ancient legion, drawn out in goodly array under fit commanders? or as a modern regiment of writers, where the common men have been forced by want, or seduced through wickedness, into the service, and where the leaders owe their advancement rather to caprice, party favour, and the partiality of friends, than to merit or service?

Shall I consider ye, O ye books! as a herd of courtiers . who profess to be subservient to my use, and yet seek only your own advantage? No; let me consider this room as the great charnel-house of human reason, where darkness and corruption dwell; or as a certain poet expresses himself.

Where hot and cold, and wet and dry,
And beef, and broth, and apple-pye,
Most slovenly assemble.

Who are they, whose unadorned raiment bespeaks their inward simplicity? They are law books, statutes, and commentaries on statues. These are acts of parliament, whom all men must obey, and yet few only can purchase. Like the Sphynx of antiquity, they speak in enigmas, and yet devour the unhappy wretches who comprehend them not. These are commentaries on statutes: for the perusing of them, the longest life would prove insufficient: for the understanding of them, the utmost ingenuity of man would not avail.

Cruel is the dilemma between the necessity and the impossibility of understanding: yet are we not left utterly destitute of relief. Behold for our comfort an abridgment of law and equity! It consists not of many volumes; it extends only to twenty-two folios; yet as a few thin cakes may contain the whole nutritive substance of a stalled ox, so may this compendium contain the essential gravy of many a report and adjudged

case.

The sages of the law recommend this abridgment to our perusal. Let us with all thankfulness of heart receive their counsel. Much are we beholden to the physicians who only prescribe the bark of the quinquina, when they might oblige their patients to swallow the whole tree.

From these volumes I turn my eyes on a deep embodied phalanx, numerous and formidable: they are controversial divines: so has the world agreed to term them. How arbitrary is language! and how does the custom of mankind join words that reason has put asunder! Thus we often hear of hell-fire cold, of devilish handsome, and the like; and thus controversial and divine have been associated.

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These controversial divines have changed the rule of life into a standard of disputation. They have employed the temple of the Most High as a fencing-school, where gymnastic exercises are daily exhibited, and where victory serves only to excite new contests. Slighting the bulwarks wherewith He who bestowed religion on mankind had secured it, they have encompassed it with various minute outworks, which an ariny of warriors can with difficulty defend.

The next in order to them are the redoubtable antagonists of common sense; the gentlemen who close up the common highway to heaven, and yet open no private road for persons having occasion to travel that way. The writers of this tribe are various, but in principles and manner nothing dissimilar. Let me review them as they stand arranged.

These are Epicurean orators, who have endeavoured to confound the ideas of right and wrong, to the unspeakable comfort of highwaymen and stock-jobbers. These are inquirers after truth, who never deign to implore the aid of knowledge in their researches. These are sceptics, who labour earnestly to argue themselves out of their Own existence; herein resembling that choice spirit who endeavoured so artfully to pick his own pocket as not to be detected by himself. Last of all, are the composers of rhapsodies, fragments, and (strange to say it) thoughts. Thou first, thou greatest vice of the human mind, Ambition! all these authors were originally thy votaries! They promised to themselves a frame more durable than the calf-skin that covered their works; the calf-skin (as the dealer speaks) is in excellent condition, while the books themselves remain the prey of that silent critic the worm.

Complete cooks and conveyancers; bodies of school-divinity and Tommy Thumb; little story-books, systems of philosophy, and memoirs of women of pleasure: apologies for the lives of players and prime ministers: all are consigned to one common ob livion.

One book indeed there is, which pretends to little reputation, and by a strange felicity obtains whatever it demands. To be useful for some months only is the whole of its ambition; and though every day that passes confessedly diminishes its utility, yet it is sought for and purchased by all: such is the deserved and unenvied character of that excellent treatise of practical astronomy, the Almanack.

The World, No. 140, Thursday, September 4, 1755.

