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a blind nature which is perpetually modelling, and perpetually destroying the clay it has cemented; flowers will spring up from your grave; you will evaporate yourself with the perfume of carnations and roses; your particles will be diffused into the air, and will be mingled with the breathing of animals. Oh! would it were possible for nature to take you further from life; rather take a share in the composition of stones, minerals, or of that rough and inorganical matter, which seems to have the least conception of its existence. But I implore, above all, that you may not enter into the composi tion of man. Should that be the case, you will share our vices in participating our pleasures. Who knows the proportion that the hazardous mixture of principles will have allotted it? Perhaps an acrid and caustic bile would make you a cowardly Zoilus, a misanthropic Timon, or a fanatic Erostates. Perhaps an ardent or boiling blood would render you an incendiary Catalina, a Nero, or a Sejanus. Who knows whether the throne or the scaffold is allotted you? or, it is probable, since mediocrity in vice ever is the general lot of mankind, that you may be confounded in that multitude, which lives and dies without a name; agitated with arduous and frivolous cares, childish dissipations, or tormented with abject passions. If you were endowed with the sparkling of genius, what labour would be requisite to destroy the prejudices of birth and education! What trouble in the reach of truth! What contradictions in the practice of the possession! How dear would your fellow creatures make you pay for your superiority; how often you would require nature to abridge your task, and to relieve you from that labour which it imposes on organized matter!

A PEERAGE REFUSED!!

FROM THE LOUNGER'S COMMON PLACE BOOK.

THERE is an instance on record of a peerage being refused, however incredible it may appear to those worthy commoners and their ladies, who long to decorate their coaches and sedans with a co

ronet.

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In the reign of King George the first, an article appeared in the London Gazette, specifying that Miles Wharton, Esquire, was cre ated a baron, by the style and title of Lord Wharton.

From conscious personal worth, from habits of retirement, er

other motives not handed down, this object of désiré to so many, was, in the present instance, not accepted; and, in the next gazette, the following advertisement was inserted.

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"His majesty having graciously designed to confer the honour of the peerage on Mr. Wharton, that gentleman is duly sensible of his sovereign's goodness and favour, but humbly begs leave to decline the high honour intended him.":

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The gentlemen ushers and pages shrugged up their shoulders at so unprecedented a refusal, and independent of losing their fees, considered it as a contempt of court.

Yet the circumstance Irelate, proves that the minister had chosen a proper person to recommend to his majesty as a peer of the realm; I cannot but consider him as the fittest man for an elevated station, who from diffidence, innate worth, or from the nature of the services expected, has the spirit, the independence, or the modesty to decline it; "Præfulgebant Brutus et Cassius, eo quod amorum imagines non videbantur."

Those industrious levee-hunters, those assiduous attendants at the drawing-room and bed-chamber, so often successful in court intrigue, are frequently, and indeed generally, from frivolous manners, the least qualified of all men on earth, for the posts or employments they solicit; while the unhappy individual, formed by nature and education, for a due performance of any duties he may undertake, but untaught to smile, to flatter, and betray, is perishing by inches in some subaltern situation, or worn down with sedentary drudgery, the miserable substitute of a superficial principal, who is rioting on national wealth.

At a certain period of the American war, when our political ho rizon was cloudy on every side, who would have believed that we were to be indebted for extrication from impending ruin, to a naval veteran, pining, at the moment, in penurious obscurity, at Paris?

The feelings of my generous countrymen must have been warmly agitated by such a prophetic declaration! How great, then, would have been the general emotion, had the thousands afterwards assembled to celebrate his splendid victory, by illumination, song, and dance, had they been told that the conqueror of De Grasse, and the saver of our West India Islands, was superseded at the moment he was destroying the French fleet, and recalled from a decisive victory.

It ought not to be forgotten, that on this occasion the gallant

Rodney was enabled to return to his native country by the generous interposition and prompt liberality of a French nobleman.

But for the fortunate application of the first Mr. Pitt, when se cretary of state to Lord Northington, the chancellor, the venerable and excellent Lord Camden, might have lived and died up three pair of stairs in the Temple. "Can you procure for me a young man of sound knowledge in the law, of not very extensive practice, and I will make his occasional attendance at the office worth his while," said Lord Chatham, “ for I want a person of legal knowledge about me, that we may ACT CONSTITUTIONALLY.”

Mr. Pratt was recommended, found useful, and a friendship commenced, which conducted him to the highest honours of the state, and still continues unabated between their descendants.

AFFECTION AND AVERSION.

