fo; and there is not any thing that can be more irk. fome to the intelligent mind, than the routine of our fashionable circles. The profeffed object of these affociations is pleasure.

Among other defiderata of the times, we are much in want of a polite vocabulary, in order to comprehend the meaning of the language of the beau-monde; as pleasure, in its common acceptance, appears to be fomething very different to what it is in the acceptation of the ton. Their mornings of pleasure confift in four tedious hours, which are paffed either from Bond Street to the Mall, in the Park, or at a lady's drawing-room. This latter rendezvous is a kind of exchange, where no merchants, it is true, appear; but where reputations are bartered and fold-where reports are first fabricated, and then believed, as injurious to the peace, as they are oppofed to the common-fenfe of fociety; and where every fpecies of deception, from the highest panegyric to the loweft fervility, is practised with éclat. It would be endless to examine into these scenes. They are as far removed from genuine politeness as they are. from genuine felicity; and while they keep up, with the most urgent folicitude, the minutest diftinctions of ceremony, they neglect even the forms of decency.

I have been often at a lofs to imagine, what could induce a reasonable man to facrifice his real repose to the ftrange viciffitudes of fashion. The life which fuch perfons lead, has ever appeared to me fuch a compound of liftlefsnefs and mifery, that I should have thought it fcarcely to be endured, much lefs fought after, by a character of any fenfibility. I have had frequent occafions to renew the truth of this opinion; and it even now recals to my mind a family I once knew.

A friend of a near relation of mine, who died fome years fince, left behind him a widow and four children. Mrs. H- was then not more than thirty, and the eldeft of her offspring had not attained his eighth year. From the deceafe of her hufband till her eldest child, William,

William, had completed his eighteenth fummer, fhe lived in a state of retirement. But it was now thought neceffary, as her children were going forward to maturity, to give them a better knowledge of the world Ithan the roof of their mother had hitherto afforded them. In pursuance of this plan fhe transferred her property to London, and entered on a new mode of existence.

This excellent lady has often lamented to me, with tears, the lofs which the thus fuftained. Her houfe, no longer her own, was, at best, but the thoroughfare of fashion, and fometimes the lounge of infipidity: her daughters became indolent and extravagant; her fon without morals, and her fervants without hours.

Friendship is a folitary blifs; and thofe who would be the fubjects of its choiceft influence, muft taste it in a contracted sphere. I never hear the eternal declamation of fome modern reformers, on the univerfality of our affections, without a smile. It is ftrange that, setting afide every feeling of the human frame, they think to work upon their creature, man, with fuch flimfy materials. A creature who, throughout the whole of his duration, is the unceafing fport of paffion; and who never can be incited to an action that he does not feel interested to perform.

Were we not daily accustomed to the fight, one fhould hardly expect to fee that a gentleman of affluence and distinction would invite, for the purpose of his own gratification, a numerous company to his houfe, and never speak to them when there, or indeed appear at all confcious of their prefence. As little fhould we fuppofe, that a genteel and well-informed woman would keep a levee on every morning, for the purpofe of feeing every body and no-body. These things would not foon be imagined by thofe who are unacquainted with them. Such ignoramufes would fcarcely believe, that while in one part of the affembly the caufe of virtue was moft eloquently pleaded, there fhould be form

ed at another part of the fame room, a debauched affignation for the evening.

The depravity of the times has ever been the watchword of moralifts; but a man need affect no fanctity to fay-that the times in which we live are not among the moft virtuous. He will fee that the charities of home are in a great measure difcarded from our habitations, and that the domeftic gods are not those the most reverenced by Englishmen. A nation is far from healthy under circumstances like thefe. When the matrimonial union is defiled by the conduct of those who have entered into it, and defiled with the applause of the great when a life of celibacy, indolence, and difcafe is that which our youth prefer to utility, induftry, and health; and when the moral duties are confidered as fo many problems, more fitted for fpeculation than ufe; when this is the fituation of a people, we cannot be mistaken in our judgment of them.

