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most powerful energies of the most gigantic mind and extensive imagination. But it ought never to be forgot, that the world does not wholly consist of philosophers or of poets, and that, on the contrary, the great majority are humble, sober-minded followers of the Cross, who have an equally important interest at stake in the discussion of this most important of all subjects. It is to them chief ly that the preacher ought to address himself, and in doing so, he ought to choose the simplest method and

the plainest language. It is unquestionable, too, that in this way he will reach the bosom of the learned in a much more effectual manner than by imitating them in their scholastic and metaphysical disquisitions. But this is too important a point to be entered upon at present. With your permission, I shall resume the subject at some future period, and I shall then take an opportunity of suggesting a few hints to young preachers, both as to the composition and delivery of their sermons. M.

MR EDITOR,

A SLAP AT PUBLIC CONVERSATIONS, BY A PEDAnt.

I AM, Sir, what some persons would denominate a good-tempered quiz, because I very often amuse myself with the eccentricities, and sometimes laugh at the expense of my neighbours. Give me leave to tell you, that a great deal of valuable information may be acquired by observing the world as it rolls uniformly forward,-by noticing the order and disorder, the agreements and the squabbles, the hugs and jostlings, with the various contentions and strifes, of the mixed multitude, as it is urged onwards; that is, as the whole mass of the people are hurried on in their several vocations, either as im mersed in business, or absorbed in pleasure. While thus employed, in the society of mechanics you are sometimes disgusted with vulgarity; but then you have, generally, nature before your eyes; candour shines in almost every face; every one utters his thoughts as they arise; there is little or no dissimulation, nor any cloaking of sentiments. Among the flut terers in high life, you are fatigued with the flat, dull monotony of nevervarying pride and nonsense; here every thing is governed by fashion and etiquette; the features must be screwed up into gravity; you must smile by rule, and to laugh is vulgar; the conversation is restrained and artificial; every one acts his part; spontaneous thoughts are concealed, and the mind is constantly bewilder ed in the labyrinths of form and ceremony. The middling class of every community is, in my opinion, much the best. I often compare the

VOL. XV.

three orders of mankind to a cask of fine old October, in which the top is all froth, the bottom dregs, but the middle wholesome, enlivening, excellent beverage. My situation in life gives me an opportunity of mixing with all sorts and conditions of men; I am one evening with a noble lord; another at the house of a bishop of my acquaintance; another at the vicarage. I sometimes spend my time at an inn or an hotel, and the next day you find me at a tavern. Sometimes I go for a fortnight into the country, and hunt with the bumkins, yclept the gentry; and not unfrequently I may be met with at the theatre, or amid parties of theatrical heroes and heroines, the kings and queens, lords and ladies, and gentlemen commoners of the little stageby whom the vices and follies of the actors on the great stage of the world are said to be held up in mimic ridicule, to the few who attend such exhibitions, and who can, moreover, afford to pay for such instructive entertainments.

My friend Batty is at this time a first-rate actor,-a good comic performer,-an excellent Monsieur Tonson,

good, in short, at any thing. We drove, a few days ago, into the coun try, to dine with our common friend Pearson, who is a great man also in his way; very pompous, quite rich, and, in his own opinion, exceedingly learned. After dinner, the following edifying and instructive dialogue took place. "Yours," said Pearson to Batty; "is a fagging sort of life; a great deal of drudgery, and not well rewarded

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I suppose,

for your labour." "True, Sir, very true; but, however, nine pounds aweek, and a benefit of two hundred pounds. once a-year, is not to be snuffed at. I acknowledge that such wages, for men of high talents, are rather scrubby, but we make shift to exist.""To exist, indeed!" replied Pearson: "why, Sir, nine pounds aweek, with a benefit of two hundred. pounds, is six hundred and fifty pounds a-year; and this, I can assure you, is a very handsome income. Let me see our Vicar has two hundred and fifty pounds, and the Teacher one hundred pounds a-year; now you make twice as much as both, and they are both men of consider able talents, and great information. You are well rewarded indeed: why, you cannot lay up less than three hundred a-year, Mr Batty; so that, in a short time, you will accumulate an independent fortune. too, from long practice, that you commit to memory very quick?" "Very rapidly, Sir," said Batty; "I have, on a push, got by rote two hundred lines, in an hour and twenty minutes, and performed them in high style, the same evening, on the boards of Drury Lane." "And you are frequently invited to great men's tables?" "Oh yes, very often; I dined not a month ago with Lord Gand a fortnight back with Sir A. C, and I am hand and glove with the Lord Mayor-mostly sup with him twice a-week, and when he is at the theatre, he always takes me home with him in his coach. I knew him, you see, Sir, when we were boys, and Tom Batty was then, let me tell you, the richest and best fellow of the two." "I am glad," said Pearson," that you have such respectable connections; and when you get rich-" "Rich! yes, a fine thing that," replied the Thespian; "but when will that come to pass?" "Why, from your income, Sir, it is impossible but that you must in a short time be in very easy circumstances." "Ah! Mr Pearson, you are not aware of our immense expenses, and know nothing about our heavy mulctures. I have, as I said, nominally nine pounds a-week; that is, when I perform every night; but sometimes I only get three nights." 'Well, but-" " Why, then, I re

