ed to the heighth, and finished to perfection; there were inspectors on the part of the public, men of sound judgment, and fully competent to the office, who brought the work to a standard of rule and measure, and insisted upon it, that every whole should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Under these strict regulations the ancients wrote; but now that practice has made us perfect, and the trade is got into so many hands, these regulations are done away, and so far from requiring of us a beginning, middle, and end, it is enough if we can shew a head and a tail; and it is not always that even these can be made out with any tolerable precision. As our authors write with less labour, our critics review with less care; and for every one fault that they mark in our productions, there probably might be found one hundred that they overlook. It is an idle notion, however, to suppose that therefore they are in league and concert with the authors they revise; for where could that poor fraternity find a fund to compensate them for suffering a vocation once so reputable to fall into such utter disgrace under their management, as to be no longer the employ of a gentleman? As for our readers, on whom we never fail to bestow the terms of candid, gentle, courteous, and others of the like soothing cast, they certainly deserve all the fair words we can give them; for it is not to be denied, but that we make occasionally very great demands upon their candour, gentleness, and courtesy, exercising them frequently and fully with such trials as require those several endowments in no small proportion.

But are there not also fastidious, angry, querulential readers? readers with full stomachs, who complain of being surfeited and over-loaded with the story-telling trash of our circulating libraries? It cannot be altogether denied, but still they are readers; if the load is so heavy upon them as they pretend it is, I will put them in the way of getting rid of it, by reviving the

law of the ancient Cecerteans, who obliged their artists to hawk about their several wares, carrying them on their backs, till they found purchasers to ease them of the burden. Was this law put in force against authors, few of us, I doubt, would be found able to stand under the weight of our own unpurchased works.

But while the public are contented with things as they are, where is the wonder if the reform is never made by us till they begin it in themselves? Let their taste lead the fashion, and our productions must accord to it. While the Cookeries of Hannah Glasse outcirculate the Commentaries of Blackstone, authors will be found, who prefer the compilation of receipts to that of records, as the easier and more profitable task of the two. If puerilities are pleasing, men will write ut pueris placeant.

ON DISAPPOINTING EXPECTATIONS.

T

Anonymous.

raise expectations and to dash them, after the mind has been long habituated to indulge on the pleasing dream, is a refinement of malice that would do honour to the ingenuity of demons. From such a nefarious practice the generous would shrink with horror, the honest revolt with disdain and none but the unfeeling and the unprincipled could think of it without the self-consciousness of a turpitude too base to be named.

:

To do all the good in your power is only performing a duty. When a favour is conferred on a deserving object, you most particularly oblige yourself. To be satisfied with the poor, the negative merit of doing

neither good nor harm, may save you from detestation, though it cannot procure esteem; but should you encourage false hopes, and practise on the unsuspecting to deceive, you do an injury for which you can never atone; and if you have any conscience you wound it to the core.

The courtier's promise, the lover's vow, and fashion's smile, are proverbial for their insincerity; but the frequency and justice of this remark can never lessen the infamy of those who deserve it; for till right and wrong are lost in undistinguishable confusion, truth will still be the ornament of human nature -and falsehood its disgrace.

But it is not only by words and smiles that a person may deceive. Hope may be wafted on a breath-it may be founded on a look-it may be sanctioned by minute regards which it would argue insensibility rather than vanity not to understand and apply. A number of slender circumstances combining to favour the delusion of expectation, so natural to the human breast, may amount to absolute demonstration; and mean is the subterfuge of a cautious suppression of words, or of freedom from the legal forms of agreement.

. However fashionable insincerity may be, still pride yourself on adhering to the golden maxims of truth. This conduct will secure your own peace of mind, it will promote the happiness of your connections, and render you estimable and esteemed. The smoothness of hypocrisy, and the gloss of artifice, may obtain you. the character of being a man of the world; but they will debar you from ever reaching the character of being a good man.

Be scrupulously attached to your word-this is no more than common justice; be also careful not to excite hopes which you either cannot or mean not to gratify. Whether this is done by direct profession, or indirect innuendo, the guilt and the misery are the

same.

Numbers, whose unsuspecting innocence have rendered them credulous, and whom it is the greater villany to deceive, have forfeited every sublunary joy by an insinuation from the artful, or a promise from the unprincipled. The virtuous mind is averse to suspicion; it is only a long habitude with vice, and a conscious sense of moral depravity, that teaches the low caution of distrust, and the vigilance of jealousy.

In the soft intercourse of hearts which cannot exist without a virtuous confidence, how base is it to dissemble! In such a case as this, to plant the tender shoots of hope, and not to nourish them, or to pluck them up again, is to tear the faithful heart whose fibres cling round them, and to cloud the eye that beams, perhaps, with the pure splendours of a generous love.

But cases might be multiplied without end, where deception is frequently fatal-and surely it is always criminal. Be extremely cautious, then, of inspiring hope; but when once you have encouraged its delightful visions in others, if possible, never frustrate its reasonable expectations. Remember, that truth and sincerity are virtues which will dignify the lowest station; while no splendour of birth, no accumulation of honours or wealth, can compensate for their want. These, indeed, will render the deficiency more conspicuous and deplorable; for greatness should always be united to superior goodness.

TH

ON PREJUDICE.

Pratt.

THE power of education appears stronger with the majority of mankind than the appetites of nature. Most of those who publish their sentiments, have pass

ed their lives rather in turning over volumes, than in tracing accurately the shifting scene, and deliberately considering the written page with a design to enrich themselves with original ideas; rather in rapid reading than in correct thinking. On the other hand, the majority of those who are most eager after the pursuits of books, are directed by tutors to read a certain set, on the faith and credit of which, their future maxims, opinions, and behaviour, are to be formed. Thus both writers and readers go in leading-strings. The one prints what has been printed, with some slight alteration; the other considering as incontestible, those tenets which they have found in their favourite authors, or heard from the lips of friends and masters, who are probably under the dominion of equally strong prejudices.

There are, indeed, certain self-evident propositions, the truth of which, like the sun at its meridian, strike unobstructed light upon the mind. To cavil or conjecture against these, would be to war with demonstration, and combat Heaven. There are, also, a variety of opinions, rendered awful by the general belief of men, which have been adopted as maxims out of the reach of confutation. On this account, if at any time a man has dared to oppose a notion, handed down from father to son with the same care as the rent-rolls of a family estate; which was put into our mouths with the milk of our mothers, and pinned upon our understandings as early as the bibs on our bosoms; what is the consequence? He is condemned as a dangerous innovator; as one, who would overset the established system of things, a system which antiquity has rendered venerable and decisive. Strange bigotry! 'tis a despondency beneath the natural freedom of the mind. An intellectual obligation is more servile than a pecuniary one. One would not, indeed, like Mandeville, oppose every thing from the obstinate tenacity of founding a new system upon the ruins of the old;