Слике страница
PDF
ePub

not to be purchased but at an immenfe price. Some of these creatures will fetch 2000 guineas: but the price of the most beautiful Arabian horse does not exceed 3 or 400.

Trav. in Turkey, &c.

BUCEPHALUS was brought from Theffaly, and purchased for 13 talents, a fum which Rollin eftimates at £1900 fterling.

ECLIPSE, an English race-horse, was fold a few years ago for 1500 guineas. How many pounds, crowns, and farthings, does the difference of the value of thefe two famous animals contain? Anf. £325; 1300 crowns; and 312,000 farthings.

No. 167. SALE OF DUNKIRK. Dunkirk is a maritime town of the French Netherlands, and the most easterly harbour on the side of France which is next to Great-Britain.

The Emperor Charles V. held Dunkirk as part of Flanders. In 1558, the French took it by ftorm; but the Spaniards recovered it again in about a fortnight, and put all the French to the fword. In 1646, it was again taken by the French, and retaken by the Spaniards in 1652. In the year 1658, the French, affifted by CROMWELL, attacked and took Dunkirk, which in confequence of a treaty between the French and English, was immediately put into the hands of the latter, to whom it proved of very great importance; for, during the war in which it was taken, the Dunkirkers had made prizes of no lefs than 250 of their fhips, many of which were of great value. The English, however, only kept it four years; for in 1662, the profligate penfioner of France*, Charles II. to fupply his extravagance, had the bafenefs to fell this valuable acquifition to Lewis XIV. for the paltry fum of £500,000, or, according to Hume, only £400,000 fterling, vol. vii. p. 386.

A penfioned king,

Against his country brib'd by Gallic gold,
The port pernicious fold, the Scyllat fince,
And fell Charybdis, of the British seas.

THOMSON.

The

* Charles II. was the bafe and ignoble penfioner of France, receiving from that kingdom an annual penfion of £100,000 fterling. His defign was thereby to render himself abfolute. See Rapin, vol. xi. p. 325, &c. also p. 335 and 416. But to this profligate tyrant a new and expenfive ftatue was lately erected in the Royal-Exchange. If a new ftatue was neceffary in the Royal-Exchange, it fhould have been a new ftatue of Sir Thomas Gresham.

+ Scylla and Charybdis were a famous rocky promontory and whirlpool in the freight of Meffia between Sicily and Italy, very terrible to ancient navigators; fince the pilot who was not fo fkilful as to fteer right between them, was fure to perish either in the gulf of the latter, or against the rocks of the former; complete deftruction inevitably following the lofs of the middle paffage.

[blocks in formation]

The king promifed that he would lay up all the money in the Tower, and that it fhould not be touched but upon extraordinary occafions. It is, however, afferted by Burnet, that the immoral monarch fquandered it away'upon his miftreffes creatures.

How many farthings, pence, fhillings, and half-crowns, and of each an equal number, are in the fum mentioned by Hume as the price of Dunkirk? Anf. 2,219,653 173.

No. 168. FABLE or APOLOGUE. A fable, or apologue, feems to be, fays Dr. Johnion, in its genuine ftate, a narrative in which beings irrational, and fometimes inanimate, arbores loquuntur, non tantum feræ, are, for the purpofe of moral inftruction, feigned to act and fpeak with human interefts and paffions.

Fables, obferves Mr. Addifon, were the first pieces of wit that made their appearance in the world, and have been ftill highly valued, not only in times of the greatest fimplicity, but among the most polite ages of mankind. JOTHAM'S fable of the trees is the oldeft extant, and as beautiful as any which have been made fince that time. NATHAN'S fable of the poor man and his lamb is likewife more ancient than any which is extant, except the above-mentioned, and had fo good an effect, as to convey instruction to the ear of a king without offending it, and to bring David to a juft fenfe of his guilt and his duty. We find fop in a very early period of the Grecian hiftory; and if we look into the very beginning of the commonwealth of Rome, we fee a mutiny among the common people appeafed by a fable of the belly and the limbs. As fables took their birth in the very infancy of learning, they never flourished more than when learning was at its greateft height. To juftify this affertion, continues Mr. Addifon, I fhall put my reader in mind of Horace, the greatest wit and critic in the Auguftan age; and Boileau, the most correct poet among the moderns: pot to mention La Fontaine, who by this way of writing is come more into vogue than any other author of our

times.

