disputation, in which it is difficult to avoid offending the self-love of many. To me it suffices to have shewn, that my assertion was not without foundation in truth, and that although restricted in time, and bound over to periodical labour, which is said to be impatient of the file, if it be not given me to aspire to the praises of elegance, I seek at least not to bely those of impartiality and justice. Till such time, then, as the contrary be proved, (not by vain declamation) but by facts, what I have already asserted will remain for ever true. "Che già da qualche tempo i migliori poeti, i migliori prosatori Italiani non sono di Toscana. Che questa veritá, dura ad intendersi pei Toscani, dee aver molto contribuito a far perdere anche al tribunale della crusca quella autorita di cui godeva ai tempi del Magalotti, del Redi e del Salvini, ultimi sostegni

della vostra fama fondata dall' Alighieri, dal Boccaccio e dal Petrarca.Il popolo di Toscano è quello chi in Italia parla meglio, i letterati quelli che scrivono peggio." If this last sentence should be the one which affords least pleasure to the Tuscans, they must know that it is not wholly mine, but that it proceeded long ago from the pen of one of their famous countrymen, even a founder of their Academy, the celebrated Lasca. It is thus he expresses himself:

La lingua nostra è ben da forestieri,
Scritta assai più corretta e regolata;
Perchè dagli scrittor puri e sinceri
L'hanno leggendo e studiando imparata.

With all due reverence both to the Academician and the Academy, it would have been difficult to express any thing more just and true, in more wretched rhymes.

Tom Brown, the Aretine of the last century, is now almost forgotten. The wit of his writings is so essentially allied to indecency, and the gaiety of his humour to profligacy, that, by pandering to the bad taste of a licentious æra, he has completely forfeited his claim to exist beyond his day. Yet certainly he was a writer of no ordinary talents. When we consider that the greatest part, if not all, of his productions, were written to supply his immediate necessities, and written, too, after the intoxication of the debauch, or in the sadness of returning reflection, we must be fastidious indeed to withhold a certain portion of praise. He was a scholar of no mean or inconsiderable standing, and wrote Latin with great elegance and facility. With his brother wit, D'Urfey, he contributed continually to the amusement of the town, not less by his various writings, than by his convivial powers of entertainment. To go to London without dining with Tom Brown or Tom D'Urfey, would then have been a solecism in manners, sufficient to make the visitation incomplete. Of the two, Brown was unquestionably the superior in wit and keenness of observation. He appears to have possessed some points in common with the unfortunate Savage. Like Savage, he was the hack of booksellers; like Savage, he was the enlivener and inspiriter of conversation; and, like Savage, from a disregard of the common maxims of pru

dence, he lost at once respectability of character and permanency of fame.With humour which Rabelais and Cervantes could hardly surpass, he lies neglected on the shelf, from which he is seldom taken except by those whom his impurity allures: an example how genius may be prodigally squandered, or irretrievably lost, in misapplication or subservience to ephemeral purposes.

For the reason abovementioned, his works do not present us many passages which can with propriety be extracted. His Table-Talk is, however, entertaining enough for us to wish it longer. There is an acuteness in some of the remarks, which evinces that Brown was not deficient in practical knowledge of the world, however little he might be inclined to put it to use. We subjoin a few extracts from the collection; and shall probably at some future time give our readers some account of his "Amusements of London and Westminster," one of the most curious records of the manners of his time.

Every church sets up for the best and honestest. The Pope succeeded St Peter, as Dr Gibbons got all his practice by taking Dr Lower's house.

A patriot is generally made by a pique at

court.

Nothing is so imperious as a fellow of a college upon his own dunghill; nothing so despicable abroad.

A man that gets a great estate out of a

little post, is like a man that grows fat upon matrimony.

It is a jest to think those that have power will not take care to support themselves against all that attack 'em.

How apt are we to flatter ourselves, and overlook our own infirmities? A drunkard thanks God he has no sacrilege to answer for.

The author of The Whole Duty of Man concealed himself; perhaps vanity in that. A woman that tells you she'll cry out, and a man that threatens to cut your throat, will both be worse than their words.

What signifies it, whether one is chosen by his tenants, that dare not refuse him, or come in by bribery?

The society of reformers, I am afraid, has made no mighty progress in the extirpation of vice; they have only beat it out of one part of the town, to make it settle in another.

It was observed, that when the apothecaries were soliciting for their bill that excused them from parish offices, that the weekly bills decreased considerably

To make a man out of love with soldiery, let him see the train'd bands exercise.

Men reward the professions that incommode them, as lawyers, &c., and give no encouragement to those that divert them; the reason of it is fear. Man fears to be damned, therefore bribes the parson; he fears to be sick, therefore keeps fair with the physician; he fears to be rooked out of his estate, therefore bribes the lawyer.

One that has advanced his fortune out of nothing, is sure to be plagued with his relations; for this reason a certain favourite in France used to envy Methuselah, because he outlived them all.