The moral-barometer of this ifland has, experienced a confiderable fall within the last thirty years. At that period, a country-gentleman was fomewhat different to the generality of those who come now under that denomination. He frequented his grounds during the morning, talked with his tenants, enquired into their circumftances, refided conftantly among them, and was confidered as the arbiter of their differences. If ever he vifited the metropolis, it was, at moft, for a few weeks only; when he was content with ready-furnished lodgings, or an apartment at the hotel; went once or twice to the play, never to the opera, and returned home rather pleafed in his return, than wishing to linger with the town.

I have chofen the example of a country-gentleman, because it is from this clafs of men that we may best augur the state of our manners.

With notions of dignity very oppofite to those which enfured the refpectability of his fathers, the prefent country-fquire would difdain to hold converfe with his

tenantry.

tenantry. He is totally uninformed in his affairs, has no legitimate children-but goes, in the fummer of the year, for a few weeks to his eftate, to give his mistress a taste of the fresh air, and recruit himself for the difɓipations of the winter. His manfion is in decay, his fteward-the embezzler of his income, and the oppreffor of his poor; while his property, dilapidated and neglected as it is, is yet in the hands of a mortgagee.

The depravity feems general. Our merchants are the rivals of our nobility, in every invention that luxu ry can furnish; and our nobles, having no one to rival, defcend to the nobility of grooms. The middling ranks of tradefpeople, to be fure, are content to keep appearances with our gentry; but our fhopmen are not diftinguishable from their masters; except it be, that their drefs is more coftly, and their manners more affected. Even the wife of a stage-porter cannot think of inviting a few neighbours, without a proper fet out on the occafion.

It must readily be acknowledged, if there be any truth in these representations, that there is cause enough to complain of our degeneracy. And though I am far from infinuating, that the majority ought to labour in order to cherish the vices of the minority, I cannot but think that the main reasons of our present infelicity, may primarily be accounted to ourselves, independent of those who govern us.

C.

THE

EMBASSADOR's

INTERVIEW WITH THE EMPEROR.

(From Staunton's Embassy to China.)

N the day of the Embaffador's prefentation to the
Emery, of the his family attended. No marked

preference was perceptible, or extraordinary refpect

fhewn,

fhewn, to any one of them above the reft. On that morning the Embassador and gentlemen of the embassy went before day-light, as was announced to be proper, to the garden of the palace of Ze-hol. In the middle of the garden was a fpacious and magnificent tent, fapported by gilded, or painted and varnished pillars. The canvas of which it was compofed, did not follow the obliquity of the chords along their whole length to the pegs faftened in the ground; but about mid-way was fuffered to hang perpendicularly down, while the upper part of the canvas conftituted the roof. Within the tent was placed a throne, with windows in the fides of the tent, to throw light particularly on that part of it. Oppofite to the throne was a wide opening, from whence a yellow fly tent projected to a confiderable diftance. The furniture of the tent was elegant, without glitter or affected embellifhments. Several small round tents were pitched in front, and one of an oblong form immediately behind. The latter was intended for the Emperor, in cafe he should choose to retire to it from his throne. It had a fopha, or bed, at one extremity. The remainder was adorned with a variety of mufquets and fabres, European and Afiatic. Of the fmall tents in front, one was for the use of the Embaffy while it was in waiting for the arrival of the Emperor. Some of the others were deftined, in the fame manner, for the feveral tributary princes of Tartary, and dele gates from other tributary states, who were affembled at Ze-hol on the occafion of the Emperor's birth-day; and who attended, on this day, to grace the reception of the English Embaffador; fome tents alfo were intended for the male branches of the Emperor's family, and the principal officers of ftate. In the great tent, his Imperial Majefty was to receive, feared on his throne, as a particular 'diftin&tion, the delegate from the King of Great Britain.

The tributary princes, thofe of the Imperial family, and the great mandarines of the court, formed together

no