The furniture of his apartment was fimple, but not defpifable: on the table lay a bible open, with his fpectacles on one of the pages, and a few other books graced his fhelves. He kindly rofe to meet and introduce me with a chearful complacency of countenance, which, according to my notions of phyfiognomy, appeared truly expreffive of the Chriftian Philofopher.

Encouraged by his openness and affability, I frankly declared to him the occafion of my vifit; to which I added fome remarks on my late ill fuccefs. At his defire, I then feated myfelf befide him, on an ancient wainfcot fettee, and liftened with pleasure to every fentence which fell from his lips.

"If you had made an enquiry after Happiness," faid he, " after which there have been fo many enquirers, I could have told you, that if you fought her on this fide the grave, all your labours had been in vain but this is not the cafe with Content; it is the lot of a chofen few to know when they have a fufficiency of this world's goods, and to reft fatif fied with the difpenfations of Providence -of which number I hope I am one! and I will inform you by what mode of reafoning I attained this equanimity of

mind.

66

Experience has convinced me, that the real wants of nature are few, and cheaply fupplied; but the imaginary ones are innumerable and infatiate. The man who poffeffes a thoufand a year looks up with envy to him who enjoys ten thoufand, and the poffeffor of a hundred to him who inherits five hundred; and, on a comparison of circumstances, confider themfelves as poor and unhappy! The inheritor of a few paternal acres thinks Fortune has dealt partially by him, becaufe fhe has not bestowed the ample patrimony of his opulent neighbour; and that opulent neighbour, in his turn, feels aggrieved to fee a fuperior enjoy the privileges of office, or hold the reins of power.

ourselves miferable by an improper comparifon, while a proper one would con.. fiderably contribute to our happiness.

"Inftead of fcaling the heights of ambition, to make observations and draw inferences, let us frequently defcend to the lowest fituations of human lifethere, while we contemplate and commiferate the misfortunes and calamities of our fellow-creatures, funk fo far beneath us in the gulph of diftrefs, our hearts should glow with gratitude to that fuperintending Providence, which has graciously decreed to us fuch unmerited diftinction.

"Nor are these the only fources of difcontent-In temporal affairs, we are apt to look too far forward for our own peace-our anxiety for the future em. bitters the prefent, and we anticipate evils that may never arrive!

"Not fo the Chriftian Philofopherhis religion teaches him to fmile on the little difficulties which embarrass the man of the world, and to look down with contempt on its lying vanities-to leave the concerns of to-morrow to the allwife Difpofer of Events; and to envy thofe only who have made a better progrefs in goodness, and have a nearer profpect of an eternal reward.”

Here the tumults of induftry and toil intruded on my repofe; and rouzed me "To all the cares of waking clay, "And inconfiftent dreams of day!"

My reverend Mentor disappeared; but he, like Milton's Raphael,

W. H.

DROSSIANA.

FENELON,

Telemachus, was

pointed Chief of the Miffionaries to convert the Protestants of Santonge, by Louis the Fourteenth, who infitted that he should be accompanied by a regiment of Guards. "The Minifters of religion. Sire," faid he to that Prince, "are the Evangelists of peace; and this military appearance would frighten every body, but would perfuade no one. It was by the force of their morals that the Apoftles converted mankind; permit us, then, Sir, from their example, to borrow no other methods." "But, alas, Sir," replied the Monarch, "have you nothing to fear from the fanaticifm of thofe heretics? Know you not the fury that ani. mates them againft our priests, and the number they have aflaflinated ?” 'I am no stranger to it; but a prieit has not to let fears like thole enter into his calculation; and I take the liberty of mentioning again to you, She, that if we would draw to us our diffident brethren, we must go to them like true Apostles. For my own part, I had rather become their victim, than fee one of their Mi nifters exposed to the vexations, the infult, and the almost necessary violences of our military men."

་

J. J. Rouffeau, not long before he died, leeing the religious feminary into which Fenelon made his retreat, laid to his companion in one of his walks near Paris, My friend, how happy thould I have been to have lived with that good man, were it only as his yalet de cham"bre !"

As Fenelon was walking near his cathedral with fome of his Canons, a poor old woman came up to him with fixpence in her hand, and faid, " My Lord, I am afraid I dare not venture to ask you, but I have a great deal of confidence in your prayers, and I fhould with you would fay a mats for my foul." "Come, good woman, give me your money," ays the pious and fimple Archbishop: "I will Jay a mals for you: your alms will be

VOL. XXXV. May 1799.

