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the object of contempt and abomination. An intimate acquaintance with the best descriptive poets, Spenser, Milton, and Thomson, but above all with the divine Georgics, joined to some practice in the art of drawing, will promote this amiable sensibility in early years; for then the face of nature has novelty superadded to its other charms; the passions are not pre-engaged, the heart is free from care, and the imagination warm and romantic. BEATTIE.

In

THE CHAMBERS OF THE DEAD AT ROME. My guide having mentioned the burial-place of the capuchins as something very extraordinary, this raised my curiosity; yet I never thought of meeting with a scene like that which struck me there. I shall never forget the impression which it made on me. The reader must expect neither churchyard, nor vault, nor cellar, nor cavern. a lower story of the convent, not quite under ground, there is a range of arched chambers, with several windows looking into the garden of the convent, and all opened. I never breathed a purer air than here; and certainly I was in need of it, for the aspect was of itself sufficiently oppressive. A passage, running down close under the windows, is allotted for the living that may wander here, and is separated by a small balustrade from the lower vaults, the quiet regions of death. Every arched room beyond this balustrade appears like a grotto; and each is laid out with human bones, and provided with niches. In every one of these niches we discover a dead capuchin, dressed in his capouche, and with a long beard; for the dead

bodies buried here do not suffer putrefaction, but only dry up. The best preserved are placed in these niches. On each of the skinny carcasses there is a ticket, bearing the name, and the hour of death, of its possessor.

The apartments for this purpose are very small, yet harbour hundreds of such tenants. They lie here till they are dried up; when they are brought to light again, in order to yield their former spaces to their successors. A small plain black cross marks every grave. The ceiling is ornamented with arabesks consisting of human bones. A pretty large cross is composed entirely of the small bones under the throat. Several girandoles with long branches, and lamps of different sizes, all hang down. Sconces of the same composition decorate the passage running along these places.

These chambers are all set out in different styles. One was decorated with skulls only, another with hipbones, and so on. We raised the capouche of one of the corpses, and discovered underneath it a skin very much like yellow parchment. Each of them carries a light in its hand, and every girandole and sconce is provided in the same manner, which must have a strange and solemn effect at night. No foreigner should neglect to visit these last retreats of humanity, where thousands of his fellow-creatures peacefully dwell near or above each other. The emperor Joseph has been here; and I wish every prince who visits Rome would do the same.

From the fourth grotto a door opens into a small chapel, where mass for the dead is said. It is laid out like the other rooms, but with a more sparing hand. The reflections of the stranger are here in

terrupted by the discovery of some very indifferent sonnets on the frailty of human life, inscribed on the walls.

KOTZEBUE.

TOM FOLIO.

TOM FOLIO is a broker in learning, employed to get together good editions, and stock the libraries of great men. There is not a sale of books begins until Tom Folio is seen at the door. There is not an auction where his name is not heard, and that too in the very nick of time, in the critical moment, before the last decisive stroke of the hammer. There is not a subscription goes forward in which Tom is not privy to the first rough draught of the proposals; nor a catalogue printed, that doth not come to him wet from the press. He is an universal scholar, so far as the title-page of all authors; knows the manuscripts in which they were discovered, the editions through which they have passed, with the praises or censures which they received from the several members of the learned world. He has a greater esteem for Aldus and Elzevir than for Virgil and Horace. If you talk of Herodotus, he breaks out into a panegyric upon Harry Stephens. He thinks he gives you an account of an author when he tells you the subject he treats of, the name of the editor, and the year in which it was printed. Or if you draw him into further particulars, he cries up the goodness of the paper, extols the diligence of the corrector, and is transported with the beauty of the letter. This he looks upon to be sound learning, and substantial criticism. As for those who talk of the fineness

style, and justness of thought, or describe the

brightness of any particular passages; nay, though they themselves write in the genius and spirit of the author they admire; Tom looks upon them as men of superficial learning, and flashy parts.

I had yesterday a morning visit from this learned idiot, for that is the light in which I consider every pedant, when I discover in him some little touches of the coxcomb, which I had not before observed. Being very full of the figure which he makes in the republic of letters, and wonderfully satisfied with his great stock of knowledge, he gave me broad intimations that he did not believe in all points as his forefathers had done. He then communicated to me a thought of a certain author upon a passage of Virgil's account of the dead, which I made the subject of a late paper. This thought hath taken very much among men of Tom's pitch and understanding, though universally exploded by all that know how to construe Virgil, or have any relish of antiquity. Not to trouble my reader with it, I found upon the whole, that Tom did not believe in a future state of rewards and punishments, because Æneas, at his leaving the empire of the dead, passed through the gate of ivory, and not through that of horn. Knowing that Tom had not sense enough to give up an opinion which he had once received, that I might avoid wrangling, I told him, "that Virgil possibly had his oversights as well as another author." "Ah! Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "you would have another opinion of him, if you would read him in Daniel Heinsius's edition. I have perused him myself several times in that edition," continued he; "and after the strictest and most malicious examination, could find but two faults in him: one of them is in the Encid, where there are tw

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commas instead of a parenthesis; and another in the third Georgic, where you may find a semicolon turned upside down." Perhaps," said I, "these were not Virgil's faults, but those of the transcriber." "I do not design it," says Tom, "as a reflection on Virgil; on the contrary, I know that all the manuscripts declaim against such a punctuation. Oh! Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "what would a man give to see one simile in Virgil writ in his own hand!" I asked him which was the simile he meant, but was answered, any simile in Virgil. He then told me all the secret history in the commonwealth of learning; of modern pieces that had the names of ancient authors annexed to them; of all the books that were now written or printing in the several parts of Europe; of many amendments which are made, and not yet published; and a thousand other particulars, which I would not have my memory burdened with for a Vatican.

At length, being fully persuaded that I thoroughly admired him, and looked upon him as a prodigy of learning, he took his leave. I know several of Tom's class, who are professed admirers of Tasso, without. understanding a word of Italian; and one in particular, that carries a Pastor Fido in his pocket, in which, I am sure, he is acquainted with no other beauty but the clearness of the character, ADDISON,

COUNT FATHOM IN THE ROBBER'S HOUSE.

HAVING rode some furlongs into the forest, he took his station under a tuft of tall trees, that screened him from the storm, and in that situation called a council within himself, to deliberate upon

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