rice, from precept to example. The moralift, who has the intereft and happiness of a few individuals at heart, must expect the rewards and acknowledgements of a few individuals only; but he that has all mankind for his fubject, will not only be rewarded by fuch myriads of those to whom his labours were confecrated, but will receive the particular dift netion of HIM, in whofe hand is the full and foe power of compenfation and pplaufe. In order to profefs this latter, in any degree of perfection, a large acquaintance must be a'tained with the world and its foibles, which can only be done by the above tranfition and accurate obfervation; and it generally happens that this tranfi ion is effected merely by the averfion whi h moft peo ple frequently difcover to a tedious return of the faine pleatures, and the fame uniform method of life. At a period when letters are fought after as the grand incentive to earthly happiness, and cultivated as the most indiffoluble cement of fociety, I am happy to obferve, that a means of circulating them by an eafy and concife plan of publication becomes daily increased. Within the narrow bounds of a Magazine may be found, at once, information, variety, and entertainment. The generous reception with which the Gentleman's Magazine ever has, and ftill continues to be honoured, may prove the truth of this affertion; nor can the closest imitations ever hope to rival originality of defign, and a noble fpirit of execution; and I regard as a favourable omen the circum. ftance of having introduced myself to the world by means of fo extenfive and communicative a mifcellany. The warmth and fpirit which has hitherto buoyed up this publication, it is to be hoped, will ftill continue to be countenanced and app aude for, in pursuit of any thing new, nothing can be too much applau led, nothing too much encouraged fhall her remark an error which parents are conti nually guilty of, in reftaining their children from that fphere of life, which the early bent of their genius has d fcovered a frong partaity for. Prhaps eigh out of ten are prejudiced in lavour of a travelling I fe; a lite which the moft dignified rank, and the most luxurious enjoyments, can never be compared with, either in print of pleafure or utility. To charm is in the power of every kind of li e; but to charm with continuance the life of a travell r can only profcfs. He is carrie 1 off in the heat of his curiolity from the contemplation of one project, to the s as dinerent in their kind as diftant in their station. Before one leafure has left its power of attraction, another fucceeds in its pla e; from court to court, from country to country, from pro pect to profpect, his attention is diverted, while every fresh motion brings along with it fome new beauty, or confeffes fome unknown truth. The boundaries of his understanding are hereby extended, the bent of his genius complied with, and the ardour of his curiofity appeafed. The fiudy of arts and fciences is facilitated by a continual fucceffion of new discoveries. The fyftem of vegetation. becomes more enlarged, the d stance and ftation of countries more determinate, and their manners and policy more publicly understood. In fhort, every pleasure that can touch the heart, ad every good that can improve the mind, is to be expected only from the fullest enjoyments of variety, and the keeneft thirst of Novelty." ADVICE to PREBENDARIES. [From ADVICE to the CLERGY of every Denomination and Degree, &c.] 66 VN confequence of a proper atΝ tention to the admonitions contained in the preceding chapters, your are now a canon of Windfor, or prebendary of Durham, Canterbury, Winchester, or fome other opulent cathedral. You have be fides, livings of five or fix hundred a-year, where the duty is done by your curates for thirty or at molt forty pounds per annum each. If they happen to have wives and families, they may poffibly have frequent occafion to exert their economical faculties. So much the better. Luxury in the inferior clergy is a vice. The apoftles were all poor men. Parfon Adams, to the best of my recollection, had not above twenty pounds a year, and yet he was perfectly contented and happy. Thefe arguments, if they fhould prefume to complain, will ftop their mouths; befides curates are a mere drug; fo that they may decamp whenever they pleafe. An advertisement in the papers will give you the choice of half a score. Charity begins at home. A prebendary has occafion for every fhilling of his revenue. He must keep fervants, a good table, and a carriage. His wife and daughters must drefs fashionably, frequent public diverfions, and play at cards. "Cards are now no longer the amufement, but the principal occupation, the bufinefs of the polite world: therefore, as moft of your time must be appropriated to this rational, is inftructive, this philofophical, this moral employment, you cannot fpend your mornings better than in the ftudy of Hoyle, which, with the other red book, will fufficiently occupy all your leifure. The rest of your library is totally ufelefs, except now and then a