578 A modern Way of rifing in the Church. Nor intereft will enable me to fuccedit pushing for a university living. Friend. It would have given m pleasure to have been excufed from entering upon this fubject, which is indeed a very delicate one, but as your request is backed by my friend Y. Z.'s regard for you, I will endeavour to give you all the fatisfaction in my power. I cannot but think, however, t that my friend might have omited the mention of this fource, becaukit is open only to particulars. Belles the qualifications neceffary for obtain nally acquainted with him; and as he may not read the London Magazine, and fo not have seen my letter to him, I beg you would be fo good as to inform him (with my refpectful compliments) that I should be much obliged to him if he would perufe it, and favour the world with his fentiments up. on it, in the faid Magazine. If he declines this, his filence may be confidered as an acknowledgment, that a thoughtless flip of his pen gave the king the high character fo often mention ed; while I cannot but think it would redound much to his honour publicking the intereft of boroughs, great mm, ly to own that he is not fuch a friend to arbitrary and defpotic principles and measures, as the admirers and applauders of that unfortunate monarch undoubtedly are.-Of you, Mr. H. C. I take my leave, and am, fir, Your very humble servant, To the AUTHOR of the LONDON SIR, MAGAZINE. Have finished the confideration of the three principal fources from which preferment in the church may be obtained, and fhould have endeavoured to have finished my fubject long ago, if I had not been prevented by avocations not to be difpenfed with, As my name is concealed, I have enjoyed frequent opportunities of bearing the opinion my acquaintance entertain of my former letters, and have never had the mortification of finding the execution much condemned, tho the plan has been as much difapproved by fome as it has been applauded by others. If you think the following de ferves a place in your Magazine, it is at your, fervice.. A bishops, &c. (as fet forth in the fr mer letters) a person who aims a univerfity living muft be of fome pr ticular favourite college, of a lag ftanding, and, unless I mistake, a źllow-circumstances which your fortune does not feem fufficient to place you in. But that you may have the belt chance poffible, you will do well tɔ pay a due attention to the following rules. Learn first, with great care and affiduity, the names and characters of the noblemen and gentlemen com. moners, and endeavour by all pose arts to attract their notice. Be a fmart. As your perfon is good, a fmail hare of the taylor's affiftance will be dufficient. Etablish the character of a wit. There was a time when this was no very difficult task. A good collection of puns, or Joe Millar's properly timed, were of fufficient efficacy. But the prefent age is to remarkable for the delicacy of take, and profufion of wit, that thefe heps are not to be depended upon. I am told the works of the author of the Mallard, Lucina fine Concubitu, with the other fugitive pieces, are now the ftandard wit. Learn and repeat, when Pupil. The last time I had the plea-opportunity prefents, fome of the malt fure of your company you gave me curious paffages. Enter every good reafon to hope you would favour me thing you hear in your diary, and rewith your thoughts on the last fource yer mifs an opportunity of spouting of preferment, the university. I have them, after, by proper founding, you fo great a veneration for that feat of have found they are new to your com the mufes and all the polite arts, that pany. But one thing you should al I cannot but imagine the surest road to ways remember; whenever any of your its favours will be the merit which great friends are shining, be fparing of your friend, Y. Z. and you feem to your wit, let them fhine for the night. compliment me with. Confcious of Proceed upon this plan, and you will my refolution to cultivate my talents fucceed. One or two damned good to the utmost, I cannot but entertain things will eftablish your character, fome hopes that I shall attract the notice, and you will be courted, efteemed, and and merit the efteem, of those whofe envied. It will not be amils if you 1 ༢ 7 ورلو 59. endeavour to be thought a great ›lar. I gained a very valuable acintance by accidentally mentionAriftophanes's curious method of furing the leap of a flea. My nd took it for granted that I was reat Grecian, and courted my acintance. Tranflations and indexes I help you to the most curious and It difficult paffages in the most diffit authors; one of which, properly ed, will have a prodigious effect. u will obferve I do not recommend quent quotations from Horace, or gil. Thefe are fo hackneyed, that ey pass for mere pedantry. The oper timing of thefe things is, how er, the grand fecret. I myself once quired the character of an excellent ger and damned jolly fellow by a ghickuped amongst a set of jolly felws at midnight; which I afterwards ng a hundred times in vain. If