fore is not equally determinate and abfolute with refpect to offices of kindness, and acts of liberality; becaufe liberality and kindnefs, abfolutely determined, would lofe their nature; for how could we be called tender or charitable for

giving that which we are pofitively forbidden to withhold.

Yet even in adjusting the extent of our beneficence, no other meafure can be taken, than this precept affords us; for we can only know what others want or fuffer, by confidering how we fhould be affected in the fame fituation: nor can we proportion our affiftance by any other rule, than that of doing what we should expect from others. It indeed generally happens that the giver and receiver differ in their opinions of generofity; the fame partiality to his own intereft inclines one to large expectations, and the other to fparing diftributions. Perhaps the infirmity of human nature will fearcely fuffer a man groaning under the preffure of diftrefs to judge rightly of the kindnefs of his friends, or to think they have done enough until his deliverance is completed. Not therefore what we might wish, but what we could demand from others, we are obliged to grant; fince, though we can cafily know how much we might claim, it is impoffible to determine what we should hope.

But in all inquiries concerning the practice of voluntary and occafional virtues, it is fafeft for minds not oppressed with fuperftitious fears to determine against their own inclinations; and to fecure themselves from deficiency, by doing more than they believe to be ftrictly neceffary. For of this every man may be certain, that, if he were to exchange conditions with his dependant, he would expect more, than with the utmost exertion of his ardour he now will prevail on himself to perform ;

and when reafon has no fettled rule, and our paffions are striving to mislead us, it is furely the part of a wife man to err on the fide of fafety.

There are few men focramped in their private affairs, but that they may be charitable without any difadvantage to themfelves, or prejudice to their families. It is but fometimes facrificing a diversion or convenience to the poor, and turning the ufual courfe of our expences into a better channel. This is not only the most prudent and convenient, but the most meritori❤ ous mode of charity we can put in practice. By fuch a method we in fome measure fhare the neceffities of the poor, at the fame time that we relieve them, and make ourfelves not only their patrons, but their fellow-fufferers. Sir Thomas Brown irrthe last part of his Religia Medici, in which he defcribes his charity in feveral heroic inftances, and with a noble heat of fentiment mentions that verse in the Proverbs of Solomon-" He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord:" there is more rhetoric, fays he, in that one fentence, than in a library of fermons. And indeed, if thofe fentences were understood by the reader, with the fame emphalis as they are delivered by the author, we needed not thofe volumes of inftructions, but might be honest by an epitome.

There needs no ftronger argument to prove how univerfally and deeply the feeds of compaflion are planted in the heart of inan, than: the pleafure we take in the reprefentations of it: and though some men, for untoward ends, have chofen to reprefent human nature in other colours, the matter of fact is fo ftrong against them, that from a general propenfity to pity the unfortunate we exprefs that fenfation by the word humanity, as if it were a principle infeparable from:

our

our nature. That it is not infeparable, too many inftances daily occur to prove; there are many reproachful inftances of felfish tempers, which feem to take part in nothing beyond themselves. Yet humanity, the fource of charity, is fo great and noble a part of our nature, that a man muft do fome violence to himself, and fuffer fome painful conflicts, before he can fupprefs it, and ingraft on his heart a difpofition of an oppofite nature.

It is obfervable in the parable of the good Samaritan, that when the priest came to the spot where the wounded man lay, he paffed by on the other fide; he might indeed have paffed by without turning afide or feeming to fee him; but there is a fecret fhame attending every act of inhumanity, that is not cafily conquered. There is many a man will do a cruel act, who at the fame time will blush to be seen at it, and is forced to turn afide before he can bring his heart into a frame to execute his purpofc.

It is farther obfervable that in many parts of Scripture our bleffed Saviour, in defcribing the day of judgment, does it in fuch a manher as if the great enquiry then was to relate principally to this one virtue of compaffion; and as if our final fentence at the great tribunal was to be regulated exactly by the degree of our works of charity:

"I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat;-thirsty, and ye gave me drink;-naked, and ye cloathed me; I was fick, and ye vifited me-in prison, and ye came unto me." Not that we are to infer from thence, that other good or evil actions will be overlooked by the All-feeing Judge; but to intimate to us, that a benevolent and charitable difpofition is fo principaf and ruling a part of the Chrif tian character, as to be the great teft alone of the frame and temper of his mind; by which all his other virtues and vices were to be estimated. When therefore we fee a truly compaflionate man, we may depend on his poffeffing a thousand other good qualities; and that he is a man with whom we may truft a wife, children, fortune, and reputation. It is for this reafon, as the Apostle argues from the fame principle, that he will not commit adulterythat he will not kill-that he will not steal-that he will not bear falso witnefs.' That is, the forrows which are stirred up in men's hearts by fuch trefpaffes, are so fenfibly felt by a compaffionate man, that it is not in his power or nature to commit them. So that well might he conclude, that charity, by which he means the love of our neighbour, is the end of the commandment; and that whofoever, fulfilled it, had fulfilled the law.

