guishing character; and if we can get this young woman into our family, we shall think we have a much better purchase than others, who, without her good qualities, may bring into theirs the greatest accession of riches. I sent sir Harry by last night's post the following letter on the subject: ་ DEAR SIR HARRY,-Upon our last parting, and as I had just mounted the little roan I am so fond of, you called me back; and when I stooped to you, you squeezed me by the hand, and with allusion to some pleasant discourse we had had a day or two before in the house, concerning the present mercantile way of contracting marriages, with a smile and a blush you bid me look upon some women for you, and send word how they went. I did not see one to my mind till the last opera before Easter. I assure you I have been as unquiet ever since, as I wish you were till you had her. Her height, her complexion, and every thing but her age, which is under twenty, are very much to my satisfaction: there is an ingenuous shame in her eyes, which is to the mind what the bloom of youth is to the body; neither implies that there are virtuous habits and accomplishments already attained by the possessor, but they certainly show an unprejudiced capacity towards them. As to the circumstance of this young woman's age, I am reconciled to her want of years, because she pretends to nothing above them; you do not see in her the odious forwardness to I know not what, as in the assured countenances, naked bosoms, and confident glances of her contemporaries. 'I will vouch for her, that you will have her whole heart, if you can win it; she is in no familiarities with the fops, her fan has never been yet out of her own hand, and her brother's face is the only man's she ever looked in steadfastly. 'When I have gone thus far, and told you that I am very confident of her as to her virtue and education, I may speak a little freely to you, as you are a young man. There is a dignity in the young lady's beauty, when it shall become her to receive your friends with a good air, and affable countenance; when she is to represent that part of you which you must delight in, the frank and cheerful reception of your friends, her beauties will do as much honour to your table, as they will give you pleasure in your bed. 'It is no small instance of felicity to have a woman, from whose behaviour your friends are more endeared to you; and for whose sake your children are as much valued as for your own. It is not for me to celebrate the lovely height of her forehead, the soft pulp of her lips, or to describe the amiable profile which her fine hair, cheeks, and neck, made to the beholders that night, but shall leave them to your own observation when you come to town; which you may do at your leisure, and be time enough, for there are many in town richer than her whom I recommend. I am, sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, 'NESTOR IRONSIDE.' IN compassion to those gloomy mortals, who, by their unbelief, are rendered incapable of feeling those impressions of joy and hope which the celebration of the late glorious festival naturally leaves on the mind of a Christian, I shall in this paper endeavour to evince that there are grounds to expect a future state, without supposing in the reader any faith at all, not even the belief of a Deity. Let the most steadfast unbeliever open his eyes, and take a survey of the sensible world, and then say if there be not a connexion, and adjustment, and exact and constant order discoverable in all the parts of it. Whatever be the cause, the thing itself is evident to all our faculties. Look into the animal system, the passions, senses, and locomotive powers; is not the like contrivance and propriety observable in these too? Are they not fitted to certain ends, and are they not by nature directed to proper ob jects? Is it possible, then, that the smallest bodies should, by a management superior to the wit of man, be disposed in the most excellent manner agreeable to their respective natures; and yet the spirits or souls of men be neglected, or managed by such rules as fall short of man's understanding? Shall every other passion be rightly placed by nature, and shall that appetite of immortality natural to all mankind be alone misplaced, or designed to be frustrated? Shall the industrious application of the inferior animal powers in the meanest vocations be answered by the ends we propose, and shall not the generous efforts of a virtuous mind be rewarded? In a word, shall the corporeal world be all order and harmony, the intellectual, discord and confusion? He who is bigot enough to believe these things, must bid adieu to that natural rule of reasoning from analogy;' must run counter to that maxim of common sense,‘That men ought to form their judgments of things unex perienced, from what they have experienced.' ་ If any thing looks like a recompense of calamitous virtue on this side the grave, it is either an assurance that thereby we obtain the favour and protection of heaven, and shall, whatever befalls us in this, in another life meet with a just return; or else that applause and reputation which is thought to attend virtuous actions. The former of these, our free-thinkers, out of their singular wisdom and benevolence to mankind, endeavour to erase from the minds of men. The latter can never be justly distributed in this life, where so many ill actions are reputable, and so many good actions discsteemed or misinterpreted; where subtle hypocrisy is placed in the most engaging light, and modest virtue lies concealed; where the heart and the soul are hid from the eyes of men, and the eyes of men are dimmed and vitiated. Plato's sense in relation to this point, is contained in his Gorgias, where he introduces Socrates speaking after this man. ner: Let us suppose