as a sufficient authority for the conduct of their lives, and depend alone for advice on the caprice of their blood. I am fully convinced of the infirmity of our nature, and have not to learn, that to consult apart with its humours, is to take the enemy to council before we are aware. It is true we are told in the tales of romance of the disinterested disposition of ladies and cavaliers, of the magnanimity of Bradamant and the generosity of Roland. But the period of chivalry has long since elapsed, and we must now despair of perfection in these days of deneracy. I have thought fit in the outset to be thus explicit, lest some of iny readers should misconstrue my meaning, and pronounce me a disciple of that school of enthusiasts, who are overflowing with sentiment, but at low mark in principle. For they, too, expatiate upon the sublimity of their feelings, and affect to indulge them for the promotion of virtue. But with them and their refincments I have nothing to do; for I wish not by favouring the heart to enfeeble the morals. That effeminacy of mind, which disqualifies one for engaging in the business of life, but which is dignified by the idle with the name of sensibility, I am equally unwilling, also, to countenance or excuse. For it is ungenerous, under the pretence of being nicer than others, to refuse to divide those exertions, the advantages of which we participate in common. But more particularly, I would be understood in defending the heart, not to apologize for its irregularities in love. There are a few of my friends who esteem this organ as exclusively the property of Cupid, and his right to direct it indisputable and supreme. Now, though I regard his little Godship

full favourably enough, I am der cidedly of opinion that he ought, as well as some other dictators, to be carefully watched in the administration of his office; for most youths, from the sprightliness of their temperament, are naturally disposed for 'the commission of mischief; and, if chronicles are to be credited, the Divinity in question is as thorough a Pickle as any youngster of his standing. That he is not belyed there is little dif ficulty in believing, because his education has rested entirely with his mother, who, on account of the looseness of her character, to say nothing of her sex (no offence to the fair) is an improper preceptress for any lad in the world, and enough to contaminate half the minors in christendom. Far from recommending an unlimited obedience to this little Potentate of hearts, or a decided re

.nce on the advice of his mamma, I would counsel my readers to keep a rod in the corner for the correcting of both. It may ap pear, perhaps, indecorous in the Remarker to prescribe birch for the females, but, from some curious anecdotes which have lately transpired, he is disposed to pro-, nounce it a general specifick. In this instance at least, there can be no violent impropriety in recommending its application; for it is particularly fitting that parents should share in the mortifications which their misconduct had caused to be inflicted on their children. Yes, my readers may rest satisfied, that the defence of licentiousness in love makes no part of my plan. The torch of the young incendiary must be brought to the foot of the altar, and his flame be intwined with the steadier taper of Hymen, and, thus united, be as religiously kept as the fires that are yet burning in

There are many false lights in this world which we inhabit besides Jack-with-a-lantern or Willwith-a-wisp; but in the whole circle of ignis fatuuses there is none more mischievous than the little linkboy we speak of. Not contented like his brethren with misleading the unwary in the dark, he has set nations together by the ears, fired cities and navies, and occasioned more disturbance in his day and generation than all the Gods of the Greeks.

'Twas he that brought upon his knees
The hect'ring, kill-cow Hercules;
Transform'd his leager-lion's skin
To a petticoat, and made him spin;
Seiz'd on his club, and made it dwindle
T'a feeble distaff, and a spindle.

BUTLER.

Having thus far endeavoured by a careful explanation to establish an understanding between his friends and himself, the Remarker proceeds in his calling to describe the disadvantages that arise from this servility to the capital. To prove that he entertains no prejudice against this department of our microcosm, he has exclusively followed his judgment in being thus fully explanatory at the commencement of his subject. In asserting the claims of a favourite it is difficult to allow the pretensions of his opponent, to extend the province of the one without infringing the possessions of the other; to exhibit the ex-cellences of each, and acknowledge the deficiences of both. Keeping this in remembrance, the counsel for the heart, contrary to the practice of advocates in general, will endeavour to distribute justice to either party alike. But if he fail in the attempt, it must be attributed to the inability of his