all our arts are loft upon the gold tufts, ange your battery; flatter, footh, jole, cringe, to the fuperiors of your llege. They will, perhaps, be in ced by fuch arts to elect you fellow, d then you will be enabled to take mafter's degree. Your jemmy hat, e emblem of your dignity, will exeedingly increase your importance. you have carefully cultivated the rts above recommended, you will be ell received by the young gentlemen frank and fortune. Now is your me to strike the blow. Take all oportunities to harangue against the peantry of univerfity difcipline, the ocking unpolitenets of proctors ob ging men of fortune to quit the cofee-houses earlier than they chufe. ament very pathetically the vaft dereafe of ftudents, owing entirely to he ftrict obfervation of the old nonkith difcipline, which pretends to bind down free-born youths to mufty ules of order. With for fome Wilkes to arife to fet afide fuch fooleries as prescription alone could fupport. What an engaging fellow you will be happy and envied they whom you will honour with your company! Your clerical character will render you ftill more confpicuous when you facrifice to liberty, when you dedicate your midnight hours to the company of your friends, and celebrating the rites of Comus, Liber, and Venus. You furely cannot but envy Churchill and A modern Way of rifing in the Church. 579. Lloyd that most amiable character by which Mr. Wilkes has eternized their fame in the Note on Night, a poem, (which you may fee in the Lond. Mag. 1767, p. 279.) for you have too much fenfe to be moved by the idle remarks of old droning pedants, or young conceited puritans, who fay that fuch an anti-christian, anti-clerical character, worthy the commentator's pen, has damned them to eternal infamy. P. I muft beg leave to interrupt' you. My mafter, in his lectures on rhetoric, took great pains in teaching me the nature of common places, or topics, and among other fubjects confidered that of priefts. If, faid he, you would praise a priest with propriety, you fhould confider the qua lities, or attributes, of the deity to which he miniftered. Should you declaim in praife of a priest of Bacchus, or Venus, you should confider that the former was the deity of drunkards, the latter of whores, and confequently muft paint their refpective priests in the most glowing colours of drunkennefs, lewdnefs, and debauchery. Should you write a panegyrick on a chriftian prieft, the attributes of the Chriftian's God thould be confidered. As thefe, are allowed to be holiness, purity, goodness, &c. your prieft fhould be reprefented holy, pure, and good.” F. I fee your drift: but was not your mafter an old pedant? Does he know the world?-Away with fuch contracted notions! I have directed you to the road to fame and preferment, which you will find custom, and the way of the world, (the only criterions of right) will bid you follow, unless you chufe to be guilty of the greatest (if not the only) folly and vice, poverty.If a contested election should produce a poll and fcrutiny, and the city be crouded with electors, you have a fine field. Take fome of the votes of the party you find it your intereft to efpoufe under your care, to prevent their being tampered with. Make your rooms an inn; give them the ufe of your bed; take an oppor tunity to infult fome head of a college, or person of confequence, of the oppofite party, whofe good fenfe and good nature will prevent him from caufing a disturbance by refenting your behaviour. Tarry late at your bottle 580 with fome of your most violent party acquaintance, and if you meet a proctor, behave rudely to him, and knock down his men. Thefe heroical exploits will spread your fame through the univerfity, and should a living be foon difpofed of, you need not doubt of fuccefs. Your opponent, perhaps, is a man of learning and abilities, eminently skilled in every branch of academical literature, and remarkable for the regularity of his moral conduct: but what chance will he have against a jolly favourite, entitled to the eminent names of, an Old Soul, a Son of Baliol, and the like? Let him, mope in his cell," Strewed with learned duft his night-cap on," or let fome pious prelate make him his chaplain, fay the young regents; but let us reward the man who nobly dared; who, in the caufe of Liberty, defied the aweful folemnity of the heads, the cenforial, frown of the proctors, laughed at the pedantry of rules, and braved the dread-inspiring bocardo Shall all the kingdom ftrive to exprefs their gratitude to Wilkes for his noble efforts against government, and shall we be backward in thewing ours to ESSAY ON BALLAD WRITING. the hero, who, upon the fame generot plan, and by the fame virtuous means, has oppofed the tyranny of our governors Forbid it gratitude, honour, and publick fpirit. Thus, my friend, you are crowned at last with fuccefs. P. Alas! Sir, if I was capable of undertaking, my fortune would not enable me to execute, this scheme. F. Fortune befriends the brave. Tick. Your heroic deeds will be borne on the wings of