a person blind and deaf from his birth, who, being grown to man's estate, is, by the dead palsy, or some other cause deprived of his feeling, tasting, and smelling, and at the same time has the impediment of his hearing removed, and the film taken from his eyes. What the five senses are to us, that the touch, taste, and smell, were to him. And any other ways of perception of a more refined and extensive nature were to him as inconceivable, as to us those are which will one day be adapted to perceive those things which 'eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.' And it would be just as reasonable in him to conclude, that the loss of those three senses could not possibly be succeeded by any new inlets of perception, as in a modern free-thinker to imagine there can be no state of life and perception without the senses he enjoys at present. Let us further suppose the same person's eyes, at their first opening, to be struck with a great variety of the most gay and pleasing objects, and his ears with a melodious concert of vocal and instrumental music. Behold him amazed, ravished, transported; and you have some distant representation, some faint and glimmering idea of the ecstatic state of the soul in that article in which she emerges from this sepulchre of flesh into life and immortality. 'It was in the reign of Saturn provided by a | possible, may perhaps reconcile them to the belaw, which the gods have since continued down lief of what is supernaturally revealed. to this time, that they who had lived virtuously and piously upon earth, should, after death, enjoy a life full of happiness, in certain islands appointed for the habitation of the blessed but that such as have lived wickedly should go into the receptacle of damned souls, named Tartarus, there to suffer the punishments they deserved. But in all the reign of Saturn, and in the beginning of the reign of Jove, living judges were appointed, by whom each person was judged in his lifetime, in the same day on which he was to die. The consequence of which was, that they often passed wrong judgments. Pluto, therefore, who presided in Tartarus, and the guardians of the blessed islands, finding that, on the other side, many unfit persons were sent to their respective dominions, complained to Jove, who promised to redress the evil. He added, the reason of these unjust proceedings are that men are judged in the body. Hence many conceal the blemishes and imperfections of their minds by beauty, birth, and riches; not to mention, that at the time of trial there are crowds of witnesses to attest their having lived well. These things mislead the judges, who being themselves also of the number of the living, are surrounded each with his own body, as with a veil thrown over his mind. For the future, therefore, it is my intention that men do not come on their trial till after death, when they shall appear before the judge, disrobed of all their corporeal ornaments. The judge himself too shall be a pure unveiled spirit, beholding the very soul, the naked soul of the party before him. With this view I have already constituted my sons, Minos and Rhadamanthus, judges, who are natives of Asia; and acus, a native of Europe. These, after death, shall hold their court in a certain meadow, from which there are two roads, leading the one to Tartarus, the other to the Islands of "the blessed." From this, as from numberless other passages of his writings, may be seen Plato's opinion of a future state. A thing therefore in regard to us so comfortable, in itself so just and excellent, a thing so agreeable to the analogy of nature, and so universally credited by all orders and ranks of men, of all nations and ages, what is it that should move a few men to reject? Surely there must be something of prejudice in the case. I appeal to the secret thoughts of a freethinker, if he does not argue within himself after this manner: The senses and faculties I enjoy at present are visibly designed to repair or preserve the body from the injuries it is liable to in its present circumstances. But in an eternal state, where no decays are to be repaired, no outward injuries to be fenced against, where there are no flesh and bones, nerves or blood-vessels, there will certainly be none of the senses; and that there should be a state of life without the senses is inconceivable.' But as this manner of reasoning proceeds from a poverty of imagination, and narrowness of soul in those that use it, I shall endeavour to remedy those defects, and open their views, by laying before them a case which being naturally N. B. It has been observed by the Christians, that a certain ingenious foreigner,* who has published many exemplary jests for the use of persons in the article of death, was very much out of humour in a late fit of sickness, till he was in a fair way of recovery. No. 28.] Monday, April 13, 1713. Ætas parentum pejor avis tulit Hor. Lib. 5. Od. vi. 46 Our fathers have been worse than theirs, Roscommon. THEOCRITUS, Bion, and Moschus are the most famous amongst the Greek writers of pastorals. The two latter of these are judged to be far short of Theocritus, whom I shall speak of more largely, because he rivals the greatest of all poets, Virgil himself. He hath the advantage confessedly of the Latin, in coming before him, and writing in a tongue more proper for pastorál. The softness of the Doric dialect, which this poet is said to have improved beyond any who came before him, is what the ancient Roman writers owned their language could not approach. But besides this beauty, he seems to me to have had a soul more softly and tenderly inclined to this way of writing than Virgil, whose genius led him naturally to sublimity. It is true that the great Roman, by the nice * M. Deslandes, who was a free-thinker, and had published