second) in behalf of the perse- After having subdued or mi tigated his sectarian disturbers, De Corro died at a ripe old age; but his domestic life is said to have been far from tranquil. The Catholics, probably irritated by his desertion, insisted that this was a punishment in flicted by Heaven for his heresy, and in kind. "The first step the renegado took," said his enemies, "after he had plunged into the mire of heresy, was taking a wife, who proved unfaithful, and like the daughter he had by her, was neither pure nor peaceable. " If the enemies of the Spaniard were right in the origin from which they deduced his connubial misfortune, we have in modern times witnessed with regret, but I fear without edification, a great number of such celestial punishments. been of his opinion: among these he generally mentioned Doctor Fowler, bishop of Gloucester in the early part of the eighteenth century; of that prelate the following conversation with judge Powell is recorded on good authority': "Since I saw you,” said the lawyer, a humourist as well as a worthy man, who had often attacked the opinions of the prelate, since I saw you I have had ocular demonstration of the existence of nocturnal apparitions." An "I am glad, Mr. Justice, you are become a convert to truth; but do you say actual ocular demonstration? Pray let me know the particulars of the story at large." 66 My lord, I will. It was, let me see, last Thursday night, between the hours of eleven and twelve, but nearer the latter than the former, as I lay sleeping in my bed, I was suddenly awakened by an uncommon noise, and heard something coming up stairs and stalking directly towards my room; the door flying open, I drew back my PPARITIONS.-When curtain, and saw a faint glimDoctor Johnson was rallied for his faith in ghosts, he used to call over the names of the various eminent characters, who at different periods had APPARITIONS.-When mering light enter my chamber." "Of a blue colour no doubt.” "The light was of a pale blue, my lord, and followed by a tall meagre personage, his locks hoary hoary with age, and cloathed in a long loose gown, a leathern girdle was about his loins, his beard thick and grizly, a large fur cap on his head, and a long staff in his hand. Struck with frequented a circle graced with beauty and enlivened by wit, which sometimes sparkled at the expence of good nature: maiden aunts and batchelor uncles with ghastly disinheriting countenan astonishment, I remained forces, were often the subject of loud some time motionless and silent; the figure advanced, staring me full in the face: I then said • Whence and what art thou;' the following was the answer I received "I am watchman of the night, an't please your honour, and made bold to come up stairs to inform the family of their street door being left open, and that if it was not soon shut they would probably be robbed before morning." Doctor Fowler seized his hat and departed. laughter and satirical raillery. After joining in the laugh, for at Rome we must do as the Romans do, and silently acknowledging the self-evident proposition, that a father or an uncle who does not give up his own comforts and the soothers of declining age to a jolly fellow who understands the true art to live at Bath, Newmarket, and St. James's-street, must be a miserly dog, a dry flinty-hearted old rascal, and like a certain quadruped good only when dead; after listening alternately to coarse abuse and unfounded as AVARICE, called by a late sertion, the writer of this article writer, and in a way peculiarly his own, a damned ill-natured hateful vice, which it certainly is; but while we acknowledge this truism, let us take care to be correct in our application of it, let us be sure that the cases in which, and the persons on whom, we bestow harsh and degrading epithets, actually deserve them. More than one reason occurs for introducing the present article; the editor having lately retired to a favourite path preserved almost in the face of impossibility from the sea. He reflected on what he had heard and seen, and whilst his heart, heavy laden, performed its office with difficulty, the spirit (I mean of perverted truth and tongue-tied common sense) the spirit gave him utterance, and he poured forth in his usual tone and emphasis the language of Young, Otway, Shakespear, and though last not least, the pathetic and and impressive Cowper, occasionally interposing the masterly felicities of Horace, and the tierce satire of Juvenal; the roaring wind, stupendous waves, and a lofty cliff with projecting rocks,, and broken fragments, formed at the same time a scene perfectly in unison with the state of his mind. But to quit this poetry, or prose run mad, a slight sketch of the private history of two of the persons, who formed part of the joyous circle he had quitted, will elucidate the truths meant to be enforced. The principal female who led the chorus, considering a stroke of the palsy with which her father had been just smitten as a signal for departure, had chosen the moment for travelling across the country to make a distant visit, and left a parent, who had put himself to pecuniary difficulties to finish her education and contribute to her pleasures, in the hands of servants and mercenaries. The hero who performed the principal part, as gentleman, in the piece, having dissipated his paternal inheritance, subsisted wholly on the bounty of a maternal uncle, who after passing the best part of his life in an with a fortune the produce of honest industry, and little more