look like his trade and profeffion; yet the pedantry of every ⚫ profeffion is difagreeable. The different periods of life have, for the fame reafon, different manners affigned to them. • We expect in old age, that gravity and fedateness which its infirmities, its long experience, and its worn out fenfi⚫bility feem to render both natural and refpectable; and we lay our account to find in youth that fenfibility, that gaiety and fprightly vivacity which experience teaches us to expect from the lively impreffions that all interefting objects are apt to make upon the tender and unpracticed fenfes of that early period of life. Each of thofe two ages, however, may cafily have too much of the peculiarities which belong to it. The flirting levity of youth, and the immovable in⚫ fenfibility of old age, are equally difagreeable. The young, according to the common faying, are most agreeable when in their behaviour there is fomething of the manners of the old, and the old, when they retain fomething of the gaiety of the young. Either of them, however, may easily have too much of the manners of the other. The extreme coldness, and dull formality, which are pardoned in old age, • make youth ridiculous. The levity, the carelessness, and the vanity, which are indulged in youth, render old age ⚫ contemptible.

The peculiar character and manners which we are led by custom to appropriate to each rank and profeffion, have fometimes perhaps a propriety independent of cuftom; and ⚫ are what we should approve of for their own fakes, if we took into confideration all the different circumftances which < naturally affect those in each different state of life. The propriety of a perfon's behaviour, depends not upon its fuitableness to any one circumftance of his situation, but to all the circumftances, which, when we bring his cafe home to ourselves we feel, fhould naturally call upon his attention. If he appears to be fo much occupied by any one of C them, as entirely to neglect the reft, we difapprove of his conduct, as fomething which we cannot entirely go along with, becaufe not perfectly adjusted to all the circumftances of his fituation; yet, perhaps, the emotion he expreffes for the object which principally interefts him, does not exceed what we fhould entirely fympathize with, and approve of, in one whofe attention was not required by any other thing. A parent in private life might, upon the lofs of an only fon, exprefs without blame, a degree of grief and tenderness, which would be unpardonable in a general at the head of an army, when glory, and the public fafety, demanded fo great a part of his attention. As different objects ought,

< upon

upon common occafions, to occupy the attention of men of different profeffions, fo different paffions ought naturally to become habitual to them; and when we bring home to ourfelves their fituation in this particular refpect, we must be fenfible, that every occurrence fhould naturally affect them more or lefs, according as the emotion which it exc tes, coincides or difagrees with the fixt habit and temper of their ⚫ minds. We cannot expect the fame fenfibility to the gay pleasures and amufements of life in a clergyman which we ⚫lay our account with in an officer. The man, whofe peculiar occupation it is to keep the world in mind of that awful futurity which awaits them, who is to anounce what may be the fatal confequences of every deviation from the rules of duty, and who is himfelf to fet the example of the most exact conformity, is the meffenger of tidings, which cannot, in propriety, be delivered either with levity or indifference. His mind is continually occupied with. what is too grand and folemn, to leave any room for the impreffions of thofe frivolous objects, which fill up the attention of the diffipated and the gay. We readily feel there▾ fore, that, independent of cuftom, there is a propriety in the manners which cuftom has allotted to this profeflion; ⚫ and that nothing can be more fuitable to the character of a clergyman, than that grave, that auftere and abstracted feverity, which we are habituated to expect in his behaviour.. • These reflections are fo very obvious, that there is scarcs › any man fo inconfiderate, as not, at fome time, to have < made them, and to have accounted to himself in this man-, ner for his approbation of the ufual character of this order.

Our author concludes his performance with fome reflections on fyftems of moral philofophy. In treating of the principles of morals, he fays, there are two queftions to be confidered. First, wherein does virtue confift? or what is the tone of temper, and tenor of conduct, which conftitutes the excellent and praife-worthy character,-the character which is the natural object of effeem, honour, and approbation? Secondly, by what power or faculty in the mind is it, that this character, whatever it be, is recommended to us? We examine the first question, when we confider whether virtue confits in benevolence, as Dr. Hutchefon imagines; or in acting fuitably to the different relations we ftand in, as Dr. Clark fuppofes; or in the wife and prudent pursuit of our own real and folid happiness, as has been the opinion of others? We examine the fecond queftion, when we confider, whether the virtuous character, whatever it confifts in, be recommended to us by felf-love, which makes us perceive REV. July 1759. that

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that this character, both in ourfelves and others, tends moft. to promote our own private intereft; or by reason, which. points out to us the difference between one character and ano- · ther, in the fame manner as it does that between truth and falfhood; or by a peculiar power of perception, called a moral fenfe, which this virtuous character gratifies and pleafes, as the contrary difgufts and difpleafes it; or laft of all, by fome, other principle in human nature, fuch as a modification of. fympathy or the like. Our author begins with confidering the fyftems which have been formed concerning the firft of thefe queftions, and proceeds afterwards to examine thofe concerning the fecond.

