of life; he died, a few years after he had quitted business, a martyr to that fortune which his wishes had formerly represented as the certain source of felicity.

Pomponius took a different turn from the persons I have mentioned. He was equally ignorant and uneducated as they; but, when he had acquired his fortune, as he had heard much of taste, of elegance, and of refinement, he resolved to be a man of taste. The estate he purchased had been the old hereditary possession of a man of considerable rank. Pomponius gave several years' purchase more than its value, that he might be possessed of the demesne of an ancient family, and have the pleasure of adding to his name Esquire, of -'When he came to live

6

But instead

at this estate, he found the old mansion-house must be pulled down and a new one erected. of trusting to the skill and taste of his architect, the plan must be his own. In this he heaped ornament upon ornament, and pillar upon pillar. The columns are large enough to have supported a Gothic cathedral; the inside is crowded with painted compartments; and every pannel and window is bedaubed with gilding. His fields are laid out in the most absurd taste. A clay-coloured ditch, which he calls a canal, made at an exorbitant expense, runs parallel with the front of his house; at each end is a circular puddle, called a bason, in which is a little bank of rubbish, dignified with the name of island. Not a walk but is stuck full of statues; and temples and grottos appear in every field. In showing you his grounds, he tells you the price of every statue; and every temple is honoured with the account of what it cost. Not satisfied with being a man of taste out of doors, he pretends to connoisseurship and to literature within. He shows pictures painted, as he thinks, by masters, whose names he has not learned to pronounce.

If doubts are started of their originality, Pomponius stops all farther questions by the mention of the sum he paid for them. His library has its statues like his fields; it is furnished with a profusion of bronzes and busts; and the books are as liberally gilded as the rest of his furniture. In talking of them (for he runs all risks to be thought a man of learning) he gets into the most ridiculous blunders. He mistakes a Greek for a Roman author; and to show himself a philosopher, praises a writer, in the belief that he is an infidel, when, in fact, his books are written in defence of religion. The other day, somebody happening to mention the World, he asked if the author, Mr. Fitzadam, was still alive, and if he had written any other book.

Drexelius and Clavius were miserable in the midst of their wealth; Pomponius is ridiculous in the enjoyment of his.

How much is it to be regretted, that these persons had not, in their earlier years, received the benefit of a liberal education! Had their minds been cultivated in their youth, had they then acquired the first principles of elegance and taste, they would have been enabled, after attaining a fortune, to have enjoyed it with propriety and dignity: while they were reaping the fruits of their honest industry and success, they might have been useful to others, and proved ornaments to their country.

S.

N° 107. SATURDAY, MAY 16, 1780.

And love and war take turns like day and night.

ROWE.

In every art and science, practitioners complain how often they are deceived by specious theories and delusive speculation. Learned men, in the solitude of their studies, are apt to imagine, that nothing which they can reconcile to their own ideas upon paper can fail to be evinced by actual experiment, or to be reduced into easy and constant practice. But those who are to apply the doctrine to the fact, too often find, that what was infallible in the brain of the demonstrator, is sadly fallacious in the hands of him who is to execute it.

There is something, however, so delightful in this art of theory-building, that the experience of a thousand disappointments will never be able to extinguish it. Nor, indeed, should any body wish for its extinction, when it is remembered, that the person who builds is delighted with the expectation of success, and that other people are often little less pleased with tracing the disappointment. The last are flattered by seeing the superiority of science thus levelled and brought down; the first solaces himself by imputing the failure to errors in the execution, and shutting his

N° 107. closet-door, returns to fresh theories, and new speculation.

In the course of my reading, I have met with two theoretical descriptions, which pleased me so much by the appearance they exhibited of self-satisfaction in the sages who composed them, that I cannot resist the desire of laying them before my readers in this day's paper. The first I found in an obscure author of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who, in tracing the progress of certain affections of the mind, thus personifies his ideas of Honourable Love.

'When a young man,' says he,' of illustrious descent, rarely gifted by nature in mind and body, the which he hath, through the care of his noble parents and his own special industry, much helped by art, first cometh from the retired haunts of learning into the resort of the world, he is suddenly smitten by the beauty and rare accomplishments of some young damsel, of parentage no less honourable than his own, and of endowments no less precious than those wherewith he himself is graced. He seeketh all opportunities of converse with, and of courtesy towards her; which nevertheless she, out of maiden shyness, whereof her lady-mother hath well instructed her, doth, with a determined stateliness of aspect, most constantly avoid; whereat the young man being grieved in his mind, but nowise damped in his love, he resteth not till by all means he render himself more worthy of her regard, not only by excelling in all gentleman-like exercises, such as dancing, horsemanship, skill in his rapier, and the like, but likewise in all becoming softness of behaviour, and courtly niceness of speech, adding thereunto the study of sweet poesy, wherewith, in curious sonnets, he speaketh the praise of his mistress's manifold perfections. But she, nowise yielding to such flatteries, nor abating the

rigour of her looks, he sometimes complaineth of his thraldom in more bitter terms, and for a while, as seeking freedom from this fair tyrant, shunneth her company, and resorteth to that of jovial companions, much given to the sports of the field, and the joys of wine, thinking thereby to efface her image quite from his mind. But after no great space, he groweth uneasy and unquiet, and though stoutly denying all allegiance to that dominion, whereof he hath sworn to be free, he goeth secretly where he can again steal a glance of her lovely face, by one look of which being, as he deemeth, encouraged to better hope, he reneweth his suit with fresh warmth, renouncing his past rebellion as a grievous sin, the which he is to expiate by tenfold increased love, Nevertheless she, willing to show her power, thus marvellously confirmed and increased, demeaneth herself as haughtily as before, and, haply, to punish his late treasonous lapse and falling off, seemeth to cast upon others more soft and favourable looks; whereat our lover, being stung with envy and jealous wrath, doth encounter the chiefest of his rivals with sharp and angry words; which growing into keener and more deadly rage, they agree to decide which is the worthiest by trial of arms; and having met, in some retired place, either on horseback or on foot, attended by their squires, a furious combat ensueth, in which the valour of both shineth out worthy of their noble birth, and of that love wherewith it is more especially inflamed and spurred on. After various turns of fortune, and many wounds on both sides, our lover doth, with difficulty, master his adversary, to whom he showeth no less courtesy in defeat, than fierceness in fight. After a time, having recovered of his wounds, at hearing whereof the lady hath showed as much grief and pity as beseemeth a modest maiden to show for man, he appeareth before her, his arm