Thus mankind have gone on from century to century: fome have been adviling others how to act, and fome have been teaching the advifers how to advife; yet very little alteration has been made in the world. As we muft all by the law of nature enter life in ignorance, we muft all make our way through it by the light of our own experience; and, for any fecurity that advice has been yet able to afford, must endeavour after fuccefs at the hazard of mifcarriage, and learn to do right by venturing to do wrong.

By advice I would not be understood to mean, the everlasting and invariable principles of moral and religious truth, from which no change of external circumstances can juftify any deviation; but fuch directions as refpect merely the prudential part of conduct, and which may be followed or neglected without any violation of effential duties.

It is, indeed, not fo frequently to make us good as to make us wife, that our friends employ the officioufnefs of counfel; and among the rejectors of advice who are mentioned by the grave and fententious with fo much acrimony, you will not fo often find the vicious and abandoned as the pert and the petulant, the vivacious and the giddy.

As the great end of female education is to get a husband, this likewife is the ge neral fubje&t of female advice; and the dreadful denunciation against thofe volatile girls, who will not liften patiently to the lectures of wrinkled wifdom, is, that they will die unmarried, or throw themfelves away upon fome worthlefs fellow, who will never be able to keep them a coach.

I being naturally of a ductile and eafy temper, without ftrong defires or quick refentments, was always a favourite amongst the elderly ladies, because I never rebelled against feniority, nor could be charged with thinking myfelf wife before my time; but heard every opinion with submissive filence, profeffed myself

ready to learn from all who seemed in clined to teach me, paid the fame grateful acknowledgments for precepts contradictory to each other, and if any controverfy arofe, was careful. to fide with her who prefided in the company.

Of this compliance I very early found the advantage; for my aunt Matilda left me a very large addition to my fortune, for this reafon chiefly, as the herself declared, becaufe I was not above hearing good counfel, but would fit from morning till night to be inftructed, while my fifter Sukey, who was a year younger than myfelf, and was, therefore, int greater want of information, was to much conceited of her own knowledge, that whenever the good lady, in the ardour of benevolence, reproved or inftructed her, the would pout or titter, interrupt her with questions, or embarrafs her with objections.

I had no defign to fupplant my fifter by this complaifant attention; nor, when the confequence of my obfequiousness came to be known, did Sukey fo much envy as defpife me: I was, however, very well pleafed with my fuccefs; and having received, from the concurrent opinion of all mankind, a notion, that to be rich was to be great and happy, I thought I had obtained my advantages at an eafy rate, and refolved to continue the fame paffive attention, fince L found myfelf fo powerfully recommended by it to kindness and esteem.

The defire of advising has a very extenfive prevalence; and iince advice cannot be given but to thofe that will hear it, a patient liftener is neceffary to the accommodation of all thofe who defire to be confirmed in the opinion of their own wildom: a patient liftener, however, is not always to be had; the prefent age, whatever age is prefent, is fo vitiated and difordered, that young people are readier to talk than to attend, and good counfel is only thrown away upon those who are full of their own perfections.

I was, therefore, in this fcarcity of good fenfe, a general favourite; and feldom faw a day in which fome fober matron did not invite me to her houfe, or take me out in her chariot, for the fake of inftru&ting me how to keep my character in this cenforious age, how to conduct myfelf in the time of courtship, how to ftipulate for a fettlement, how

to

to manage a husband of every character, regulate my family, and educate my children.

We are all naturally credulous in our own favour. Having been fo often careffed and applauded for my docility, I was willing to believe myfelf really enlightened by inftruction, and completely qualified for the tafk of life. I did not doubt but I was entering the world with a mind furnished against all exigencies, with expedients to extricate myself from every difficulty, and fagacity to provide against every danger; I was, therefore, in hafte to give fome fpecimen of my prudence, and to fhew that this liberality of instruction had not been idly lavished upon a mind incapable of improvement.