HAMLET.

agreeable to Heaven." Then, turning to his Clergy, he faid, "How careful we should always be icr the honour of our profeflion!"

In the hard winter of 1709 he had ten thousand pounds worth of wheat in his magazines. He diftributed them to the foldiers, who often wanted bread, and would receive no money for them. "His Majetty," fays he," owes me nothing; and, in the calamities that now oppreis the people, I ought, as a Frenchman and a Bishop, to restore to the State what I have received from it." Louis the Fourteenth, at the latter part of his life, became reconciled to Fenelon's conduct; and, when he had found every one had deceived or mifled him, faid, on hearing of his death, "Alas! he fails us when we have the most occafion for him."

Fenelon ufed to tell this ftory of himfelf:-That, being a very young Abbé, he was at the Chapel Royal of Verfailles one evening, when he fell faft afleep in the Sermon. The Preacher cried cut from the pulpit, "Beadle, go and wake that Abbé who fnores fo loud, and is, perhaps, at chapel this evening merely to please the King."

Not long before he died, Fenelon afcended the pulpit of his Cathedral, and excommunicated in perfon his books that the Pope had laid under an interdi&t; and he placed on the altar piece a piece of facred plate, on which were emboffed fome books (with the titles of his fuppofed heretical ones), ftruck with the fire of Heaven.

The maufoleum that was erected to Fenelon in the Cathedral of Cambrai, was no more refpected by the modern Vandals than the fanctuary itself. The epitaph was long and dull. D'Alembert propoled the following one:

SIR JOHN PRINGLE, EART. was a Physician upon the Sydenham plan; rather a follower of Nature than a director of her operations; and, according to Lord Bacon's wife advice, preferred the dull afs to the foaring bird, experience to theory.

It

His book on the Difeafes of the Army was a very useful and excellent one in its time, and has given birth to many excellent ones on the fame fubject, which have now fuperfeded the use of it. caufed the difeafes of that valuable part of mankind-that part of mankind to whom in thefe times we are indebted for our lives, our liberties, and our religion -to be more carefully attended to, and in many respects obviated. Dr. Carmichael Smyth's very valuable book against Contagion was written, perhaps, in confequence of the method of thinking in certain difeafes, which Sir John's book had encouraged.

The Pharmacopoeia is indebted to Sir John Pringle for one very powerful medicine in that horrid difeafe the Dropfy. It is known by the name of the Blue Bolus; a compofition of mercury rubbed down and fquills, and is very well known at St. Thomas's Hospital, where it used to be given with great fuccefs by that eminent practitioner in medicine the late Dr. Buch Saunders.

Dr. Hugh Smith, of Blackfriarsbridge, was very fond of the Blue Bolus in his practice. He gave with it Ward's Fittula Patte; a medicine compofed chiefly of black pepper, as a ftimulant to enable the conftitution to bear the drain which the Bolus occafions.

MONTESQUIEU

fays, in his Pofthumous Works, 12mo. 1783, of Gothic Architecture, "This fpecies of Architecture appears very varied; but the confufion of ornaments fatigues the eye by their littleness: this caufes it to happen, that there is no one which we can diftinguifh from the other, and they are fo numerous that there is no one in particular upon which the eye can arrest itself; for that Gothic Architecture difpleafes by the very means that have been taken to please. The moderns, with Inigo Jones and Wren at their head, have tried in vain to raise Gothic buildings; but

Unus et alter

Affumitur pannus;

it is patch work. They had much better have followed fome real models. That ingenious architect Mr. James Wyatt, always having real Gothic fubjects in his imagination, has decorated the infide of fome of our cathedrals in a very beau tiful and appropriate manner: he has made beauty confiftent with grandeur, and variety and minutenefs of decoration co-operate with grandeur:

Felix operis fummâ

Ponere fcit totum.

And what praises do not our Chapters deferve for the pious and elegant care they beftow on the facred structures com. mitted to their charge!

Mr. Wyatt has now, at Magdalen College, Oxford, a noble fcope difplayed for his genius, which he has the happinefs to be affured, from the candour and good fenfe of the learned and excellent Prefident, will fuffer no cramp, or have any impediment thrown in its way.