N was bred to the law, and had nothing to live by but that; yet he who said he was no lawyer displeased him not; but to find fault with his poetry was an eternal affront.

All governments in the world will take care to give the best outside to their affairs; in the late war, our gazettes never men tioned the loss of the East India ships, but took care to mention the taking a French privateer of two guns.

A man that seldom has money, takes care to shew it in all companies when he has it, and pays his reckoning before it is called for; we care not how deep we go when we are upon tick; when we pay ready money we are more frugal.

If we must have enthusiasm, give it me in perfection; this makes me love the Quakers, and made me see the downfall of the Philadelphians; Mediocritas esse non licet holds good, as well in a new religion, as a new poem.

Every thing, they pretend, has been so exhausted, that it is impossible to find any thing new; but this is a mistake.

Since the late revolution, our ministers invented a new system of politics, purely

devised by themselves, never practised before in any part of the world, and we hope will never be practised again.

Our divines have invented new measures of allegiance, and new salvo's for swearing; our projectors new lotteries; the ladies a new sort of tea; the vintners new names for old stum; the physicians and soldiers new methods of murder.

The Streights of Magellan may afford new discoveries, but religion hardly any; the Old and New Testament have been so unmercifully beaten up by poachers of all countries, that one can no more expect to start any fresh game there, than a tub of good ale at a country bowling-green, after the justices have paid it a visit.

Vice passes safely under the disguise of devotion; as, during the late war, French wine, under another name, escaped the custom-house.

There is more fatigue and trouble in a lazy, than in the most laborious life; who would not rather drive a wheel-barrow with nuts about the streets, or cry brooms, than be Arsennus?

Montaigne, in his book of expence, pu down, Item, For my idleness, a thousand pounds.

Though we have so many cart-loads of polemic writers, yet the world has not been much improved in knowledge by them; when the learned Isaac Casaubon was shown the Sorbonne, says the person who introdu ced him, There have been disputations kept here these four hundred years; but, replies Casaubon, What have they decided all this while?

A broken shop-keeper ends in an exciseman; a decayed gentleman in a justice of the peace.

A Pindaric muse, is a muse without her stays on.

He that puts on a clean shirt but once a quarter, opens his breast when it is so.

A wise man will answer an objection be. fore it is made. Trebatius, whenever he met a creditor, never gave him leave to dun him first, but was sure to anticipate him. Well, faith, honest friend, (says he,) I am to blame, but thou shalt have thy money next week.

There is not such a vast difference between peoples parts as the world imagines. A man is never ruined by dullness.

Men are affected with any loss, according to their different genius and temper; when a country fellow the other day was told that the Dutch had laid a great part of their country under water, he was only concerned at the loss of so much hay.

A certain man admired the wise institution of the Sabbath; the very breaking of it keeps half the villages about London.

I am sure you are a man of merit, says Philautus to Alcibiades, because you have been so often put by preferment. By my faith, 'tis my own case.

lution, instead of weakening the exist ing order of things throughout Europe, has had the effect of strengthening their stability. In the first rush of the deluge, and blast of the tempest, the enclosures, the shrubberies, and the pleasant arbours that surrounded the venerable edifice, were swept away; the ivy torn from the walls, and the standard broken on the tower; but when the storm subsided, and the devastation was contemplated to its whole extent, embankments were formed to controul the rise of future deluges, and new abutments added where the walls appeared weakest. Mankind have been taught by the horrors of that period, that the only right method for attaining political improvements, is by the genial influence of public opinion upon rulers, and that nothing but anarchy can be expected from any exercise in public affairs, of the brute force and physical strength of a nation. There are, no doubt, demagogues of a different opinion, and credulous and ignorant disciples of theirs, who think otherwise; but the great body of the people of this enlightened country are opposed to them, not only on theoretical principle, but by their personal interests, the criterion, after all, by which the utility or expediency of political changes are in reality measured.

On radicalism, I would simply remark, that when it was made the subject of legislative discussion, it ought to have been considered that the number of persons implicated, could not possibly be great in a national point of view; for, in the first place, the dis ease was confined to the manufacturing towns, where the suspension of trade, and the pressure of distress among the artizans, though not a legitimate reason for discontent, was a natural enough cause for insubordination. The distemper was wholly limited in its symptoms to the poor operative classes, and to those only who were engaged in sedentary employments. The millions of the agricultural population were sound and sane in all their feelings; the Englishman, on the generous soil of England, was uninfected with the French philosophy. Proud of the renown of his country's battles, exulting in the demonstration of her ancient supremacy over her old and constant foe, he never called in question the virtues of that system of go