a historical list of all who died laughing. He had the small-pox here in England, of which he recovered. room of kids and lambs, sea-mews for the lark and the linnet, and presents his mistress with oysters instead of fruits and flowers. How good soever his style and thoughts may be, yet who can pardon him for his arbitrary change of the sweet manners and pleasing objects of the country, for what in their own nature are uncomfortable and dreadful? I think he hath few or no followers, or, if any, such as knew little of his beauties, and only copied his faults, and so are lost and forgotten. ness of his judgment, and great command of himself, has acquitted himself dexterously this way. But a penetrating judge will find there the seeds of that fire which burned afterwards so bright in the Georgics, and blazed out in the Eneid. I must not, however, dissemble that these bold strokes appear chiefly in those Eclogues of Virgil which ought not to be numbered amongst his pastorals, which are indeed generally thought to be all of the pastoral kind; but by the best judges are only called his select poems, as the word Eclogue originally means. The French are so far from thinking ab Those who will take the pains to consult strusely, that they often seem not to think at all. Scaliger's comparison of these two poets, will It is all a run of numbers, common-place defind that Theocritus hath outdone him in those scriptions of woods, floods, groves, loves, &c. very passages which the critic hath produced in Those who write the most accurately fall into honour of Virgil. There is, in short, more in- the manner of their country, which is gallantry. nocence, simplicity, and whatever else hath I cannot better illustrate what I would say of been laid down as the distinguishing marks of the French than by the dress in which they pastoral, in the Greek than the Roman: and all make their shepherds appear in their pastoral arguments from the exactness, propriety, con- interludes upon the stage, as I find it described ciseness, and nobleness of Virgil, may very well by a celebrated author." 'The shepherds,' saith be turned against him. There is, indeed, some- he, are all embroidered, and acquit themselves times a grossness and clownishness in Theo-in a ball better than our English dancing-mascritus, which Virgil, who borrowed his greatest ters. I have seen a couple of rivers appear in beauties from him, hath avoided. I will, how-red-stockings; and Alpheus, instead of having ever, add, that Virgil out of the excellence of genius only, hath come short of Theocritus: and had possibly excelled him, if in greater subjects he had not been born to excel all mankind. The Italians were the first amongst the moderns that fell into pastoral writing. It is observed, that the people of that nation are very profound, and abstruse in their poetry as well as politics; fond of surprising conceits and farfetched imaginations, and labour chiefly to say what was never said before. From persons of this character, how can we expect that air of simplicity and truth which hath been proved so essential to shepherds? There are two pastoral plays in this language, which they boast of as the most elegant performances in poetry that the latter ages have produced; the Aminta of Tasso, and Guarini's Pastor Fido. In these the names of the persons are indeed pastoral, and the sylvan gods, the dryads, and the satyrs, appointed with the equipage of antiquity; but neither the language, sentiments, passions, or designs, like those of the pretty triflers in Virgil and Theocritus. I shall produce an example out of each, which are commonly taken notice of, as patterns of the Italian way of thinking in pastoral. Sylvia, in Tasso's poem, enters adorned with a garland of flowers, and views herself in a fountain with such self-admiration, that she breaks out into a speech to the flowers on her head, and tells them, 'she doth not wear them to adorn herself, but to make them ashamed.' In the Pastor Fido, a shepherdess reasons after an abstruse philosophical manner about the violence of love, and expostulates with the gods, 'for making laws so rigorous to restrain us, and at the same time giving us invincible desires.' Whoever can bear these, may be assured he hath no taste for pastoral. When I am speaking of the Italians, it would be unpardonable to pass by Sannazarius. He hath changed the scene in this kind of poetry from woods and lawns, to the barren beach and boundless ocean; introduces sea-calves in the his head covered with sedges and bull-rushes, making love in a fair full-bottomed perriwig and a plume of feathers; but with a voice so full of shakes and quavers, that I should have thought the murmurs of a country brook the much more agreeable music.' In order to look into any person's temper, I generally make my first observation upon his laugh, whether he is easily moved, and what are the passages which throw him into that agreeable kind of convulsion. People are never so much unguarded, as when they are pleased; and laughter being a visible symptom of some inward satisfaction, it is then, if ever, we may believe the face. There is, perhaps, no better index to point us to the particularities of the mind than this, which is in itself one of the chief distinctions of our rationality. For, as Milton says, Smiles from reason flow, to brutes deny'd, And are of love the food It may be remarked in general under this head, that the laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a faint constrained kind of half-laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them: but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world. I have often had thoughts of writing a treatise upon this faculty, wherein I would have laid down rules for the better regulation of it at the theatre. I would have