Review, in order to enable you to give your opinion occafionally on recent publications. Books of divinity are quite out of the queftion: of thefe you have read enough when you had no better employment: befides, in the prefent conftitution of things, they are all become obfolete. "If, out of frolic, you should at any time chufe to preach a fermon, let the fubject be fome mystical point of divinity; fo that it may be totally unintelligible to the congregation. The people of which congregations are generally compofed, admire most what they leaft understand. As to the chriftian duties of humility, charity, abffinence, mortification, and felf-denial, they might do well enough whilst you were a poor curate. Such topics would now give occafion to invidious reflexions: they are duties, with which, in your prefent fituation, you have no concern. I remember a young cler gyman's preaching a fermon against adultery, who the night before had been furprized in bed with the wife of one of his parishioners. As he came out of the church, the injured hufband seized him by the collar and threw him into a horse-pond. "We learn from an old adage, that a man is best known by the character of his affociates. For this reafon, I must admonish you not to admit the minor canons to any degree of familiarity. They are poor, and confequently men of no character. You may employ them as preceptors to your children, or to fuperintend your household during your abfence, and you may now and then admit them to your table when you have no better company. When you want to get rid of them, as foon as they have drank Church and King, you may take out your watch, and, looking towards the bottom of the table, fay, you fancy it is almoft time for evening prayers. When these thread-bare drudges are gone, you push back your wig, feat yourself afresh on your chair, open your countenance, and patting the lid of your fnuff-box, facetioufly apologize to the company for the neceffity of now and then admitting inferiors to one's table. You then whisper a toat to the baronet, on your right hand, and fetting down your glafs, you exclaim, Vive la bagatelle! Thus the laick part of the company are relieved from all reftraint, and the evening is fpent in focial jocundity and eafe. About eight o'clock, tea being announced, you join the ladies in the drawingroom, where the card-tables being prepared, the company fits down to crown whif with half a guinea or a guinea on the rubber, and you break up between eleven and twelve. Such were the lives of the apostles and primitive fathers of the church. "If there happens to be a company of ftrolling players in the town, three nights in the weck, attended by your wife and daughters, you may spend at the theatre; but you must not fo far forget your rank as to mix with the actreffes behind the scenes; that privilege belongs to the younger clergy. Plays, you know, ord a most rational entertainment; and that they have a natural tendency to promote morality, is evinged by the virtu ous lives of thofe who frequent the theatres. "But, though this neceffary round of anufements will occupy much the greatest part of your time, bufinefs must not be entirely negle&ed. The study of the two red books, with the perfect knowledge of which your intereft is fo infepar ably connected, muft, on no account, be omitted. One will teach you how to fill your card-purse, and from the other you will learn the names of the great men in power, whom you are to court in expectation of a bishoprick. These fevere ftudies will generally employ your morning hours: nevertheless, you will find it neceflary to appropriate fome portion of your time to the receipt of your rents, and correfpondence with your curates concerning your tythes. You will alfo have frequent occafion to write letters to the lawyers and attornies employed in carrying on law-fuits againt your parishioners. On this fubject let me conjure you never to let the feelings of humanity clafle with the facred intereft of the church, nor warp the pious feverity of divine justice. "If you yourfelf were only concerned in thefe litigations, you would be the last man in the world to ruin a poor man for the non-payment of his rent, his tythe, or modus; but this is the caufe of the church, of religion, of the whole body of the clergy to the latest posterity: befides to fpeak the truth, thefe farmers are fuch a pack of rafcals that they deferve no compaffion. I have promised to conduct you to the fummit of ecclefiaftical dignity and preferment; and I will fulfil that promife: but I must inform you, that your attention to my admonitions must increase in pro proportion to your proximity to the goal. Never forget that the king makes bishops, and that, con. fequently, the mifter for the time being is your fole object. You are not yet fufficiently elevated to make a point blank attack on a chancellor of the exchequer; but by gradually extending your influence in the corporation, and among the voters for the county in your feveral parithes, you will in time attain the honour of being mentioned to him