vernment which had won so much honour and so gratified his national pride, though he felt in every limb the weight of the burdens, and the fatigue of the toil that had been imposed upon him in the struggle. He asked for no dissolution of the conseérated institutions of his fathers, but only trusted and expected that the same ability and wisdom which had made the British name the foremost of all the world, would be earnestly and speedily directed to lighten the pressure that was bending him down. In Scotland, the same feelings were as devoutly cherished; but among your wary and prudential countrymen the remedy for the public suffering was more clearly discerned. The machinery of the revenue is more simple among them. You are free from all those vexatious and mortifying spectacles which the English poor laws bring home to every man's business and bosom. The Scotch farmers saw that the rents which had been increased in consequence of the inordinate demands of a state of war must be necessarily reduced, and anticipated, from their inability to pay, a consequent reduction of rent on the part of the landlord. In Scotland, accordingly, there has been none of those shuffling attempts among the landlords to deduct from the poor-rates those abatements in rent which the times required they should make from their own incomes. On the contrary, I may venture to assert what will astonish many of your readers in this part of the kingdom, that since the Peace, a disposition has actually arisen among the gentry of different parts of Scotland, to favour the revival of that code of poor-laws which has been so long obsolete, in your parochial proceedings. With respect, then, to the radical epidemic, I think you must feel yourself in candour obliged to acknowledge, that too much importance has been attached to it, and that it is now quite ridiculous to suppose a few thousands of pale, lank, and famished weavers, with reeds in their feeble and emaciated hands, were ever able to overthrow the constitution of this great country, defended as it was by millions of the sturdy sons of the soil, headed by their hereditary and accustomed masters.

Upon the radical question I conceive the Queen's trial to have been productive of the most important con

sequences. Had it been possible to devise a plan to bring all the various ranks and classes of the discontented into simultaneous action against the state and monarchy, it was the agitation of that most inexpedient measure. Nothing could be more complete and perfect than the demonstration which it has produced of the insignificance both as to talent and number, of the radical faction. For even with all the aids of those who took the Queen's part, from mere sympathy at the sublime spectacle of a weak, poor, and despised old woman contending with the most powerful government on earth-with all the encouragement of those who, like myself, condemned the proceedings against her, both in principle and effect-with all the artifices of the Whigs, to convert that public disgrace to their own private advantage-with all the energies of desperate characters, that looked to public commotions as the only means of repairing their ruined fortunes-with all the exhortations of vain and insolent demagogues-with all the countenance of corporations in Common Council openly assembled, boldly declaring their abhorrence of a persecution that no man could justify, and with the example of all those proud and brave processions, whose innumerable banners insulted the faces of the very sentinels at the palace gates -the mean, wretched, starvling, and pusillanimous radicals, did not venture to make one single demonstration of manly hostility to that government which they had proscribed in so many resolutions, and at such numerous meetings," as one too intolerable to be longer endured, and which, by something that may now be almost described as a fortunate fatality, had embarked in an undertaking which set at nought the laws of God, and the opinions of man. The peaceable termination of the Queen's business settled the radical question. The miserable creatures will never again be of any political importance in our time. They may vamp up grievances, and disseminate their "twopenny trash," as long as there are ears to be annoyed, or they can find means to pay for paper and printing; but their power is departed, the frauds of their mysteries are exposed to derision, and their penny tricks, to buy scats for Hunt and Cobbet in Parlia

ment, is the last drivelling of craze and dotage.

But, sir, allow me to inquire why you continue to uphold their degraded cause? for such I contend is the natural consequence of representing the multitudes, who, either from persuasion, or a generous delusion, took the Queen's part. That the radicals did all, in their puny and contemptible power, to make her a handle for their own mischievous purposes, is without doubt; but that all those who took an interest adverse to the persecution to which she was subjected, are to be considered as radicals, is manifestly absurd, if founded on any process of persuasion, and wicked, if made with a view to represent the opponents of her trial, as actuated by disloyal principles. The trial was a measure which rested on special grounds, and some of the best and wisest friends not only of the King personally, but of the ministers politically, as well as personally, have not scrupled openly to express their sorrow that a question so pregnant with mischief to public morals, and with evil to the monarchy, should ever have been agitated. But where now is the wisdom of keeping alive the divisions to which it gave rise, by insulting the public principles of many, who in all other things have, perhaps, too liberally approved of the present administration? Wherein consists the truth or the justice of representing the evanescent apparition of a resistance to some score or two of soldiers, on the part of those who had cheered the Queen in her difficulties, and who had, with true English constancy, assembled to pay the generous homage of their respect to her remains,

wherein consists the truth or justice of representing such an accidental incident as the manifestation of some concentrated and organized system of defiance, having rebellion for its means and the overthrow of the state for its object? Sir, in that business every friend of the ministers who will frankly speak his sentiments, must confess that the order of the funeral was essentially absurd, and the result was exactly what ought to have been foreseen, and what ministers from the first ought to have allowed it to be. But it partook of the character of the whole course of the proceedings to which the ill-fated Princess had been subjected. It is a maxim of