commonly done is more expedient than that which, in my apprehension, ought to be; and in things of this kind, it is better to err with a multitude than to be exactly neat alone. However, do not you refuse what any one offers, because it will be thought you reprove or slight him. To drink to others, and earnestly to solicit them to pledge you in large bowls, is a brutish and most execrable rudeness; yet, if you chance to be importuned, kiss the cup, and excuse yourself civilly, and be willing, without contest, to yield the victory. It is confessed this barbarous custom was anciently practised in Greece1; and Socrates was highly applauded, that, notwithstanding he caroused a whole night with Aristophanes, he was able, in the morning, to draw a mathematical scheme, and without any hesitation to demonstrate a subtle and difficult problem in geometry; whereby he made it evident that the wine had not moved him, or done him the least harm and we read of him, that, when he was at a feast, he would conquer every one, and yet was never known to be drunk in his whole life. And some are of opinion that as they who are in great danger of being killed become courageous, so those that addict themselves to lewd practices, when once they are brought to understand the perfect unreasonableness and folly of them, become extremely sober and virtuous; and they imagine that, by excessive drinking, a man may try his strength and power to resist more violent assaults. But, in despite of the most plausible pretensions that can be brought, I must take leave to be of a contrary judgment, and tell you that it is not safe to make the experiment, and that these arguments are vain and frivolous, and such as deserve no reply, because they sufficiently confute themselves. Some famous wits, to show their dexterity and acuteness, undertake to handle absurd subjects, and dress up deformity and madness in the guise of beauty and reason; and though we do not believe what they say, yet we know not well how to contradict it. Thus Phavorinus the philosopher cried up Thersites for a handsome man, and wrote a volume in praise of a quartan ague; Carneades and Galba commended injustice; and Hortensius dispraised philosophy; Synesius extolled baldness, and Marcus Antonius and Gerard Bucoldianus vomited out a large apology for drunkenness. It may be they excused those who were guilty of this crime, and endeavoured to cover their blemishes, because they durst not reprehend them, lest they should incur Socrates's fate, who, for being frequent in reproving others, was, by the malice of some debauchees (which is the case of many good men), accused of impiety "Unde Græcari et Pergræcari apud Latinos pro luxuria et compotationibus liberioribus indulgere. Ita Lib. 10. Athenæi celebratur ex Homero, NirogOS TOÙ TRIYÉROVTOS φιλοποσία ̓Αλκαίος φίλοινος Λακεδαιμονίων προπόσεις, Φιλίππου καὶ ̓Αλεξάνδρου πολυποσία, ̓Αντίοχος φιλοπότης. 2 Vide Convivium Platonis, nec non Agell. Lib. 15. 3" Tòv λóyov TTova nosíTTova TaIEÏv. Aristoph. in Nubibus. Vide Agell. Lib. 17. cap. 12. 'Αδόξους καὶ ἀτόπους ὑποθέσεις tractare. 4. Ubi sanguine civium ebrius, eundemque insuper sitiens, dicitur volumen de suâ Plin. Lib. 14. cap. ult. ebrietate evomuisse, quo sibi et vitiis suis patrocinatus est. and several heinous offences, and put to death as a notorious criminal 1. He was certainly an honest man, and a most punctual observer of the religion and rites of his country; though, indeed, he deserved correction for drinking so much with that merry poet, (and the severe Cato is charged with the same vice) notwithstanding that he was not distempered; for, that he received no injury by it, is to be imputed, not to his temperance, but the strength of his brain; and a hogshead is more capacious than any man; and our life ought not to be chequered with black and white, with innocence and profaneness; but (as he himself used to say), it should represent a picture or statue, all the parts of which must be fair and correspondent. Nor can I believe that sobriety, or any good, can be learned from such masters as wine and dissoluteness. But this is to be accounted as spoken in a parenthesis, and by chance, rather than that the method of my discourse required it. "Let none put off his clothes, or dress himself, in the sight of strangers; nor comb his head, nor pare his nails, nor cleanse his ears, nor so much as wash his hands, except it be immediately before or after meals, in the view of others; for the chamber is the most proper place for such actions; nor shall you come out to salute persons of quality in your night-attire. It is an ugly thing to draw your mouth awry, and roll your eyes, and distend your cheeks, and deform your countenance. Pallas, as poets and other writers teli us, was hugely delighted in playing upon a pipe, till, coming to a fountain, she perceived it made her have a monstrous mis-shapen mouth, and then she blushed and threw it away. This instrument does not become women, nor men, unless they be forced to exercise their skill merely to get a livelihood. Alcibiades, who applied his mind to learn all arts, 16 Ουδεὶς δὲ πόποτε Σωκράτου οὐδὲν ἀσεβὲς οὐδὲ ἀνόσιον οὔτε πράττοντος εἶδεν, οὔτε Aéyovros йxovosv. Xenophon. Apomnemon. Lib. 1. 