In enumerating the evils, arising from this attachment to the head, it is natural for a writer to begin with the Hypercriticks; not as being, precisely, the most calamitous and striking, but because we are disposed to give precedence to whatever relates to ourselves, and to speak first of the difficulties, which lie next to our doors. That these phlegmatick animals have acquired their disposition, by continually puzzling their brains, and never consulting their bosoms, is sufficiently evident from this circumstance alone. It is well understood among anatomists, and I presume my readers are not to be instructed in the fact, that by incessantly tasking the understanding, the blood of our system is inordinately attracted towards the regions of the head, and that what was intended to communicate, by equal diffusion, healthfulness and warmth, is unnaturally consumed in a particular department. By these means it happens, that the finer mechanism of the brain is exposed to separation and decay, in a feverish fluid, in which it is immersed. Hence proceeds that insensibility so common in many scholars to the elegances and niceties in nature and art; to all that is picturesque and original, impassioned and pathetick. Those delicate implements, which are put in operation for the perception of sentiment and taste, are discomposed and disordered in their noddles, like the contents of an egg in the state of an addle. Hence, too, from this heated repletion of the intellectual organs by study, arise those dull exhalations which incumber the foreheads of so many over fed bookworms; who pore

and doze, and doze and pore, till their temples throb with application, and their senses like the Pythia's disappear in a smother; though without enlightening the world by the delivery of an oracle, and without the intervention of inspiration or prophesy. Lastly, in this way we may account for the existence of the Hypercriticks; their brains have become addled by perpetually jading them in the pursuit of imperfections, and never suffering a genial effusion to enliven their lucubrations. With empty hearts, and overcharged heads, they set about scrutinizing an author whom they want sentiment to relish, and measure his contents by the dogmas of the schools, with the same degree of deliberateness with which a mechanick employs his mensuration upon the dimensions of timber. They are ever seen siting absorbed in the contemplation of some mighty nothing, like an assiduous old tabby at the entrance of a mouse-hole, though their joy is in no shape declared, or their sessions interrupted by the purr of applause. All without them is disconsolate as a December's afternoon, and all within them equally barren and bleak. The small portion of wisdom which falls to their share, is continually beating about its tenement for a perch, or fastening on some little irregularity to mope and to hoot. Though Milton flash on them in all the glories of verse, they pause with your Bentleys to pick a flaw in his grammar. Like the critical cobbler, they would inadvertently pass over the exquisite proportions of the statuary, to detect the omission of a stitch in the seam of his shoe. Incapable of taking in the magnificent, they stoop by the seaside, with old Ocean at his highest, to trace the veins of a pebble-stone,

or decypher the amours of a muscle. They follow Art with the servility of lacqueys, and instead of making use of her only to become acquainted with Nature, forget the nautical oath, and take up with the handmaid, when they should carry the mistress. If you tell them of the natural sublimity, and vigorous simplicity of Shakespeare, they drop an icicle in your bosom, as it were, by some frigid remark, that the excellences of your favourite are counterbalanced by his faults, and that though his departure from the schools in many particulars may have brought him much nearer to truth, yet whereever he is unclassick according to them, he is of course an offender, and must suffer by the statute. Nothing will please them, nothing will do, but what bears to be tested by the level and rule; and a writer must be as prim and precise in his manner, as a young master in his maiden essay, or an attorney in his draught of a special plea. Obedience to the canons, obedience to the canons, is the thing, though the critical code is as unnecessary to true genius, perhaps, as the criminal is acknowledged to be to the exemplary and ingenu

about which we are treating, was once dissected in the course of anatomy by the fellows of the institution; in whom the appearances were so different from those of subjects in general, that it was resolved in full meeting to make report of the same, to be registered as monstrous in the history of dissection. By this account it appears, that upon opening the body the pericardium, or purse in which the heart is contained, it was found so contracted and shrivelled, that some doubts were entertained as to the identity of the part. Numbers were of opinion, that they had mistaken the situation of the fountain of life, and were inclined to believe with the Mock Doctor, that it quartered its streams in the right cavity of the chest. How long this persuasion suspended the lecture, or what learning was discovered in support of the same, unfortunately for the world, we are left to conjecture. All that the statement gives us to know respecting the operators is, that after removing the pericardium, with the doubts it occasioned, they expressed as much surprise at its contents, as had been shown for the membrane,in which they were contained. That interesting muscle,the heart, it seems, was so contracted and indurated,as to make it next to impossible to perforate it with the instruments for the occasion; and several went far enough to affirm, that during the dissection they conceited that it rattled. Wheth er this was the case, they were not assured, though, from the nature of the substance, they conceive it presumable. But what may better be depended on is, both the ventricles of this organ were so exceedingly small, it appeared a mystery with the faculty how the subject had existed. It is affirmed, incredible as it may seem, that

