Repairs her fmiles, awakens every grace, And calls forth all the wonders of Sees by degrees a purer blush arife, eyes. The bufy Sylps furround their darling care; These fet the head, and those divide the hair; Some fold the fleeve, whilst others plait the gown; The part a mistress has to act is fhort, fo that lefs merit and address may enable her to perform it with applaufe: The mistress exhibits herfelf only on the ftage, the wife is feen in the greenroom. She adjufts her drefs, looks, and behaviour, for the appointed hour: A watch may go very well for an evening, that might lofe time in the whole day. A miftrefs leffens her power as the ap proaches to a wife. A perfon once told And Molly's prais'd for labours not me, that he had quitted one, whom he her own. trimony, which, to confider it merely as a political inftitution, I look upon to be the best scheme for morals, pofterity, and mutual happiness, that could poflibly be contrived; fhall, by way of comparifon between a married and a libertine life, fhew the advantages that a mistress has over a wife; not with the leaft defign of giving a preference to the former, but by way of affifting the latter to form certain rules for her own conduct. Men have been often faid to be fonder, and more under the influence of miftreffes than of wives; and in general, I believe this obfervation true, for the following reafons: They are apt to flatter themselves that women feldom facrifice their chastity, except to love alone; and fo become the fond dupe sof their own too credulous vanity. The lover's ftay is fhort, he leaves his mistress with regret, which urges quick return. Their whole time is paffed in meeting and parting intervals; the tendereft moments of a lover's life. She fond, and he grateful; mutually conferring and receiving favours, the ftrongest cement of endearing affections. No joint property or common intereft between them, from whence domeftic ftrife too oft arises. was then fond of, becaufe the became fo interfering and domineering, that he began to find no difference between her and a wife-except the fin. In short, the economy of matrimony on the wife's part, fhould be to imitate preferve her empire. A friend of mine, fpeaking to me one day about his wife affured me that fhe was fo unlike one, in every particular, fave economy and mo defty, that if a law thould happen to be framed to abolish marriage, he would court her again for a mistress. On the other hand; husbands should be alfo careful to keep up a spirit of gallantry towards their wives, in order to preferve, on both fides, that elegant bond of union, politenefs and fond fenfations. They fhould avoid that careless and flovenly air, which men are too apt to indulge themselves in after marriage; they should even drefs for them with as much attention as when they were lovers; for chastity is no prefervative against difguft, and tho' virtue alone may insure a wife's fidelity, it must be the husband's merit that can retain her affections. How unfpirited, how indelicate an obligation is duty fole! Surely, a wife is an object worthy of les petits foins, as well as of the greater duties; and it is by these leffer affiduities, a constant attention, and little offices, though all trifling in themfelves, that a fincere paffion manifefts itself more than by the highest acts of liberality and kindnefs; for love, contrary to every other paffion, fhews itfelf more in small things than in great ones. Whenever Long fentences in a fhort compofition, are like large rooms in a little house. Superficial writers, like the mole, often fancy themfelves deep, when they are exceeding near the furface. The chief advantage that ancient writers have over modern ones, feems ow ing to fimplicity: every noble truth and fentiment was expreffed by the former in the natural manner; in word and phrafe, fimple, perfpicuous, and incapable of improvement. What then remained for later writers but affectation, witticifm, and conceit? One can, now and then, reach an author's head when he stoops, and, induced by this circumftance, afpire to measure height with him. The national opinion of a book or treatise is not always right-eft ubi peccat -Milton's Paradife Loft is one inftance. I mean the cold reception it met with at firft. Perhaps an acquaintance with men of genius is rather reputable, than fatisfactory. It is as unaccountable, as it is certain, that fancy heightens fenfibility; fenfibility ftrengthens paffion; and makes people humourifts. Yet a perfon of genius is often expected to fhew more difcretion than another man; and this on account of that very vivacity which is his greatest impediment. This happens for want of diftinguishing betwixt the fanciful talents, and the dry mathematical operations of the judgment, each of