foon also have brought on an habit of drinking; but, on fuffering a violent outrage from his mafter, Tom gave him warning that he fhould quit his place; who in his turn d fmiffed him immediately, and refused to give him a character: luckily, however, a gentleman in the neighbourhood, who was on no terms with Pompilius, took Tom without a character, and by proper treatment, has found him a valuable acquifition. pretences to reproach him, and would feverity: they copy their vices, or are feduced by the luxury and extravagance which too generally prevails in fuch families, to become luxurious and extravagant themselves and to fupport their extravagance, when settled in the world, they become difhoneft, and abandoned. And during their fervice, as they are kept up a great part of the night, to attend their mifters at the gambling-houfes, or their ladies at their affèmblies of different kinds, we cannot much blame them, if, to make up for their lols of reft, they feek for amufement not more innocent than thofe of their fuperiors. Pufillus' man Peter likewife improves daily: his matter calmly iffues out his orders; inftructs him in his duty; and on every occafion, convinces Peter that he has bis interest at heart, as well as his own. Peter, on the other hand, from an ambition to please his matter, does many things voluntarily, and without waiting for his master's commands: and, as he makes his master's bufinefs his whole ftudy, Pufillus often finds his account in confulting with his fervant, who, as far as his capacity extends, fometimes judges. better than his mafter. In a word, Pompilius proceeds on the tyrant's maxim, Oderint dum metuant;' let them hate me, fo that they fear me. Pufillus' maxim is the reverfe, Colant me potius quam timeant;' let them reverence me, rather than fear me. And they are requited accordingly. I will not prefume to interfere with the ladies' treatment of fervants: under their mild and gentle fway, their female attendants are generally made their friends and confidants, and their footmen fometimes experience more -than a fraternal affection: and I am perfuaded that, in this age, no fuch capricious tyrants as Congreve's Lady Wilfor, or other characters of that kind, now exist. Until reformation, therefore, takes place in the manners and modes of life among the higher circles, in vain will the promoters of Sunday Schools, Schools of Industry, and other charitable inflitutions, labour to reform the morals of the lower claffes of people, which are infallibly corrupted, in the firft fashionable family that takes them into their fervice. I fhall clofe this effay with Seneca's excellent epiftle on the fubject, which not only breathes a truly Christian fpirit, but gives us too lively a sketch of the enormous luxury and pride of the Romans in that age: to which ftate, however, we ourfelves feem to be rapidly advancing, and partly from a fimilar caufe-the importation of the wealth, the luxury and effeminacy of the Afiatic nations; who will probably revenge the unprovoked injuries which they have received from the Europeans, by gradually corrupting the morals of their conquerors, and make them in their turns the prey of fome more virtuous and more warlike invaders. SENECA TO LUCILIUS. I WAS much pleafed to hear, from fome of your neighbours in the country, upon what kind and familiar terms you live with your flaves. It is no mo.e, indeed, than I fhould have expected from your good fenfe Neither will I fay any thing of the fervants in the more elevated ranks of life; as I am afraid, they fuffer more from the neglect, or from the examples of their mafters, than from their The frequent burglaries or house-breakings in the metropolis, are generally conducted by the connivance of profligate fervants. Аа and and enlightened underflanding. But, are they really our flaves?-No: they are men; they are our companions; our humble friends. Are they our flaves? No: they are only our fellowfervants; if you reflect that we are all equally under the dominion of fortune. I cannot but fmile, therefore, at thofe who would think themfelves polluted, if they were obliged to eat with their fellow-fervants. But why fo? Orly because a most infolent custom has made it neceffary for the mafter, as he fits at table, to be attended by a croud of flaves flanding and him. He eats more than his ftomach can well contain; and, while he is thus voraciously cramming his diflended paunch, his unhappy flaves dare not move their lips, or utter a word The loweft whifper is punished with the lafh. Nor are the moft cafual or involuntary circumftances exempted from tripes. To cough, 'to freeze, to hiccup, or to interrupt the filence of the company by any kind of noife, is a capital of fence. Thus the poor flaves remain the whole night fafting and mute. Hence it comes to pass, that those who are not permitted to fpeak before their mafters, take their revenge by ta king enough behind their backs: whereas thofe flaves who have been indulged in the liberty, not only of talking in their mafter's prefence, but of converfing modeftly with them, have often been found ready to facrifice their own lives, to avert any danger which threatened the lives of their mafters. They talked in their convivial entertainments; but were impregnably filent under the torture. From the fame abfurd arrogance, arofe the proverbial expremion, A man has as many enemies as he has flaves. Alas! they are not yet our enemies, but we make them fo.. I forbear to mention many other cruel and inhuman practices on this fubje&t: That we do not treat cur flaves as if they were men; but abufe them, as if they were