CARDINAL D'ESTREES

feems to have been the groffett flatterer that Louis XIV. had in his Court. The old King, having loft fome of his teeth, was complaining one day at his petit Couvert, that he chewed ill any hard substances for the want of them. "Pray, Sire, who has any teeth?" faid the Cardinal, who was a very hand fome man, and famous for that beautiful ornament to the face, excellent teeth. He was one day walking by the fide of Louis XIV. who was driving himself in a cabriolet in the gardens of Marli, which in Louis's opinion was a terreftrial paradife: it rained hard, and the Monarch obferved to his Eminence that he would be wet. "Ah! Sire," faid the good Cardinal, "the rain of Marli never wets;" which became a proverb—La pluie de Marli ne mouille point.-D'Eftrees was employed by Louis XIV. in feveral important negotiations, and fucceeded Fenelon as Archbishop of Cambrai. He did not live long enough to be confecrated.

BOILEAU

was once asked by Louis XIV. his opifaid the fatirift, I now fee that your Manion of a couplet of his making: "Sire," jesty can do any thing; you have defired to make a bad couplet, and you have fucceeded."

GENERAL

GENERAL MUNICH.

One of the greatest eulogiums that was ever paffed upon Fenelon was that of this General, who had known him in Flanders when he ferved in the army of the allies: "I look upon that time as the happiest of my life, in which I had the good luck to know the Archbishop of Cambrai; and I am lefs flattered with my fucceffes in my military profeffion, than in thofe marks of kindnefs which he was fo good

as to deign to witnefs to me in my youth."

ST. PIERRE.

Some one was one day repeating before this excellent man the foolish old adage, that an Hiftorian fhould be without a country, and without any religion, if fuch things were poffible. "Say rather," faid this upright politician, without paffion and without a pension."

IT

Tis no uncommon obfervation, efpecially in the mouths of foreigners, that the English are remarkable for an infatiable curiofity in hunting after the wonders of other nations, and equally remarkable for negligence of the wonders of their own. It is impoffible to enter a coffee-houfe in London, without confeffing the truth of this obfervation; we are there fure to meet with fome fagacious politician, who has really a very accurate knowledge of the geographical fituation of every kingdom on the continent, and can hold the balance of power as fteadily and full as impartially as he holds the fcales in his own fhop; but place him in the centre of his native kingdom, and defire him to find his way to any particular county, or request him to point out the wonders of his native town, and it is ten to one you find him totally unable to do either. The English have generally been deemed a philofophic race (according to the old fashioned notion of that term); but if true philofophy confiits, as an ancient Sage obferved, in a difregard of things beyond our reach, they must forego all pretenfions to the title, fince they are fo intent upon what is paffing in diftant countries, that the ftigma of "alieni appetens, lui profefus," which Salluft beltows upon the rapacious Cataline, may with fome justice be applied to the news-hunters of the prefent day. Many a worthy Grocer or Cheesemonger, neither fitted by nature for education to ftep beyond

Juv.

DRYDEN.

the precincts of Bearbinder-lane, fuffers his fmall troop of ideas to expatiate over the forefts of Germany and mountains of Switzerland. A little Haberdasher of my acquaintance is poffeffed of fo ardent a defire for the good of his country, that he totally overlooks the good of his family; and a Taylor in my neighbour hood, more intent on the Congress at Raditadt than a propofed meeting of his creditors, fuffers his affronted customers to make their exit while he is impatiently expecting the arrival of the Hamburgh mail. I have feen in the midst of the Strand a Barber and a Baker, "with open mouth, fwallowing" the contents of a daily paper, and at the risk of their lives much more attentive to what is going on upon the Continent than in the Itreet. A man, unaccustomed to the claftic force of determined folly, might fuppofe that the abfurd rumours, contradictory ftatements, and palpable falfehoods, that abound in our diurnal prints, would have a tendency to check this prevailing diftemper; and that the mortification of being laughed at for their credulity would in fome degree diminish the catalogue of our Ephemeral politicians. The contrary is evidently the cafe; the coffee house gleaner, provided his fcraps of information procure femi-circle of lifteners, and a momentary elevation, little heeds the depreffion that follows; is the first to laugh at his own baldnets, confeffes the whole account a mere take in, determines to be more Rr 2

him a

careful