WAR

SOAME Jenyns, Efq. has fhrewdly remarked, If Chriftian nations, were nations of Chriftians, all wars would be impoffible and unknown among them!

ANECDOTE OF HANDEL, THE FAMOUS MU-
SICIAN, BY DR. BURNEY.

His government of fingers was defpotic, for upon Cuzzoni infolently refusing to fing his admirable air, Falfa Imagine, in Otho, he told her that he knew fhe was a very devil, but that he fhould now let her know, in her turn, that he was Belzebub, the prince of devils. And then taking her up by the waift, fwore if he did not immediately obey his orders, he would throw her out of the window.

CANTERBURY TALES

WAS the title of Chaucer's great work, written 1383,
and their plan being curious fhall be here detailed.
Chaucer pretends that intending to pay his devotions to
the fhrine of Thomas a Becket, he fet up his horfe at
the Talbot Inn, in Southwark; that he found in the
inn a number of pilgrims, who feverally propofed the
fame journey, and that they all agreed to fup together,
and to fet out the next morning on the fame
party. The
fupper being finished, the landlord, who is defcribed as
a fellow of fenfe and drollery, makes a propofal to them,
that in order to divert them on their journey, each of
them should be obliged to tell two ftories, one going, the
other coming back; and that whoever in the judgment
of the company fhould fucceed beft in the art of tale-
telling, by way of recompence at their retorn to his inn,
fhould be entitled to a fupper at the common coft, which
propofal affented to, he promises to be their governor
and guide. At the entrance of the poem the characters
of all the pilgrims are diftinctly drawn, and a plan of
the comedy, in which they stand for the dramatis per-

fone. Befides this, every tale has its prologue, and a kind of epilogue too, which serves by way of translation to the next, and to the honour of our author be it fpoken, fo far as his plan is executed (for it is not completed) every part of it is performed with equal juftice and fpirit, and, in particular, the character of the hoft, who may be faid to answer the fame purpose as the chorus in the ancient drama, is moft admirably kept up, and the fame wit, fpirit, and humour is preferved through the whole journey, that strikes the reader fo much at the beginning, where this incomparable character is drawn at length.

As to the point of characterising, in which Chaucer was most fingularly happy, you can name (fays Mr. Ogle) no author, even of antiquity, whether in the comic or in the fatyric way equal, at least fuperior to bim. And it was not, the fame writer afterwards adds, to the diftinguishing of character from character, that the excellence of Chaucer was confined; he was equally mafter of introducing them properly on the ftage, and after having introduced them, of fupporting them agreeably to the part they were formed to perfonate. In this he claims equal honour with the best comedians; there is no admirer of Plautus, Terence, or Ariftophanes, that will pretend to fay Chaucer has not equally, through his Canterbury Tales, fupported his charac

ters.

All Chaucers characters, and many of his tales, have been modernifed by Mr. Dryden, Mr. Pope, Mr. Betterton, Mr. Ogle, and others, and collected together and published by Mr. Ogle in three volumes, octavo. DRYDEN'S CHARACTER OF THE CANTERBURY TALES.

CHAUCER must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehenfive nature, becaufe, as it has been truly obferved of him, he has taken into the compass of his Canterbury Tales, the various manners and humours,

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as we now call them, of the whole English nation in his eye. Not a fingle character has efcaped him. All his pilgrims are feverally diftinguished from each other, and not only in their inclinations, but in their phyfiognomies and perfons. Baptifta Porta could not have defcribed their natures better, than by the marks which the poet gives them. The matter and manner of their tales, and of their teiling, are fo fuited to their different educations, humours, and callings, that each of them would be improper in any other mouth. Even the grave and ferious characters are diftinguished by their feveral forts of gravity, their discourses are fuch as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding; fuch as are becoming of them and of them only. Even the ribaldry of the low characters is different, the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook, are feveral men, and diftinguished from each other as much as the mincing Lady Priorefs, and the broad fpeaking gap-tooth'd Wife of Bath. But enough of this: there is fuch a variety of game fpringing up before me, that I am dif. tracted in my choice, and know not which to follow. It is fufficient to fay, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our forefathers and great grand dames all before us as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are ftill remaining in mankind, and even in England; though they are called by other names than thofe of monks and friars, of canons and lady abbeffes and nuns, for mankind is ever the fame, and nothing is loft out of nature though every thing is altered.

THE

THE

INJURY OF INTEMPERATE JUDGMENT,

ILLUSTRATED IN

THE CHARACTER OF EPICURUS.

MR. EDITOR,

A

HAT mankind are caught by founds rather than by the experience of every age uniformly illustrates. cur has no fooner been branded with the hydrophobia, than the heedlefs multitude unite to purfue it with ftaves and pitchforks, nor think of enquiring whether it were mad or not, till they have worried it to death. For this reafon numberlefs illuftrious characters have ftruggled through life under a load of obloquy, which might almoft juftify pofterity in declining to meddle with established errors, and their afhes were flumbering in the duft before their contemporaries gave themselves time to examine whether they were entitled to applaufe or to infamy; in fhort, no fooner does a bright star of genius aberrate from the ftated round of popular prejudice, or feem but to trench upon the accepted notions which darkness and ignorance have implanted in the public mind, than the war-whoop of alarm is refounded. Perfecution marthals all its mercenaries from the tale of flander to the gibbet and the ftake; the innovation is pronounced damnable, and the herd believe it.

I have been led to thefe reflections from lately perufing fome obfervations on the character of Epicurus-A man, who, if we are to believe the chit chat, (and indeed the writers) of the day was a mere beaft, fattening in the ftye of fenfuality-devoted to every fpecies of grofs intemperance and difgufting indulgence; but that he by no means merits this difgraceful reputation, may, I think, cafily be fhewn. I fhall fay nothing of his ideas

5

of

of the origin of all things, because in the remote age in which he flourished, any error of this kind almost was pardonable, and the afperfions which have been caft upon his character, are grounded not upon his phyfics but upon his ethics. And here I must be allowed to fay that he is reprobated not because he deserved it, but because his flanderers were too paffionate, too bigotted, too much men to enquire what it was indeed that the philofopher taught. His grand fundamental pofition it is true, is that pleafure is the chief good of man. A pofition at any rate fully licentious enough! you will fay. Softly friend! let us hear what the culprit has to fay for himself: His prominent maxims are-1. That all pleasure, which has no pain connected with it, is to be purfued. 2. All pain, which has no pleasure refulting from it, is to be avoided. 3. All pleafure which fupercedes or prevents a greater pleasure, or enfures a greater pain, is to be deprecated. 4. All pain which anticipates a greater pain, or proves acceffary to a greater pleasure, to be embraced.

In defining pleasure he tells us that it confifts in indolence of body and in tranquillity of mind. This indolence of body is preferved by temperance, and tranquillity of mind is the fruit of virtue. In all this there is moft certainly nothing which fhould entitle the man who inculcates it to public odium and execration. And it is evidently not the fubftance but the found at which the chastity of moderation is intimidated. According to what has been now ftated, Diogenes Laertius tells us that Epicurus maintained "that there is an infeparable connection betwixt virtue and true happiness," and one of his favourite maxims was, "Live thou as the Gods, in immortal virtue, and thou fhalt have nothing common with mortals." Ammonius, in Ariftotle's Catalogue, likewife informs us, that "the Epicureans were called Hedonici, because they made pleafure the laft end of man. Pleasure, not that of the body, but the tranquil undisturbed constitution of the foul, which is devoted to virtue."