had heard it from a gentleman of L. 3000 ayear. The character of Valens is very different from that of Ditticus, but he is guided by principles equally abfurd. Valens has the good fortune to be poffeffed of a hale robuft conftitution. Valens is not only sensible of the advantage arifing from this circumftance, but prizes it fo highly as to think it communicates every other advantage; and that the want of it is connected with every thing that is mean and unworthy. Valens never fees a man with broad fhoulders, brawny legs, or an open cheft, but he looks upon him with respect, and wishes to become his friend; while he ftarts back with horror from, and avoids, as he would do a thing contaminated, a man who has the appearance of a weak and fickly conftitution. In fhort, good health with Valens is like the cruft of loaf bread, which Peter told his brothers was the staff of life, in which was contained the quinteffence of beef, mutton, veal, venifon, partridge, plum-pudding, and custard. As Valens is a man of fome education, he has formed a theory, in order to justify his conduct and principles. If you attempt to reason with him, he will tell you, that health must be the foundation, not only of good morals, but of every thing elfe that is valuable; that without a robust conftitution, no man can poffefs poffefs firmnefs and intrepidity of mind, or give that application and attention which is requifite for the purposes of life; that it is health alone which can give cheerfulness, and its attendants, good-will and benevolence to others; that without health a man becomes peevish, chagrined, morofe, and difcontented, difpleafed with himfelf, and unfriendly to all the rest of mankind. When he has a mind to be more diffuse, as he is a man of fome humour, he will tell you, that John Knox could never have brought about the Reformation, had he not been a man of a ftrong make and a firm conftitution; that Marlborough would never have been able to ftem the power of France, had he not been of that figure of body which gives ftrength and vigour to the mind; that Cicero's long neck produced that feebleness of foul, which threw fuch a cloud over his other qualities; and that, had not Alexander the Great been a man of fmall ftature, he would not only have conquered the world, but have been able to hand down the empire he had won undivided to his fucceffors. The character of Pallidus forms an exact counter-part to that of Valens. Pallidus inherited from nature a feeble conftitution; and the effeminate education which he received from his doting parents, who had no other child, did not tend to correct or to ftrengthen it. As Pal lidus's lidus's state of health is very different from that of Valens, fo he has formed a system directly oppofite. Pallidus is conftantly telling you, and he is uneafy if you do not believe him, that it is only men of delicate constitutions who can be fufceptible of the delicacies of virtuous feeling; that men who are robust and hardy, acquire a ferocioufnefs and a hardness of mind which destroys all the finer principles of the foul. Pallidus is at times eloquent upon the fubject; he will run you over a long lift of names of men who have been confeffedly allowed to be poffeffed of the finest genius; and concludes with affuring you, it was the extreme delicacy of their health that gave birth to their exquifite fenfibility of mind, which exerted itself in those displays of imagination and of fcience which have rendered them immortal. Pallidus is exceedingly fond of the fociety of the ladies, and courts their company; but he was never known to be attached to a woman remarkable for the goodness of her conftitution, who was able to bear fatigue, or to share those exercises which require bodily ftrength. Pallidus has ever in his mouth that remark of Dean Swift's, "That he never knew a woman who "was good for any thing, that had a constant "flow of health and good fpirits." Nay, Pallidus carries the matter fo far, that he cannot en dure to fee a female eat with an appetite; and would no more allow his fifter or his niece to affociate with a woman of a good stomach, than with one of a tainted reputation. In all these characters, I perceived, upon a little reflection, the fame leading propensity to bring the happinefs, the excellence, or the defects of others, to our own ftandard, and I am perfuaded, were we narrowly to examine those around us, we should find among the bufy, the idle, the ambitious, or the diffipated, the fame colouring of objects, according to their own prevailing taste or humour; and that, though the examples might not found fo ludicrously, the principle would ftill be found the fame, would still, in the eye of a philosopher, be the Old Hack of Symposius. A N° 87. SATURDAY, September 30, 1786. -Sed in longum tamen ævum Manferunt hodieque manent veftigia ruris. HOR. THAT HAT there is Nobody in town, is the obfervation of every perfon one has met for feveral weeks paft; and though the word Nobody, like its fellow-vocable Everybody, has a great latitude of fignification, and in this inftance means upwards of threefcore thousand people, yet undoubtedly, in a certain rank of life, one finds, at this feason, a very great blank in one's accustomed fociety. He whom circumftances oblige to remain in town, feels a fort of imprisonment from which his more fortunate acquaintance have escaped to purer air, to fresher breezes, and a clearer fky. He fees, with a very melancholy aspect, the close window-fhutters of deferted houses, the rusted knockers, and moffy pavement of unfrequented fquares, and the few diftant fcattered figures of empty walks; while he fancies, in the country, the joyoufnefs of the reapers, and the fhout of |