criticised on the laughs now in vogue, by which our comic writers might the better know how to transport an audience into this pleasing affection. I had set apart a chapter for a dissertation on the talents of some of our modern comedians; and as it was the manner of Plutarch to draw comparisons of his heroes and orators, to set their actions and eloquence in a fairer light; so I would have made the parallel of Pinkethman, Norris, and Bullock; and so far shown their different methods of raising mirth, that any one should be able to distinguish whether the jest was the poet's or the actor's. As the playhouse affords us the most occasions of observing upon the behaviour of the face, it may be useful (for the direction of those who would be critics this way) to remark, that the virgin ladies usually dispose themselves in the front of the boxes, the young married women compose the second row, while the rear is generally made up of mothers of long standing, undesigning maids, and contented widows. Whoever will cast his eye upon them under this view, during the representation of a play, will find me so far in the right, that a double entendre strikes the first row into an affected gravity, or careless indolence, the second will venture at a smile, but the third take the conceit entirely, and express their mirth in a downright laugh. When I descend to particulars, I find the reserved prude will relapse into a smile at the extravagant freedoms of the coquette; the coquette in her turn laughs at the starchness and awkward affectation of the prude; the man of letters is tickled with the vanity and ignorance of the fop; and the fop confesses his ridicule at the unpoliteness of the pedant. smile. Her lips are composed with a primnes peculiar to her character, all her modesty seem collected into her face, and she but very rarely takes the freedom to sink her cheek into dimple. The young widow is only a Chian for a time her smiles are confined by decorum, and she is obliged to make her face sympathize with her habit; she looks demure by art, and by the strictest rules of decency is never allowed the smile till the first offer or advance towards her is over. The effeminate fop, who, by the long exercise of his countenance at the glass, hath reduced it to an exact discipline, may claim a place in this clan. You see him upon any occasion, to give spirit to his discourse, admire his own elo quence by a dimple. The Ionics are those ladies that take a greater liberty with their features; yet even these may be said to smother a laugh, as the former to stifle a smile. The beau is an Ionic out of complaisance, and practises the smile the better to sympathize with the fair. He will sometimes join in a laugh to humour the spleen of a lady, or applaud a piece of wit of his own, but always takes care to confine his mouth within the rules of good breeding; he takes the laugh from the ladies, but is never guilty of so great an indecorum as to begin it. The Ionic laugh is of universal use to men of power at their levees; and is esteemed by ju I fancy we may range the several kinds of dicious place-hunters a more particular mark laughers under the following heads: The Dimplers. The Smilers. The Laughers. The Grinners. The dimple is practised to give a grace to the features, and is frequently made a bait to entangle a gazing lover; this was called by the ancients the Chian laugh. The smile is for the most part confined to the fair sex, and their male retinue. It expresses our satisfaction in a silent sort of approbation, doth not too much disorder the features, and is practised by lovers of the most delicate address. This tender motion of the physiognomy the ancients called the Ionic laugh. The laugh among us is the common Risus of the ancients. The grin by writers of antiquity is called the Syncrusian; and was then, as it is at this time, made use of to display a beautiful set of teeth. The horse-laugh, or the Sardonic, is made use of with great success in all kinds of disputation. The proficients in this kind, by a welltimed laugh, will baffle the most solid argument. This upon all occasions supplies the want of reason, is always received with great applause in coffee-house disputes; and that side the laugh joins with, is generally observed to gain the better of his antagonist, The prude hath a wonderful esteem for the Chian laugh or dimple: she looks upon all the other kinds of laughter as excesses of levity; and is never seen upon the most extravagant jests, to disorder her countenance with the ruffle of a of distinction than the whisper. A young gentleman of my acquaintance valued himself upon his success, having obtained this favour after the attendance of three months only. A judicious author, some years since, pub lished a collection of sonnets, which he very successfully called, Laugh and be Fat; or, Pills to purge Melancholy: I cannot sufficiently admire the facetious title of these volumes, and must censure the world of ingratitude, while they are so negligent in rewarding the jocose labours of my friend Mr. D'Urfey, who was so large a contributor to this treatise, and to whose humourous productions so many rural squires in the remotest parts of this island are obliged for the dignity and state which corpulency gives them. The story of the sick man's breaking an imposthume by a sudden fit of laughter, is too well known to need a recital. It is my opinion, that the above pills would be extremely proper to be taken with asses' milk, and mightily contribute towards the renewing and restoring decayed lungs. Democritus is generally repre sented to us as a man of the largest size, which we may attribute to his frequent exercise of his risible faculty. I remember Juvenal says of him, Perpetuo risu pulmonum agitare solebat.