ESTHER CHAPONE,

born 1727, died 1801, a daughter of Thomas Mulso, and a friend of Dr. Johnson, Richardson, and Elizabeth Carter, was the author of Letters on the Imprisonment of the Mind, Lond., 1773, 2 vols. 12mo; Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, 1775, 12mo; A Letter to a Newly Married Lady, 1777, 12mo, an Ode prefixed to Elizabeth Carter's Epictetus. 1758, 4to, and the story of Fidelia in The Adventurer, Nos. 77, 78, 79. Posthumous Works, with Life, Lond., 1807, 2 vols. 8vo; 2d edit., 1808, 2 vols. 12mo.

"You make verses, and they are read in public, and I know nothing about them. This very crime, I think, broke the link of amity between Richardson and Miss M[ulso], after a tenderness and confidence of many years."-DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. THRALE, 1780.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.

What a tremendous scene of the last day does the gospel place before our eyes!-of that day when you and every one of us shall awake from the grave, and behold the Son of God, on his glorious tribunal, attended by millions of celestial beings, of whose superior excellence we can now form no adequate idea,-when in presence of all mankind, of those holy angels, and of the great Judge himself, you must give an account of your past life, and hear your final doom, from which there can be no appeal, and which must determine your fate to all eternity then think-if for a moment you can bear the thought-what will be the desolation, shame, and anguish of those wretched souls who shall hear those dreadful words: -"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."-Oh! I cannot support even the idea of your becoming one of those undone, lost creatures! I trust, in God's mercy, that you will make a better use of that knowledge of his will which he has vouchsafed you and of those amiable dispositions he has given you. Let us therefore turn from this horrid, this insupportable view, and rather endeavour to imagine, as far as is possible, what will be the sensations of your soul if you should hear our heavenly Judge address you in these transporting words:-" Come, thou blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Think what it must be to become an object of the esteem and applause, -not only of all mankind assembled together, but of all the host of heaven, of our blessed Lord himself,-nay, of his and our Almighty Father:-to find your frail flesh changed, in a moment, into a glorious celestial body, endowed with perfect beauty,

health, and agility:-to find your soul cleansed from all its faults and infirmities; exalted to the purest and noblest affections; overflowing with divine love and rapturous gratitude to have your understanding enlightened and refined; your heart enlarged and purified; and every power and disposition of mind and body adapted to the highest relish of virtue and happiness! Thus accomplished, to be admitted into the society of amiable and happy beings, all united in the most perfect peace and friendship, all breathing nothing but love to God, and to each other;-with them to dwell in scenes more delightful than the richest imagination can paint,-free from every pain and care, and from all possibility of change or satiety;—but, above all, to enjoy the more immediate presence of God himself,— to be able to comprehend and admire his adorable perfections in a high degree, though still far short of their infinity,-to be conscious of his love and favour, and to rejoice in the light of his countenance! But here all imagination fails: we can form no idea of that bliss which may be communicated to us by such a near approach to the source of all beauty and all good: we must content ourselves with believing that it is "what mortal eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." The crown of all our joys will be, to know that we are secure of possessing them forever,-what a transporting idea!

Can you reflect on all these things, and not feel the most earnest longings after immortality? Do not all other views and desires seem mean and trifling when compared with this? And does not your inmost heart resolve that this shall be the chief and constant object of its wishes and pursuit, through the whole course of your life? If you are not insensible to that desire of happiness which seems woven into our nature, you cannot surely be unmoved by the prospect of such a transcendent degree of it! and that continued to all eternity,-perhaps continually increasing. You cannot but dread the forfeiture of such an inheritance as the most insupportable evil! Remember then-remember the conditions on which alone it can be obtained. God will not give to vice, to carelessness, or sloth, the prize he has proposed to virtue. You have every help that can animate your endeavours: You have written laws to direct you,―the example of Christ and his disciples to encourage you, the most awakening motives to engage you,-and you have, besides, the comfortable promise of constant assistance from the Holy Spirit, if you diligently and sincerely pray for it. O! let not all this mercy