My purpofe, for why should I deny it? was like that of other women, to obtain a husband of rank and fortune fuperior to my own; and in this I had the concurrence of all thofe that had affumed the province of directing me. That the woman was undone who mar ried below herself was univerfally agreed: and though fome ventured to affert, that the richer man ought invariably to be preferred, and that money was a fuffi cient compenfation for a defective ancestry; yet the majority declared warm. ly for a gentleman, and were of opinion that upftarts fhould not be encouraged. With regard to other qualifications, I had an irreconcileable variety of inftructions. I was fometimes told, that deformity was no defect in a man; and that he who was not encouraged to intrigue by an opinion of his perfon, was more likely to value the tenderness of his wife: but a grave widow directed me to chufe a man who might imagine himself agreeable to me, for that the deformed were always infupportably vigilant, and apt to fink into fullennefs, or burst into rage, if they found their wife's eye wandering for a moment to a good face or a handsome shape.

They were, however, all unanimous in warning me, with repeated cautions, against all thoughts of union with a wit, as a being with whom no happinefs could poffibly be enjoyed: men of every other kind I was taught to govern, but a wit was an animal for whom no arts of taming had been yet difcovered: the woman whom he could once get within his power, was confi

dered as loft to all hope of dominion of of quiet: for he would detect artifice and defeat allurement; and if once he difcovered any failure of conduct, would believe his own eyes, in defiance of tears, careffes, and proteftations.

In purfuance of these fage principles, I proceeded to form my fchemes; and while I was yet in the firft bloom of youth, was taken out at an affembly by Mr. Frisk. I am afraid my cheeks glowed and my eyes fparkled; for I obferved the looks of all my fuperintendants fixed anxioufly upon me, and I was next day cautioned against him from all hands, as a man of the most dangerous and formidable kind, who had writ verfes to one lady, and then forfaken her only because she could not read them, and had lampooned another for no other fault than defaming his fifter.

Having been hitherto accustomed to obey, I ventured to difmifs Mr. Frisk, who happily did not think me worth the labour of a lampoon. I was then addreffed by Mr. Sturdy, and congratulated by all my friends on the manors of which I was fhortly to be lady: but Sturdy's converfation was fo grofs, that after the third vifit I could endure him no longer; and incurred, by difmiffing him, the cenfure of all my friends, who declared that my nicety was greater than my prudence, and that they feared it would be my fate at last to be wretched

with a wit.

By a wit, however, I was never afterwards attacked, but lovers of every other clafs, or pretended lovers, I have often had; and, notwithstanding the advice conftantly given me, to have no regard in my choice to my own inclinations, I could not forbear to difcard fome for vice, and fome for rudeness. I was once loudly cenfured for refusing an old gentleman who offered an enormous jointure, and died of the phthyfic a year after; and was fo baited with inceffant importunities, that I should have given my hand to Drone the stock-jobber, had not the reduction of intereft made him afraid of the expences of matrimony.

Some, indeed, I was permitted to encourage; but mifcarried of the main end, by treating them according to the rules of art which had been prefcribed me. Altilis, an old maid, infufed into me fo much haughtiness and reserve, that

fome

fome of my lovers withdrew themselves from my frown, and returned no more; others were driven away by the demands of fettlement which the widow Trapland directed me to make; and I

have learned, by many experiments, that to afk advice is to lofe opportunity. I am, Sir, your humble fervant, PERDITA.

I have frequently wonder in actors common practice of our inftructors of youth, in making their pupils far more intimately acquainted with the Iliad than with the Odyffey of Homer. This abfurd custom, which feems to arife from the fuppofed fuperiority of the former poem, has inclined me to make fome reflections on the excellence of the latter; a task I am the more readily induced to undertake, as fo little is performed in the differtation prefixed by Broome to Pope's tranflation of this work, which one may venture to pronounce is confufed, defective, and dull. Thofe who receive all their opinions in criticism from custom and authority, and never dare to confult the decisions of reafon and the voice of nature and truth, muft not accufe me of being affectedly paradoxical, if I endeavour to maintain that the Odyffey excels the Iliad in many refpects; and that for feveral reafons young scholars fhould perufe it early and attentively.