Spectator, vol. iii. No. 183.

Of all the fables in the English language, thofe of GAY and MOORE feem to have received the greateft fhare of public approbation.

Literary men, at different periods, have found their labours recompenfed in a very different manner. The Paradife Loft" of our immortal Milton was fold for the trifling fum of 15; but Shakespeare met with more generous treatment from the earl of Southampton, who is faid at one time to have made him a prefent of a thousand pounds.

Fierce to the right tremendous Scylla roars,
Charybdis on the left the flood devours.

PITT'S VIRGIL, Book III.

Homer alfo, in the 12th book of the Odyffey, has given a very glowing defcription of the dangers attending the paffage of this freight.

The

The laft work of our illuftrious poet DRYDEN was his fables, published, as it appears, in confequence of a contract with Tonfon, the bookfeller, by which he obliged himself, in confideration of £300, to finish for the prefs 10,000 verses.

Dr. Johnfon's Life of Dryden.

Add the feveral fums received by Dryden, Milton, and Shakefpeare together, and divide the total into portions containing 155. 6d. 2. each. f. 1689 portions 14 or 14s. 11d. 4. remaining.

717
747

No. 169. JUDGE JEFFERIES. As the enormities committed by characters eminently wicked, are allowed, by moral writers, to increafe our veneration for goodnefs, it may, perhaps, fubferve the caufe of virtue and humanity to lay before our juvenile readers a few of the many cruelties exercifed by that cruel and unprincipled judge, Sir George Jefferies. This profligate magiftrate was one of the greatest advisers and promoters of the oppreffive and arbitrary meafures, which took place during the tyrannical reign of James II. and his fanguinary proceedings, as a judge, will render his name infamous to the lateft pofterity.

Whenever a prifoner was of a different party, or he could please the court by condemning him, inftead of appearing according to the duty of his office, as his counfel, he would fcarcely allow him to fpeak for himself; but would load him with the groffeft and most vulgar abufe, browbeat, infult, and turn to ridicule the witneffes that spoke in his behalf, and even threaten the jury with fines and imprifonment, if they made the leaft hefitation about bringing in the prifoner guilty. By his direction, a partial jury was prevailed on to give a verdict against the illuftrious Algernon Sydney; though the charges against that renowned patriot were not fupported either by law or justice. Having long wantoned in cruelty and injustice in the capital, he fet out with a favage joy, as to a full harvest of deftruction, to try the prifoners concerned in the unfortunate duke of Monmouth's rebellion. Dorchefter, Exeter, Taunton, and Wells, were the principal scenes of his brutal ferocities. The juries were fo ftruck with his menaces, that they gave their verdict with precipi tation; and many innocent perfons were involved with the guilty. The whole country was ftrewed with the heads and limbs of thofe who were executed as traitors. Every village almost beheld the dead

Hume, vol. viii. p. 198. Sec alfo the trial of Algernon Sydney.

So violent and rancorous, however, were party prejudices, at the period now alluded to, that fome time-ferving juries brought in the moft shameful verdicts. See the cafe of the Rev. Mr. Rofewell, a molt worthy and upright diffenting minifter, against whom a verdict was given, which appeared fo palpably unjust, that it was not carried into execution even by

"Murderous rage itself, in Jefferies' form."

Mr. Rofewell's trial has been

See the particulars in Hume, vol. viii. p. 201. lately republished in the Proteftant Diffenters Magazine.

carcafe

carcafe of a wretched inhabitant. Even the innocent could not escape the hands, no lefs rapacious than cruel, of this execrable chief juftice. Mr. PRIDEAUX, a gentleman of Devonshire, being thrown into prifon, and dreading the fevere and arbitrary spirit, which at that time met with no controul, was obliged to buy his liberty of Jefferies at the price of fifteen thousand pounds; though he could never fo much as learn the crime of which he was accufed.