be lost upon you,—but give your attention to this your only important concern, and accept, with profound gratitude, the inestimable advantages that are thus affectionately offered you.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH,

born in Pallas, Ireland, 1728, died in London, 1774, will always be known by his poems of The Traveller, Lond., 1764, and The Deserted Village, Lond., 1770. 4to, and his novel, The Vicar of Wakefield, Lond., 1766, 2 vols. 12mo. For notices of his comedies, The Good-Natured Man and She Stoops to Conquer, his histories, The Citizen of the World, and other works we refer to his biographies by Prior, Irving, and Forster. Miscellaneous Works, with Life (by Bishop Percy), Lond., 1801, 4 vols. 8vo; by James Prior, Lond., 1837, 4 vols. 8vo (with Life, 6 vols. 8vo); by P. Cunningham, 1855, 4 vols. 8vo. Of his Poems there are many editions.

"The admirable ease and grace of the narrative as well as the pleasing truth with which the principal characters are designed, make the Vicar of Wakefield one of the most delicious morsels of fictitious compositions on which the human mind

was ever employed. We read the Vicar of Wakefield in youth and in age; we return to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author who contrives so well to reconcile us to human

nature."-SIR WALTER SCOTT: Life of Goldsmith. "The delineation of this character [that of the "excellent Wakefield"] on his course of life through joys and sorrows, the ever-increasing interest of the story, by the combination of the entirely natural with the strange and the singular, make this

novel one of the best which has ever been written." -GÖTHE: Truth and Poetry; from My Own Life, English trans.

THE FAMILY OF WAKEField.

I was ever of opinion that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single and only talked of population.

From this motive, I had scarcely taken orders a year before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my wife as she did her wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well. To do her justice, she was a good-natured notable woman; and as for breeding, there were few country ladies who could shew more. She could read any English book without much spelling; but for pickling, preserving, and cookery, none could excel her. She prided herself also upon being an excellent contriver in housekeeping; though I could never find that we grew richer with all her contrivance.

However, we loved each other tenderly,

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and our fondness increased as we grew old. There was in fact nothing that could make us angry with the world or each other. We had an elegant house, situated in a fine country, and a good neighbourhood. The year was spent in moral or rural amusements, in visiting our rich neighours, and relieving such as were poor. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown.

As we lived near the road, we often had the traveller or stranger visit us to taste our gooseberry wine, for which we had great reputation; and I profess with the veracity of an historian, that I never knew one of them to find fault with it. Our cousins too, even to the fortieth remove, all remembered their affinity, without any help from the heralds' office, and came very frequently to see us. Some of them did us no great honour by these claims of kindred; as we had the blind, the maimed, and the halt amongst the number. However, my wife always insisted that, as they were the same flesh and blood, they should sit with us at the same table. So that, if we had not very rich, we had generally very happy, friends about us: for this remark will hold good through life, he ever is with being treated: and as some that the poorer the guest, the better pleased men gaze with admiration at the colours of a tulip, or the wing of a butterfly, so I was by nature an admirer of happy human faces. However, when any one of our relations was found to be a person of very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house I ever took care to lend him a riding-coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes an horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them. By this the house was cleared of such as we did not like; but never was the family of Wakefield known to turn the traveller, or the poor dependent, out of doors.

My

Thus we lived several years in a state of much happiness; not but that we sometimes had those little rubs which Providence sends to enchance the value of its favours. orchard was often robbed by schoolboys, and my wife's custards plundered by the cats or the children. The 'Squire would sometimes fall asleep in the most pathetic parts of my sermon, or his lady return my wife's civilities at church with a mutilated courtesy. But we soon got over the uneasiness caused by such accidents, and usually in three or four days began to wonder how they vexed us.

My children, the offspring of temperance, as they were educated without softness, so they were at once well-formed and healthy;

my sons hardy and active, my daughters beautiful and blooming. When I stood in the midst of the little circle, which promised to be the supports of my declining age, I could not avoid repeating the famous story of Count Abensberg, who, in Henry II.'s progress through Germany, while other courtiers came with their treasures, brought his thirty-two children, and presented them to his sovereign as the most valuable offering he had to bestow. In this manner, though I had but six, I considered them as a very valuable present made to my country, and consequently looked upon it as my debtor.