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ceive four pounds ten a-week; I think it a good week if I act four nights, but the average is three only; and then, you know, there are the summer months, that produce little or nothing, and our benefits are very precarious-yes, Sir, very fluctuating and uncertain.' "That certainly alters the case, Mr Batty; however, as you have no family-no mouths that want bread, nor feet that want shoes, I still think that-" "That I shall soon be rich by my savings out of my earnings? But I," said Batty, "think quite the contrary: and now, if you please, we will sink the shop altogether; give me leave to inform you, Mr Pearson, that I detest it. This is,” he continued,

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very good whisky; there is no liquor I like so much as whisky; it makes heavenly punch! and what a charming dram after dinner, or when one is ready to faint, after great exertion on the stage! But I can tell you an excellent story about whisky. Several years ago, I became acquainted with an officer in the Excise; he did then, and still continues to do, a little in the smuggling line: he is from Ireland, you see, and he supplies me with some of the very best Irishone-prime stuff, as ever touched a lip-real mountain dew-I never get any thing like it. This, however, (sipping at his glass,) this is not very bad, but it is nothing like mine, as I am sure you will say when you taste it. Gentlemen, you will dine with me on Monday week-aye, let me see, on Monday, I think I have no engagement for that day-and then you will say you have tasted whisky, such whisky as you had never before tasted-Oh! what a flavour! but shall I have the felicity of entertaining you, in my poor way, in my little cottage at Lambeth?" "We all promised." Then," said he, " I am a lucky fellow in two things, as you shall hear; first, because I shall be honoured with your good company; with respect to the next, why, gentlemen, you must know that, two days ago, I received a note from the Lord Mayor; Batty,' said he, 'send me all the whisky you have got in your cellar, and remember you dine with me on the tenth instant, and let me have none of your silly excuses, but come without farther ce

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remony; and he concluded with, dear Batty, I am yours, &c. &c.' Now, what do you think I did? why I sent his lordship twenty dozen, leaving only five bottles behind; but that will serve us for Monday, and perhaps before that time I shall obtain a fresh supply."

You may think, perhaps, Mr Editor, that my friend Batty has made a tolerable swell; and I think myself that his conversation smells very strongly of egotism; but I assure you I have softened it down very considerably; and believe me, Sir, I hear every day similar bragging from braggadocios similarly situated to my friend Batty; and, what is still worse, as you may perceive, all is not truth which they utter-I seldom quote them as authority. But, without further comment, let us proceed.

Monday at length arrived, and Batty's dinner was served up in grand style, in his neat little cottage at Lambeth: no ox's cheek, no liver and bacon, no! every thing was good, and of the right kind. The soles, our host assured us, were fried in oil fresh from Italy, a present from his friend General B- who had just arrived in England-the turkey was from Kent-the ham from Wesphalia-the oysters from Meltonthe mutton from the Welch mountains the wines from France-and the whisky, as the reader already knows, was from Irishone. Suppose now, Sir, that the dinner is over, the ladies withdrawn, the King's health having already been drunk, and all the company in high glee; Mr Batty proceeded to inform us, that, on the tenth, as per invitation, he dined with the Lord Mayor; but that he was far from being comfortable-no! he was vexed, confoundedly vexed; and he proceeded to vent his complaints. "The great Dr Strap," said he, " was there, and he seemed determined rather to dispute every thing, than to acquiesce in any assertion that appeared the least doubtful. A friend of mine," continued he, "Mr Gawky-you know him very well, he is a porter-brewer in the borough, very rich, and very respectable. This gentleman wishing to pay him a compliment, observed to this Dr Strap, that he had no doubt he was a great disciplinarian." "You are right,