fame throughout the kingdoms and hard will be your fate if fome fair heiress, fired with the account of your prowefs, is not induced to enable you to discharge your debts, and fupport your character. Avaunt then logic, rhetoric, ethics, divinity! Confign your parish to a curate, never vilit it but at the feafons of fleecing. Enjoy your fortune. Farewell. en b Efay on Ballads, wor ALLADS, or popular fongs, have in every nation had the greatelt influence. I know not well how to explain it; but we may observe that almost any fentiments, exprefied almost any how, if conveyed to the mind a pleafing tune, will infinuate them felves infenfibly, and take possetion a our affections. A great ftatesman in France used to say, that if he was lowed to make all the ballads, he would have no difficulty to goven the people. We are told that the old fong, "Ye monks, ye must be meried," contributed more towards the reformation in England, than the fermons of the beft divines, and that Lullabalero forwarded the Revolutis more than the reafonings of the ablet politicians. We remember how M. Glover's ballad of Hofier's Ghat roufed us against Sir Robert Walpo Dr. Smallett's Mourn, hapless Caled nia, mourn, made every tender-heart! Whig feel himself for moments a Jcobite. And Mr. Garrick's Hearts of Oak warmed our British feamen with the love of glory, made them lox upon the French as beings utterly contemptible, and perfuaded then that they were all voluntiers, when, perhaps, half the crew of many hip had been preffed upon the river, be fore they landed, after a tedious voya Indies. to the fi 74 being the influence which ballads may have, I wonder that m adminiftration in this country fr their own good, or no worthy magitrates for the public good, have been at pains to have ballads of a proper tendency circulated among the people. I am fure money could not be better employed, and I am certain that m placemen, or penfioners, can be of fo much service as a fet of well-chon balladfingers might be. We might have the discontented and turbulent populace fung into quietness and good humour, as froward children are by their nurses. I can, indeed, foresee that if we had a regular establiftiment of balladfingers with good falaries, the fame 6 want of attention to merit, the fame fpirit of intrigue and court interet, might t defeat the laudable intention of the scheme. In the fame manner as we now find commiffions in the army and navy given to men effeminate and debauched, who have neither strength to endure fatigue, nor courage to face danger, as we find livings beltowed on men who have neither fanctity of manners, nor the leaf talent for publick Speaking; 1769. THE MODERATE WISH. peaking; we would find the employment of balladfinger conferred on men incapable of humming a tune. And without question, the choice of proper balladfingers would be no eafy matter. Elegant mafters of mufick would be of no effect. As the divine, 581 Then I will ftrive to bind my with, And take, instead of fowl or fith, Whate'er is thrown into my difh. Inftead of wealth and fortune great, Garden, houfe, and loving mate, I'll reft content in fervile ftate. I'll from each folly strive to fly, who entertains his audience with a florid harangue on the beauty of vir. Each virtue to attain I'll try, tue, does no real service to religion, in And live as I would wish to die. comparison of him who gives his hearer And live, &c. plain practical earnest difcourfes; fo10 the harmony of Handel, or of Haffe, would be loft upon our multitude, who must have fuch airs as The Roast Beef ef Old England, Carrickfergus, or Tak your auld cloak about ye. It gave me great pleasure to find fo innocent and really fo virtuous a ditty fung in our treets, in place of that obscenity and fedition which we generally hear. I hope that fuch balladfingers will be encouraged, and that we may by degrees have many I was led to confider the fubject of ballads, by meeting with a irrevery gular one the other day in Oxford-fa&?. road. A woman was finging the following one, called The Moderate With. of them. BONUS. Properties of Water. $7. I think I have met with it in fome ofATER is a fimple fluid, and our poets; but whoever wrote it, I ediquid body, and reputed the think it well deferving of being in-third of the four, vulgar elements. ferted here. THE MODERATE WISH. difh Of plain meat, fowl, or fifh. Of plain meat, Then I, when bleft with fuch estate, I'll be content with what I get. Nov. 1769. Sir Ifaac Newton and Dr. Boerhaave were very opposite in their fentiments on this fubject: the formers maintaining water to be a fluid tält, volatile and void of tafte; the latter, having proved that it is a menftrusin, of diffolvent of falts and faline bodies, pronounces it bec a fluid, fenfelefs, tasteless, tranfparent, colourless liquor, which turns to ice with a certain degree, of cold. 3. But notwithstanding water is generally believed to be a fluid, it is a point much controverted amongst philofophers, whether fluidity be its natural state, or the effect of violence. That we fometimes find it in a fluid ftate, and sometimes in a folid, is moft inconteftible; and as the fluid in our warmer climates is the more ufual, we conclude it the proper one, and afcribe the other to the extraneous action of cold. 19 Boerhaave, however, afferts the contrary, and maintains water to be naturally of the chryftalline kind; fince whenever a certain degree of fire is wanting to keep it in fufion, it readi ly grows into a hard glebe, under the denomination of ice, The great Mr. Boyle was of the fame opinion. “Ice, he obferves, is ufually faid to be water brought into a preternatural state by cold; but with regard to the nature of things, and fetting afide our 4 E arbitrary The Properties of Water. 