beafts of burden: That when we fit down to table, one is employed to wipe up the fpittle; another to gather up the scraps, which drop from the drunken guests; one lands to carve the collly fowls; and with certain artful flourishes, carrying his fkilful hand round the breast and the rump, rakes it at once, properly carved, into the dish. Wretched mortal, who lives for no other purpose than to cut up crammed turkies! Though he perhaps is more defpicably wretched, who, to gratify his appetite, has this poor mortal taught fo frivolous an art; which through neceffity alone he submits to learn. The fum of my precepts on this fubject is in fhort this:-That you live in fuch a manner with your inferiers as you would wish to have your fuperiors live with you. Do not eftimate men by their fanctions, but by their manners: a man gives himself the one; accident allots him the other. He may be a flave in his perfon, but perhaps his mind is free. Shall it be imputed to him as a crime, that he is a flave? Tell me, who is not fo. One man is a flave to his appetites: another to his avarice: another to his ambition: and all of us are flaves to feart. Here is a man of confular dignity, who makes himself a flave to a wealthy old woman. Here is a man abounding in riches; he is enflaved to a little artful handmaid. Behold our young men of the firit quality, the flaves of actreffes and finging girls. Now, what can be more ignominious, than this voluntary fervitude? Let not thefe faftidious fops, then, deter you from behaving with affability; or at least, without any unneceffary haughtiness, even toward your flaves. Let them love and reverence, rather than fear you. What, then, would you have as give our flaves their liberty, and de * Some inftances of the abufe of their flaves are here omitted. This kems to allude to the focial doctrine of the paffions.. grade grade their mafters from their fuperior ftation ?' He that talks thus must have forgotten that masters ought to be content with what is futficient for the gods themselves: who are only reverenced and loved. But love is incompatible with fear. Most wifely therefore, in my opinion, do you act; who will not be feared by your flaves; who chastise them with words alone, and leave brutes to be governed by feverity and stripes. N. B. Cicero, Pliny the conful, and all the belt and wifeft of the Ro mans, fpeak of their flaves with the fame tenderness and humanity. If. flaves therefore are abfolutely neceffary for cultivating our fugar-canes; let us, for fhame, treat them with as much humanity as thofe did their flaves who were firangers to the gofpel. But, as governor Trelawny faid (with a fevere irony) forty years fince, What fignify the fufferings or death of a few outlandish men, if we can fend better goods to market?' OBSERVATIONS on POPE'S ESSAY on CRITICISM. [From Dr. Aikin's Letters to his Son.] T R. O. S. great names; and if I can give good reafons for the objections I fall make, I fear not that you will regard my attempt as prefumptuous. Dr. Warburton, at the close of his commentary on this Effay, ftrongly calls it to the reader's recollection, that its author had not attained his twentieth year. This view of it as a javenile performance is a very proper one. It may juftly excite our admiration of the early difplay of poetical powers it exhibits, and fhould fuggeft every indulgence of candour to its defects; but it should make us hesitate in attributing to it that comprehenfion of view and accuracy of conception, which were by no means the most striking qualities of the author in the ful maturity of his powers. It does not belong to my purpose to point out the imperfections with which it abounds as a mere poetical compofition. What 1 have to do with, are the falle thoughts and vicious principles, which render it a very unfafe guide in matters of talte, notwith landing the large admixture of maxims founded on good fenfe, and expreffed with the utmost brilliancy of language. With respect to the method of the piece, as far as it really poffeffes a method not forcibly held together by the commentator's chain, it may be A a 2 affirmed, affirmed, that the arrangement of matter is fimple and natural, but not very. clolely adhered to. Many of the rules and remarks are brought in with little connexion with what preceded, and apparently might be tranipofed without injury. And after all Warburton has done for Pope, and his difciple for Horace, it is certain that the reader of each poet wil fcarcely, without a previous clue, become fentible of more than a let of detached maxims, connected only by the general fubject. Pope begins with an affertion which, if true, would render his work of very confined utility, namely, that critics, as well as poets, muit be born fuch. Both muft alike from heav'n derive their light, Thefe born to judge, as well as thofe to write. And he further limits the profeffion of criticifm, by requiring that both talents should be united in the fame perfon. Let fuch teach others who themselves excel, And centure freely who have written well. But furely both thefe are very falfe notions; for nothing feems to be more a matter of acquirement than the habit of judging accurately on works of art; and this habit appears from innumerable inflances to be perfectly diftinct from the faculty of practifing Indeed they have much oftener exifted feparate than combined. the arts. Thus in the foul while Memory prevails, The beauty of imagery in thefe lines, fhould not make us blind to the want of juitnefs in the thought. To reprefent ftrength of memory as incompatible with folidity of underftanding, is fo obvioully