after the most rigorous survey of the motives and actions of the Bishop of Cloyne, we are tempted to assign, in the language of Mr. Pope, and with no suspicion of hyperbolical praise, To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.1 NATIONAL LUXURY THE DIRECT ROAD TO NATIONAL RUIN. Industry is the natural sure way to wealth; this is so true, that it is impossible an industrious free people should want the necessaries and comforts of life, or an idle, enjoy them under any form of government. Money is so far useful to the public as it promoteth industry; and credit, having the same effect, is of the same value with money; but money or credit circulating through a nation from hand to hand without producing labor and industry in the inhabitants, is direct gaming. It is not impossible for cunning men to make such plausible schemes as may draw those who are less skilful into their own and the public ruin. But surely there is no man of sense and honesty, but must see and own, whether he understands the game or not, that it is an evident folly for any people, instead of prosecuting the old honest methods of industry and frugality, to sit down to a public gaming-table, and play off their money one to another. The more methods there are in a state for acquiring riches without industry or merit, the less there will be of either in that state; this is as evident as the ruin that attends it. Besides, when money is shifted from hand to hand in such a blind fortuitous manner, that some men shall from nothing in an instant acquire vast estates, without the least desert; while others are as suddenly stript of plentiful fortunes, and left on the parish by their own avarice and credulity, what can be hoped for, on the one hand, but abandoned luxury and wantonness, or on the other, but extreme madness and despair? In short, all projects for growing rich by sudden and extraordinary methods, as they operate violently on the passions of men, and encourage them to despise the slow moderate gains that are to be made by an honest industry, must be ruinous to the public, and even the winners themselves will at length be involved in the public ruin. Frugality of manners is the nourishment and strength of bodies politic. It is that by which they grow and subsist, until they are corrupted by luxury,-the natural cause of their decay and ruin. Of this we have examples in the Persians, Lacedæmonians, and Romans: not to mention many later governments which have sprung up, continued a while, and then perished by the same natural causes. But these are, it seems, of no use to us; and, in 1 Drake's Essays, vol. iii. p. 74. spite of them, we are in a fair way of becoming ourselves another useless example to future ages. Simplicity of manners may be more easily preserved in a republic than a monarchy; but if once lost, may be sooner recovered in a monarchy, the example of a court being of great efficacy, either to reform or to corrupt a people; that alone were sufficient to discountenance the wearing of gold or silver, either in clothes or equipage, and if the same were prohibited by law, the saving so much bullion would be the smallest benefit of such an institution; there being nothing more apt to debase the virtue and good sense of our gentry of both sexes than the trifling vanity of apparel, which we have learned from France, and which hath had such visible ill consequences on the genius of that people. Wiser nations have made it their care to shut out this folly by severe laws and penalties, and its spreading among us can forebode no good, if there be any truth in the observation of one of the ancients, that the direct way to ruin a man is to dress him up in fine clothes.1 It cannot be denied that luxury of dress giveth a light behavior to our women, which may pass for a small offence, because it is a common one, but is in truth the source of great corruptions. For this very offence the prophet Isaiah denounced a severe judgment against the ladies of his time. The scab, the stench, and the burning are terrible pestilential symptoms, and our ladies would do well to consider, they may chance to resemble those of Zion, in their punishment as well as their offence. But we are doomed to be undone. Neither the plain reason of the thing, nor the experience of past ages, nor the examples we have before our eyes, can restrain us from imitating, not to say surpassing, the most corrupt and ruined people in those very points of luxury that ruined them. Our gaming, our operas, our masquerades, are, in spite of our debts and poverty, become the wonder of our neighbors. If there be any man so void of all thought and common sense, as not to see where this must end, let him but compare what Venice was at the league of Cambray, with what it is at present, and he will be convinced how truly those fashionable pastimes are calculated to depress and ruin a nation. It is not to be believed, what influence public diversions have on the spirit and manners of a people. The Greeks wisely saw this, and made a very serious affair of their public sports. For the same reason, it will, perhaps, seem worthy the care of our legislature to regulate the public diversions, by an absolute prohibition of those which have a direct tendency to corrupt our morals, 1 These remarks are as just and applicable now as they were in 1721, when they were first published. 