which indifcriminately gives the denomination of a man of genius. Poets feem to have fame, in lieu of moft temporal advantages. They are too little formed for business, 'to be ref pected; too often feared or envied, to be beloved. One would rather be a flump of laurel than the flump of a church-yard yew tree. There is a certain flimziness of poetry, which items expedient in a fong. To fay a perfon writes a good ftyle, is as pedantic an expreflion, as to fay he plays a good fiddle. The writer who gives us the best idea of what may be called the genteel in ftyle and manner of writing, is, in my opinion, my Lord Shaftesbury. Then Mr. Addifon and Dr. Swift. A plain narrative of any remarkable fact, emphatically related, has a more ftriking effect without the author's comment. I think nothing truly poetic, at least no poetry worth compofing, that does not strongly affect one's paffions: and this is but flenderly effected by fables, allegories, and lies. Incredulus odi. Hor. A preface very frequently contains fuch a piece of criticifm, as tends to countenance and establish the peculiarities of the piece. I hate a ftyle, as I do a garden, that is wholly flat and regular; that slides along like an eel, and never rifes to what one can call an inequality. Pope, I think, never once mentions Prior; though Prior fpeaks fo handsomely of Pope in his Alma. One might imagine that the latter, indebted as he was to the former for fuch numberlefs beauties, fhould have readily repaid this poetical obligation. This can only be imputed to pride or party-cunning. Inother words, to fome modification of felfishness. Virgil never mentions Horace, though indebted to him for two very well-natured compliments. Pope Pope feems to me the most correct writer fince Virgil; the greatest genius only fince Dryden. feems to be, that men of genius forget things of common concern, uninportant facts and circumftances, which make no flight impreffion in every-day minds. But fure it will be found that all wit depends on memory; i. e. on the recollection of paffages, either to illustrate, or contraft with, any prefent occasion. It is probably the fate of a common underftanding, to forget the very things which the man of wit remembers. But an oblivion of thofe things, which almost every one remembers, renders his cafe the more remarkable, and thus explains the mystery. Pope's talent lay remarkably in what one may naturally enough term the condenfation of thoughts. I think no other English poet ever brought so much sense into the fame number of lines with equal smoothness, eafe, and poetical beauty. Let him who doubts of this perufe his Effay on Man with attention. Perhaps this was a talent from which he could not eafily have fwerved: Perhaps he could not have fufficiently rarefied his thoughts to produce that flimzinefs which is required in a ballad or love fong. Prudes allow no quarter to fuch ladies His monfter of Ragufa, and his transla- as have fallen a facrifice to the gentle tions from Chaucer, have fome little ten- paffions, either because themselves, being dency to invalidate this obfervation. borne away by the malignant ones, perI durft not have cenfured Mr. Pope's haps never felt the other fo powerful as writings in his life-time, you fay. True. to occafion them any difficulty; or beA writer furrounded with all his fame, caufe no one has tempted them to tranfengaging with another that is hard-grefs that way themselves. It is the fame cafe with fome critics with regard to the errors of ingenious writers. ly known, is a man in armour attack ing another in his night-gown and flippers. Pope has published fewer foibles than any other poet that is equally volumi nous. It is no doubt extremely poffible to form an English profody; but to a good ear it were almoft fuperfluous, and to a bad one useless: this last being, I believe, never joined with a poetic genius. It may be joined with wit ; it may be connected with found judgment: but is furely never united with tafte, which is the life and foul of poetry. Rhymes, in elegant poetry, fhould confift of fyllables that are long in pronunciation; fuch as are, ear, ire, ore, your; in which a nice ear will find more agreeableness than in thefe, gnat, net, knit, knot, nut. As to the frequent use of alliteration, it has probably had its day. A good writer cannot with the utmost ftudy produce fome thoughts which will flow from a bad one with eafe and precipitation. The reverse is also true. A bad writer, &c. 