patience. An eminent tradefinan in Westminster, and a great proficient in the looks of his customers, affures me, that he tranfacts business in perfect taciturnity; when he prefents a bill to a noble customer, he waits no longer than he has read it, as in the courfe of perufing it, he receives a moft expreffive and emphatic answer, without the utterance of a word, and he makes his bow, more or lefs humbly, according to the purport of what he has feen. In public places, many people are remarkable for knowing the rank and degree of the company, not by their features only, but by their drefs. But this is that kind of phyfiognomony (I must use the word, however improper) which I much complain of. Perhaps there was a time when drefs, and even looks, did convey fome idea of the rank and station of the parties; but, I know not how, that distinction feems now to be entirely done away. Drefs is become fo very arbitrary, that if we were to make it the criterion of rank or fortune, we should be liable to fifty errors in a day. There fits a grave and ferious looking gentleman in black, with a white, fullpowdered, and full-bottomed wig. He feems intent on his meditations, and perfectly careless of all around him. What is he?-You will fay, a bihop, contemplating divine truths, and wholly feparated in fpirit from the affairs of this world.-No, he is a stock-broker in St. Mary Axe, who has just buried his wife, and is regretting, that the fuccefs of the French on the Rhine has given the funds fuch a confounded tumble. Not far from him, you fee a fpruce and gay man, with boots, buckskin breeches, and a whip, Imart white waistcoat, and head dreffed in the height of the fashion: he is very attentive to the ladies, and now and then, purely to entertain them, breaks out with a few oath, a double entendre or two, and a montrous good flory, which he accompanies with a hoife-laugh. You have already fuppofed him to be a fprig of fashion, the heir apparent of fome opulent baronet. Appearances are deceitful; he is a reverend clergy, man, to whom a nobleman, remarkable for rewarding merit, gave a valuable living, merely because he became his advocate, when no man of virtue or decency would fupport him. But what wretch is that who obtrudes himself into fo much good company, with a threadbare coat, a dirty shirt, and a hat and wig that a Jew would not pick up in the fireet? Probably a pauper come to folicit charity, or fome unhappy man from the country, who wishes to be paffed to his own parih, or perhaps no; that man has eighty thousand pounds in the funds, and, to ufe his own phrase, could buy and fell all this company,' were it not that he never bought any thing unless he could get three times its value by felling it. He has cleared fix hundred pounds by a trifling rife in the funds to day, and he will now go to an eating houfe, dine for fourpence, and retire to his attic story in one of the most obfcure streets in town, As a contraft, here comes a gentleman elegantly dreffed, takes out a gold fnuff-box, informs us of the hour from a gold watch, and is in every respect fo much the man of rank and fashion, that we are ready to bow down before him. He calis for his carriage, and entering it with a becoming ftatelinefs, orders the coachman to top in St. James'-ftreet. This is probably a nobleman of fortune, or one of the miniftry.-No: he is a linen-draper, and, in a few weeks, will make his creditors the generous offer of half-a crown in the pound. Such is the effect of our nice difcernment in characters, when dress is the only foundation we go upon. Lady Modely, a perfonage well verfed in etiquette, and profoundly filled in what is called perfect good-breeding, has a remarkable knack in knowing men's characters at first fight from their appearance only. For it is to be obferved, and perhaps I fould have made the obfervation fooner, that that people of this ftamp wholly guid- The phyfiognomony which depends on outward appearances, we find very of en extended to a man's manner. What is called eafe, grace, and dignity, are univerfally miftaken for genius, merit, and honour. An awkward entrance into a room has spoiled one man's fortune, while a graceful minuet has made that of another. So very partial are we to the knowledge acquired at first fight, that we are always very forry to be undeceived by better acquaintance. There is ftriking ugliness, as well as ftriking beauty. Neither, however, is remarkable for being permanent; and the proportions of good and evil in the world, are not much diflurbed by fuch prepoffeffions. Upon the whole, fince there is an inclination to judge of men at first fight, let us endeavour to judge from fome principles which will not deceive A blockhead may be graceful, us. and a bankrupt may be fplendid; neither manners nor drefs can, therefore, be the proper means of discovering the character, and can at best inform us that the one employed a good dancing matter, and the other a credulous taylor. But we may be affured that, if our first impreffion of a man's character be unfavourable, we have committed an act of injuftice to him, even if we should not impart our fentiments. The real character of no man is to be learned at firit fight; for man is a machine of fuch complex texture, fo continually varying his notions, that after a long and very intimate acquaintance, we are feldom enabled to fay what his precife character is. Can we then fuppofe that we may diícover by a look, what years of converfation and actions feldom