which the passion may probably place the lover as to hope, fear, and distresses of every kind. The author who should introduce two lovers in a scene of perfect security, expressing their mutual fondness for each other, would excite laughter, but not sympathy." The author of Hudibras seems to have held the same opinion of the exhibition of such a scene, which he so ludicrously describes on an English coin

Still amorous, and fond, and billing,
Like Philip and Mary on a shilling.

Canto 1. third part.

Adulteries.

As in this age of reason and piety adulterers and adulteresses often go unpunished, and contract fresh marriages, &c. the following account, from a Pagan, of our ancestors may surprise, if it does not instruct or correct us. "The laws of matrimony were observed with great strictness. Examples of adultery were extremely rare, and punished with much severity. The husband of an adulteress, in the presence of her relations, cut off her hair, stripped her almost naked, turned her out of his house, and whipped her from one end of the village to the other. A woman who had been thus exposed never recovered her character; and

neither youth, beauty, nor riches, could ever procure her another husband.-Tacitus de Mor. Germanorum, lib. 18, 19, 20.

Preparatory Studies to History.

Lectures on the science of morals would be an useful preparatory study to history, so that a young person may know something of human nature in the abstract. Without this previous exercise of the mind, the student in history is totally at the mercy of the historian, who may, or may not, be a man conversant with his fellow-creatures, whose actions he has undertaken, not only to relate, but to make his comment upon. Gibbon, with much erudition and acuteness, seems to take his notions of the motives of his characters from satirical writers, such as Tacitus and Rochefoucault, and seems, in too many passages of his History, misanthropical.

Economy.

Many persons have incurred the disgraceful charge of too strict an economy by being born with a philosophic disposition of contemning "the gewgaws of this nether world." Such men are naturally averse from wanton expenditure, but are often accused of penury. It is related of the sage

whom the oracles of Greece, pronounced to be the wisest of men, that in passing through a fair, he exclaimed, on viewing the splendid objects around him," How many things are there, of which I feel no want!" Every independent man will think, with respect to wanton expense, with the poet and Socrates,

Who yieldeth unto pleasures and to lust,

Is a poor captive, that in golden fetters

And precious, as he thinks, but holding gyves,
Frets out his life.

Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of Malta.

Characters formed by Situation.

The great Edmund Burke said, on a celebrated trial before the House of Commons, that morality seemed to him to depend on latitudes, and to be in great measure geographical. The human character is often the offspring of situation. Take a woman of a "certain age," with a small income, she is a most exemplary character; chaste, frugal, humble, and pious. Let fortune put a coronet on her head, place her in a large square in London, with an ample fortune, and possessed of a palace, that woman's whole machinery of character and manners will be changed in a few weeks. She will hardly be able to recollect herself; and should you call on her, she certainly will not recollect you.

I see, men's judgments are

A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them,

To suffer all alike.

Anthony and Cleopatra, act iii, scene 11.

Gothic Architecture.

Whilst the student is employed in tracing the chronological differences in Gothic structures of various ages, which have in one case adopted the pointed, and in another the circular, arch to windows or doors, &c. the point which can instruct us in the art is forgotten. The diligence and taste of Gray or Bentham cannot recommend such studies but as amusements. He who shall, on the comparison of the various styles, at different periods, fix the principles common to them all, might instruct future builders to imitate those parts in each, which have their best recommendations of strength, usefulness, and beauty, the only groundwork of taste.

Dr. Warton's Essay on Pope.

This is a most delightful manual of young students in polite literature. Learning, feeling, candour, and good taste, lay the foundation of this excellent treatise. The various quotations from different authors, the apposite applications of them to the principles laid down, and the many most

amusing anecdotes of the authors introduced in this work, confer on it the greatest recommendation that any volumes can boast, viz. that they mix ample instruction with variety of pleasures. The "miscuit utile dulci" should be the motto, as it is the merit, of this elegant code of criticism.

A Happy Illustration.

Plutarch, in a "Letter of Consolation to his "Wife," speaks of unnecessary shews of sorrow, as they contribute much to exasperate the real calamity. "When a man's eye is in pain, he is not suffered to touch it, though the inflammation provoke him to do it, nor will they who are near him meddle with it. But he who is galled with grief, sits and exposes his distemper to every one, like waters, that all may poach in; and so that which at first seemed a slight itching, or trivial smart, by much fretting and provoking, becomes a great and incurable disease."

A New Pleasure.

It is reported that the Emperor Tiberius offered a great reward to any one who would invent a new pleasure. When the younger Richardson, the painter, called on Pope with his father at Twickenham, the poet shewed them a large col