contrary to fact, that I prefume the author had in his eye only the cafe of extraordinary memory for names, dates, and things which offer no ideas to the mind; which has, indeed, been often difplay ed in great perfection by mere idiots. For, it is difficult to conceive how the faculty of judgment, which conflits in the comparison of different ideas, can at all be exercifed without the power of oring up ideas in the mind, and calli g them forth when required. From the fecond couplet, apparently meant to be the converfe of the first, one would fuppofe that he confidered the unde ftanding and the imagination as the fame faculty, elfe the counterpart is defective. Further, fo far is it from being true, that imagination obliterates the ngures of memory, that the circumliance which caufes a thing to be remembered is principally its being affociated with other ideas by the agency of the imagination. If the Poet only meant, that those ideas about which imagination is occopied, are apt to exclude ideas of a different kind, the remark is true; but it should have been differently expreffed. One Science only will one Genius fit. This maxim is as falfe, as it is difcouraging, and derogatory from the powers of the human mind. It is, perhaps, generally true, that the genius is exclufively fitted for attaining excellence in one of the great claffes of mental acquifitions, as fcience, art, invention, &c. but he who can make himself mafter of one Jei ne properly fo called, may commonly with equal application attain any other. First follow Nature. ΟΙ This trite rule can be of little ufe without being opened and exemplified. It is perfectly obvious, that in all the arts which are imitative or deferiptive of nature, the muit be the archetype; but the proper manner of fludying nature, and transferring its images to eich particular ipecies of the works of art, varioudy combined, contrafted and perhaps heightened and altercd, is the great diteratum on which their true theory and practice is founded. We fhall foon fee, that Pope cuts fhort all difcuffions of this kind, by Such are the inconfiftencies of a writer who fometimes utters notions derived from reading and education, fometimes the fuggeftions of native good fenfe! Some beauties yet no precepts can declare, If the meaning of the writer here is only, that rules will not ftand inftead of genius, and that a poet's greatest beauties are rather the refult of a happy flow of fancy, than the careful pursuit of precepts, the truth of the remark is indisputable. But if, applying to the critic, he means to tell him that certain poetical beau ties are irreducible to rational principles, and only to be referred to luck, chance, a brave diferder, and fuch other unmeaning notions, we may affert that he was indeed young in the philofophy of criticifm. He appears, however, to have been in the right train, when he fays, that where the luty licence anfwers its purpose, that Licence is a rule; When first young Maro, &c. That Virgil, not only in his general plan, but in mot of the fubordinate parts, was a clofe copyift of Homer, is undeniable, whatever he thought of the fuppofition that he fet out with a defign of drawing from the fources of nature, and was diverted from it by the difcovery that Nature and Homer were the fame.' The modern idolatry of Shakspeare has elevated him to the fame degree of authority among us; and critics have not been wanting, who ha e confidently drawn from his characters the proofs and illustrations of their theories on the human mind. But what can be more unworthy of the true critic and philofopher, than fuch an implicit reliance on any man, how exalted foever his genius, especially on those who lived in the infancy of their art? If an epic poem be a reprefentation of nature in a courfe of heroic action, it mu't be fufceptible of as much variety as nature herfelf; and furely it is more defirable that a poet of original genius fhould give full fcope to his inventive powers, under the restrictions of fuch laws only as are founded on nature, than that he for he ought rather to have concluded, ihould fetter himself with rules deri- that fuch fuccefsful deviations from ved from the practice of a predecellor. common practice are not faults; and When Pope paites the ancient rules that the true critic fhould enlarge his for compolition on the ground that rules to the comprehenfion of thefe real, they were dicover'd not devis',' tho' unutual, excell ncies. So much, and were only nature methodiz di deed, does he perplex himself behe gives a juít notion of what they tween veneration for ancient rules, ought to be. But when he fuppofes and regard to the practice of eminent Virgil to have been properly check. pocts, that the whole paffage is full ed in his bold defign of drawing from of contradictions, which colt his comNature's fountains,' and in conie- mentator much fruitless pains to requence to have confined his work concile, and oblige him to take fhelwithin rules as strict ter in a comparison between the fublimities of poetry, and the myfteries of religion, fome of which are above reason, and fome contrary to it.' As if the Stagyrite o'erlook'd each line, how can he avoid the force of his own ridicule, where a little further in this very piece, he laughs at Dennis for Concluding all were defperate fots and fools Who durft depart from Ariftotle's rules? 5 but he confufes all again by the often, quoted maxim, Great Wits fometimes may gloriously offend, And rite to faults true critics dare not mend; Pope goes on to obferve, that though the ancients may make thus free with their own rules, yet that modern |