'Great wits have fhort memories,' is a proverb; and as fuch has undoubtedly fome foundation in nature. The cafe VOL. III. January 1794. There is nothing exerts a genius fo much as writing plays; the reason is, that the writer puts himself in the place of every perfon that speaks. Perfect characters in a poem make but little better figure than regular hills, perpendicular trees, uniform rocks, and level fheets of water in the formation of a landscape. The reafon is, they are natural, and moreover want variety. very Shakespear makes his bombaft anfwer his purpose, by the perfons he chufes A poet, till he arrives at thirty, can fee no other good than a poetical reputation. About that æra, he begins to dif◄ cover fome other. People of fortune, perhaps, covet the acquaintance of established writers, not fo much upon account of the focial pleafure, as the credit of it: the former would induce them to chufe perfons of lefs capacities, and tempers more conformable. Language is to the understanding, what a genteel motion is to the body; a very great advantage. But a perfon may be fuperior to another in underftanding, that has not an equal dignity of C expreffion. past pleasure, and the future exclufion of it. Every fingle obfervation that is publifhed by a man of genius, be it ever fo trivial, fhould be efteemed of importance; because he speaks of his own impreffions; whereas common men publifh common things, which they have, perhaps, gleaned from frivolous writers. For the Anthologia Hibernica. Defcription of a Small Pocket Barometer and Hygrometer. THE HE utility of small portable inftruments of these kinds, is obvious to those concerned in researches into fubjects of philofophy and natural hiftory. S expreffion; and a man may boaft an well boiled, and its specific gravity markhandfomer figure that is inferior to an- ed on the plane or fcale A B, fig. 1; other in regard to motion. let a fufficient quantity be poured into The words no more,' have a fin- the cistern and neck of the fountain, gular pathos; reminding us at once of communicating by means of the stop cock p, as to make ms and ce equal, and to fupport the mercury in the barometrical tube DEs at the point C, by means of the preffure of the air or atmosphere, on the furface of the mercury ed through the opening a b. Let DC be the graduated part of the scale, whofe divifions are measured by a nonius or vernier index. DC in this cafe may be about 2 inches, and C 9 inches. These degrees or divifions muft anfwer to those of the large barometers. When the inftrument is in a vertical position, and the mercury has a free communication through all parts of the fountain by means of the ftop cock p, and the mouth of the ciftern ab open, it will then be fit for obfervations. When the inftrument is to be carried or put in its case, close the mouth a b by means of the fcrew top, carefully made air proof, then reverse the inftrument fo that the mercury flowing through the ftop cock p may fill entirely the tube DC nm. The mercury now being both in the fountain and tube in equilibrium, close the stop cock p, which will prevent the air from getting into the tube DCs, fig. 1. ment thus fecured be flided into a glafstube about 14 inches long, and 2 in diameter, like thofe for the pocket thermometers, made by Mr. Gatty, in Dublin, and clofed by a fcrew top it may 'be carried with the greatest safety in the pocket, for any distance and length of time. And if made with care and accuracy, will determine correctly most common obfervations; and even very near the truth, the elevation of mountains and feveral kinds of levels. From the fmallness of the diameter of the barometrical tube, the friction will be fomewhat greater than in larger ones, fo as to render the inftrument flower in its operations; alfo a fmall quantity of air, may infinuate itfelf into the mercury, from the atmosphere, by means of the opening a b of the ciftern; but this may occafionally be in greater part expelled, The improvements made in the barometer in order to render it portable, however ufcful and adequate to the propofed end; are in general too complicated and bulky for the pocket. To conftru& fuch a one, that may be conveniently carried in an ordinary pocket of a coat in any direction, and yet fufficiently accurate for common obfervations relative to the preffure of the air and atmofphere; let firft a brafs plane about 14 inches long, one inch broad, and of an inch thick. as A B, fig. 1, plate 2, be procured: through which, on the low er part let the glafs fountain abcemn be inferted and fupported by the fpring ei fig. 2; let the ciftern c d e f one inch in diameter, be clofed by a brafs fpring flide or fcrew ab; and let the tube or neck of the fountain mn fig. 1, 2, be of a larger bore from to s, than from s to n, in which must be inferted the barome trical tube DC ns, to as to exclude all admiffion of air at . In the throat of the fountain fg m which goes through the brafs plane, by a ftop cock p, and in the ciftern an air vent clofed by a pin a. The mercury being And if the inftru by |