unwholesome and enormously expensive light of candles, if they had really known, that they might have had as much pure light of the Sun for nothing. I am, &c. AN ABONNE. A PLEASANT SCENE OF ANGER AND COMPOSURE. THERE came into a bookseller's shop a very learned man, with an erect solemn air; who, though a person of great parts otherwise, is slow in understanding any thing which makes against himself. The composure of the faulty man, and the whimsical perplexity of him that was justly angry, is perfectly new. After turning over many volumes, said the seller to the buyer- Sir, you know I have long asked you to send me back the first volume of French Sermons I formerly lent you.'-'Sir,' said the chapman, I have often looked for it, but cannot find it: it is certainly lost; and I know not to whom I lent it, it is so many years ago.'' Then, sir, here is the other volume; I'll send you home that, and please to pay for both.'-' My friend,' replied he, 'can'st thou be so senseless, as not to know, that one volume is as imperfect in my library, as in your shop?" Yes, sir; but it is you have lost the first volume; and to be short, I will be paid.'—' Sir,' answered the chapman, 'you are a young man; your book is lost; and learn, by this little loss, to bear much greater adversities, which you must expect to meet with.'-'Yes, sir, I'll bear when I must; but I have not lost now, for I say you have it, and shall pay me.'-' Friend, you grow warm; I tell you the book is lost; and I foresee, in the course even of a prosperous life, that you will meet afflictions to make you mad, if you cannot bear this trifle. Sir, there is, in this case, no need of bearing, for you have the book.'-' say, sir, I have not the book; but your passion will not let you hear enough to be informed that I have it not. Learn resignation betimes to the distresses of this life: nay do not fret and fume; it is my duty to tell you, that you are of an impatient spirit; and an impatient spirit is never without woe.'-'Was ever any thing like this?'-' Yes, sir, there have been many things like this. The loss is but a trifle; but your temper is wanton, and incapable of the least pain; therefore, let me advise you, be patient: the book is lost, but do not you, for that reason, lose yourself.' Steele. ON HUMAN GRANDEUR. AN alehouse-keeper near Islington, who had long lived at the sign of the French king, upon the commencement of the last war pulled down his old sign, and put up that of the queen of Hungary. Under the influence of her red face and golden sceptre, he continued to sell ale, till she was no longer the favourite of his customers; he changed her therefore, some time ago, for the king of Prussia, who may probably be changed, in turn, for the next great man that shall be set up for vulgar admiration. In this manner the great are dealt out, one after the other, to the gazing crowd. When we have sufficiently wondered at one of them, he is taken in, and another exhibited in his room, who seldom holds his station long; for the mob are ever pleased with variety. I must own I have such an indifferent opinion of the vulgar, that I.am ever led to suspect that merit which raises their shout: at least I am certain to find those great, and sometimes good men, who find satisfaction in such acclamations, made worse by it; and history has too frequently taught me, that the head which has grown this day giddy with the roar of the million, has the very next been fixed upon a pole. As Alexander VI. was entering a little town in the neighbourhood of Rome, which had been just evacuated by the enemy, he perceived the townsmen busy in the market-place, in pulling down from a gibbet a figure which had been designed to represent himself. There were some also knocking down a neighbouring statue of one of the Orsini family, with whom he was at war, in order to put Alexander's effigy in its place. It is possible a man who knew less of the world would have condemned the adulation of those barefaced flatterers: but Alexander seemed pleased at their zeal; and, turning to Borgia, his son, said with a smile, Vides, mi fili, quam leve discrimen, patibulum inter et statuam. 'You see, my son, the small difference between a gibbet and a statue' If the great could be taught any lesson, this might serve to teach them upon how weak a foundation their glory stands: for, as popular applause is excited by what seems like merit, it as quickly condemns what has only the appearance of guilt. Popular glory is a perfect coquet: her lovers must toil, feel every inquietude, indulge every caprice, and, perhaps, at last, be jilted for their pains. True glory, on the other hand, resembles a woman of sense: her admirers must play no tricks; they feel no great anxiety, for they are sure, in the end, of being rewarded in proportion to their merit. When Swift used to appear in public, he generally had the mob shouting at his train. Pox take these fools,' he would say, how much joy might all this bawling give my lord mayor!' We have seen those virtues, which have, while living, retired from the public eye, generally transmitted to posterity, as the truest objects of admiration and praise. Perhaps the character of the late duke of Marlborough may one day be set up, even above that of his more talked of predecessor; since an assemblage of all the mild and amiable virtues are far superior to those vulgarly called the great ones. I must be pardoned for this short tribute to the memory of a man, who, while living, would as much detest to receive any thing that wore the appearance of flattery, as I should to offer it. I know not how to turn so trite a subject out of the beaten roal of common-place, except by illustrating it, rather by the assistance of my memory than judgment; and, instead of making reflections, by telling a story. A Chinese, who had long studied the works of Confucius, who knew the characters of fourteen thousand words, and could read a great part of every book that came into his way, once took it into his head to travel into Europe, and observe the customs of a people which he thought not very much inferior even to his own countrymen. Upon his arrival at Amsterdam his passion for letters naturally led him to a bookseller's shop; and, as he could speak a little Dutch, he civilly asked the bookseller for the works of the immortal Xixofou. The bookseller assured him he had never heard the book mentioned before. 'Alas!' cries our traveller,' to what purpose, then, has he fasted to death, to gain a renown which has never travelled beyond the precincts of China!' There is scarce a village in Europe, and not one university, that is not thus furnished with its little great men. The head of a petty corporation, who opposes the designs of a prince, who would tyrannically force his subjects to save their best clothes for Sundays; the puny pedant, who finds one undiscovered quality in the polype, or describes an unheeded process in the skeleton of a mole, and whose mind, like his microscope, perceives nature only in detail; the rhymer, who makes smooth verses, and paints to our imagination, when he should only speak to our hearts, all equally fancy themselves walking forward to immortality, and desire the crowd behind them to look on. The crowd takes them at their word. Patriot, philosopher, and poet, are shouted in their train. 'Where was there ever so much merit seen? no time so important as our own! ages, yet unborn, shall gaze with wonder and applause!' To such music the important pigmy moves forward, bust |