accident happened, which very much London. We knew when a spirit was alarmed the whole family. Towzer in the room, by the candle burning one night howled moft terribly; which blue: but poor coufin Nancy was ready was a fure fign, that fomebody belong to cry one time, when the fnuffed it ing to them would die. The youngest out, and could not blow it in again; mifs declared, that fhe had heard the though her fifter did it at a whiff, and hen crow that morning; which was confequently triumphed in her fuperior another fatal prognoftic. They told virtue. me, that, just before uncle died, Towzer bowled fo for feveral nights together, that they could not quiet him; and my aunt heard the death-watch tick as plainly, as if there had been a clock in the room: the maid too, who fat up with him, heard a bell toll at the top of the ftairs, the very moment the breath went out of his body. During this difcourfe, I overheard one of my coufins whisper the other, that the was afraid their mamma would not live long; for the fmelt an ugly fmell, like a dead carcafe. They had a dairy. maid, who died the very week after an hearfe had ftopt at their door in its way to church and the eldeft mifs, when he was but thirteen, faw her own brother's ghoft (who was gone to the West Indies) walking in the garden; and to be fure, nine months after, they had an account, that he died on board the fhip, the very fame day, and hour of the day, that mifs faw his apparition, : I need not mention to you the common incidents, which were accounted by them no lefs prophetic. If a cinder popped from the fire, they were in hafte to examine whether it was a purfe or a coffin. They were aware of my coming long before I arrived, because they had seen a stranger on the grate. The youngest mifs will let nobody use the poker but herfelf; becaufe, when fhe tirs the fire, it always burns bright, which is a fign the will have a brifk husband: and he is no lefs fure of a good one, because the generally has ill luck at cards. Nor is the candle lefs oracular than the fire: for the 'fquire of the parish came one night to pay them a vifit, when the tallow winding fheet pointed towards him; and he broke his neck foon after in a fox-chafe. My aunt one night obferved with great pleasure a letter in the candle; and the very next day one came from her fon in We had no occafion for an almanack or the weather-glafs, to let us know whether it would rain or shine. One evening I propofed to ride out with my coufins the next day to fee a gentleman's houfe in the neighbourhood; but my aunt affured us it would be wet, she knew very well, from the fhooting of her corn. Befides, there was a great fpider crawling up the chimney, and the blackbird in the kitchen began to fing; which were both of them as certain fore-runners of rain. But the most to be depended on in these cafes is a tabby cat, which ufually lies bafking on the parlour hearth. If the cat turned her tail to the fire, we were to have an hard froft; if the cat licked her tail, rain would certainly enfue. They wondered what ftranger they fhould fee; because pufs washed her foot over her left ear. The old lady complained of a cold, and her eldest daughter remarked, it would go through the family; for the obferved, that poor Tab had fneezed feveral times. Poor Tab, however, once flew at one of my coufins for which he had like to have been destroyed, as the whole family began to think he was no other than a witch. It is impoffible to tell you the feveral tokens by which they know whether good or ill luck will happen to them. Spilling the falt, or laying knives across, are every where accounted ill omens; but a pin with the head turned towards you, or to be followed by a strange dog, I found were very lucky. I heard one of my coufins tell the cook-maid, that the boiled away all her fweethearts, because he had let her dish water boil over. The fame young lady one morning came down to breakfast with her cap the wrong fide out; which the mother obferving, charged her not to alter it all day, for fear the fhould turn luck. But, above all, I could not help remarking the various prognoftics which the old lady and her daughters used to collect from almost every part of the body. A white fpeck upon the nails made them as fure of a gift as if they had it already in their pockets. The eldeft fifter is to have one husband more than the youngest, because she has one wrinkle more in her forehead; but the other will have the advantage of her in the number of children, as was plainly proved by fnapping their finger-joints. It would take up too much room to fet down every circumftance, which I ob. ferved of this fort during my stay with them I fhall therefore conclude my letter with the feveral remarks on other parts of the body, as far as I could learn them from this prophetic family: for, as I was a relation, you know, they had lefs referve, If the head itches, it is a fign of rain. If the head aches, it is a profitable pain, If you have the