(every one of which I take in) as food for my querulous disposition.

As I am unwilling, however, to discover to my family that I made no use of my pompous library, and read nothing but newspapers; and to oblige my grandson aforesaid, I have sent you a paragraph from an old author, in folio, well known in his day, which graphically describes the disease (for I am conscious it is a disease) under which I myself and many of my neighbours labour-that of grumbling and complaining, from morning till night, from mere habit and indulgence, or for want of something else to say.

The most important subject of our complaint, is the state of public affairs; for which, perhaps, there may be some reason: but, though I have lived threescore years in the world (from the days of sir Robert Walpole to Mr. Pitt's adminis tration), I never knew it otherwise.

I have been settled these thirty years on my estate in the country; but neither I nor my tenant, in all that space of time, have experienced one fruitful season, or hardly one seasonable day. We have been plagued with too much rain or too much dry weather: sometimes the frost has been too severe; sometimes the winter too mild, and the corn too rank-In a bad harvest we dreaded a famineIn a plentiful year we expected to be ruined by the low price of grain.

I go to the coffee-house at our next market town -I hear the same grumbling and complaints. In the winter," Bless me, sir, how could you ride over the Down this cold wind ?" In summer, "Are not you melted with heat, or choked with dust ?”

In autumn, "I am told it is a nasty fog." In the spring, "The north east winds will be the death of us." Thus that beautiful variety, which nature 'nas so wisely contrived for the benefit of the whole creation, is made the constant subject of murmuring and discontent.

I have a very good neighbour, who is an invalid; he has a small pudding made for himself, by a par. ticular receipt, every day of his life: I frequently dine with him; he grumbles the whole dinner-time about his pudding, but he eats it all; and his wife tells me he has done the same these seven years; but she never knew him leave a morsel of his pudding for the children.

If you were to see us with one or two more of our sociable neighbours, over a bowl of punch, or a tankard of ale, you would compare us to the children of Israel, weeping by the waters of Babylon, in their captivity-such a shaking of the head, and lifting up of hands! such gloomy presages and dismal inuendos! "Well, I say nothing; but if this weather continues, God send we may be all alive this day three months!"

But every one must see daily instances of such people, who complain from a mere habit of complaining; and make their friends uneasy, and strangers merry, by murmuring at evils that do not exist, and repining at grievances which they do not really feel.

But this is sufficient to introduce the character which I mentioned, drawn by Bishop Hall; and which proves, that the same evil has existed from the days of Solomon king of Israel, to those of one

who fancied himself as wise as Solomon, James the First, king of England-" It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he is gone away, then he boasteth." Thus it was in the days of Solomon: In James's reign, Dr. Joseph Hall gives this account of "The Malcontent."

"He is neither well, full nor fasting; and though he abound with complaints, yet nothing dislikes him but the present; for what he condemus while it was, once past, he magnifies and strives to recall it out of the jaws of time. What he hath he seeth not, his eyes are so taken up with what he wants; and what he sees, he careth not for, because he cares so much for that which is not.

"When his friend carves him the best morsel, he murmurs, That it is an happy feast wherein each one may cut for himself.' sent him, he asks, 'Is this all?

When a present is And what no better!' and so accepts it, as if he would have his friend know how much he is bound to him for vouchsafing to receive it.

"It is hard to entertain him with a proportionable gift. If nothing, he cries out of thankfulness; if little, that he is basely regarded; if much, he exclaims of flattery, and expectation of a large requital. Every blessing hath something to disparage and distaste it: children bring cares; single life is wild and solitary; eminence is envious, retiredness obscure, wealth burthensome, mediocrity coutemptible. He never is tied to esteem or pronounce according to reason. Some things he must dislike, he knows not wherefore, but he likes them not;

and sometimes, rather than not censure, he will accuse a man of virtue. Every thing he meddleth with he either findeth imperfect or maketh so." I am, sir, yours, &c.

B. GRAVES.

No. XXXI.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1787.

Ubi per socordiam, vires, tempus, ingenium, defluxêre, naturæ infirmitas accusatur.

Sallust.

IT is the common topic of complaint among moralists, that mankind is a vain and idle race; that we aim at attainments for the enjoyment of which our nature has not qualified us; and that we suffer those abilities which are entrusted to us, to be frittered away in mean employments, or to be eaten up by the rust of idleness. It is thus, that in general denunciations against human depravity, all persons at times indulge themselves; some gratify their pride by noticing the frequency of those failings, from which they consider themselves as exempt; and others find an opportunity of excusing their favourite follies, by placing those frailties to the account of human weakness, which are due to their wilful neglect of right, or their headstrong perseverance in error. They make little haste to repent

of those crimes, in the participation of which they see mankind so universally engaged, and fondly imagine that, in the general defection from virtue, the frailties of an individual are of small account. While we are thus willing to impose upon ourselves, apologising for our vices by arguments which only prove the general tendency to be vicious, every man contributes something to the increase of that evil, of whose bulk and growth every man continues to complain.

Successfully have the labours of those wise men been expended, who, by their zeal for the welfare of mankind, and their accurate knowledge of human nature, have been able to furnish the world with precepts of morality, which from their bre vity are easily committed to memory, and from their good sense and propriety convey their meaning to the minds of the most unenlightened. The lessons they have left are intended to instruct us in the duties we owe to religion and society; to excite us to virtue, by stigmatising vice; and to check the pride of man, by reminding him of his limited capacity. Yet the benefits thus conferred upon us are too frequently abused by cunning and designing men. The arguments which were intended to restrain extravagance, are wielded for the defence of covetousness, and each extreme of vice excuses itself by attacking its opposite. The son of avarice, thriving in his misery, has abundance of maxims, which he pours forth without relenting upon the votaries of heedless gaiety and unfruitful dissipation, who are content, in return, with urging the insufficiency of wealth, and the folly of those who seek it. Various are the apophthegms by which