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Sir," replied the doctor, "for discipline makes a scholar, and discipline makes a gentleman; and the want of discipline has made you what you are. "Now, my friends," said Batty, "this was throwing the sledgehammer with a vengeance; no person is, in my opinion, proof against such unwieldy weapons, nor deserves to be smitten in such a manner. The doctor, however, is a great man, and may sometimes presume upon his greatness, to assist his arguments. Believe me, gentlemen, I do not like any great men, except those upon the stage; and we never rely upon our greatness, to beat down an anta gonist, nor do we ever attempt to brow-beat an inferior,-no! should scorn such a subterfuge. Well, I was just about to answer Dr Strap in his own way, but I was prevented by my friend Mr Fielding, who sat on my right. This gentleman is, you know, an author, a poet, a reviewer, and a great classic withal; but he is a peaceable man, and he begged me to refrain, 'for,' said he, it is well known that Dr Strap has a mind truly gigantic, and his learning is perfectly colossal; we little stars must hide our di minished heads.' I had, however, never a better mind in all my life to eat my dinner, than I now had to trounce the Doctor. But, gentlemen," said he, looking round the table, you forget the whisky,-how do you like my whisky?—is it not the most delicious of all delights? wine of every description is, in my opinion, mere slip-slop to it. Yes," said he, sipping at his glass, "it is nectar, and the gods must at this moment envy us our bliss!" We assured him that his panegyric was not too lavish in its praise, for that it was certainly above all commendation. "Well, as I was saying," he continued, "I had great difficulty in restraining my anger; it was so rude, you know,-it was so ungentlemanly, you know,-upon my word, if I had been the object of his ridicule, I think I should have called him out. Oh! I cannot bear ridicule, of all things; a joke may be borne with, or a rap on the knuckles, but my friend's rebuke was the severest of any ever given; hang me if I could have forgiven him. No! I would rather have been

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condemned to commit to memory twenty lines from the Curse of Kehama,' where there is neither rhyme nor reason,-not one single poetical image,-not one scintillation of genius, nor one idea worth remembering!" "But where," said Mr Pearson, smiling, where, Mr Batty, would you, in that elegant poem, meet with twenty lines such as you mention?"" Find them!" rejoined our enraged host; "why, in fifty, in a hundred, in a thousand places; any where, all over, in every page twenty such lines may be discovered. But pardon, excuse me, friend Pearson; I am vexed, you see, horridly vexed; and what I was obliged to conceal at my Lord Mayor's table has now burst from me like a volcanic eruption; but my mind is a little relieved from its tormenting state of perturbation; its ebullitions will now cease, the whirlwind of passion has subsided, and I am now calm; yes, calm as the unruffled deep after a violent storm, when scarcely a zephyr ripples its placid bosom.

proverbial expression, "that a still tongue makes a wise head;" this suits my case very well; but to shew you that I am not vain, I must beg leave to declare that I think the reverse proposition is more to be depended upon, namely, "that a wise head makes a still tongue." This is my opinion; but as different people think and judge differently on the same subjects, I do not, you must observe, give it as my positive opinion, from which there is no appeal; no! and to shew you, at the same time, that I am possessed of a large portion of candour to those who may differ from my decision, I beg permission to refer it to the fu ture consideration of Dr Strap, or my friend Batty, or, if you think it would be better, to the majority of the good people of this happy nation, who will probably treat it as a public question, and adopt that mode of reasoning commonly made use of by the ladies at their tea-parties, or by the gentlemen after dinner, over a glass of wine, or a bumper of whisky punch; and this will certainly be the best manner possible; for reasoning, every one knows, is a very dry subject; where, then, can it be so well managed as in places where there is plenty of drink?

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"Besides," he resumed, "Dr Strap ingrossed nearly the whole of the conversation; nobody could be heard but himself; I hate such rudeness; one could not squeeze a word an hour in edgeways. He bored the company for a full hour about Greek particles and Latin terminations; I thought he would never have ended; then he gave us a dissertation on the origin of the Celtic, Erse, and Gaelic languages, which, he contended, all came from the same root. "But," said Mr Pearson, "did the company believe him, on his bare assertion?" Certainly," replied Batty, " for no one had the temerity to contradict him. Why, Sir, he would have dragged you back through the dark ages, to the time of the confusion of tongues at the building of Babel; I assure you I wished such learned gibberish, and the reciter of it, both at Old Nick. He was so affected, too; and pomposity, affectation, and egotism, I hold them, you know, in utter detestation!"

