before it can appear ridiculous, must be misnamed pedantry. Every Homer has his Zoilus; and every Zoilus, like Homer's, is remembered only to be despised. Whatever effect the attacks of Aristophanes upon the tragedians of his day might have toward vitiating the taste of his countrymen, posterity have seemed willing to do justice to those works, in the admiration of which the wisest and best men of all ages have united.

I am inclined to believe that the learning of Dr. Bentley lost no admirers from the attacks of Pope or the insinuations of Swift; and an instance, taken from times nearer our own, will, perhaps, place the odium of malevolent satire in a stronger light. To the truth of this every one can bear witness, who is acquainted with those attacks which have been made by Churchill and others upon Johnson. That great writer, who, as he was a mau, could not but err, and as he was a wise man, could not persist in error; who was no feeble or timeserving moralist, but the firm and systematic teacher and practiser of virtue-he has shown us, that the shafts of malevolence may be turned aside, however keenly pointed, or however deeply empoisoned. The reader of Lexiphanes is excited to laugh without approbation; and the attack of Churchill remains a melancholy instance of prostituted wit. What shall we say of those, who, offended by no public and growing vice, provoked by no private wrongs; in deliberate wantonness sport with the characters of their neighbours, whom they hold out to unjust ridicule and unmerited reproach? It is but a weak apology for the baseness of their hearts, that the produce of their pens may

afford amusement to the idle, and gratification to the malevolent. But our reflections upon this subject will be too applicable to many of those publications which are the disgrace and entertainment of the times in which we live. In the commendation of such men, let all those join who have learned, from the writings of Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the test of truth; or from the conduct of Voltaire, that calumny is a cardinal virtue.

MONRO.

No. XXII.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1787.

The Briton still with fearful eye foresees
What storm or sunshine Providence decrees;
Knows for each day the weather of our fate.
A quidnunc is an almanack of state.

Young's Satires.

AMONG the various employments which engage the attention of mankind, it is not unpleasant to consider their topics of conversation. Every country has some peculiar to itself, which, as they derive their origin from the establishment of custom and the predominance of national pride, are permanent in their duration, and extensive in their influence. Like standing dishes, they form the most substantial part of the entertainment, and are served up at the tables both of the rich and the poor. The

Dutchman talks incessantly of the bank of Amsterdam, the Italian of the carnival, the Spaniard of a bull fight, and the English of politics and the weather.

That these last-mentioned topics should gain so great an ascendency over the Englishman, is by no means a subject of wonder. In a country, where the administration may be changed in half a year, and the weather may alter in half a minute, the quick and surprising vicissitudes must necessarily rouse the attention, and furnish the most obvious materials for conversation. From the influence of that gravity which is remarked by foreigners to be the characteristic of the inhabitants of Britain, they are disposed to view these endemial subjects in a gloomy light, and to make them the parents of sullen dissatisfaction and ideal distress. John Bull, with a contracted brow, and surly voice, complains that we have April in July, and that the greatest patriots are shamefully kept out of place. All this may be very true; but, if his worship could be persuaded to confess his feelings, he would acknowledge, that the gratification of complaining is far from inconsiderable; and that if these topics, on which he vents his spleen, were taken from him, little would remain to occupy his mind, or set his tongue in motion.

Let us indulge, for a moment, the whimsical supposition, that our climate was changed for that of Italy, and our government for that of the Turks; the consequences are easy to be foreseen-a general silence would reign throughout the island, from Port Patrick to the Land's End; and we should be all well qualified for the school of Pythagoras.

Our silence, indeed, would scarcely be limited, like that of his scholars, to five years. Every house in England would resemble the monastery of La Trappe, where the monks are no better than walking statues. The only talkers among us would be physicians, lawyers, old maids, and travellers. The physician might fatigue us with his materia medica, the lawyer with his qui tam actions, the old maid with difficult cases at cards, and the traveller with the dimensions of the Louvre, without fear of interruption or contradiction. We should look up to them as students do to professors reading lectures, and, like poor Dido, feel a pleasure in the encouragement of loquacity.

Iliacosque iterum demens audire labores
Exposcit, pendetque iterum narrantis ab ore.

She fondly begs him to repeat once more
The Trojan story that she heard before;
Then to distraction charm'd, in rapture hung
On every word, and died upon his tongue.

Pitt.

The game at whist would be played with uninterrupted tranquillity, and the cry of silence in the courts of justice might be omitted without the smallest inconvenience. In short, all the English who went abroad would be entitled to the compliment which was once paid a nobleman at Paris. A lively French marquis, after having been a whole evening in his company without hearing him utter a syllable, remarked, that milord Anglois had admirable talents for silence.

Prodigality prevails in town, and economy in the

country, in more instances than may be at first imagined. In town, such is the number of newspapers, that the coffee-house lounger may sate himself, like a fly in a confectioner's shop, with an endless variety of new sweets. He may see an event set in all possible lights, and may suit it to the complexion of his mind, and the sentiments of his party. Such is the advantage of a refined metropolis, where profusion enlarges the dominions of pleasure in every direction, and supplies the greatest dainties to gratify the vitiated appetite of curiosity. In the country, the case is widely different. In most genteel families a solitary paper is introduced with the tea-urn and rolls, but certain restraints are laid upon the manner of perusing it : half the news is read the first morning, and half is reserved for the entertainment of the next. This frugal distribution in the parlour is, without doubt, adopted from something similar which takes place in the store-room. The mistress of the family dispenses the proper quantity of pickles and, preserves, and then locks the door till the following day. Our affairs in the East are settled at one time; whilst the burgomasters and the princess of Orange are left to their fate till another. Enough is read to furnish the family with subjects for conversation; and, as topics are not numerous, the thread of politics is spun very fine. Little miss wonders, when she hears papa adjust the affairs of the nation, that he is not a parliament man, and thinks that, if the king were ever to hear of him, he would certainly be made his prime minister.

There is (if the expression may be allowed) a