Thus have we given a general view of what is contained in this Theory of moral Sentiments, rather than a regular abftract of what the truly ingenious author of it has advanced. We could have extended the article to a much greater length, with pleasure to ourfelves, and entertainment to our readers; but as few perfons of real tafte will be fatisfied with the beft abftract that could be given of fuch a performance as this, what we have faid is fully fufficient for our purpose. The last part of the Theory will be peculiarly agreeable to the learned reader, who will there find a clear and diftinét view of the feveral fyftems of moral philofophy, which have gained any confiderable degree of reputation either in antient or modern rimes; with many pertinent and ingenious reflections upon them. The whole work, indeed, fhews a delicacy of fentiment, and acutenefs of understanding, that are seldom to be met with; and what ought particularly to be mentioned, there is the ftricteft regard preferved, throughout, to the principles of religion, fo that the ferious reader will find nothing that can give him any juft ground of offence. In a word, without any partiality to the author, he is one of the most elegant and agreeable writers, upon morals, that we are acquainted with.

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Mifcellaneans Pieces of M. de Secondat, Baron de Montefquieu. Tranflated from the new edition of his works in Quarto, printed at Paris. 8vo. 5s. Wilfon and Durham.

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O add any eulogium to the many which have already been beftowed on Baron Montefquieu's works, in general, would be needlefs; and to intimate the leaft detraction from their acknowledged merit, might be thought to favour of malevolence; we fhall therefore do little more than

mention

mention the titles of the feveral pieces contained in this volume.

The firft is Mr. D'Alembert's eulogium on this celebrated writer; including, after the manner of the foreign academicians, the hiftory of his life and writings. This piece is inferted in the Encyclopædia.

The fecond is, the Analysis of the Spirit of the Laws, by M. D'Alembert. This is a judicious piece, and will be ufeful to most of thofe who would peruse the Spirit of the Laws, with entertainment or advantage.

The third, An Oration delivered by the Baron de Montefquieu, on his admiffion into the French Academy.

The fourth is an Effay on Tafte: an imperfect and unfinifhed piece; but, in every page, it bears the strongest marks of the masterly hand that wrote it.

Next follow eleven new Perfian Letters; from one of which we have made an extract for the entertainment of our readers, and as a fpecimen of the tranflation.

LETTER CXLV.

USBEK to ***.

A man of wit is commonly nice in his choice of company. He likes few people: he grows tired and dull, when' he is with any of that vaft number of people whom he is pleased to call bad company; it is impoffible but he must make them at leaft in fome degree perceive his difguft: all these then become his enemies.

Sure of pleafing if he would, he often neglects to do it.

He is naturally inclined to criticise, because he perceives more things than others do, and is more ftruck with them..

He almost always ruins his fortune, becaufe his genius fupplies him with a vaft number of methods of doing it.

He fails in his enterprizes, because he rifks a great deal. His forefight, which is always very great, makes him perceive objects which are at too vaft a distance; and, befides, in the infancy of a project, he is lefs ftruck with the diffi ⚫culties which attend the thing itfelf, than with those expe-. ⚫dients which he finds out, and which he draws from him• felf,

He neglects fmall details, upon which however, the fuc cefs of almost all great affairs depends, C 2

• The

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The man of middling abilities, on the contrary, makes an advantage of every thing: he perceives clearly, that nothing ought to be loft by negligence.

The public approbation commonly attends the middling genius. People like to add to the one, and are delighted to take away from the other. While envy bursts upon the one, and people excufe nothing in him; every thing is • overlooked in the other, vanity declares for him.

But if a man of wit has fo many disadvantages, what fhall we fay of the hard condition of men of learning?

I never think of it, without recalling to my mind a letter of one of them to a friend of his. Here it is:

" SIR,

"I am a man bufied every night in looking through telefઠંડ copes of thirty feet, at thofe great bodies which roll over "our heads; and when I want to refresh myself, I take my "fmall microfcopes, and obferve a little worm or a mite.

"I am not rich, and have only one chamber. I dare not even light a fire in it, because I keep my thermometer "there, and the unufual heat would make it rife. Laft "winter I thought to have died of cold; and tho' my thermo"meter, which was at the highest degree, gave me warning "that my hands were about to freeze, I did not alter my "method; and I have the comfort of being exactly informed "of the moft infenfible alterations of the weather all the last 66 year.

"I keep very little company; and of all the people that I fec, I don't know one. But there is one man at Stockholm, another at Leipfick, another at London, whom I "have never feen, and whom I fhall certainly never fee, "with whom I keep fo exact a correspondence, that I don't' "allow a poft to pafs without writing to them.

"But tho' I know no body in the neighbourhood, I bear "fo bad a character in it, that I'll be at laft obliged to change "my place of refidence. About five years ago, I was rudely "attacked by one of my neighbours for having diffected a "dog which, fhe pretended, belonged to her. A butcher's "wife, who was prefent, joined her party; and while the "one loaded ne with reproaches, the other threw ftones at

me and Dr. * * who was with me, and who received a "terrible ftroke upon the Os frontal and occipital, by which "the feat of his reafon got a great shock.

" Since