2 Read Isaiah iii. 16-24. as well as by a reformation of the drama; which, when rightly managed, is such a noble entertainment, and gave those fine les sons of morality and good sense to the Athenians of old, and to our British gentry above a century ago; but for these last ninety years, hath entertained us, for the most part, with such wretched things as spoil, instead of improving the taste and manners of the audience. Those who are attentive to such propositions only as may fill their pockets, will probably slight these things as trifles below the care of the legislature. But I am sure, all honest, thinking men must lament to see their country run headlong into all those luxurious follies, which, it is evident, have been fatal to other nations, and will undoubtedly prove fatal to us also, if a timely stop be not put to them. ELIZABETH TOLLET was the daughter of George Tollett, Esq., commissioner of the navy, in the reigns of King William and Queen Anne. In a short preface to a volume of her poems printed in 1755, she is mentioned as a woman of great virtue and excellent education. "Her poetry does not rise above mediocrity, and she shows most of the spirit and softness of her sex ir the Winter Song.”1 ON A DEATH'S-HEAD. On this resemblance, where we find What Beauty's idol charms shall be. Where are the balls that once could dart Quick lightning through the wounded heart? The skin, whose tint could once unite The glowing red and polish'd white? The lip in brighter ruby drest? The cheek with dimpled smiles imprest? 1 Southey's Specimens, ii. 193. How high does Melancholy swell! Which sighs can more than language tell: Till Love can only grieve or fear, Reflect a while, then drop a tear For all that's beautiful or dear. WINTER SONG. Ask me no more, my truth to prove, Through forest bare with Northern wind: Thy rural feast I would provide; Nor envy palaces their pride; The softest moss should dress thy bed, With savage spoils about thee spread: While faithful Love the watch should keep, WILLIAM COLLINS. 1720-1756. WILLIAM COLLINS, one of the very finest of English lyric poets, was born at Chichester, in the year 1720, and was educated at Oxford. In 1744 he repaired to London as a literary adventurer. He won the cordial regard of Johnson, then a needy laborer in the same vocation, who, in his «Lives of the Poets," has spoken of him with tenderness. He tells us that "his appearance was decent and manly, his knowledge considerable, his views extensive, his conversation elegant, and his disposition cheerful. He designed many works, but his great fault was irresolution; or the frequent calls of immediate necessity broke his scheme, and suffered him to pursue no settled purpose." His odes were published on his own account in 1746; but being disappointed at the slowness of the sale, he is said to have burnt the copies that remamed with his own hand. He was shortly relieved from his embarrassments, by a legacy from an uncle of £2000: but worse evils than poverty soon overclouded the rest of his life: he sunk gradually into a sort of melancholy, and died in 1756, in a state of helpless insanity.1 "The works of Collins," says Campbell, "will abide comparison with whatever Milton wrote under the age of thirty. If they have rather less exuberant wealth of genius, they have more exquisite touches of pathos. Like Milton, he leads us into the haunted ground of imagination: like him, he has the rich economy of expression haloed with thought, which by single or few words often hints entire pictures to the imagination. A cloud of obscurity sometimes rests on his highest conceptions, arising from the fineness of his associations, and the daring sweep of his allusions; but the shadow is transitory, and interferes very little with the light of his imagery or the warmth of his feelings. His genius loved to breathe rather in the preternatural and ideal element of poetry, than in the atmosphere of imitation, which lies closest to real life. He carried sensibility and tenderness into the highest regions of abstracted thought: his enthusiasm spreads a glow even amongst the shadowy tribes of mind;' and his allegory is as sensible to the heart as it is visible to the fancy." "2 ODE TO FEAR.3 Thou, to whom the world unknown, I see I see thee near. I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye! 1 "In the year 1756 died our lamented Collins; one of our most exquisite poets, and of whom, perhaps, without exaggeration, it may be asserted, that he partook of the credulity and enthusiasm of Tasso, the magic wildness of Shakspeare, the sublimity of Milton, and the pathos of Ossian.”—Drake's Literary Hours. "He had a wonderful combination of excellencies. United to splendor and sublimity of imagination, he had a richness of erudition, a keenness of research, a nicety of taste, and an elegance and truth of moral reflection, which astonished those who had the luck to be intimate with him."-Sir E. Brydges. 2 "Of all our minor poets, that is, those who have attempted only short pieces, Collins is probably the one who has shown most of the highest qualities of poetry, and who excites the most intense interest in the bosom of the reader. He soars into the regions of imagination, and occupies the highest peaks of Parnassus. His fancy is glowing and vivid, but at the same time hasty and obscure. He has the true inspiration of the poet. He heats and melts objects in the fervor of his genius, as in a furnace."-Hazlitt. 3 Collins, who had often determined to apply himself to dramatic poetry, seems here, with the same view, to have addressed one of the principal powers of the drama, and to implore that mighty influence she had given to the genius of Shakspeare. In the construction of this nervous ode he has shown equal power of judgment and imagination. Nothing can be more striking than the violent and abrupt abbreviation of the measure in the fifth and sixth verses, when the poet seems to feel the strong influence of the power he invokes: "Ah, Fear-ah, frantic Fear! I see I see thee near." |