by the peer that makes the members; and your interest at court will increase in proportion to the increase of your parliamentary interest in the county. Mean while, you must be exceedingly careful, even when converfing with your moft intimate friends, never to let flip a fingle patriotic expreffion. nor feem diflatisfied with taxes nor with an, other measure of goverament. There are indeed many examples in our history of turbulent men forcing themfelves into power by oppofing the minister; but, in the 'ecclefiaflical line, that method does not fucceed; it is therefore wifely abandoned. "As to the wisdom and honefly of the minifter, they are no concern of yours. If you fuffer confcience to obftruct your road to preferment, I have done with you at once; and the bett advice I can give you, is to retire to one of your livings in the country, and spend the remain. der of your life in obfcurity. But, Sir, prefu ne you have had a li beral education, and that you have by this time, fhook off the tramels of a religion of which humility, fcrupulous integrity, and felf-de. nial are the fundamental principles; a religion, that pretents an infur mountable bar to the attainment of wealth, rank, and power, the defiderata of all mankind. Your fu periors, in compliance with the times, have skipt over this bar with great agility. They yet preferve the femblance of the old imprac ticable religion; but it requires very little penetration to difcover, that they are fince profelytes to the doctrines of that fublime philofopher Epicurus who laughed at divine providence, who proved beyond a doubt that the foul dies with the body, and whose fummum bonum was pleasure." HUMAN LEARNING, an APOLOGUE. [From TALES, ROMANCES, APOLOGUES, ANECDOTES, &c. in Two Volumes, tranflated from the French. ] "DA ABSCHELIM, king of the Indies, poffeffed a library fo large, that it required a hundred Bramins to revife and keep it in order, and a thousand dromedaries to carry the books. As he had no intention to read all it conted, he commanded his Bramins to make extracts from it, for his ufe, of whatever they judged moft valuable in every branch of literature. These doctors immediately undertook to form fuch an abridg ment, and, after twenty years labour, compofed from their several collections a fmall Encyclopedia, confifting of twelve thousand vo lumes, which thirty camels could fcarcely fcarcely carry. They had the honour to prefent this to the king, but were astonished to hear him fay he would not read a work which was a load for thirty camels. They then reduced their extracts fo that they might be carried by fifteen, afterwards by ten, then by four, and then by two dromedaries. At laft, no more were left than were fufficient to load a mule of ordinary Unfortunately, Dabfchelim had grown old while his library was abridging, and did not expect to live long enough to read to the end this mafter-piece of learning. The fage Pilpay, his vifir, therefore, thus addreffed him. Though I have but an imperfect knowledge of the library of your fublime majesty, yet can I make a kind of analyfis of what it contains; very fhort, but extremely useful. You may, read it in a minute, yet will it afford you fufficient matter for meditation during your whole life. At the fame time the Vifir took the leaf of a palm-tree and wrote on it, with a pencil of gold, the four following maxims. "I. In the greater part of fciences there is only this fingle word, perhaps in all history but three phrafes: they were born, they were wretched, they died. "II. Take pleasure in nothing which is not commendable, and do every thing you take pleasure in. Think nothing but what is true, and utter not all you think. "III. O ye kings! fubdue your paffions, reign over yourfelves, and you will confider the government of the world only as recreation. "IV. O ye kings! O ye na. tions! liften to a truth you never can hear too often, and of which fophifts pretend to doubt. There is no happiness without virtue, and no virtue without the fear of the Gods." "T The DEAN of BADAJOZ, a TALE. HE dean of the cathedral of Badajoz was more learned than all the doctors of Salamanca, Coimbra, and Alcala united. He understood all languages, living and dead, and was perfect mafter of every science, divine and human; except that, unfortunately, he had no knowledge of magic, and was inconfolable when he reflected on his ignorance in that fublime art. He was told that a very able magician refided in the fuburbs of Toledo, named Don Torribio. Immediately, he faddled his mule, departed for Toledo, and alighted 1786. at the door of no very fuperb dwelling, the habitation of that great man. "Moft reverend magician, faid he, addreffing himself to the fage, I am the dean of Badajoz. The learned men of Spain all allow me their fuperior, but I am come to request from you a far greater honour, that of becoming your pu pil. Deign to initiate me in the myfteries of your art, and doubt not but you fhall receive a grateful acknowledgement, fuitable to the benefit conferred, and your own extraordinary merit." N "Don |