in all their ramifications, display their alluring charms in vain to him, whose head and heart still vibrate with the harsh and discordant sounds of a political dispute at the tavern. Those books, whose tendency is only to promote elegant pleasures or advance science, which flatter no party, and gratify no malignant passion, are suffered to fall into oblivion; while a pamphlet, which espouses the cause of any political men or measures, however inconsiderable its literary merit, is extolled as one of the first productions of modern literature. But meagre is the food furnished to the mind of man by the declamation of a party bigot. From a taste for trash, and a disrelish of the wholesome food of the mind, and from the consequent neglect of solid learning, mere politicians are prevented from receiving valuable improvement; and the community, together with li terature, is at last deeply injured. For when learning is little respected, it will naturally decline; and that the mental darkness consequent on its decline, leads to the establishment of despotism, every one who has surveyed the pictures of mankind, as pourtrayed by the pencil of history, will immediately acknowledge. What did Athens and Rome retain of their ancient dignity when their learning and their arts were no more? That the light of learning should ever again be extinguished, may appear a visionary idea to an Englishman; but so it did to a Roman in the days of Cicero. Notwithstanding the multiplication of books by the art of printing, both they and all value for them may vanish together with the power of understanding them, if the fury of politics should occasion a contempt for let

ters and for education, and convert the leaders of a people into Goths and Vandals.

He who would add an elegance to politics, and distinguish his conversation on the subject from the vociferation of porters in an alehouse, should inspect the finished pieces of antiquity, and learn to view public acts and counsels in the light in which they appeared to those whom the world has long considered as some of the best and politest teachers of political wisdom. If he possesses not taste enough to relish the works of imagination, let him confine himself to such authors as Thucydides and Xenophon, Polybius and Plutarch, Livy and Sallust. Politics will assume new grace by communicating with history and philosophy; and political conversation, instead of a vague, passionate, and declamatory effusion of undigested ideas, will become a most liberal exercise of the faculties, and form a mental banquet, at which the best and wisest of mankind might indulge their finer appetites with insatiable avidity. What can constitute a more rational object of contemplation. than the noble fabric of society, civilized by arts, letters, and religion? What can better employ our sagacity, than to devise modes for its improvement. and preservation?

mans.

Not only the understanding, the taste, the temper of a people, but the spirit also, will be greatly improved by learning politics of the Greeks and RoNo man of feeling ever yet read Livy without learning to detest slavery, and to glow with a love and emulation of public virtue. The Greek and Roman spirit cannot be too much encouraged by those who have a just idea of the dignity of a true

Englishman, and desire to maintain it. And let it be remembered, that the Athenians, in their most "glorious periods, were as much attached to politics and news as Britons ever were; but that they preserved, amidst the warmest contest, a refined taste and delicate passion for the politest learning and the profoundest philosophy.

NO. CXXV. ON BUFFOONERY IN CONVERSATION.

IT is sweet, says the agreeable poet of Venusium, sometimes to lay aside our wisdom, and to indulge, on proper occasions, a species of temporary folly. He, indeed, must be outrageously severe who would prohibit any pleasing mode of passing our leisure hours, while it is consistent with innocence, and the nature of a being eminently distinguished by the fine faculties of reason, fancy, memory, and reflection. Charming is the social hour when solidity of judgment is enlivened by brilliancy of wit, and the lively sallies of imagination by a sweet interchange of pensive gravity. Ease, freedom, and the unstudied effusion of the sentiments which naturally arise in cultivated minds, form a very delightful recreation; and dismiss the mind to its serious employments with new alacrity. Those among the ancients, who were most celebrated for their wisdom, were remarkable for a cheerful and equable gaiety, and often diverted themselves in their intervals of severer meditation, with jests and drollery. Who more cheerful than the gentle Socrates? Who

more delighted with a joke than the dignified Cicero? But, at the same time, they were equally capable of maintaining a regular conversation in all its gravity and elegance. The dialogues of Socrates, preserved by his eloquent disciples, breathe a wisdom approaching to divine; and Cicero's book de Oratore, is one of the noblest monuments of polished urbanity, aș are many of his philosophical pieces of speculative wisdom.

But there sometimes prevails a taste for low and noisy mirth, which totally precludes all delicacy of sentiment, all exercise of reason and invention, and almost degrades us to the level of those ludicrous. animals, whom nature has rendered so wonderfully expert in the art of mimicry. Many persons, who imagine themselves remarkably endowed with hu mour, and the power of delighting whatever company they deign to bless with their presence, are apt to give their tongues a licence to wander without the reins of judgment; to affect uncommon expres sions, attitudes, grimaces, and modes of address and behaviour; and to imagine that oddity is humour, eccentricity and downright nonsense prodigiously droll, and rudeness infinitely entertaining. If the company are as foolish as the pretended wit; of, indeed, if they are very polite and good-natured, they seldom refuse the easy tribute of a laugh, either real or affected; and the joker, animated by his fancied encouragement, proceeds in his extravagant sallies, till his assumed folly approaches very nearly to real idiotism, In the mean time, as he draws the attention of the company on himself, and engrosses all the time and talk, he not only lowers himself, but

prevents others from rising; relaxes the tone of his own mind, and of all around, to a state of imbecility, and at once prevents the opportunity and the power of uttering a single idea worth remembrance. Noise and laughter are but meagre food for the mind; and however pleased people may appear, they commonly retire from the company in which these have formed the only entertainment, with an unsatisfied and uneasy vacuity, and sometimes with disgust and disagreeable reflection.

It very often happens, that these facetious gentlemen rely upon more expeditious methods of becoming prodigiously entertaining, than any thing which requires utterance. They enter a room, and sit down gravely, with their wigs on one side, or with the back part of it over their forehead. They take great delight in the practical joke; and if they can pick your pocket of your handkerchief, smut your face, draw your chair from under you, or make you a fool, as they call it, they consider themselves as other Yoricks, and as fellows of infinite humour, endowed with peculiar talents for setting the table on a roar. It might, indeed, be said with truth, that they literally make fools of themselves, and appear ambitious of supplying that order which was once very common, but is now either a little out of fashion or introduced in disguise; I mean the order of professed and hireling fools, for the amusement of the nobility. It has indeed been jocularly said, that many of the nobility in the present age execute the office in their own persons to save expence.

Now, though there is certainly nothing criminal in buffoonery, yet as it tends, when too long con