And herbs that love the flow'ry field,

And cheerful health, with pure digeftion yield;
Or fatling, on the feftal day,

Or kid, just refcu'd from fome beaft of prey.
Amid the feaft, how joys he to behold

His well-fed flocks home hafting to their fold;
Or fee his labour'd oxen bow

Their languid necks, and drag th' inverted plow;
At night his num'rous flaves to view

Round his domestic gods their mirth purfue!

The conclufion of this Epode is fingular; for though the reader all along imagines that HORACE himself speaks, yet, at the clofe, it comes out, that it is the language of an ufurer, who, after having thus fweetly enumerated the pleasures of a country life, and even determined upon the enjoyment of them, repents of his refolution. The Poet thus conveys a lively idea of the pitiful foul of a mifer, who denies himself joys which his wealth has enabled him to participate :

The US'RER spoke; determin'd to begin
A country life, he calls his money in;
But ere the moon was in her wane,

The WRETCH had put it out to use again!

Such is the Second Epode, and it is a fair fpecimen of this kind of poetry. The fame eafe, the fame fimplicity are apparent, for which all of HORACE's productions are diftinguished.

Thefe Epodes are feventeen in number, and their fubjects can boaft of variety. The Fifth, on the Witch Canidia; the Seventh, to the Roman People; and the Thirteenth, to One of his Friends, are all curious in their kind. The myfterious horrors of necromancy; the infamous thirft for war which characterized the conquerors of the world, and the tender aspirations of friendship, here rife to our minds with peculiar grandeur and fublimity. A poet always difplays the fuperiority of his taste in two particulars; the choice of his fubject

fubject and the manner in which it is executed. Here then let it be remembered, that HORACE, with a very few exceptions, fhines unrivalled; for the foundness of his judgment and the delicacy of his tafte have long been the theme of admiration. To relish fuch writings may be deemed no inconfiderable test of our mental improvement.

GOSSIPIANA.

[No. XXXIV.]

VOLTAIRE.

WHEN a candle burns and gives light to a house,

many wonderful things contribute to the phanomenon. The fat of the animal is the work of the Creator, or the wax of the bee is made by his teach. ing; the wick is from the vegetable wool of a fingular exotic tree, much labour of man is concerned in the compofition, and the elements that inflame it, are those by which the world is governed. But after all this apparatus, a child or a fool may put it out; and then boast that the family are left in darknefs, and are running against one another. Such is the mighty atchievement of Mr. Voltaire as to religion; but with this difference, that what is real darkness is by him called illumination, and there is no other between the two cafes.

LORD BACON.

LORD Bolingbroke tells us, in his Idea of a Patriot King, that there is not a more profound, nor a finer obfervation in all Lord Bacon's works, than the following:-We must choose betimes fuch virtuous objects as are proportioned to the means we have of purfuing them, and belong particularly to the stations we are in, and the duties of those stations. We must determine and fix our minds in fuch a manner upon them,

that

that the purfuit of them may become the business and the attainment of them, the end of our whole lives. Thus fhall we imitate the great operations of nature; and not the feebie, flow, and imperfect operations of art. We must not proceed in forming the moral cha racter, as a statuary proceeds in forming a statue, who works fometimes on the face, fometimes on one part, and fometimes on another; but we must proceed, and it is in our power to proceed, as nature does, in forming a flower or any other of her productions; rudimenta partium omnium fimul parit et producit; fhe throws out altogether, and at once, the whole fyftem of every being, and the rudiments of all the parts.

EPIGRAM.

WHEN I call'd t'other day on a noble renown'd,
In his great marble hall lay the Bible well bound,
Not as printed by Baskett, and bound up in black,
But chain'd to the floor, like a thief by the back.
Unacquainted with ton, and your quality airs,
I fuppos'd it intended for family prayers;
His piety pleas'd, I applauded his zeal,

Yet thought none would venture the BIBLE to fteal;
But judge my furprize, when inform'd of the cafe,
He had chain'd it, for fear it should fly in his face!

EARL OF PEMBROKE.

LORD Chesterfield (fays Lord Orford) thus directed a letter to the late Lord Pembroke, who was always fwimming-To the Earl of Pembroke, IN THE THAMES, over against Whitehall. This direction was fure of finding him within a certain number of fathoms.

MR. GIBBON.

I finished Mr. Gibbon (fays Lord Orford) a fall fortnight ago, and was extremely pleased. It is a moft wonderful mafs of information, not only on history, but almost on all the ingredients of history, as war, govern

ment,

ment, commerce, coin, and what not. If it has a fault, it is in embracing too much, and confequently in not detailing enough, and in ftriding backwards and forwards from one set of princes to another, and from one fubject to another; fo that without much hiftoric knowledge, and without much memory, and much method in one's memory, it is almost impoffible not to be fometimes bewildered; nay, his own impatience to tell what he knows, makes the author, though commonly fo explicit, not perfectly clear in his expreffions.

CURIOUS EPITAPH,

Written by one of the Vicars of Kendal, in Weftmoreland, and infcribed on his Tomb, by his Friends.

LONDON bred me, Westminster fed me,
Cambridge fped me, my fifter wed me,
Study taught me, living fought me,
Learning brought me, Kendal caught me,

Labour prefs'd me,

fickness diftrefs'd me,

Death opprefs'd me, the grave poffefs'd me,

God first gave me, Chrift did save me,

Earth did crave me, and heav'n would have me.

GARTH AND DARWIN.

Is it not extraordinary, that two of our very best poets, Garth and Darwin, fhould have been physicians? I believe they have left all the lawyers wrangling at the turnpike of Parnaffus.

TO MR. ROSCOE, ON HIS LIFE OF LORENZO DE MEDICI.

IF ever you had the pleasure of reading fuch a delightful book as your own, imagine, fir, what a comfort it must be to receive fuch an anodyne in the midst of a fit of the gout, that has already lafted above nine weeks, and which at first I thought might carry me to Lorenzo de Medici, before he should come to me!

The

The complete volume has more than anfwered the expectations which the fample had raifed. The Grecian fimplicity of the ftyle is preserved throughout; the fame judicious candour reigns in every page, and with.. out allowing yourself that liberty of indulging your own bias towards good, or against criminal characters, which over rigid critics prohibit. Your artful candour compels your readers to think with you, without feeming to take a part yourself. You have fhewn, from his own virtues, abilities, and heroic fpirit, why Lorenzo deferved to have Mr. Rofcoe for his biographer. And fince you have been fo, fir, I fhall be extremely mistaken if he is not henceforth allowed to be, in various lights, one of the most excellent and greatest men with whom we are well acquainted, efpecially if we reflect on the fhortness of his life, and the narrow fphere in which he had to act.

ORFORD.

CURIOUS SIGHT AT PALERMO.

AMONG the remarkable objects in the vicinity of Palermo (fays SONNINI) pointed out to ftrangers, they fail not to fingularize a convent of Capuchins, at a fmall diftance from town, the beautiful gardens of which ferve as a public walk. You are fhewn under the fabric a vault, divided into four great galleries, into which the light is admitted by windows cut out at the top of each extremity. In this vault are preferved, not in flesh, but in fkin and bone, all the Capuchins who have died in the convent fince its foundation, as well as the bodies of several perfons from the city. There are here private tombs belonging to opulent families, who even after death difdain to be confounded with the vulgar part of mankind. It is faid, that in order to fecure the prefervation of thofe bodies, they are prepared by being gradually dried before a flow fire, fo as to confume the fleth without greatly injuring the fkin. When perfectly dry, they are invefted with the Capuchin habit,

VOL. VIII.

L

and