WHAT IS WASTE?

Why, sir, breaking bottles, and a thousand other things. Waste cannot be accurately told, though we are sensible how destructive it is. Economy on the one hand, by which a certain income is made to maintain a man genteelly, and waste on the other, by which, on the same income, another man lives shabbily, cannot be defined. It is a very nice thing; as one man wears his coat out much sooner than another, we cannot tell how.

CAUSES INFLUENCING SUBORDINATION.

Subordination is sadly broken down in this age. No man, now, has the same authority which his father had-except a gaoler. No master has it over his servants: it is diminished in our colleges; nay, in our grammar schools. Boswell, What is the cause of this, sir? Why, sir, there are many causes, the chief of which is, I think, the great increase of money. No man now depends upon the lord of a manor, when he can send to another country, and fetch provisions. The shoe-black at the entry of my court does not depend on me. I can deprive

him but of a penny a day, which he hopes somebody else will bring him; and that penny I must carry to another shoe-black, so the trade suffers nothing. I have explained, in my "Journey to the Hebrides," how gold and silver destroy feudal subordination. But, besides, there is a general relaxation of reverence. No son now depends upon his father, as in former times. Paternity used to be considered as of itself a great thing, which had a right to many claims. That is, in general, reduced to very small bounds. My hope is, that as anarchy produces tyranny, this extreme relaxation will produce freni strictio.

REFINEMENT.

To be merely satisfied is not enough. It is in refinement and elegance that the civilised man differs from the savage. A great part of our industry, and all our ingenuity, is exercised in procuring pleasure; and, sir, a hungry man has not the same pleasure in eating a plain dinner that a hungry man has in eating a luxurious dinner. You see I put the case fairly. A hungry man may have as much, nay, more

pleasure in eating a plain dinner than a man grown fastidious has in eating a luxurious dinner. But I suppose the man who decides between the two dinners to be equally a hungry

man.

COOKERY ON PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES.

I could write a better book of cookery than has ever yet been written; it should be a book upon philosophical principles. Pharmacy is now made much more simple. Cookery may be made so too. A prescription which is now compounded of five ingredients had formerly fifty in it. So in cookery, if the nature of the ingredients be well known much fewer will do. Then, as you cannot make bad meat good, I Wou tell what is the best butcher's meat, the best be ef, the best pieces; how to choose young fowls; th e proper seasons of different vegetables; and then ow to roast, and boil, and compound.

MORAL RIGHTS OF MEN AND WOMEN.

Women have all the liberty they should wish to have. We have all the labour and the danger, and the women all the advantage. We go

to sea, we build houses, we do every thing, in short, to pay our court to the women. Mrs Knowles, The Doctor reasons very wittily, but not convincingly. Now, take the instance of building; the mason's wife, if she is ever seen in liquor, is ruined; the mason may get himself drunk as often as he pleases with little loss of character; nay, may let his wife and children starve. Johnson, Madam, you must consider, if the mason does get himself drunk, and let his wife and children starve, the parish will oblige him to find security for their maintenance. We have different modes of restraining evil. Stocks for the men, a ducking-stool for women, and a pound for beasts. If we require more perfection from women than from ourselves, it is doing them honour. And women have not the same temptations that we have; they may always live in virtuous company; men must mix in the world indiscriminately. If a woman has no inclination to do what is wrong, being secured from it is no restraint to her. I am at liberty to walk into the Thames; but if I were to try it, my friends would restrain me in Bedlam, and I should be obliged to them.

Mrs Knowles, Still, Doctor, I cannot help thinking it a hardship that more indulgence is allowed to men than to women. It gives a superiority to men, to which I do not see how they are entitled. Johnson, It is plain, madam, one or other must have the superiority. As Shakespeare says, "If two men ride on a horse, one must ride behind."

A DEFENCE OF LUXURY.

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury; you make them exert industry, whereas, by giving it you keep them idle. I own, indeed, there may be more virtue in giving it immediately in charity than in spending it in luxury, though there may be pride in that too.

COUNSEL TO YOUNG AUTHORS.

An author should sell his first work for what the booksellers will give, till it shall appear whether he is an author of merit, or, which is the same thing as to purchase-money, an author who pleases the public.