The moral of this poem is more extenfively ufeful than that of the Iliad; which, indeed, by displaying the dire effects of difcord among rulers, may rectify the conduct of princes, and may be called the Manual of Monarchs: whereas the patience, the prudence, the wif dom, the temperance and fortitude of Ulyffes, afford a pattern, the utility of which is not confined within the compafs of courts and palaces, but defcends and diffufes it's influence over common life and daily practice. If the fairest examples ought to be placed before us in an age prone to imitation, if patriotisin be preferable to implacability, if an eager defire to return to one's country and family be more manly and noble than an eager defire to be revenged of an enemy,

HOR.

FRANCIS.

Ulles un ur eyes rather be fixed on Ulyffes than Achilles. Unexperienced minds, too eafily captivated with the fire and fury of a gallant general, are apt to prefer courage to conftancy, and firmnels to humanity. We do not behold the deftroyers of peace and the murderers of mankind, with the deteftation due to their crimes; because we have been inured almost from our infancy to listen to the praises that have been wantonly lavished on them by the most exquisite poetry: The Mufes,' to apply the words of an ancient Lyric, have con

cealed and decorated the bloody fword 'with wreaths of myrtle.' Let the Iliad be ever ranked at the head of human' compofitions for it's fpirit and sublimity; but let not the milder, and perhaps more infinuating and attractive, beauties of the Odyffey be defpifed and overlooked. In the one we are placed amidit the rage of storms and tempefts:

Ως δ ̓ ὑπὸ λαίλαπι πᾶσακελαινὴ βέβριθε χθών Ἤματ' οπωρινῶ, ὅτε λαβρότατον χέει ύδως Zeus, à ́vôpédoi xotéσσáμer®.

χαλεπήνη.

ILIAD XVI. 384.

From the bleak pole no winds inclement blow, Mold the round hail, or shake the fleecy fnow: But from the breezy deep, the Bleft inhale The fragrant murmurs of the weitern gale. POPE.

Accordingly, to diftinguish the very different natures of thefe poems, it was anciently the practice of those who publicly recited them, to represent the Iliad, in allusion to the bloodshed it described, in a robe of fcarlet; and the Odyfley, on account of the voyages it relates, in an azure vestment.

The predominant paffion of Ulyffes being the love of his country, for the fake of which he even refufes immortality, the poet has taken every occafion to difplay it in the livelieft and most ftriking colours. The first time we behold the hero, we find him difconfolately fitting on the folitary fhore, fighing to return to Ithaca Nórov dugouέvar, weeping inceffantly, and still cafting his eyes upon the fea

Ως ἔδεν γλύκιον ἧς πατρίδος ε' δὲ τοκήων.

This generous fentiment runs like a golden vein throughout the whole poem.

'While a goddess,' fays Minerva at the very beginning of the poem, by her power and her allurements, detains him from Ithaca, he is dying with defire to fee even fo much as the smoke arife from his much-loved ifland: tarda fluunt ingrataque tempora!' While the luxurious Phæacians were enjoying a delicious banquet, he attended not to their mirth and mufic, for the time approached when he was to return to Ithaca: they had prepared à fhip for him to fet fail in the very next morning; and the thoughts of his approaching happiness having engroffed all his foul

Nor is the Odyffey lefs excellent and ufeful, in the amiable pictures it affords of private affections and domeftic ten

derneffes

And all the charities Of father, fon, and brother

MILTON,

fernal regions, it is finely contrived that When Ulyffes defcends into the inhe fhould meet his aged mother Anticlea. After his firft forrow and furprize, her death, and adds- Doth my father he eagerly enquires into the caufes of yet live? does my fon yet poffefs my dominions, or does he groan under the tyranny of fome ufurper who thinks I 'fhall never return? Is my wife ftill conftant to my bed? or hath fome noble Grecian married her?? Thefe queftions are the very voice of nature and affection. Anticlea anfwers, that the herfelf died with grief for the loss of Ulyffes; that Laertes languifhes away life in folitude and forrow for him; and that Penelope perpetually and inconfolably bewails his abfence, and fighs for his return.

When the hero, difguifed like a ftranger, has the first interview with his father, whom he finds diverting his cares