N° 65.

SATURDAY, AUG. 3.

Pace veftra liceat dixiffe, primi omnium eloquentiam perdidiftis : levibus enim atque inanibus fmis ludibria quædam excitando effecifiis, ut corpus encrvaretur et caderet. Grandis, et, ut ita dicam, pudica ora. tio non eft maculofa nec turgida, fed naturali juulchritudine exfurgit. PETRONIUS.

Allow me to fay that you have been among the first corrupters of the true eloquence: you have substituted, indeed a kind of mockery of it, while the real fubftance is perifhing. An ele. vated and chafte ftyle of oratory is not tricked out with cumbrous ornament; but recommends itfelf by its own natural beauty.

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N the courfe of thefe Papers fome pains have been taken to discountenance that false refinement to which the prefent age is tending, and towards which every age and nation inclines, at a certain period of its growth. But it is not enough to expofe that mock fenfibility of manners which has borne away the rewards of genuine feeling,-of that feeling which is too dignified to be loquacious.. There is alfo a mock fenfibility in the writings of fome men, that deferves all the ridicule which can be thrown upon it, as it falfifies the natural tones of virtue, aud debauches our relifh of the fublime

in morals. I have before remarked the alliance which fubfifts between tafte and morality; the truth is, that the one is rarely corrupted, without fome depravation of the other. He who ingrafts upon his stock of virtue folecifms in tafte, and diftorted ideas of elegance and beauty, however upright and pure his theory may be, will hardly escape continual abfurdity in his practice and deportment. There is a decorum in truth, and in every thing in which truth is concerned, that demands a certain severity of dress, and fimplicity of ornament; and virtue, methinks, has an honeft fort of language in which fhe loves to express herfelf, and which, though by no means preclufive of elegance, difdains that gaudiness of phrase and imagery which may be neceffary to meaner fubjects.

Religion and virtue are not always affifted by their bufieft friends; and there is an officioufnefs in some of their advocates which difappoints their purposes, and brings no honour to the caufe: of this number are those who are forever introducing their favourite themes, however little they harmonize with the subjects they are upon; or, when

their principal concern is with these facred topics, are perpetually degrading them with low allufions and comparisons, and laying under contribution to them the whole of the natural world in a strain of fymbolical enthusiasm. At the head of these raving philofophers, is the author of certain meditations upon tombs and gardens, one who could find a refemblance between religion and a raddish, or draw the fire of devotion out of cucumbers; to whom every thorn was the thorn of Glastonbury, and every bush contained a divinity; who could make up the ten commandments into a nofegay for the bofom, and fqueeze morality for a dozen pages out of a green gooseberry. I fhall'fuppofe this gentleman, after a visit to Covent-garden market, detailing, in a letter to a lady, the reflexions which oc curred to him on fo moving an occafion.

"After following my melancholy march among "the filent dead, and my gayer progress among "the garden flowers, you will not refuse me your "gentle fociety in a moral ftroll through this "inftructive scene. What a delicious confufion " of tongues! One might imagine one's felf at "the

"the building of the Tower of Babel: but who "can wonder, where there is fo much to nourish

contemplation, and to prompt the tongue, that "this most amiable part of the creation fhould " exalt their tones, and give a loose to those laud"able feelings which the objects before them in

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(pire? What a rich and varied repast here off.rs "itself to the thinking mind! In this view the luxury of courts, and the appointments of princes, "muft yield up the palm to yon loaded jackass, "that seems to fmile fignificantly as he trots on "with his vegetable burden. Approach, thou "venerable beast, for in those symbolical baskets "which grace your comely fides I read important "leffons of life, and a vegetable kind of philosophy

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fprouts up in my view. Jog on, my gentle "friend; and let it render your burden light, to "reflect that it is all inftruction which you carry. "In the mean time my thoughts shall ramble to "the place whence you fet out on your morning':

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progrefs, faluting the fun-rife with a bray of "exultation. And why should not the kitchen

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garden be as great a school of morality as the "beds of the flaunting flowers, or the filent fe"pulchres of the dead? Or why fhould I injure

"the

"the olitory, by feeming thus to doubt of its attrac❝tions? If the tomb and the grave prefent us "with wholesome mementos of mortality and re"vival, may we not find as ftriking emblems of "both, in thofe regions where what goes in a "dead feed, comes out a living cabbage? Shall

the vegetable tribes hide their diminished heads "before the children of Flora, fo long as the "mouth shall maintain its due pre-eminence over "the nofe? So long, too, as the bean shall rival "with its odours the choicest effences of the par"terre, while, on the other fide, the most unre"fined feeder would die of hunger amid the richest "exuberance of jeffamines and roses?

"But let me fpare my eloquence---for either "I am duped by the illufions of an enthusiastic "fancy, or yon artichoke, with its hundred ton

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gues, is raising itself on its ftalk, to plead the "caufe of its efculent brethren:---and even the "low-born and grovelling potatoe might, on fuch "an occafion, rife from its earthy habitation, and, ❝in a strain of native Hibernian eloquence, con"found the boldest orator in the courts of Flora. "And which could we select, among all these va"rious

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