toot-ache, you don't love true. If your eye-brow itches, you will fee a ftranger. If your right eye itches, you will cry; if your left, you will laugh but left or right is good at night. If your nofe itches, you will shake hands with or kifs a fool, drink a glass of wine, run against a cuckold's door, or mifs them all four. If your right ear or cheek burns, your left friends are talking of you; if your left, your right friends are talking of you. If your elbow itches, you will change your bedfellow. If your right hand itches, you will pay away money; if your left, you will receive. If your ftomach itches, you will eat pudding. If your back itches, butter will be cheap when grafs grows there. If your fide itches, fomebody is wishing for you. If your gartering-place itches, you will go to a strange place. If your foot itches, you will tread upon ftrange ground. Laftly, If you fhiver, fomebody is walking over your grave. Connoiffeur. $92. Swearing an indelicate as well as a wicked Practice.. As there are fome vices, which the vulgar have prefumed to copy from the great; fo there are others, which the great have condefcended to borrow from the vulgar. Among thefe, I cannot but fet down the fhocking practice of curfing and fwearing; a practice, which (to fay nothing at prefent of its impiety and prophaneness) is low and indelicate, and places the man of quality on the fame level with the chairman at his door. A gentleman would forfeit all pretenfions to that title, who should chufe to embellift his difcourfe with the oratory of Billingfgate, and converfe in the ftyle of an oyster-woman; but it is accounted no difgrace to him to ufe the fame coarfe expreflions of curfing and fwearing with the meaneft of the mob. For my own part, I cannot fee the difference between a By-gad or a Gad dem-me, minced and foftened by a genteel pronunciation from well-bred lips, and the fame expreffion bluntly bolted out from the broad mouth of a pórter or hackney-cochman. I shall purpofely wave making any reflections on the impiety of this prac tice, as I am fatisfied they would have but little weight either with the beaumonde or the canaille. The fwearer of either ftation devotes himself piecemeal, as it were, to deftruction; pours out anathemas against his eyes, his heart, his foul, and every part of his body; nor does he fcruple to extend the fame good wishes to the limbs and joints of his friends and acquaintance. This they both do with the fame fearlefs unconcern; but with this only difference, that the gentleman-fwearer damns himfelf and others with the greateft civility and good- breeding imaginable. My predeceffor the Tatler gives us an account of a certain humorist, who got together a party of noted fwearers to dinner with him, and ordered their difcourfes to be taken down in fhorthand; which being afterwards repeated to them, they were extremely ftartled and furprised at their own common talk. A dialogue of this nature would be no improper fupplement to Swift's polite converfation; though, indeed, it would appear too fhocking to be fet down in print. But I cannot help with ing, that it were poffible to draw out a catalogue of the fashionable oaths and curfes curfes in prefent ufe at Arthur's, or at any other polite affembly by which means the company themselves would be led to imagine, that their converfa, tion had been carried on between the lowest of the mob; and they would blush to find, that they had gleaned the choiceft phrafes from lanes and alleys, and enriched their difcourfe with the elegant dialect of Wapping and Broad St. Giles's. The legislature has indeed provided against this offence, by affixing a penalty on every delinquent according to his ftation: but this law, like thofe made against gaming, is of no effect; while the genteeler fort of fwearers pour forth the fame execrations at the hazard-table or in the tennis-court, which the more ordinary gamefters repeat, with the fame impunity, over the fhuffle-board or in the skittle-alley. Indeed, were this law to be rigorously put in execution, there would appear to be little or no proportion in the punishment: fince the gentleman would efcape by depofiting his crown; while the poor wretch, who cannot raife a fhiliing, must be clapt into the flocks, or fent to Bridewell. But as the of fence is exactly the fame, I would alfo have no diftinction made in the treat. ment of the offenders: and it would be a most ridiculous but a due mortifica tion to a man of quality, to be obliged to thrust his leg through the fame ftocks with a carman or a coal-heaver; fince he first degraded himself, and qualified himself for their company, by talking in the fame mean dialect. I am aware that it will be pleaded in excufe for this practice, that oaths and curfes are intended only as mere expletives, which ferve to round a period, and give a grace and spirit to converfa tion. But there are till fome old-fafhioned creatures, who adhere to their common acceptation, and cannot help thinking it a very