AFFECTON and aversion, as distinguished from passion on the one hand, and on the other from original disposition, are, in reality, habits respecting particular objects. The pleasure of social intercourse with any person must originally be faint, and frequently reiterated, in order to establish the habit of affection. Affection thus generated, whether it be friendship or love, seldom swells into any tumultuous or vigorous passion; but is, however, the strongest cement that can bind together two individuals of the human species. In like manner, a slight degree of disgust often reiterated with regularity, grows into the habit of aversion, which commonly subsists for life.

Objects of taste that are delicious, far from tending to become habitual, are apt, by indulgence, to produce satiety and disgust: no man contracts a habit of sugar, honey, or sweetmeats, as he doth of tobacco.

I

Dulcia non ferimus; succo renovamur amaro.
Ovid art Amand. 1. 3.

Insipido è quel dolee, che condito

Non è di qualche amaro, e tosto satia.

Aminta di Tasso

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These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in its own deliciousness,

And in the taste confounds the appetite :
Therefore love moderately, long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

Romeo and Juliet, act 2, sc. 6.

The same observation holds with respect to all objects, that being extremely agreeable, raise violent passions: such passions are incompatible with a habit of any sort, and, in particular, they never produce affection or aversion: a man who, at first sight, falls violent, ly in love, has a strong desire of enjoyment, but no affection for the woman. A man who is surprised with an unexpected favour, burns for an opportunity to exert his gratitude, without having any affection for his benefactor; neither does desire of vengeance, for an atrocious injury, involve aversion.

Violent love, without affection, is finely exemplified in the following story. When Constantinople was taken by the Turks, Irene, a young Greek of illustrious family, fell into the hands of Mahomet 2nd. who was at that time in the prime of youth and glory. His savage heart being subdued by her charms, he shut himself up with her, denying access even to his ministers. Love obtained such an ascendant, as to make him frequently abandon the army, and fly to his Irene. War relaxed, for victory was no longer the monarch's favourite passion. The soldiers, accustomed to booty, began to murmur, and the infection spread even among the commanders. The Basha Mustapha, consulting the fidelity he owed his master, was the first who dared acquaint him of the discourses, held publicly, to the prejudice of his glory. "

The sultan, after a gloomy silence, formed his resolution. He ordered Mustapha to assemble his troops next morning, and then, with precipitation, retired to Irene's apartinent. Never before did that princess appear so charming; never before did the prince bestow so many warm caresses. To give a new lustre to her beauty, he exhorted her women, next morning, to bestow their utmost art and care on her dress. He took her by the hand, led her into the middle of the army, and pulling off her veil, demanded of the Bashas, with a fierce look, whether they had ever beheld such a beauty? After an awful pause, Mahomet with one hand laying hold of the young Greek by her beautiful locks, and with the other pulling out his scimitar, severed the head from the body at one stroke. Then turning to his grandees, with eyes wild and furious, "This sword," said he, "when it is my will, knows how to cut the

hands of love." However strange it may appear, we learn from experience, that desire of enjoyment may consist with the most brutal aversion, directed both to the same woman. Of this we have a noted example in the first book of Tully's Memoirs, to which I choose to refer the reader, for it is too gross to be transcribed.

THE SCOTCH LAWS.

MR. EDITOR,

As Lord Grenville is about to propose to parliament some alteration in the laws of Scotland, a few observations on some of these laws may not be unseasonable.

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There are some peculiarities in them which are not only a contradiction to the principles of all laws whatever, but a disgrace even to common sense. It is generally an allowed maxim, that no ' question can be put to a man, which has an immediate tendency to condemn himself; and yet, in contradiction to this very maxiin which they have adopted, there is in some points a reference had to the party's own oath to condemn or acquit himself. This is styled the oath of probation," and is used in those cases when the other party has not proof sufficient to establish what he wishes. By all laws, and in all cases whatever, every man should be presumed innocent till he is proved to be guilty. In matters of right there is no such thing as a demi-proof; it is either entirely established, or not established at all, unless one can suppose there is such a thing as demi-truth, But notwithstanding this, when a certain degree of probability is inferred, the judge orders the party to swear, whether or no what his adversary alleges be true; and by that means either to condemn himself, or gain his point, by his own oath, in direct contradiction to another law of their own, which says, that no man can establish a right by his own oath,'

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If you add to this, the little credit that will be given to any man who is acquitted by such means, the temptation it offers for perjury, and the very easy opportunity it gives to every man who really may be guilty, of clearing himself with an appearance of honour, you will, I am sure, agree with me in thinking that nothing could be more absurd. An appeal to oath, like the ancient appeals to single combat, confounds the innocent with the criminal, and gives an equal power to them both.

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