266 Νόμῳ ὡς διάκειται. Pythag. 3" Narratur et prisci Catonis Sæpe mero caluisse virtus. Horat. 4 4 Τοῦ βίου καθάπερ τοῦ ἀγάλματος πάντα τὰ μέρη καλὰ εἶναι δεῖ. Apud Stobæum, Serm. 1. 5 66 Μήθη πάντων τῶν δεινῶν μητρόπολις. Athen. Lib. 10. 6" Prima terebrato per rara foramina buxo Ut daret effeci tibia longa sonos. Vox placuit, faciem liquidis referentibus undis. Ars mihi non tanti est, valeas mea tibia, dixi "Ovid. Lib. 6. Fastorum. "Hic locus est in quo tibia docta sones: Quæ non jure vado Mæandri jacta natasti, Turpia cum faceret Palladis ora tumor. "Propert. Lib. 2. 6. Ην σοφὸν σοφὰν λαβοῦσαν δρυμοῖς ὀρείοις Οργανον δίαν ἀθάναν δυσόφθα ἄιμον ἄιχος ἐκβοβεῖσαν ἄυθις ἐκ χειρῶν βαλειν. "Telestes Selinusius, quem Josephus Scal. citat in castigationibus suis Propertianis. Vide etiam Agell. Lib. 15. cap. 17. Et Plutarch. Lib. wigì 'Aogyno• 7" Plutarch. in vitâ. reckoned this below an ingenuous well-bred person. A harp takes not away the figure and comeliness; but a pipe swells a man's face that his familiar friends can hardly know him: besides, one may sing to a harp; but a pipe stops up the mouth, and obstructs the voice: and therefore, said he, to play upon it is fit only for the Boeotian boys, who cannot be taught to speak: we of Athens will follow the example of Minerva, who cast away hers, and of Apollo, who caused the piper Marsyas's skin to be pulled over his ears. And hence it came to pass that the Athenians utterly banished this faculty out of the circle of the liberal sciences. "And what has been said concerning the face holds true also of all the parts and members of the body; it is unseemly to blare out your tongue, and to rub and clap your hands, and to laugh at the wagging of a feather, and to twist your beard, and to stretch your body, and make a strange noise, as though you wanted sleep, and to fetch deep sighs for nothing, as if your very heart would break. "Take especial care what gestures and motions you use in talking; for it is obvious to remark, that most men are so intent that they do not consider this; but one nods fantastically with his head, and another looks a-squint, and a third fixes his eyes upon the ground, and a fourth pulls his mouth on one side; and, as Cicero affirms of Marcus Piso, renders his visage more ridiculous than his jests; and a fifth wrinkles up his chin, and looks like Testius Pinarius, whom Cæsar desired to tell him what he had to say when he had cracked his nut. Some throw their hands about as if they were flapping away flies, and others cough and spit in your face: and all these are very unhandsome misbehaviours. It is the saying of Pindar, That whatsoever is elegant, fine, and pleasant, is done by the hands of Venus and the Graces; what, then, shall we think of those that spit upon their fingers, and lay their legs upon a table, and commit a hundred other indecencies which might here easily be recited? But I shall not go about to collect all into one volume, as Chrysippus did the lies of the oracle of Apollo, lest they should swell to too big a bulk, and appear beyond our skill and industry to reform. All I intend to superadd shall be couched in two words: Be not loose in 1.66 σε ̓Ανδρὶ μὲν ἀυλετῆρι θεοὶ νόον οὐκ ἐνέφυσαν 2 "Idem illo ferè biduo productus in concionem ab eo, cui sic æquatum præbebas consulatum tuum, cum esses interrogatus quid sentires de consulatu meo. Gravis auctor Calatinus credo aliquis, aut Africanus, aut Maximus, et non Casonius, Semiplacentinus Calventius, respondet altero ad frontem sublato, altero ad mentum depresso supercilio, crudelitatem tibi non placere. Cic. Orat. in L. Pisonem. 3" Facie magis quàm facetiis ridiculis. Lib. 1. ad Attic. Ep. 13. "Utere lactucis, et mollibus utere malvis, Nam faciem duram Phoebe cacantis habes. "Martial. Lib. 3. Ep. 47. 4" Cicero de Orator. Lib. 2. Dic, si quid velis, cum nucem perfregeris. 