serious matter, that a man fhould devote his body to the devil, or call down damnation on his foul. Nay, the fwearer himself, like the old man in the fable calling upon death, would be exceeding loth to be taken at his word; and, while he wishes destruction to every part of his body, would be highly concerned to have a limb rot away, his nofe fall off, or an eye drop out of the focket. It would therefore be advifeable to substitute fome other terms equally unmeaning, and at the fame time remote from the vulgar curfing and fwearing. It is recorded to the honour of the famous Dean Stanhope, that in his younger days, when he was chaplain to a regiment, he reclaimed the officers, who were much addicted to this vulgar practice, by the following method of reproof: One evening, as they were all in company together, after they had been very eloquent in this kind of rhetoric, fo natural to the gentlemen of the army, the worthy dean took occafion to tell a story in his turn; in which he frequently repeated the words bottle and glass, instead of the ufual expletives of God, devil, and damn, which he did not think quite fo becoming for one of his cloth to make free with. I would recommend it to our people of fashion to make ufe of the like inno cent phrafes, whenever they are obliged to have recourfe to thefe fubftitutes for thought and expreffion." Bottle and glas" might be introduced with great energy in the table-talk at the King's-Arms or St. Alban's taverns. The gamefter might be indulged, without offence, in fwearing by the "knave of clubs,' or the curfe of Scotland;" or he might with fome propriety retain the old execration of the deuce take it." The beau fhould be allowed to fwear by his gracious felf," which is the god of his idolatry; and the common expletives fhould confift only of " upon my word, and upon my honour;" which terms, whatever sense they might formerly bear, are at prefent understood only as words of course without meaning. Connoiffeur. 66 $93. Sympathy a Source of the It is by the paffion of fympathy that we enter into the concerns of others; that we are moved as they are moved, and are never fuffered to be indifferent fpectators of almost any thing which men can do or fuffer. For fympathy muft muft be confidered as a fort of fubftitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in a good measure as he is affected; fo that this paffion may either partake of the nature of those which regard felf-prefervation, and turning upon pain may be a fource of the fublime; or it may turn upon ideas of pleasure, and then, what ever has been faid of the focial affections, whether they regard fociety in general, or only fome particular modes of it, may be applicable here. It is by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting, and other affecting arts, transfufe their paffions from one breast to another, and are often capable of grafting a delight on wretchednefs, mifery, and death itfelf. It is a common obfervation, that objects, which in the reality would fhock, are, in tragical and fuch-like reprefentations, the fource of a very high fpecies of pleafure. This, taken as a fact, has been the caufe of much reafoning. This fatisfaction has been commonly attributed, first, to the comfort we receive in confidering that fo melancholy a ftory is no more than a fiction; and next, to the contemplation of our own freedom from the evils we fee reprefented. I am afraid it is a practice much too common, in enquiries of this nature, to attribute the caufe of feelings which merely arife from the mechanical ftructure of our bodies, or from the natural frame and conftitution of our minds, to certain conclufions of the reafoning faculty on the objects prefented to us; for I have fome reafon to apprehend, that the influence of reafon in producing our paffions is nothing near fo extenfive as is commonly believed. Burke on the Sublime. § 94. Effects of Sympathy in the Diftreffes of others. To examine this point concerning the effect of tragedy in a proper manner, we must previously confider, how we are affected by the feelings of our fellow-creatures in circumftances of real diftrefs. I am convinced we have a degree of delight, and that no fmall one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others; for, let the affection be what it will in appearance, if it does not make us fhun fuch objects, if, on the contrary, it induces us to approach them, if it makes us dwell upon them, in this cafe I conceive we must have a delight or pleasure, of fome species or other, in contemplating objects of this kind. Do we not read the authentic hiftories of fcenes of this nature with as much pleasure as romances or poems, where the incidents are fictitious? The profperity of no empire, nor the gran deur of no king, can fo agreeably af. fect in the reading, as the ruin of the ftate of Macedon, and the diftress of its unhappy prince. Such a catastrophe touches us in hiftory, as much as the deftruction of Troy does in fable. Our