ought rather to have endeavoured to testify their gratitude to their deceased friend, than to proclaim their hopes of the future. Surely even the Successor must suppose their love to wear the face of adulation, which so quickly changed the object. However, the very same day on which the old King died, they made rejoicing for the new.

For my part, I have no conception of this new manner of mourning and rejoicing in a breath; of being merry and sad; of mixing a funeral procession with a jig and a bonfire. At least, it would have been just; that they who flattered the King while living for virtues which he had not, should lament him dead for those he really had.

In this universal cause for national distress, as I had no interest myself, so it is but natural to suppose, I felt no real affliction. In all the losses of our friends, says an European philosopher, we first consider how much our own welfare is affected by their departure, and moderate our real grief just in the same proportion. Now, as I had neither received nor expected to receive favours from Kings or their flatterers; as I had no acquaintance in particular with their late monarch; as I knew that the place of a king is soon supplied; and as the Chinese proverb has it, that though the world may sometimes want coblers to mend their shoes, there is no danger of its wanting Emperors to rule their kingdoms; from such considerations I could bear the loss of a King with the most philosophic resignation. However, I thought it my duty at least to appear sorrowful; to put on a melancholy aspect, or to set my face by that of the people.

The first company I came amongst after the news became general, was a set of jolly companions who were drinking prosperity to the ensuing reign. I entered the room with looks of despair, and even

expected

expected applause for the superlative misery of my countenance. Instead of that I was universally condemned by the company for a grimacing son of a whore, and desired to take away my penitential phyz to some other quarter. I now corrected my former mistake, and with the most sprightly air imaginable entered a company, where they were talking over the ceremonies of the approaching funeral. Here I sat for some time with an air of pert vivacity; when one of the chief mourners immediately observing my good humour, desired mne, if I pleased, to go and grin somewhere else; they wanted no disaffected scoundrels there. Leaving this company therefore, I was resolved to assume à look perfectly neutral; and have ever since been studying the fashionable air: something between jest and earnest; a complete virginity of face, uncontaminated with the smallest symptom of meaning.

But though grief be a very slight affair here, the mourning, my friend, is a very important concern. When an Emperor dies in China, the whole expence of the solemnities is defrayed from the royal coffers. When the great die here, Mandarines are ready enough to order mourning; but I do not see they are so ready to pay for it. If they send me down from court the grey undress frock, or the black coat without pocket holes, I am willing enough to comply with their commands, and wear both; but by the head of Confucius! to be obliged to wear black, and buy it into the bargain, is more than my tranquility of temper can bear. What, order me to wear mourning before they know whether I can buy it or no! Fum thou son of Fo, what sort of a people am I amongst; where being out of black is a certain symptom of poverty; where those who have miserable faces cannot have mourn

ing, and those who have mourning will not wear a miserable face?

LETTER XCVI.
TER

FROM THE SAME.

IT is usual for the booksellers here, when a book has given universal pleasure upon one subject, to bring out several more upon the same plan; which are sure to have purchasers and readers from that desire which all men have to view a pleasing object on every side. The first performance serves rather to awaken than satisfy attention: and when that is once moved, the slightest effort serves to continue its progression; the merit of the first diffuses a light sufficient to illuminate the succeeding efforts; and no other subject can be relished, till that is exhausted. A stupid work coming thus immediately in the train of an applauded performance, weans the mind from the object of its pleasure; and resembles the sponge thrust into the mouth of a discharged culverin, in order to adapt it for a new explosion.

This manner, however, of drawing off a subject, or a peculiar mode of writing to the dregs, effectually precludes a revival of that subject or manner for some time for the future; the sated reader turns from it with a kind of literary nausea; and though the titles of books are the part of them most read, yet he has scarcely perseverance enough to wade through the title page.

Of this number I own myself one; I am now

grown

grown callous to several subjects, and different kinds of composition; whether such originally pleased I will not take upon me to determine; but at present I spurn a new book merely upon seeing its name in an advertisement; nor have the smallest curiosity to look beyond the first leaf, even though in the second the author promises his own face neatly engraved on copper.

I

I am become a perfect epicure in reading; plain beef or solid mutton will never do. I am for a Chinese dish of bear's claws and bird's nests. am for sauce strong with asafoetida, or fuming with garlic. For this reason there are a hundred very wise, learned, virtuous, well-intended productions that have no charms for me. Thus, for the soul of me, I could never find courage nor grace enough to wade above two pagesdeep into Thoughts upon God and Nature, or Thoughts upon Providence, or Thoughts upon Free Grace, or indeed into Thoughts upon any thing at all. I can no longer meditate with Meditations for every day in the year. Essays upon divers subjects cannot allure me, though never so interesting; and as for Funeral Sermons, or even Thanksgiving Sermons, I can neither weep with the one, nor rejoice with the other.

But it is chiefly in gentle poetry, where I seldom look farther than the title. The truth is, I take up books to be told something new; but here, as it is now managed, the reader is told nothing. He opens the book and there finds very good words truly, and much exactness of rhyme, but no information. A parcel of gaudy images pass on before his imagination like the figures in a dream; but curiosity, induction, reason, and the whole train of affections are fast asleep. The jucunda et idonea vite; those sallies which mend the heart while they

amuse

amuse the fancy, are quite forgotten: so that a reader who would take up some modern applauded performances of this kind, must, in order to be pleased, first leave his good sense behind him, take for his recompence and guide bloated and compound pithet, and dwell on paintings, just indeed, be.

cause laboured with minute exactness.

If we examine, however, our internal sensations, we shall find ourselves but little pleased with such laboured vanities; we shall find that our applause rather proceeds from a kind of contagion caught up from others, and which we contribute to diffuse, than from what we privately feel. There are some subjects of which almost all the world perceive the futility: yet all combine in imposing upon each other, as worthy of praise. But chiefly this imposition obtains in literature, where men publicly contemn what they relish with rapture in private, and approve abroad what has given them disgust at home. The truth is, we deliver those criticisms in public which are supposed to be best calculated not to do justice to the author, but to impress others with an opinion of our superior dis

cernment.

But let works of this kind, which have already come off with such applause, enjoy it all. It is neither my wish to diminish, as I was never considerable enough to add to their fame. But for the future I fear there are many poems, of which I shall find spirits to read but the title. In the first place, all odes upon winter, or summer, or autumn; in short all odes, epodes, and monodies whatsoever, shall hereafter be deemed too polite, classical, obscure, and refined to be read, and entirely above hunian comprehension. Pastorals are pretty enough --for those that like them-but to me Thyrsis is one of the most insipid fellows I ever conversed, with

and