5 66. Σὺν γὰρ ὑμῖν τὰ τερπνὰ καὶ τὰ γλυκεία Γίνεται πάντα βροτοῖς. Εἰ σοφὸς, εἰ καλός, εἰ ἄγλαος 'Ave, &c. In postremâ Odâ Olympiorum. your deportment, nor yet severe; neither all honey nor all gall; but let affability and gravity be sweetly tempered and mixed together.'" When we call to mind the greatness of the change which has taken place in the instructions that our modern Galateos think applicable to present cases, there is room for speculation. Much stress is now laid upon the arcana of fashionable life-refinement is not the desideratum, but a refinement of a certain shade, which distinguishes a class. Instead of rude precepts against yawning, staring, or lolling, the outcry is against an incorrect or clumsy mode of addressing a person by his title, a sit of the coat or gown, which, though perfectly approved six months ago, is now out of fashion, or the fact of being present or dwelling in some quarter beyond the limits of modish geography. These distinctions, be it observed, arise against a man, not as evidences of unbecoming behaviour, but as proofs of his not belonging to a particular caste of society. We may conclude from hence, that mankind has either so much improved in manners, that now, there being no longer actual distinctions, people resort to artificial ones to show their superiority, or that merit or demerit in manners is no longer regarded: or, what is more likely, that men may be as great brutes as they please, and attend as little as possible to decorum or good breeding, provided they throw over themselves the shield of a particular and privileged class. Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern, with an Historical Introduction and Notes. By William Motherwell. Glasgow. 1827. 4to. HITHERTO We have taken no notice of a class of antiquaries who yield to none in industry, and to few in the interesting nature of their pursuit. The collector of reliques of poetry is not alone influenced in his search by the mere claims of age: unless the charms of truth and pathos belong to the composition he has recovered from destruction, it is seldom that he persists in the work of resuscitation; unless, indeed, he be as destitute of taste as Ritson, and at the same time as ingenious in detecting the marks of antiquity, or exposing the evidences of a later date. From Bishop Percy to Sir Walter Scott, the ballad, the lowly lyric of England and Scotland, has been peculiarly fortunate in finding in its admirers both the taste to appreciate, the learning to illustrate, and the research to discover. The dark corners from. 1❝ Aversor morum crimina, corpus amo. "Ovid. Lib. 3. Amor. Eleg. 10. "Martial. Lib. 12. Ep. 47." which the Ballad is to be recovered are not those which conceal other antiquities: they are covered not with dust; they are not moth-eaten; they do not lie ensconced in parchment in the muniment rooms of ancient families, nor on the shelves of ancient and unfrequented libraries. The collector of ballads must throw himself into the deepest recesses of the country, into those quarters which the bustle of civilization has not disturbed, where the manners and sentiments of antiquity are most likely to remain in their primitive freshness: it is here that he must listen to the carolings of the peasantry, the chantings of old crones, and the long stories of ancient sires. When a venerable dame has by accident struck into a tragedy which he at once recognises as in the right strain, with ears erect, memory alert, and a pleased countenance of interest and affected belief, he must listen to her doleful story: a note book would disturb the recollection of the minstrel; a smile of incredulity would effectually seal her lips: and to catch the phrases, and to remember many stanzas together, of a lengthy ditty, is no mean task. When, however, it is successfully completed, great is the joy of the conquest; the soul of a song is resuscitated; a small domain of poetry is saved from the encroaching sea of oblivion; short is the interval between the old chanter and her grave, and to snatch a relic from her as she almost steps into it is a great triumph. Who does not remember the anecdote of Dr. Leyden, who would stride forty miles into the country on a mere rumour of an old nurse, or broken-down hostler, being in possession of the head or tail of a genuine ballad of antiquity, and then stride back again, chanting and reciting his new-found treasure, as the appropriate solace of his journey, in such tones as indicated his approach long before his huge and ungainly person hove in sight? Mr. Motherwell is a collector of the true breed: with Mr. Ritson's abhorrence of inaccuracy and interpolation, he has that veneration for tradition which becomes a conservator of ancient poetry. His Delphic oracle is an old woman's mouth. Her three-legged stool is sacred as a tripod; and, if she be spinning, or crooning over the embers of a fire, the priestess of Apollo, in her ecstasies of inspiration, is not a more classical or more auspicious spectacle. Great is the number of ballads in this portly volume which have been taken down from recitation; many have been taken from several recitations by various persons, and the discrepancies have been collated with a sedulous accuracy, which we can only parallel by the scrupulous care with which MSS. of Greek plays are examined by your Bruncks and Porsons. Not only have the new ballads, and the newly-recovered parts of old ballads, been procured from the genuine source of oral tradition, but even those which are well known, and have long been in |