tunity of spending it in the pursuits of learning, and the liberal pleasures of retirement, too often languish in their pursuits, from neglecting to render them the subjects of debate and conversation. It is the warmth of discussion in free and social meetings which invigorates solitary study, and sends. the scholar back to his books with fresh alacrity. The hope of making a figure in a subsequent conversation, the fear of a shameful exposure, and of appearing inferior to those who are, in a natural and civil view, our equals, will stimulate all our powers, and engage all our attention, while we sit in those very libraries, where we once nodded and slumbered over the page even of a Homer. Meetings should be established in all literary societies for the communication of remarks and the rehearsal of compositions. But the strictest rules should be prescribed and observed for the preservation of decorum, otherwise ridicule would gradually be intro. duced, and the feast of reason be converted to a banquet of jollity.

It is right also, that contemplative men, however far removed from the necessity of employment by the liberality of fortune, should communicate with mankind, not only in pleasures and amusements, but in real duties and active virtues, either conjugal, paternal, professional, official, or charitable. Something should be engaged in, with such obligations to performance, that an inclination to neglect should be over-ruled by legal compulsion, or the fear of certain loss and shame. The best method of avoiding the wretched state of not knowing what to do, is, to involve one's self in such circumstances as

shall force one to do something. The natural indolence of the human heart is found to escape every restraint but the iron arm of necessity. Such is our present condition, that we must be often chained down to our real happiness and our best enjoyment.

With respect to the prevention of indolence in an academical life, it would certainly be a happy circumstance, if none were allowed to reside in an university above seven years, who were not actually engaged in the composition of a learned work, or in superintending the education of youth, as tutors, professors, and heads of colleges. A senior fellow, without these employments, is one of the unhappiest and least useful members of the community.

NO. CXXXI. ON THE MANNERS OF A METROPOLIS.

WHATEVER may be the political advantages of a very populous capital, and I believe they are of a very disputable nature, the moral and physical evils of it are evidently numerous and destructive of the human race. This observation is, indeed, true of all cities, in which too great a proportion of the people is assembled; but I shall confine my present observations to the capital of the British empire.

The junction of Westminster with London, or of the court with the city, is very justly supposed to have a pernicious influence on both; on those who are engaged in the employments of commerce, and on those who are invited, from their paternal mansions, by the court and the senate-house. The courtier communicates to the citizen a love of pleasure, of dissipation, of vanity; and the citizen to the

courtier, an idolatrous veneration of opulence. The courtier introduces the vicissitudes of taste and fashion; the citizen imitates them, and furnishes, in profusion, the means of their display and gratification. Thus are luxury, and all its consequent vices and miseries, advanced to as high a degree as they can reach, by the union of ingenuity to invent modes of indulgence, with wealth to supply the materials.

Lovers of pleasure in excess, are always lovers of themselves in the same degree; and their love, with all the characteristical blindness of the passion, commonly injures its object. We shall therefore find selfishness prevailing in the metropolis, and producing all its natural effects of avarice, private gratifications, meanness, servility, and inhospitality. True patriotism and public spirit, though the very want of them will often cause the greatest pretensions to them, will seldom be found in the more numerous classes who inhabit the capital. Where money and pleasure are the sole objects of ardent pursuit, public virtue, and indeed all virtue, will be exposed to sale, whenever a purchaser can be found to pay the price. "Money, O ye citizens!" says Horace, in a satirical irony, "is first to be sought; “and it is time enough to think of virtue, when you have secured a fortune."

The inhabitants of a great city will often be inhospitable and unneighbourly. Their attention is fixed on advancing and gratifying themselves, and they consider their neighbours as rivals, or at least as not worth cultivating, since they can always buy amusement at the numerous places of public resort and diversion. But in the country, mutual good

offices take place, from a mutual desire and necessity of a friendly intercourse. The Londoner hardly knows the name of his next door neighbour; and in accidents and distress, would as soon think of sending to Rome, as to the next door for comfort and assistance. But in any emergency in a village, ovory hand is ready to afford relief. Hospitality to strangers still lingers in the distant country, but has long been banished from that region of avarice and selvish profusion, an overgrown city. Pay a visit in Sussex, in Devonshire, in Cornwall, in Wales, in the North, and compare your reception among strangers, with that which you meet with in London and Westminster. Luxury, avarice, and vice, have, indeed, a natural tendency to annihilate every generous principle, and to harden the heart against all connections, which do not promise to terminate in low pleasure, or in lucrative advantage.

The secrecy with which crimes can be committed in a crowd, is a powerful temptation. The Londoner may be involved in debauchery, and engaged in fraud, without being suspected at home, or in his neighbourhood. In the country, where individuals are all known, the fear of shame, and a principle of pride, often operate, when virtue, honour, and conscience, would cease to restrain; for no one can there be guilty of an action remarkably dishonest or immoral without detection. A gentleman who should devote himself to the arts of the swindler, or the practices of the profligate debauchee, in a village or country town, would soon be compelled, by the hisses of infamy, to desert the place, or to

live there in solitude. But in a city, even men adorned with the robes of magistracy may proceed, with little notice, in the most scandalous conduct, under the concealment of a crowd.

CACCJ5

Weakness of body and weakness of understanding are often found to characterize the inhabitant of the capital. Luxury, want of air. want of cloop,. in food, and in sensual indulgence, have a natural tendency to debilitate both the body and the mind. And if there were not continual supplies from the North, I know not whether the city would not exhibit the human race in a most lamentable condition of imbecility, folly, distortion, and deformity. Compare the limbs of the volunteer soldiers, in the me tropolis with those of the rustic militia, or regulars; compare the conduct and understanding of him who was born within the sound of Bow bell, with those of the hardy native of Yorkshire or Scotland. Compare the Oak with the Willow.

The extremes of irreligion and enthusiasm marki the manners of the capital. These, indeed, are the natural consequences of some among the many bad dispositions already enumerated. Sunday is considered by the thrifty trader as a holiday, on which he may indulge without imprudence. It is there. fore distinguished by many from the rest of the week, solely by excess, and by vicious indulgences. The parish churches are, with few exceptions, neglected; nor is there a great concourse to any place of worship, except where some enthusiast or hypo. crite has opened a receptacle for those who labour under the symptoms of idiotism or insanity. The