delight in cafes of this kind is very greatly heightened, if the fufferer be fome excellent perfon who finks under an unworthy fortune. Scipio and Cato are both virtuous characters; but we are more deeply affected by the violent death of the one, and the ruin of the great caufe he adhered to, than with the deferved triumphs and uninterrupted profperity of the other; for terror is a paffion which always produces delight when it does not prefs too close, and pity is a paffion accompanied with pleafure, because it arifes from love and focial affection. Whenever we are formed by nature to any active purpose, the paffion which animates us to it is attended with delight, or a pleasure of fome kind, let the fubject matter be what it will; and as our Creator has defigned we fhould be united together by fo ftrong a bond as that of fympathy, he has therefore twifted along with it a proportionable quantity of this ingredient; and always in the greatest proportion where our fympathy is molt wanted, in the diftreffes of others. If this paffion was fimply painful, we fhould fhun, with the greatest care, all perfons and places that could excite fuch a paffion; as fome, who are so far gone in indolence as not to endure any rong impreffion, actually do. But the cafe is widely different with the greater part of mankind; there is no fpectacle we fo eagerly purfue, as that of fome uncommon and grievous calami ty; ty; fo that whether the misfortune is before our eyes, or whether they are turned back to it in hiftory, it always touches with delight; but it is not an unmixed delight, but blended with no fmall uneafinefs. The delight we have in fuch things, hinders us from fhunning fcenes of mifery; and the pain we feel, prompts us to relieve ourselves in relieving those who fuffer; and all this antecedent to any reasoning, by an inftinct that works us to its own purpofes, without our concurrence. Burke on the Sublime. 95. Tears not unworthy of an Hero. If tears are arguments of cowardice, what fhall I fay of Homer's hero? Shall Achilles pafs for timorous because he wept, and wept on lefs occafions than Eneas? Herein Virgil must be granted to have excelled his mafter. For once both heroes are defcribed lamenting their loft loves: Brifeis was taken away by force from the Grecian; Creufa was loft for ever to her husband. But Achilles went roaring along the falt fea-fhore, and like a booby was complaining to his mother, when he should have revenged his injury by his arms. Eneas took a nobler courfe; for, having fecured his father and fon, he repeated all his former dangers to have found his wife, if he had been above ground. And here your lordship may obferve the addrefs of Virgil; it was not for nothing that this paffage was related with all thefe tender circumftances. Eneas told it; Dido heard it. That he had been fo affectionate a husband, was no ill argument to the coming dowager, that he might prove as kind to her. Virgil has a thousand fecret beauties, though I have not leisure to remark Thus he weeps out of compaffion and tenderness of nature, when in the temple of Carthage he beholds the pictures of his friends, who facrificed their lives in defence of their country. He deplores the lamentable end of his pilot Palinurus; the untimely death of young Pallas his confederate; and the reft, which I omit. Yet even for thefe tears, his wretched critics dare condemn him. They make Eneas little better than a kind of St. Swithin's hero, always raining. One of thefe cenfors is bold enough to arraign him of cowardice, when, in the beginning of the first, book, he not only weeps but trembles at an approaching ftorm: Extemplo Eneæ folvuntur frigore membra: Ingemit, et duplices tendens ad fidera palmas, &c. But to this I have anfwered formerly, that his fear was not for himself, but his people. And what can give a fovereign a better commendation, or recommend a hero more to the affection of the reader? They were threatened with a tempeft, and he wept; he was promifed Italy, and therefore he prayed for the accomplishment of that promife. All this in the beginning of a storm; therefore he fhewed the more early piety, and the quicker fenfe of compaf fion. Thus much I have urged elfe where in the defence of Virgil; and fince I have been informed by Mr. Moyl, a young gentleman whom I can never fufficiently commend, that the ancients accounted drowning an accurfed death. So that if we grant him to have been afraid, he had juft occafion for that fear, both in relation to himfelf and to his fubjects. Dryden, § 96. Terror a Source of the Sublime. No paffon fo effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reafoning as fear; for fear being an apprehenfion of pain or death, it operates in a manner that refembles actual pain. Whatever therefore is terrible with regard to fight, is fublime too, whether this caufe of terror be endued with greatnefs of dimenfions or not; for it is impoffible to look on any thing as trifling or contemptible, that may be |