Jefferies, on his return to town, was immediately, for those eminent fervices, created a peer; and was foon after invefted with the dignity of chancellor, by James II. an indubitable proof that his fanguinary measures, as well as thofe of Colonel KIRK, his infamous coadjutor in the cause of tyranny, met with the entire approbation of that bigotted defpot*. Happily, however, for the human race, the crimes of tyrants, by exciting the abhorrence of mankind, ferve to promote the caufe of freedom. The tyrannical conduct of James and his execrable minions occafioned the REVOLUTION. queftion 57.

See

How many farthings and guineas are in the fum extorted from Mr. Prideaux? Anf. 14,400,000 farthings; 14,285 guineas.

720

No. 170. STATE OF AMERICA IN THE YEAR 1794. Mr. Cooper, in his Information respecting America," just published, cnumerates the following, among other advantages to be enjoyed in that country. Few taxes; no animofities concerning religion or politics; a government of and for the PEOPLE; no game laws nor tythes; no power in the rich to opprefs the poor; no beggars in the ftreets; no melancholy contraft of vice, and filth, and rags, and wretchedness, in the immediate neighbourhood of the most wanton extravagance, and the moft ufelefs parade; the common people not fo depraved as in Great-Britain; quarrels uncommon; no military to keep the people in awe; robberies very rare. All these are real ad

vantages but great as they are, they do not weigh with me, continues Mr. Cooper, fo much as the fingle confideration of the total abfence of anxiety refpecting the future fuccefs of a family. In America, particularly out of the large towns, no man of moderate defires feels anxious about a family. In the country, where dwells the mass of the people, every man feels the increase of his family to be the increafe of his riches; and no farmer doubts about the facility of providing for his children as comfortably as they have lived, where land is fo cheap and fo fertile, where fociety is fo much on an equality, and where the prodigious increase of population, and the improving ftate of every part of the country, furnish a market for whatever fuperfluous produce he choofes to raise.

In England, for fear of the expence of a family establishment, celibacy is a part of prudence. And the married man doubts whether each child be not a misfortune, and looks upon his offspring with a

*See on this fubject Rapin's and Hume's Hift. of Eng.

melancholy

melancholy kind of affection, that embitters fome of the moft pleafurable moments of life. There are exceptions to this, but as a general pofition it is perfectly true, whatever may be the fituation in life of the parents, or the rank to which they belong. Mr. Cooper's labourer, at 125. a week, in England, confoled himself, with tears in his eyes, for the lofs of his eldest fon (who was accidentally drowned) because he had one lefs to provide for; and Lord Sof £25,000 a year, laid down his fox hounds, because he had a large family.

Subtract a year's income of the labourer from the peer's annual revenue, and bring the remainder into fhillings, pence, and farthings. Anf. 499,376 shillings; 5,992,512 pence; 23,970,048 farthings.

TROY

WEIGHT.

No. 171. REGAL POVERTY. The neceffities of Henry V. were fo great in the year 1417, that, to enable him to carry on the war with France, he pawned feveral valuable articles; among which were two gold chafed basons. Thefe he pledged to a minor canon of St. Paul's for 600 marks. The bafons weighed 28 lb. 8 oz. how many grains did they contain? Anf. 165,120 grains.

N. B. Hume afferts, that Henry not only pawned his jewels, but fometimes the crown itself. Vol. iii. p. 120.

No. 172. GOLD.

Gold's attractive metal, pledge of wealth,
Spur of activity; to good or ill

Powerful incentive.

DYER.

Gold is the most valuable of all metals, and all known parts of the earth yield it, though with great difference in point of purity and plenty. South America furnishes the moft: but this precious metal is found in confiderable abundance in Afia, in the East-Indies, in Hungary, and in Africa. It is ufually found in mines of confiderable depth, with an admixture of other mineral and metallic matter, from which it is afterwards separated by a tedious process.

Whate'er is excellent in art proceeds
From labour and endurance.

Gold cannot gold appear until man's toil
Difclofes wide the mountain's hidden ribs,
And digs the dufky ore, and breaks and grinds
Its gritty parts, and laves in limpid ftreams
With oft-repeated toil, and oft in fire
The metal purifies.

DYER.

Gold

« ПретходнаНастави »