difcover? It is, as I obferved at the beginning of this letter, poffible that we may be right, and I have experienced it; but as it is impoffible to give a reafon for our opinion, and very abfurd to entertain an opinion without a reason, it becomes us to be very cautious, and to keep to ourfelves a fecret, which divulged, may do prejudice to another, I am, &c. R. S. SELECT SELECT PASSAGES FROM SHAKSPEARE. NUMBER XXII. Kneel thou down Philip, but rife more great; Arife fr Richard, and Plantagenet. It is a common opinion, that Plantagenet was the furname of the royal houfe of England, fince the time of king Henry the fecond: but the accurate Camden, in his Remaines,' published in 1614, obferves, that this is a popular mistake. Platagenet was not a family name, but a nickname, by which a grandfon of Geoffrey, the firft earl of Anjou, was diftinguished, from his wearing a broom-ftalk in his bonnet; the word genét, in French, fignifying a broom. But this name was never borne either by the firft earl of Anjou himself, or by king Henry the fecond, the fon of that earl by the empress Maud; he being always called Henry Fitz-Emprefs; his fon, Richard Cour-de-Lim; and his fon, who is exhibited in this play, John Sans-erre, or Lackland. To Camden's observation it may be added, that four fons of Edward the third appear to have had no other furnames than what they derived from their natal place; as William of Hatfield; John of Gaunt, duke of Lancafter; Edmund of Langley, duke of York; and Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucefter. Commodity, or Self-Intereft. Bafard. Mad world! mad kings! mad compofition! John, to top Arthur's title on the whole, Hath willingly departed [parted] with a As God's own foldier) rounded [whif pered] in the ear With that fame purpose-changer, that fly devil; That broker, that ftill breaks the pate of faith; That daily break-vow; he that wins of all, Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids; But the word maid-cheats the Commodity, the bias of the world; tent: Philip, king of France, having engaged in a war with John, king of England, to enforce the right of Arthur, the young duke of Britanny (fon of John's elder brother, Geoffrey) not only to the French provinces of Maine, Anjou, and Touraine, but to the crown of England itfelf, is induced to defert the caufe of the young prince, and to make peace with John, in confideration of an advantageous marriage between John's niece, Blanch of Caftile, and his eldest fon, Lewis, prince-royal of France. This fhameful dereliction of principle, and, of courfe, this bafe and vile-concluded peace,' leads the Baftard of Faulconbridge into the above reflections on the influence of Self-intereft, which, with an air of levity, and with hu morou truce, But they will quake and tremble all this morous expreffions, he confiders, in With my vex'd fpirits I cannot take a the mere worldly fenfe of the term, as the ruling principle of mankind. In the remainder of this foliloquy, he juftly obferves, that men are too apt to inveigh against corruption, not becaufe they themselves were incorruptible, but that no temptation had ever been thrown in their way: And why rail I on this Commodity? When his fair angels would falute my But for [becaufe] my hand, as unat- Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich. thee! head? Why dost thou look fo fadly on my fon? of thine? Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum, Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds? Be thefe fad figns confirmers of thy The aftonishment of Conftance, the mother of young Arthur, on hearing that her fon's caufe is facrificed in the treaty between the two monarchs, with the doubts we are naturally in clined to conceive of the truth of fudden ill-news, and the weak state of mind and fpirits to which perfons in calamity, especially helpless women, are generally reduced, are all finely painted in this fpeech. When the earl of Salisbury, who firft communicated the fatal intelligence, infifts upon the truth of it, the unhappy mother thus proceeds: O, if thou teach me to believe this for row, Teach thou this forrow how to make me And let belief and life encounter fo, France friend with England! what be comes of me? The Dignity of Grief. Salisbury. Pardon me, madam, I may not go without you to the kings. Conftance. Thou may'st, thou shalt, I will not go with thee: I will instruct my forrows to be proud; For grief is proud, and makes his owner floop*. To me, and to the state of my great grief, That no fupporter but the huge firm earth to it. [She throws herself on the ground. Our author, in the third line, has rendered this paffage obfcure, by indulging himself, in one of those conceits in which he too much delights, and by bounding rapidly, with his ufual licence, from one idea to another. This speech, however, is full of that dignity which grief, mixed cious note on this paffage. In Much How is it that grief, in Leonato and lady Conftance, produces effets directly oppofite, and yet both agreeable to nature? Sorrow foftens the mind, while it is warmed by hope; but hardens it, when it is congealed by despair. Diftrefs, while there remains any profpect of relief, is weak and flexible; but when no fuccour appears, is fearlefs and stubborn; angry alike at thofe who injure, and at thofe who do not help; carele's to please, where nothing can be gained; and fearless to offend, where there is nothing further to be dreaded. Such was this author' knowledge of the paffions.' |