Our oldest son was named George, after his uncle, who left us ten thousand pounds. Our second child, a girl, I intended to call after her aunt Grissel; but my wife, who, during her pregnancy, had been reading romances, insisted upon her being called Olivia. In less than another year we had another daughter, and now I was determined that Grissel should be her name; but a rich relation taking a fancy to stand godmother, the girl was, by her directions, called Sophia: so that we had two romantic names in the family but I solemnly protest I had no hand in it. Moses was our next, and after an interval of twelve years we had two sons

more.

:

It would be fruitless to deny exultation when I saw my little ones about me; but the vanity and the satisfaction of my wife were even greater than mine. When our visitors would say, "Well, upon my word, Mrs. Primrose, you have the finest children in the whole country."-"Ay, neighbour." she would answer, 66 they are as heaven made them,-handsome enough, if they be good enough; for handsome is that handsome does." And then she would bid the girls hold up their heads; who, to conceal nothing, were certainly very handsome. Mere outside is so very trifling a circumstance with me, that I should scarcely have remembered to mention it, had it not been a general topic of conversation in the country. Olivia, now about eighteen, had that luxuriancy of beauty with which painters generally draw Hebe; open, sprightly, and commanding. Sophia's features were not so striking at first; but often did more certain execution; for they were soft, modest, and alluring. The one vanquished by a single blow, the other by efforts successfully repeated.

The Vicar of Wakefield, Chap. i. THE FAMILY OF WAKEFIELD IN AFFLICTION.

We set forward from this peaceful neighbourhood, and walked on slowly. My eldest

daughter being enfeebled by a slow fever, which had begun for some days to undermine her constitution, one of the officers, who had an horse, kindly took her behind him; for even these men cannot entirely divest themselves of humanity. My son led one of the little ones by the hand, and my wife the other, while I leaned upon my youngest girl, whose tears fell not for her own but my distresses.

We were now got from my late dwelling about two miles when we saw a crowd running and shouting behind us, consisting of about fifty of my poorest parishioners. These with dreadful imprecations soon seized upon the two officers of justice, and swearing they would never see their minister go to gaol while they had a drop of blood to shed in his defence, were going to use them with great severity. The consequence might have been fatal had I not immediately interposed, and with some difficulty rescued the officers from the hands of the enraged multitude. My children, who looked upon my delivery now as certain, appeared transported with joy, and were incapable of containing their raptures. But they were soon undeceived, upon hearing me address the poor deluded people who came as they imagined to do me service.

"What! my friends," cried I, "and is this the way you love me! Is this the manner you obey the instructions I have given you from the pulpit! Thus to fly in the face of justice, and bring down ruin on yourselves and me! Which is your ring leader? Shew me the man that has thus seduced you. As sure as he lives he shall feel my resentment. Alas! my dear, deluded flock, return back to the duty you owe to God, to your country, and to me. shall yet perhaps one day see you in greater felicity here, and contribute to make your lives more happy. But let it at least be my comfort when I pen my fold for immortality, that not one here shall be wanting."

I

They now seemed all repentance, and melting into tears came one after the other to bid me farewell. I shook each tenderly by the hand, and leaving them my blessing, proceeded forward without meeting any further interruption. Some hours before night we reached the town, or rather village; for it consisted but of a few mean houses, having lost all its former opulence, and retaining no marks of its ancient superiority but the gaol.

Upon entering we put up at an inn, where we had such refreshments as could most readily be procured, and I supped with my family with my usual cheerfulness. After seeing them properly accommodated for that night, I next attended the sheriff's officers to

the prison; which had formerly been built for the purposes of war, and consisted of one large apartment strongly grated and paved with stone, common to both felons and debtors at certain hours in the four and twenty. Besides this, every prisoner had a separate cell, where he was locked in for the night. I expected upon my entrance to find nothing but lamentations and various sounds of misery; but it was very different. The prisoners seemed all employed in one common design, that of forgetting thought in merriment or clamour. I was apprised of the usual perquisite required upon these occasions, and immediately complied with the demand, though the little money I had was very near being all exhausted. This was immediately sent away for liquor, and the whole prison soon was filled with rout, laughter, and profaneness.