582 arbitrary ideas, it might as juftly be faid, that water is ice preternaturally, thawed by heat. If it be urged, that ice left to itself will, upon the removal of the freezing agents, return to water, it may be announced, that not to mention the fnow and ice which lie all fummer on the Alps, and other high mountains, even in the torrid zone, we have been affured, that in fome parts of Siberia, large fpots of ground continue more months in the year frozen by the natural temperature of the climate, than thawed by the heat of the fun; and a little below the furface of the ground, the water which chances to be lodged in the cavities there, continues in a fate of ice all the year round, fo that when, in the heat of fummer, the fields are covered with corn, if you dig a foot or two deep, you fhall find ice, and a frozen foil. Water is generally divided into falt and fresh, with regard to the ocean and river but, according to Dr. Shaw, it feems divifible into as many different parts, as the earth is into beds. Thus there are mineral waters of various kinds, according to the mineral fubftances they run over, and become impregnated with; though their impregnation fometimes happens in the way of vapour and exhalation. Water in general therefore may be as mixed a body as earth, as perhaps NOT neither of them naturally exists in any great purity. In a general analysis, the docter found, first, that common water throws up innumerable little bubbles, and explodes in the exhaufted receiver of the air-pump; for which reason water contains, what may by way of diftinction be called, æther or fpirit. Secondly, it contains a merely aqueous part, diftinct from æther and the fediment, as appears from diftilled common water. Thirdly, it contains a dry folid matter, which is either earthy or faline, as appears upon a full evaporation, and from the infides of tea-kettles, which, after long uke, are lined with a ftony matter, that beats off in fleaks, or crufty pieces. Water is not only contained in the earth, as in a refervoir, but likewise floats in the atmosphere. In both cafes it is actuated, rarefied, and put in motion by heat, fo as to prove inftrumental in producing effects. Thus it produces clouds, rains, dews, springs, and rivers. It refreshes the earth, recruits vegetables, and is the fupport of fish and other animals, by convey. ing nutriment to all their parts. It is alfo the first and immediate inftrument of fermentation, putrefaction, corruption, and change in all vegetable and animal fubjects. [To be continued.] An IMPARTIAL REVIEW of NEW PUBLICATIONS. ARTICLE I. T : This fpeech is univerfally given to Mr. G. G-, who, though no friend to Mr. Wilkes, appears very ftrenuous agit his expulfion, and treats adminiftration with a Severity, which we do not think very unjust, on account of their behaviour to that gentleman after his retura from France." "I cannot agree, fays Mr. G-, with thofe who have urged in behalf of Mr. Wilkes, that this motion ought not to be complied with, because he is already the most unhap. py, as well as the most oppreffed and injure ed man that this age has ieen: he is indeed unhappy, becaufe he is guilty, and guilt mult ever produce unhappiness; but in other respects, confidering his repeated offences, he has certainly been more fortunate, than his molt fanguine wishes could have expected. I mean not to enter into the detail of all that has happened to him, it would carry me too far, but to juftify what I have faid, let me afk a few questions. When he wrote that feditious libel against the king and both houfes of parliament, could he foresee that he fhould be taken up by a general warrant, against the declared opinion and defire of the two fecretaries of face, who repeatedly propofed to have his name inferted in the warrant of apprehenfion, but were over-ruled by the lawyers and clerks of the office, who infifted they could not depart from the long eftablished precedents and courfe of proceedings? Could Mr. Wilkes forefee, that after an hundred years practice, under the eye of the grehret lawyers, before the fupreme courts of juftice, without being ever quel tioned in one fingle infance, that this irregularity and ilegality would be firft found out in his cafe, and afterwards adopted by the voice and clamour of the people upon the oc сабов |