulent factions, which revile, decry and traduce the works of one another. Yesterday I went to return an afternoon's visit to a gentleman of my acquaintance, at whose house I found one of the authors of the present age who has writter with some success. As I had read one or two of his performances which gave me pleasure, I was glad of this opportunity to know his person; but his discourse and deportment destroyed all the impressions which his writings had made in his favor. He took on him to decide dogmatically on every subject without deigning to show the least cause for his dif-pearance he always quits the place. They fering from the general opinions of mankind, as if it had been our duty to acquiesce in the ipse dixit of this new Pythagoras. He rejudged the characters of all the principal authors who had died within a century of the present time, and in this revision paid no sort of regard to the reputation they had acquired. Milton was harsh and prosaic; Dryden, languid and verbose; Butler and Swift, without humor; Congreve, without wit; and Pope, destitute of any sort of poetical merit. As for his contemporaries, he could not bear to hear one of them mentioned with any degree of applause they were all dunces, pedants, plagiaries, quacks are of different cabals, and have been at open war these twenty years. If the other was dogmatical, this genius was declamatory: he did not discourse, but harangued; and his orations were equally tedious and turgid. He too pronounces ex cathedrá on the characters of his contemporaries; and, though he scruples not to deal out praise, even lavishly, to the lowest reptile in Grub street who will either flatter him in private or mount the public rostrum as his panegyrist, he damns all the other writers of the age with the utmost insolence and rancor. One is a blunderbuss, as being a native of Ireland; another half starved, from the banks of the Tweed; a third an ass, because he enjoys a pension from the government; a fourth the very angel of dulness, because he succeeded in a species of writing in which this Aristarchus had failed; a fifth, who presumed to make strictures on one of his performances, he holds as a bug in criticism whose stench is more offensive than his sting. In short, except himself and his myrmidons, there is not a man of genius or learning in the three kingdoms. As for the success of those who have written without the pale of this confederacy, he imputes it entirely to want of taste in the public, not considering that to the approbation of that very tasteless public he himself owes all the consequence he has in life. which I stand acquitted in my own conscience. Whether it is a vice or an infirmity I leave you to inquire. WAS THE WORLD ALWAYS BAD? There is another point which I would much rather see determined-whether the world was always as contemptible as it appears to me at present. If the morals of mankind have not contracted an extraordinary degree of depravity within these thirty years, then must I be infected with the common vice of old men, difficilis, querulus, laudator, temporis acti, or, which is more probable, the impetuous pursuits and avocations of youth have formerly hindered me from observing those rotten parts of human nature which now appear so offensively to my observation. We have been at court and 'Change and everywhere, and everywhere we find food for spleen and subject for ridicule. My new servant, Humphry Clinker, turns out a great original, and Tabby is a changed creature: she has parted with Chowder and does nothing but smile, like Malvolio in the play. I'll be hanged if she is not acting a part which is not natural to her disposiI am tion for some purpose which I have not yet discovered. Those originals are not fit for conversation. If they would maintain the advantage they have gained by their writing, they should never appear but on paper. For my part, I am shocked to find a man have sublime ideas in his head and nothing but illiberal sentiments in his heart. The human soul will be generally found most defective in the article of candor. I am inclined to think no mind was ever wholly exempt from envy, which perhaps may have been implanted as an instinct essential to our nature. afraid we sometimes palliate this vice under the specious name of emulation. I have known a person remarkably generous, humane, moderate and apparently self-denying who could not hear even a friend commended without betraying marks of uneasiness, as if that commendation had implied an odious comparison to his prejudice and every wreath of praise added to the other's character was a garland plucked from his own temples. This is a malignant species of jealousy of With respect to the characters of mankind my curiosity is quite satisfied: I have done with the science of men, and must now endeavor to amuse myself with the novelty of things. I am at present, by a violent effort of the mind, forced from my natural bias, but, this power ceasing to act, I shall return to my solitude with redoubled velocity. Everything I see and hear and feel in this great reservoir of folly, knavery and so If I stay much longer at Edinburgh, I shall be changed into a downright Caledonian. My uncle observes that I have already acquired something of the country accent. The people here are so social and attentive in their civilities to strangers that I am insensibly sucked into the channel of their manners and customs, although they are, in fact, much more different from ours than you can imagine. That difference, how ever, which struck me very much at my first arrival I now hardly perceive, and my ear is perfectly reconciled to the Scotch accent, which I find even agreeable in the mouth of a pretty woman. It is a sort of Doric dialect which gives an idea of amiable simplicity. You cannot imagine how we have been caressed and feasted in the good town of Edinburgh, of which we have become free denizens and guild-brothers by the special favor of the magistracy. I had a whimsical commission from Bath to a citizen of this metropolis. Quin, understanding our intention to visit Edinburgh, pulled out a guinea and desired the favor I would drink it at a tavern with a particular friend and bottle-companion of his, one Mr. R C, a lawyer of this city. I charged myself with the commission, and, taking the guinea, "You see,' said I, "I have pocketed your bounty." 'Yes," replied Quin, laughing, "and a headache into the bargain, if you drink fair.' 66 I made use of this introduction to Mr. C, who received me with open arms and gave me the rendezvous according to the cartel. He had provided a company of jolly fellows, among whom I found myself extremely happy, and did Mr. C——— and Quin all the justice in my power; but, alas! I was no more than a tyro among a troop of veterans, who had compassion on my youth and conveyed me home in the morning-by what means I know not. Quin was mistaken, however, as to the headache: the claret was too good to treat me so roughly. Not a While Mr. Bramble holds conferences with the graver literati of the place and our females are entertained at visits by the Scotch ladies, who are the best and kindest creatures on earth, I pass my time among the bucks of Edinburgh, who with a great share of spirit and vivacity have a certain shrewdness and self-command that is not often found among their neighbors in the heyday of youth and exultation. hint escapes a Scotchman that can be interpreted into offence by any individual of the company, and national reflections are never heard. In this particular, I must own, we are both unjust and ungrateful to the Scotch; for, as far as I am able to judge, they have a real esteem for the natives of South Britain and never mention our country but with expressions of regard. Nevertheless, they are far from being servile imitators of our modes and fashionable vices. All their customs and regulations of public and private economy, of business and diversion, are in their own style. This remarkably predominates in their looks, their dress and manners, their music, and even their ecok |