they resisted the insertion of the most delicate probes, and looked hardly large enough to sustain the vital functions of a sparrow. In raising the heart between the fingers, it was found to be heavier than any solid of its size, and to possess such a benumbing prop erty, as to communicate a torpor to the person that touched it. The pillars, walls, and in fact all the parts of this organ were petrified and colourless, and when held up in sections for examination, reminded the spectators of some specimens of marble. But, as the whole account of this muscle might weary our readers, and enough, perhaps, has been brought to support our position, we will just take a peep into the head, and then conclude with the college.

The state of this department was precisely the reverse of that of the heart. The vessels appeared here to be crowded with extravasated fluid, and the brain, instead of being either contracted or hard, seemed extremely distended and soft. The pineal gland, which is considered by Des Cartes as the seat of the soul (though we are of opinion with the ancients, that it resides in the diaphragm) was so astonishingly enlarged beyond its natural dimensions, that, had the wits of the man gone along with its growth, he might have been said to have sprung from the temples of Jupiter himself. addition to these peculiarities, owing no doubt to the enlargements we speak of, the sutures of the cranium were found evidently divided, and there appeared no ques tion in the minds of the physicians, but that the gentleman had been removed by a fit of the apoplexy. So interesting altogether were the appearances of the subject, that a committee was deputed to investi

In

gate his history, and report a summary of the same for the edification of the collegiates. From this epitome, which immediately follows the statement here given, we gather, how, several days antecedent to the one of his death, the deceased had been so immersed in the depths of meditation, as not only to neglect the calls of his friends, but to be unable to take either sustenance or sleep. The subject which interested his attention thus forcibly during this period, appears to have been, A Dissertation on the Elements of our Tongue; in which it is ingenious ly insisted, that the Alphabet has been reversed, in the order it now stands, and ought for the honour of letters to be restored to its native position; that A unquestionably was situated, originally, on its head, not on its legs, and that the deformity of Z proceeded from a hurt which it received at the time of the topsy-turvy, having fallen through a greater arch, than any one of the characters, with the single exception of its friend at the antipodes. For what term this captivating treatise might have occupied our student, or the glosses, additions, and amendments it would have received, unhappily for science, can now never be known; for on the morning following the final day of his incomplete labours, he was found stiff, by his attendant, in an old-fashioned arm-chair, the dormitory of his family time out of mind. Such, alas, is the effect of inordinate application, and the consequence of wishing to be wise at the expense of the heart!

But there is another and a more serious mischief attending this neglect of the heart, which induces me to alter my tone, and to deliver myself after a less trivial and fanciful strain. I allude to the grow

ing want of refinement in society with regard to the subject of marriage, or the fashion of suffering interest to determine the propriety of a connexion, which nature intended should be left to the affection. We are informed this covenant of old was regarded as holy, and that the heart was conceived to be conferred with the hand. But the ceremony now-a-days of tying the knot is considered by some parties as nothing more than affixing their seals to the articles of settlement. It is sufficiently mortifying to observe the influence of this spirit of speculation (if spirit it may be called) upon the operations of taste; but it is a more sorry sight to perceive it in prospect gradually chilling the source of domestick confidence and love, and checking in its spread the better feelings of the age.

Perhaps it may be thought by some that the Remarker is ascribing a disposition to the times, which has no existence but in his own ugly imagination, with a view of showing his readers with what dexterity he can quarrel with shadows. But the evil in question, though limited at present, is too evident, he fears, to pass among the imaginaries. Others, who have more philosophy than feeling, may charge him with affecting to be violently sentimental, and place him in the division of high-flying novelists: and, perhaps, with some shew of justice; for he is so tired of much of the common-place of life, that he has thought seriously of stepping forth in support of romance. Indeed, it has been laughed at long enough, and it is now time,he suspects, to be amused at the expense of its opposite. A little care must be used in exposing a foible, lest another of con trary cast take occasion to triumph.