It is a general complaint, and not without reafon, that we no longer fee any of those great and powerful original geniufes, nor yet any of thofe heroic individuals, whose patriotism, whofe virtues ennobled the human fpecies. But then how rare have not thefe prefents from heaven at all times been! Whereas that complication of crimes and horrors which dishonour human nature, was formerly fo common, that they hardly created any furprize. "A wicked man, an enemy," fays Zoroafter," fhall a hundred times a day find occafion of doing mischief; and a virtuous perfon fhall not fometimes find an opportunity, once in a whole year, to do a good office to a friend." The mob of mankind think themselves difpenfed from imitating or following great models, of which they fee themselves incapable; but they have only too much propenfity to the fuffering themfelves to be carried away with the torrent of bad examples.

As remote, however, as, on the firft fuperficial view, these principles appear from my thefis, you can hardly, Sir, not feel how applicable they are to the fupport of my fyftem. The infatuation of a

frivolous amufement, which deceives and eludes the effects of the paffions, weakens the enthu fiafm of the head and heart: by which means the virtues are often lopped of their growth; but then the vices, and especially the crimes which are in greater number, are ftill more fo. So that I do not in the leaft contradict what I learnt from those I am proud to call my mafters in thinking. I have ftill by heart a fine itroke of Monfieur Diderct on the paffions. These are his own words:

"Men are for ever declaiming against the paffions; they impute to them all the pains incident to mankind; not remembring that they are also the source of all its pleasures. There is nothing but the paffions, and the very great paffions too, that can elevate the foul to great things: without them there is no fublime, either in manners or in works. The polite arts relapfe into infancy, and virtue herself becomes trifling. The cool fober paffions form only common men. Friendship does not rife beyond circumfpection, if the dangers of a friend leave my eyes open to my own. The paffions damped or deadened degrade extraordinary men ; and constraint destroys the greatness and energy of nature."

Now, while 1 admit and adopt thefe fublime ideas, I think I may venture at the fame time to affert, that card-playing has nevertheless prepared the human head and heart for receiving the impreffions, which the progrefs of knowledge, and of the new lights thrown upon things, might operate on the government, and on manners. Not impoffibly, in procefs of time, we may come to do without this fcaffolding: andthen

virtue and reafon may take a nobler flight. This paradox may not perhaps, be unworthy of your reflections: I could almoft with there was a programma made of it, in your academy, viz. "Whether or no the invention of card-playing, the progrefs of this amutement, and its univerfality, have contributed to change the manners in Europe?"

There would be ample matter for a learned, profound pen to defcant on the games or diverfions of the ancients, their nature, their effects and their essential differences from the kinds of play, which prevail in the present state of society: then, on coming to the epoch of Charles the Sixth, when card-playing paffes for having been invented, to follow its progrefs, and to obferve the infenfible degrees of alteration in the manners, which have, as one may fay, attended that progrefs.

May I beg you, Sir, to let me know your opinion on this, and to remain perfuaded, that I am conftantly your admirer, as well as

Your most humble, and
most obedient fervant,
I. P.

the land of Egypt was not a depri vation of the light of the great luminary bodies, nor was the light in the dwellings of the children of Ifrael a greater emanation of luftre than what was natural. This is not to be understood in a literal, but allegorical fenfe-that the Ifraelites had wifdom and understanding, while the Egyptians were loft in ftupidity and ignorance."

From this manufcript of profound antiquity I shall make a curious extract: it was written, according to the best tradition, by an Egyptian priest, fecretary when Amenophis reigned in Egypt, who is fuppofed to be the very Pharoah that was afterwards drowned in the

Red-Sea.

"In our own times (fays the philofophic hiftorian) there fell a terrible darkness upon the land of Egypt. As I was educated in all the myfteries of human knowledge and philofophy, my foul was infpired, from its love of wisdom, to enquire into the cause of fo furprifing a phænomenon. I travelled through the divifions of light and darkness, and marked out the land of Goshen, in which there was perfect light. I made a scheme of this unaccountable eclipfe, and of the places which it fhadow'd, and fhadow'd not; for so admirable was

it to behold, that many places were totally dark, when the very next adjoining were totally light. To perform this, was only in the power of philofophy. I had long before compofed for my private fpecula tion two mirrors, which should give me light in the deepest of darkness, and represent a true scene of every thing that paffed. The fages, who found out and ufed thefe mirrors,

called them the eyes of wifdem.

BY

By the affiftance of thefe eyes I ventured boldly into the royal palace of Amenophis the King, altho' every way to approach it was utter darkness. After I had entered into the inner court, I faw fome apartments irradiated with a bright fplendor, and others hid in myfterious obfcurity. How furprized was I, ye gods! to find the apartments of most of the chief minifters enjoying a perfect light, while their unhappy mafter the King was buried in an inconceivable obfcurity. How, O ye powers, who rule over kings, did my heart beat, my knees tremble, my hair stand erect, to fee your vicegerent Amenophis the King fit quietly concealed at the corner of a clofet! What did I Witness, O ye powers. I did the duty of a good and faithful subject -I informed his majefty, that his minifters and fervants kept him in the dark, while they enjoyed all the happiness of light. But, ah! unhappy, credulous prince! he anfwered, they have told me all the people have no more light than I; nay, even that I enjoy more than they. Whom should I believe but my

fervants? am not I lord over them? dare they play the mock with royalty? Begone-speak not against my fervants. To accufe them is accufing my judgment, who made choice of them.

royal banquet. All was light, all was joy, all was triumph; they caroufed healths, and fang fongs of merriment on the darkness which prevailed in fo many places in the land. After fome time, the chief butler conducted me into another apartment, to enquire the business I came about.