"How!" cried I to myself, "shall men so very wicked be cheerful, and shall I be melancholy! I feel only the same confinement with them, and I think I have more reason to be happy."

With such reflections I laboured to become cheerful; but cheerfulness was never yet produced by effort, which is itself painful. As | I was sitting therefore in a corner of the gaol in a pensive posture, one of my fellowprisoners came up, and sitting by me entered into conversation. It was my constant rule in life never to avoid the conversation of any man who seemed to desire it; for if good, I might profit by his instruction: if bad, he might be assisted by mine. I found this to be a knowing man of strong unlettered sense, but a thorough knowledge of the world, as it is called, or, more properly speaking, of human nature on the wrong side. He asked me if I had taken care to provide myself with a bed, which was a circumstance I had never once attended to.

"That's unfortunate," cried he, "as you are allowed here nothing but straw and your apartment is very large and cold. However, you seem to be something of a gentleman, and, as I have been one myself in my time, part of my bedclothes are heartily at your service."

I thanked him, professing my surprise at finding such humanity in a gaol in misfortunes: adding, to let him see that I was a scholar, that the sage ancient seemed to understand the value of company in affliction, when he said, Ton kosmon aire, ei dos ton etairon; and in fact, continued I, "what is the world if it affords only solitude?"

"You talk of the world, sir," returned my fellow-prisoner: "the world is in its dotage, and yet the cosmogony or creation of the world has puzzled the philosophers of every age. What a medley of opinions have they not

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broached upon the creation of the world! Sanchoniathon, Mantheo, Berosus, and Ocellus Lucanus, have all attempted it in vain. The latter has these words, Anarchon ara kai atelutaion to pan, which implies- "I ask pardon, sir," cried I, "for interrupting so much learning; but I think I have heard all this before. Have I not had the pleasure of seeing you at Welbridge fair, and is not your name Ephraim Jenkinson?" this demand he only sighed. "I suppose you must recollect," resumed I, "one Dr. Primrose, from whom you bought a horse."

At

He now at once recollected me; for the gloominess of the place, and the approaching night, had prevented his distinguishing my features before.-"Yes, sir," returned Mr. Jenkinson, "I remember you perfectly well; I bought a horse, but forgot to pay for him."

The Vicar of Wakefield, Ch. xxvi.

THE WAKEFIELD FAMILY IN PROSPERITY.

The next morning as soon as I awaked I found my eldest son sitting by my bedside, who came to increase my joy with another turn of fortune in my favour. First having released me from the settlement that I had made the day before in his favour, he let me know that my merchant who had failed in town was arrested at Antwerp, and there had given up effects to a much greater amount than what was due to his creditors. My boy's generosity pleased me almost as much as this unlooked-for good fortune. But I had some doubts whether I ought in justice to accept his offer. While I was pondering upon this, Sir William entered the room, to whom I communicated my doubts. His opinion was, that as my son was already possessed of a very affluent fortune by his marriage, I might accept his offer without any hesitation. His business, however, was to inform me, that as he had the night before sent for the licenses, and expected them every hour, he hoped that I would not refuse my assistance in making all the company happy that morning. A footman entered while we were speaking, to tell us that the messenger was returned, and, as I was by this time ready, I went down, where I found the whole company as merry as affluence and innocence could make them. However, as they were now preparing for a very solemn ceremony, their laughter entirely displeased me. told them of the grave, becoming, and sublime deportment they should assume upon this mystical occasion, and read them two homilies and a thesis of my own composing, in order to prepare them. Yet they still seemed perfectly refractory and ungovernable. Even as we were going along to church,