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How blind are men to their own failings! You may perceive, Sir, that I, your faithful correspondent, am no talker; no, my business is to observe and to listen, that I may know what is said by others. There is, you know, a

At a late hour, Mr Pearson observed that it was, he thought, nearly time for him to depart, for as it would be high tide at two o'clock in the morning, he should have to rise from his bed at that hour to bathe. "To bathe!" exclaimed Batty, "at two o'clock in the morning! Why, Sir, you'll be then fast enough asleep, I warrant you." "I intend, Sir,' rejoined the other, "to bathe at two o'clock; and let me tell you, Mr Batty, I can rise at what hour I please, because I have accustomed myself to do so; and custom, you know, is a kind of second nature, which enables one to perform wonders." "Wonders indeed!" said our host; "pray pardon me, but it must be, not a wonder, but a miracle, that would drag me from my bed at that early hour, to plunge myself into cold water." "Because you are totally unacquainted, Mr Batty, with the beneficial effects arising from cold-water bathing; why, Sir, it strengthens and braces the nervous system,-prevents obstructions, by

keeping open the pores in the skin, and thus prevents disease, prolongs life, excites health, and renders our situation here comfortable and happy.” "Wonderful indeed! why bathing, according to your creed, seems to be the grand panacea," said Batty: " pray, Sir, I hope to give no offence, but are you not employed by Bianchi to preach in favour of his baths? Why, you might make a fortune, if you had not one already, by writing puffs in favour of quack medicines:-but now tell me, seriously, do you positively intend to rise at two o'clock, to bathe your limbs, for the good of your health ?” "Most certainly," replied Pearson, " and I attribute your rudeness to your ignorance, Mr Batty; for the beneficial effects of frequently bath ing in salt water are known to every person but yourself,-were known to the ancient Romans, as well as the Greeks; and the custom is recom mended as salubrious by every physician who puts any value upon his reputation. Let me request, Sir, that you will in future pause, before you condemn what you have never practised." "Well, well," replied Batty, “I am, if you wish it, as ignorant as a sheep; I like to bathe in hot weather, but in the month of December, you must excuse me,-nor do I yet believe, friend Pearson, that you are in earnest." "You are at liberty, my theatrical hero, to believe or to doubt just what you please; but I shall bathe if I live, that is certain." Here ended a dialogue, interesting, to be sure, but it contains an abundance of that figure in rhetoric which is denominated by me pompous nonsense.

" Mr Jacob, a philosopher, and one of the party, who, like myself, had remained silent to the present time, now took from his side-pocket an octavo volume, and begged to be allowed to read the following article, which, he said, was from a valuable and profound work, just published by his friend, a professor, and one of the greatest men of the present age." From microscopic observations, it has been computed that the

skin is perforated by a thousand holes in the length of an inch. If we estimate the whole surface of the body of a middle-sized man to be sixteen square feet, it must contain 2,304,000 pores. These pores are the mouths of so many excretory vessels, which perform that important function in the animal economy, insensible perspiration. The lungs discharge every minute six grains, and the surface of the skin from three to twenty grains, the average over the whole body be ing fifteen grains of lymph, consisting of water, with a very minute admixture of salt, acetic acid, and a trace * of iron. If we suppose this perspirable matter to consist of globules only ten times smaller than the red particles of blood, or about the five thousandth part of an inch in diameter, it would require a succession of four hundred of them to issue from each orifice every second."

Mr Pearson now thanked Mr Jacob for thus illustrating his arguments in favour of bathing. "But," said he to that gentleman, "I think, Sir, the fine discovery which you have lately made is not so well known as it deserves to be:" then looking round, " give me leave, my worthy friends, to inform you, that this learned gentleman, who is indefatigable in the cause of science, has lately discovered a new substance, a sort of pebble, which is different in its composition from any known material. Some of our most profound chemists suppose it to belong to the class of metals,-others are certain that it has an alkaline base. Till, however, its properties shall be better known, they have agreed to call it, from the name of the discoverer, (in the new nomenclature,) a JACOBITE!"

All the company expressed a high degree of satisfaction for the honour thus conferred upon one of the votaries of science,-thanked Mr Pearson for the information he had given them-and soon after they adjourned, each man to his home, and I to my chamber, to note down, as I usually do, the transactions of the preceding day.-Ever yours,

PETER PEDAGOGUE, Jun.

The chains by which horses are yoked to a plough, or cart, are called traces. Docs the above author mean that one of these has ever been found in the lymph?

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