than sufficient to administer to the comfort and tranquillity of declining age. The crime, the never to be forgiven crime this unnatural uncle had committed, was making it a condition annexed to the allowance he made the gentleman, that he should not visit London, Bath, or Newmarket; well aware that his nephew had formed connections and contracted habits in those places, wholly incompatible with a small income, and which had already involved the gentleman in two uncreditable embarrassments for this abominable conduct, of course the unnatural uncle with his d-d disinheriting visage, was a surly old dog, a miserly flinty-hearted old rascal, and the sooner he was dead the better. In one respect I agree that the uncle was highly culpable, as I have often told him, for making the gentleman any allowance at all; in such case he would have persisted in his highway frolics, have been hanged, and the world as well as his family have been rid of an intolerable nuisance. unhealthy climate had returned BAYLE, a French refugee, to his native country to die, VOL, IV. author of the critical and historical historical dictionary, a work overflowing with learning and information, but not without a large portion of matter highly exceptionable and repugnant to morality, religion and taste. I address the present article to those private gentlemen and public bodies in various parts of Great Britain and Ireland, who possess libraries and large collections of books; I earnestly request of them, if Bayle and other books of a similar de-. scription must have a shelf, I request that they would let them be kept under lock and key. I have at different times been permitted, and in various parts of the kingdom, to visit many libraries, and at an early hour of the day, when the greater part of the family had not quitted their beds; but I have repeatedly found children, children, servants and young women, perusing with avidity books, which no good father or prudent man would put into the hands of his children. The English translation Bayle was in general the favourite, and in every library I have yet seen, the leaves of this work, particularly those where the obnoxious and indecorous articles occurred, bore evident marks of having been often turned over by fingers like the imagination of that singular writer, not very clean. of It is by no means my wish to restore that old papistic tyranny in literature, an index expurgatorious; but I appeal to parents, guardians, and the many worthy persons engaged in educating the rising generation, whether it is right, safe, or expedient to display to young minds and fervid imaginations in gaudy colours and seducing language, loose infidelity and lascivious description, which I am convinced (and I speak from experirience) have done considerable and irreparable mischief; because paper once blotted, whatever pains we take never can be restored to its original whiteness, nor will a mind depraved in early life by bad company and improper books, ever recover its first purity. The theory of Mr. Bayle, with all his great powers and extensive reading, cannot be defended on any ground of philosophical indifference, toleration, utility, or expedience. His opinion in one point is evident, from a favourite quotation which he makes more than once from Minucius Felix, castitas enim tutior, sed impudicitia, felicior. He who is persuaded to march in the path of duty from no other motive than its safety, but is at the same time told that an excursion from the right road is pleasanter, pleasanter, will in all human probability soon try the experiment. In a word, the Dictionary of Bayle is amusing, and on subjects of general criticism, instructive; but his metaphysic disquisitions are dangerous, and his work communicates none of that true wisdom which makes us better here and happier hereafter. BLUSE LUSHING HONORS.It was observed in a late reign of a gentleman, on whom a minor dignity had been conferred, that his chairs, spoons, harness, and every implement and domestic utensil, to which it could be attached by the painter or the engraver, had received this additional decoration, only a few hours after he had himself been embellished. On this occasion, a wicked wit applied an epigram written by a modern Latin poet, with a few alterations, but I think in vitiated measure. Judai nostri florentis nomen honoris Indicat in clypei fronte cruenta manus. Non quod saevus aliquid, aut stricto fortiter ensé, Hostibus occisis ducebat iste co hortem: Præputio exciso rubebat dextra parentis. The father or grandfather of the person satirized had been a Jewish priest. BOARDING SCHOOLS. It is the observation of a writer who says many good things, but carries them generally too far, "that the innumerable places of this description for both sexes are among the greatest abuses of the age; this he thinks obvious from the little improvement children make, and the vices they acquire. "The manners of young women,, who have been educated at a boarding school, are SO strongly marked, as to prevent our mistaking them in any company, or any situation of life; indeed they require not a comment, they speak loudly for themselves daily and hourly, and as loudly call for a different mode of education. "The rearing and instruction of boys, though not carried off with so much assurance, equally tend to perverted morals and ruin. "There is one argument, ir Terrorem infantum madidum et resistible to parents who wish sanguine cultrem their sons to make a figure, which school-masters never forget; it D 2 is |