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which is bounded to our own interests and concerns; and there is a sensibility which embraces all that pertains to man-which makes the cause of misery its own, dissolves with a stranger's woe, and drops tear for tear with the sorrowful and broken-hearted. Again, we may divide into two separate classes, those sensible hearts that feel unfeignedly for the woes of others, and interest themselves tenderly in all that concerns the happiness of their fellow-creatures; for there are who sympathise with every tale of distress, who love to dwell on topics of sorrow, and whose tears drop fast at a tale of affliction, but whose pity is only in speculation, and who make but few sacrifices for the woes they lament; and there are others again whose tears are few or many, and whose apparent commiseration is either much or little, but whose actions invariably point to objects of kindness and humanity, and whose hands accompany their hearts in every concern of benevolence or pity. Let such as come under this latter description enjoy exclusively their just though silent claims; let them not be confounded with fraudulent pretenders, who ravish the rewards without performing the duties; or with such as feel only within the circle of their own interests and connections; or with those barren sentimentalists who refine upon sorrows without relieving them but let them stand in their due eminence above the common mass of pity's advocates, and let their inheritance of praise be such as rightfully belongs to the eldest children of humanity.

After all, however, in our estimation of human actions perhaps it were better not too curiously to examine into their origin and motives; we have little else to do in this world, but with ostensible proofs and results. Whatever it is which keeps a man in the observance of his duty, or in the practice of be

nevolence, it is enough for us that the present purposes of humanity are answered; we shall account at a future tribunal for our secret motives, where all hearts will be laid open, and the depths of human counsels scrutinised and exposed. Among those whose hands are always open to human distresses, and whose actions seem to testify sensibility of soul, there are some, doubtless, whom the love of celebrity alone incites, and in whose bosoms a tacit bargain accompanies every act of generosity, by which they bespeak an equivalent of praise; others, by whose conduct it should seem that they conceive that they purchase a right to sin, by scattering their bounties among the poor, or consecrating their tears to suffering humanity; and some again, whose charities belong to no better motives than a mere mechanical impulse, or a certain bias towards imitation, or an imbecile homage to the fashion of the day. It is fair, however, to pronounce, that the charities of that man are not the fruits of his sensibilities, nor his public assiduities and liberalities the progeny of genuine feeling, when his wife deplores at home his indifference, his unkindness, or his tyranny, or his children bear testimony to the narrowness of his heart, that has induced him to withhold those opportunities and instructions which were requisite to open their minds to their better interests.

As the business of life becomes arranged, classified, and systematised in the progress of national refinement, and as inventions and improvements push themselves on all sides, till every thing is reduced to a science, we may observe, that even the virtues themselves are squared into rules, so that the practice of them may be learned by those who have but little of the spirit or essence of them in their hearts. A gentleman becomes a natural philosopher by.

purchasing a cabinet, and adopting the cant of the London schools; a house filled with paintings, establishes a connoisseur; a man is made a gentleman at the Herald's office much sooner than by the ordinary methods of education; and, not satisfied with manufacturing nobility of blood, we have contrivances for making men charitable, humane, and tender-hearted, without requiring them to possess these qualities in their bosoms: thus we have only to bestow in a certain way a certain sum of money, and exercise ourselves in a certain mode of declamation, to be considered as professors in the science of humanity. My projecting friend, with whose conversation I am seldom favoured, by reason of the multiplicity of business he has always on his hands, passed a day with me a fortnight ago, and was prodigiously struck with my idea of a school of sensibility, accommodated to the present state of fashionable feelings. He sent me, the next day, the following advertisement, intended for the public prints, in which some part of his plan is exhibited.

"Grown Ladies and Gentlemen taught Sensibility on “Mathematical Principles.

"The advertiser hopes for the encouragement of "the public, upon the strength of his long and labo"rious application to this most elegant of all arts, "which he has reduced to a system, that makes it

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easy to the dullest capacity. The principal ex"cellence of his plan consists in its being universally applicable, as it requires no particular constitution "of the mind, or habits of life, to qualify a scholar "to arrive at all its advantages. As the advertiser "is well aware that different kinds of sensibility be"come different characters and stations in life, he

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"will do his utmost to accommodate all ranks and "denominations, from the countess to the common"councilman. Any lady who may have occasion to "faint during the present hot weather, at any public "place, may learn of him the most natural and easy "mode of accomplishing her purpose. He flatters "himself he can give equal satisfaction in his hysteric "fits; and engages, in the course only of twenty "lessons, to teach a delicate embarrassment, and "gentle suffusion, to the most unbending set of fea"tures, and the most rigid apathy of countenance. "In the different modes of weeping, he is acknowledged to be an unrivalled master, by those who "have made trial of his abilities this way; he would "engage to draw iron tears' down Pluto's cheek.' "In the course of a twelvemonth, he pledges himself "to turn out of his academy such a tribe of snivel"lers, whimperers, sobbers, and blubberers, at our "funerals, charity-sermons, hanging-bouts, and tra"gedies, as shall raise a very sentimental uproar "through his majesty's three kingdoms. Young di"vines may be taught how to cry at any part of "their sermons, in such a manner as to overcome "the women and churchwardens; and the flourish "of the white handkerchief is reduced to general "rules. From a gentle dying-away to an agony of "sorrow, from a burst of compassion to a soft mur"mur of sympathy, the advertiser is consummate in "his art: and whether it is at Sterne's ass, or the "woes of Clementina; whether at the dissolution of

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a cock-sparrow, or the death of a husband; whe"ther his assistance is required by a fine lady or a "carcase butcher, a mountebank or an undertaker; " he will teach the most becoming modes of sensibility, and the most characteristic expressions of sor

4 row.

The younger part of his scholars will have

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"their heads filled with scraps from Sterne, and his "imitators; and such books as the Feelings of the Heart,' and the Tears of Sensibility,' will be con"sidered as classics of the highest authority. The boys will be taught to ask for their bread and "butter in a recitative, and return thanks for a "holiday in the most plaintive and desponding "tones. Thus much at present for the notice of his "scheme. A fuller explanation of his plan will be given with the proposals, which he has it in con"templation to publish in a few weeks. However, "in the mean time, to prevent any suspicion that his "methods of discipline are harsh and painful, and require an excruciating process to produce their "ends, the advertiser assures his friends and the public, that nothing beyond a common rod will be "used on the most indocile disciples, and that gentle "means will always be preferred, such as onions, "mustard, and the like, where these are sufficient to "exercise the scholars, and there is a reasonable irritability of organs. Any hints or communications "will be received with the warmest effusions of gratitude, and the most exquisite feelings of the soul, by

"PAUL PENSIVE, Heart-street.”

I have been always delighted with an anecdote of Louis the Fourteenth, which exhibits a delicacy of feeling in that monarch, not common among the great and powerful. As he was one day sitting in the midst of some of his courtiers, he undertook to tell them a story which should make them all die with laughing. Notwithstanding his promise, however, the conclusion was very insipid, and produced only a forced smile on the countenances of his hearers.

As soon he had finished speaking, the