of smoke from the kilns. Whilst my cousin was half suffocated and half buried in rubbish, sir Maximilian Barleycorn and his lady came to pay a morning visit. They entered the cottage just at the moment when Mrs. Project was setting the boiler upon the fire, and her husband was paring potatoes. They were obliged to perform these offices for themselves, because the only servant for whom they could find room, had been turned off that morning for abusing carpenters and masons. Sir Maximilian hastily took his leave, and swore by his knighthood, "that apes were the lowest animals in the creation." My cousin had calculated, that as he burnt his own bricks for home consumption, they would not be subject to any tax. An exciseman undeceived him before the house was finished, by hinting that he had incurred a heavy penalty, which he was obliged to pay. He contrived, however, to keep up his spirits, by marking the progress of his house, and the improvements around it. Not far from the Venetian door was a horsepond, which the genius of Project enlarged into a circular piece of water. He requested his friends to suggest the most tasty ornaments. One proposed a shepherd and shepherdess upon a pedestal in the middle: another observed, that if farmer Peascod's gander could be placed in it when company came, they would give him credit for keeping a swan : a third, whose notion of things was improved by frequent visits to Vauxhall, was sure that a tin cascade would look very pretty by moonlight. Project, not liking to take up with one good thing, when four were to be had, resolved to adorn his water with them all. He soon after removed into his new

habitation, long before the walls were dry. An ague and fever were the consequence of this rash step. His fover was probably increased by Puff's bill, to pay which he sold the greater part of his estate. During his illness, he gradually awoke to a sense of his late imprudence, requested the forgiveness of his wife for not listening to her advice, and begged me to impress his dying injunctions indelibly on my memory: "Never build after you are five-and-forty; have five years' income in hand be-fore you lay a brick; and always calculate the expense at double the estimate.”

Q. KETT.

No. XLIII.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1788.

Rerum concordia discors.

SHOULD a Dutchman make his appearance as an opera-dancer, a Frenchman be presented to us as a bruiser, a German as a wit, or a Hottentot as a master of the ceremonies, we should be all ready to exclaim, They are strangely out of character. Frequently will this exclamation proceed from any one who is attentive to the language which flows around him, as he passes through the crowded streets of London. He will observe, not without some surprise, the bold and venturesome bargains of a mean and squalid-looking miser; he will hear the de

clamatory discussions of a political peruke-maker, and be disgusted with the technical vulgarities of a jockey lord. Let him transfer his attention from the conversation to the lives and conduct of mankind, and a short series of events will teach him not to be surprised, should he find inconsistencies as unaccountable, and as motley a mixture of heterogeneous qualities. Chance may discover to him situations wherein the fop becomes a sloven, the rebel a tyrant, the sycophant a churl, the patriot a courtier, and the libertine a religious disputant. He who is hackneyed in the ways of men is gradually familiarized to these incongruities. The frequent occurrence of what might at first amaze him, loses the power of exciting surprise when it loses its novelty. That which was formerly beheld with astonishment and aversion is at length regarded with fixed unconcern, or calm acquiescence.

The storms of the ocean were once terrible to the boy, who, now he is become a mariner, surveys them without dread, and hears them without complaint.

The incongruities abovementioned do not confine themselves to particular characters, but are so universally diffused through all ranks and denominations of men, as to appear not so much the mark of particular failings, as a general characteristic of our nature, a common ingredient in the human constitution, from the flippant levities of the boy too tall for school, to the serious and solemn trifling of the philosopher. Who has not observed the moralist deal forth his lessons of virtue to the world, while he declares by his conduct that he doubts the efficacy of his own doctrine? He extols the value of

time, while he suffers it to pass in idle complaints or fruitless contemplation on the rapidity of its flight. He can ascertain, with nice and accurate distinctions, the boundaries of virtue and vice; he can exhort us to the practice of the former with the volubility of declamation, or deter us from the latter by exposing it with the poignancy of animated ridicule. But it too frequently happens, that Cicero with the public is Clodius at home, and that in the armour of the Christian hero we find Sir Richard Steele. All the palliations which friendship could suggest to the biographer of Savage have not been able to hide from the world the imprudence, the folly, and the vice, for which he might be stigmatized, from his own writings.

Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam.

It is, perhaps, necessary, that for the duration of one good disposition of mind, another should exist by way of relief to it. Vivacity is a proper companion for Seriousness, Cheerfulness for Piety, and Condescension for Magnanimity.

-Alterius sic

Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice.

Such a contrast has a fine effect in the picture of the soul. It is a virtue in him who holds the most elevated situation occasionally to lay aside the formalities of his rank without degrading himself: for greatness. even if regal, must have its relaxations. The bow which is always bent loses much of its elasticity. The wisdom and exalted character

of Agesilaus did not prevent him from engaging in puerile amusements with his children. The virtuous Scipio and the sagacious Lælius diverted themselves with picking up shells upon the sea-shore. To draw an example from more recent times, the great Newton not unfrequently left the causes of the tides, and the eccentricities of comets, to play with his cat.

Such is the motley tablet of man's mind, that we see painted upon it not only the mixed colours of virtue and vice, but of virtues which assist, and of vices which increase, by supporting each other. Generosity disciplined by prudence makes its possessor liberal without profusion, and an economist without parsimony. It preserves him from the imputation of weakness by misplaced benevolence, and thereby furnishes him with the double power of holding out assistance to those who want it.

Although the mists of prejudice had gathered thick around Johnson when he became the biographer of Swift, he could not but vindicate his parsimony from the censure of meanness, because it was exercised only as the auxiliary to his beneficence. Generosity, indeed, may be considered as the projectile force of the mind, which would fly off to the most extravagant length, did not prudence act as a power of attraction to keep it within its proper orbit.

The same bosom is oftentimes distracted by the conflict of contending passions, totally different in their exertions, but alike baneful in their influence. Prodigality and avarice meet but to try whether the one can scatter with the wilder extravagance, or the other save with the more rigorous and unwearied