THE Right Hon. Charles Stan

hope, Earl of Harrington, Vifcount Peterfham, and Baron Harrington. Born, March 20, 1753. Married, May 22, 1779,

daughter and coheir of Sir Mi

chaol Fleming, Bart. of Middlefex, by whom he has Charles Vifc. Peterfham, born April 1780.-Lincoln-Edward-Robert, born Nov. 26, 1781-Anna-Maria, born Sept. 3, 1783.-A fon born Sept. 6,

1784. A daughter, born Dec. 29, 1785.-A fon, born April 24, 1787. Defcent. This family is defcended from the fecond marriage of Sir John Stanhope, ancestor of the Earl of Chesterfield, as fet forth under that title. The third in defcent from Sir John was William, grandfather of the prefent Earl, to whom George II. on Nov. 20, 1729, granted the title of Baron Harrington; and on Feb. 9, 1742, advanced him to the dig aity of Vifc. Peterfham and Earl of Harrington, who married Anne, daughter and heir of Col. Edward Griffith; and by her (who died in childbed Dec. 18, 1719) had two fons, William and Thomas, twins; the latter died unmarried 1742; and his Lordship dying Dec. 8, 1756, was fucceeded by his fon, William, fecond Earl of Harringson, born Dec. 18, 1719, twin-bro ther to Thomas. He married Aug. 11, 1746, Caroline Fitzroy, eldelt daughter of Charles late Duke of Grafton, aunt to the prefent Duke of Grafton and Lord Southampton; by whom (who died June 26, 1784) his Lordship (who died Sept. 1, 1779) left the following

The Life of SCHROETER,

IN a mufical age like the prefent, the biography of a mufician becomes an object of more general curiofity than the life of a phile fopher; and the death of an eminent profeffor is lamented as a na onal misfortune. To gratify our mufical readers, a correfpondent has favoured us with the following authentic particulars of the late celebrated Schroeter.

. John Samuel Schrocter was a native of Saxony. He came to London about fourteen years ago with his father, a mufician of no great eminence, but who bestowed

iffue: Caroline, born March 11, 1747, married Oct. 7, 1765, Kenneth Mackenzie, late Earl of Seaforth, of Ireland, and died March 24, 1767, leaving a daughter, Caroline. Her Lord died in 1782, when the title became extinct. Ifabella, born April 4, 1748, married Nov. 27, 1768, Charles-William, Earl of Sefton, of Ireland, by whom the has iffue.-Amelia, born May 24, 1749, married April 16, 1767, Richard Barry, late Earl of Barrymore, of Ireland, and died Sept. 1780, leaving ifle. Henrietta, born Oft. 26, 1750, married March 15, 1776, Thomas Foley, brother to the prefent Lord Foley, and has iffuc.-Charles, the prefent Earl.--Henry-Fitzroy, born 1754, now a Lieutenant in the f Regiment of Foot- Guards, who had a fon, born June 20, 1787.

Anna- Maria, born March 31, 1760, married Jan. 25, 1782, the Earl of Lincoln, only furviving fon of the Duke of Newcastle, by whom the has iffue.

Heir-apparent. Charles Lord Peterham, eldeft fon of the pres

fent Earl.

the Celebrated Compofer.

much pains in giving his fon a complete mufical education. The difcipline of Germany is almost as fevere in mufical as in military movements; and the elder Schroeter was a martinet of very terrific abilities. By virtue of hunger and hard blows he compelled his fon to practice for feveral years, without intermiffion, cight hours a-day; and to this may be imputed the remarkable facility with which he executed the moft difficult mufie at fight. But while he applied thus diligently to the practice, he did not neglect the theory of

the

the fence, the rudiments of which he acquired under the famous Emanuel Bach, which he afterwards cultivated and improved, from fudying the works of that great master in fcore...

For fome time after his arrival in London, the fplendid talents of young Schroeter were either unknown or neglected. He occaflonally played the organ at a German chapel in the city, a fituation which by no means accorded with his genius, as he was not there permitted to indulge his fancy in any mufical flights beyond the formal rules of the cathedral fchool. It was at this time that he compofed his first fet of leffons for the Piano Forte, which he offered to feveral of the mufic-fellers of London on their own terms, but in vain. His name was not then inarketable, and few of the venders of mufic knew any thing more of the art. He was at laft recommended by the late J. C. Bach to Napier, mufic-feller in the Strand, who foon diftinguished his merit as a compofer, and purchased the opy-right of his work at a liberal price.

Being now announced to the mufical world as a compofer, Schroeter began to acquire fome celebrity in the profellion, which pro

cured him several scholars in the

fashionable circles. Upon the publication of his first fet of concerts, his reputation was fuch, that he took the lead as a performer in all the mufical entertainments of the nobility at which he affifted.

Soon after this period he married a lady who was his pupil, by whom he was entitled to a very confiderable fortune; but her friends taking violent offence at the match, and threatening poor Schroeter with the terrors of the Court of Chancery, which he then conceived to be more dreadful than the Inquifition, he gave up his

claim to her fortune, in confideration of receiving an annuity of 500l. clogged with a very unreafonable condition, that he was to relinquifh his profeffion fo far as never to perform at any public concert. This, which more ambitious men, would have fpurned at, Schroeter, who had much indolence of difpofition, as well as careleffnefs of fame, agreed to, and for fome years he retired from town, and refided chiefly in the country.

But talents like his could not be long buried in oblivion. The Prince of Wales heard him play at a private concert, and exprefied the highest admiration of his performance. His Royal Highness's houthold was then about to be ef tablished, and without any folicitation Schroeter was appointed one of his band of mufic, with a liberal falary. His laft fet of Sonatas, which have a very elegant accom panyment for a violin and violoncello, were compofed at the defire of the Prince, to whom it was dedicated, and his Royal Highnes frequently accompanied Schroeter in his favourite work.

The grand piano forte was Schroeter's favourite inftrument. His ftyle of playing was diftinguifhed by that peculiar elegance and delicacy, which a chafle and correc tafte, improved by fcience, alone can require. Though he poffeffed the most compleat dominion of his inftrument, he feldom indulged in thofe capricious difficulties and harlequin tricks, by which many of our modern performers catch the applaufe of the vulgar, His mode of fingering was fo pe culiarly eafy and elegant, that it was even pleafing to fee him perform. In this cadences he often gave rein to the luxuriance of his genius, and aftonished the profeffor as well as the amateur, with the novelty, the beauty, and the E

endless