J

"Moft honourable, by the king's favour I come to request a boon, which I think it is my duty to ask, and your duty to grant; I come as a petitioner for your royal mafter, and as an interceffor from the people; I come to defire, in this time of calamity, either to bring the king into this apartment of light, or elfe in compaflion let fome glimpfe of light be conveyed to his all darkfome clofet." A very pretty request truly, cried the chief butler. Ha ha ha! you are a wife man, verfed in the arcana of nature and philofophy; but were you in the leaft acquainted with, the mysteries of ftate, you would not mention fo ridiculous a thing. You feem furprised; but know, Sir, the moment that I fhould let the king be in the fight, I should be hanged. You fee we have great care upon us, great fatigue; and you fee he is at eafe. In fhort, he may eat, drink, and confirm our decrees equally in the dark as in the light." The chief butler, having thus anfwered me, retired to his companions, I was aftonished at the ingratitude and wickedness of the man; but, thought I, all whom the king delighteth to honour are not like unto the chief butler. I went to the chief baker; I found him furrounded by priests

and

and high-priests, legiflators, commanders of armies, and princes of the land: I defired a private au dience; it was granted; I urged my fuit as before to the chief butler. After fome pause" You know not, faid he, what you ask. I will be short and free-by fome light let into the cranny of one of our former prince's fkulls, an ancestor of mine was hanged, not an hundred years ago. You are a very honeft man, but, alas! no politician."

"Good God, cried I, on this repulfe, what myfteries, what incredible fcenes are in the court of

princes! If all the monarchs in the world fhare this prince's fate, how unhappy are their conditions? As for this poor prince, how do I compaffionate him, who has fo many fervants, and fo little help, I will return to him, and let him have my heavenly mirrors of fight to af fift him." Accordingly I haftened to the monarch: I reprefented to him the state of things, the light which his minifters enjoyed, and their reafons for keeping him in the dark. Laftly, I offered him my fpectacles, and told the effect of them. But, oh! ye immortal powers who rule over kings, whence, oh whence, could come this monarch's infatuation!" No," fays he, "I want them not; I will not have them; if I am in a little distress, I muft have a little patience, and my butler and my baker will help me out. The event fhewed the truth: they helped poor Amenophis into the Red Sea."

Thus ends this curious oriental fragment." It is a profitable leffon for the kings of the earth.” It is a juft picture of all the chief butlers and bakers upon the face

THO

HO' Xantippe broke the head of Socrates with a pifs-pot, and he had temper to bear it, with this eafy remark, That after thunder rain generally follows:yet, if we had the old fellow amongst us now, I believe we should try his philofophical patience on a Saturday. The rage of fcouring and cleanfing is not peculiar to our houfe, for I find all my friends complain of the univerfal deluge on a Saturday. In fhort, it is the vice of our ladies; and what they call being only clean, is a general inconvenience to business and health.

The

If I was to give the journal of one of our Saturdays, I believe it might fuit half the houses in town. day of our cleaning begins, like the Sabbath of the Jews, on the Friday night, when we are ordered hastily and early to bed-that the dining room may be scrubbed

out ;

Dut ;-or elfe we are all crammed into a little parlour, and fmothered, by the way of being cleanly. To accomplish this, the ftairs being juft fcoured down, we are all commanded to go up bare-footed, tho' at the risk of a tertian ague, or a fore throat. Early in the morning the fervants are rung up, and for the operation of the morning dreffed accordingly ;-and tho' fmart enough on other occafions, yet to fee them in their Saturday's garb, for the mop and broom rencounter, you would fwear they were Sybils, or Norwood Fortune-tellers. One of our girls, who is little and handfome, to accommodate herself to the talk, is obliged to lower her head-drefs half a foot, and put on a close flat mob; as well as to defcend from her ftilts, which are ufually worn inftead of fhoes :-but when out of them, fhe looks like Titania, who had been misled by that merry wag and night-wan. derer, master Puck.

To get at the breakfast room, I am under the neceffity of wading over the fhoes; and if I am not very accurate in my fteerage, I am fure to tumble over a pail, or break my shins across the mop. The weather hath nothing to do with this aquatic operation. Froft or fnow, dry or wet, the house must be cleaned on that day; and while we are at breakfast, every door and window is opened to give a quick current to the air, that the rooms may be dried foon. By this means, unlefs clothed in furr, I am perished to death, and fure to take cold. Arguments avail nothing. Miftref fes and fervants are combined in the watry plot, and fwim or drown is the only defpotic alternative. VOL. XVII.

Sometimes I have pleaded for a room that hath not been used in the week ;-but in vain :-the word wash is general, and all muft float, from the garret to the cellar. I once or twice in my life ventured to take a peep at the Cook and the Kitchen;-but, to be fure, no Fury could look fo fierce; her hair was dishevelled about her fhoulders-fhe mounted on high pattens, her dreffers covered with pots and pans, and her face all befmeared with foot and brickduft. The animals, too, upon this day of execution, skulk into holes and corners the dogs retreat with their tails between their legs to the ftable-and poor domeftic pufs is obliged to afcend a beer-barrel in the cellar by way of throne, where the purs away her time, longing for the return of the dove and the olive-branch, as much as Noah did in the old surgebeaten ark.

7

But these misfortunes are not all-My Lady wife, and all the maids, as if by intuition or agreement, or inspiration, or devilish witchcraft, are all in the dumps :

they univerfally put on one face: and by the lip of Hebe I fwear, for thefe laft twelve years I have not feen a Saturday fmile on their fair faces. I have often thought Mr. Addison took his hint of the first fpeech in his Cato from the last day of the week at his house; for great wits are very apt to adopt fublime paffages from very ludicrous hints; and tho' fome people may call it a parody, I am rather inclined to believe it an original thought.

The dawn is overcaft, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day Th