-Sat. x. 33. He shook his sides with a perpetual laugh. That sort of man whom a late writer has called the Butt, is a great promoter of this healthful agitation, and is generally stocked with so much good humour, as to strike in with the gayety of conversation, though some innocent blunder of his own be the subject of the raillery. I shall range all old amorous dotards under the denomination of Grinners; when a young blooming wench touches their fancy, by an en- | I come now to the English, whom I shall treat deavour to recall youth into their cheeks, they with such meekness as becomes a good patriot; immediately overstrain their muscular features, and shall so far recommend this our island as and shrivel their countenance into this frightful a proper scene for pastoral, under certain regumerriment. lations, as will satisfy the courteous reader that I am in the landed interest. The wag is of the same kind, and by the same artifice labours to support his impotence of wit: but he very frequently calls in the horselaugh to his assistance. There are another kind of grinners, which the ancients call Megarics;, and some moderns have, not injudiciously, given them the name of the Sneerers. These always indulge their mirth at the expense of their friends, and all their ridicule consists in unseasonable ill-nature. I could wish these laughers would consider, that let them do what they can, there is no laughing away their own follies by laughing at other people's. I must in the first place observe, that our countrymen have so good an opinion of the ancients, and think so modestly of themselves, that the generality of pastoral writers have either stolen all from the Greeks and Romans, or so servilely imitated their manners and customs, as makes them very ridiculous. In looking over some English pastorals a few days ago, I perused at least fifty lean flocks, and reckoned up a hundred left-handed ravens, besides blasted oaks, withering meadows, and weeping deities. Indeed most of the occasional pastorals we have, are built upon one and the same plan. A shepherd asks his fellow, 'Why he is so pale? if his favourite sheep hath strayed? if his pipe be broken? or Phyllis unkind?' He answers, 'None of these misfortunes have befallen him, The coquette hath a great deal of the Mega- but one much greater, for Damon (or sometimes ric in her; but, in short, she is a proficient in the god Pan) is dead.' This immediately causes laughter, and can run through the whole exer- the other to make complaints, and call upon the cise of the features; she subdues the formal lofty pines and silver streams to join in the lalover with the dimple, accosts the fop with the mentation. While he goes on, his friend intersmile, joins with the wit in the downright rupts him, and tells him that Damon lives, and laugh, to vary the air of her countenance fre- shows him a track of light in the skies to con quently rallies with the grin, and when she has firm it; then invites him to chesnuts and cheese. ridiculed her lover quite out of his understand-Upon this scheme most of the noble families in ing, to complete his misfortunes, strikes him dumb with the horse-laugh. The mirth of the tea-table is for the most part Megaric; and in visits the ladies themselves very seldom scruple the sacrificing a friendship to a laugh of this denomination. The horse-laugh is a distinguishing characteristic of the rural hoyden, and it is observed to be the last symptom of rusticity that forsakes her under the discipline of the boarding-school. Punsters, I find, very much contribute towards the Sardonic, and the extremes of either wit or folly seldom fail of raising this noisy kind of applause. As the ancient physicians held the Sardonic laugh very beneficial to the lungs; I should, methinks, advise all my countrymen of consumptive and hectical constitutions to associate with the most facetious punsters of the age. Persius hath very elegantly described a Sardonic laugher in the following line, Ingeminat tremulos naso crispante cachinnos. Sat. iii. 87. Redoubled peals of trembling laughter bursts, Convulsing every feature of the face. Laughter is a vent of any sudden joy that strikes upon the mind, which being too volatile and strong, breaks out in this tremor of the voice. The poets make use of this metaphor when they would describe nature in her richest dress, for beauty is never so lovely as when adorned with the smile, and conversation never sits easier upon us, than when we now and then discharge ourselves in a symphony of laughter, which may not improperly be called, The Chorus of Conversation. Great Britain have been comforted; nor can I meet with any right honourable shepherd that doth not die and live again, after the manner of the aforesaid Damon. Having already informed my reader wherein the knowledge of antiquity may be serviceable, I shall now direct him where he may lawfully deviate from the ancients. There are some things of an established nature in pastoral, which are essential to it, such as a country scene, innocence, simplicity. Others there are of a changeable kind, such as habits, customs, and the like. The difference of the climate is also to be considered, for what is proper in Arcadia, or even in Italy, might be very absurd in a colder country. By the same rule, the difference of the soil, of fruits, and flowers, is to be observed. And in so fine a country as Britain, what occasion is there for that profusion of hyacinths and Pæstan roses, and that cornucopia of foreign fruits which the British shepherds never heard of? How much more pleasing is the following scene to an English reader ! "This place may seem for shepherds' leisure made, The theology of the ancient pastoral is so very pretty, that it were pity entirely to change it; but I think that part only is to be retained which is universally known, and the rest to be |