N° 93, TUESDAY, March 28, 1780.

Parva leves capiunt animos.

OVID.

HAT life confifts, in a great measure, of

THA

trifling occurrences and little occupations, there needs no uncommon fagacity or attention to discover. Notwithstanding the importance we are apt to ascribe to the employments and the time, even of the greatest and most illuftrious, were we to trace fuch perfons to the end of their labours and the clofe of their pursuits, we should frequently difcover, that trifles were the folace of the one, and the purpofe of the other. Public bufinefs and political arrangement are often only the constrained employments to which accident or education has de-voted their hours, while their willing moments are deftined, perhaps, to light amufements and to careless mirth.

It is not, then, furprifing, that trifles fhould form the chief gratification of ordinary men, on whom the Public has no claim, and individuals have little dependence. But, of thofe trifles, the nature will commonly mark the man, as much as circumstances of greater importance. A mind capable of high exertion or delicate fen

timent,

timent, will stoop with a certain consciousness of its descent, that will not allow it to wanton into abfurdity, or fink into groffness. There is, in fhort, a difference, which fenfe and feeling will not eafily forget, between the little and the mean, the fimple and the rude, the playful and the foolish.

But the fureft mark of a weak mind is an' affectation of importance amidst the enjoyment of trifles, a buftle of serious bufinefs amidft the moft infignificant concerns. The bringing forward of little things to the rank of great ones, is the true burlesque in character as well as in ftyle; yet fuch characters are not uncommon, even among men who have acquired fome eftimation in the world. In this particular, the world is easily deceived; dulnefs may often ape folemnity, and arrogate importance, where brighter talents would have drawn but little' regard; as objects are magnified by miits, and made awful by darkness.

Of a character of this fort I received, fome time ago, the following fketch from a young lady, who fometimes honours me with her correspondence, whose vivacity can give interest to trifles, and entertainment to abfurdity.

Dear SIR,

YOU made me promife, on leaving town,

that I would write to you whenever the country afforded any thing worth writing about. The country, at prefent, merely as country, prefents no landscape, but one undiftinguished tract of fnow; vegetation is locked up in froft, and we are locked up within doors; but fomething might be traced within doors, had I a good pencil for the purpose.-Mine hoft, of whom you have heard a good deal, is no bad fubject: Suppose I make him fit for his picture.

Believe me, he is not quite the fenfible intelligent man we were told he was.-So much the better, I like oddities-even now and then in town; ftill better in the country; but in frost. and fnow, and all the dreary confinement of winter,-Oh! your battledore and shuttlecock are a joke to them.

You remember, a long while ago (fo long, that I have forgot every part of the book but the name), we read Nature Displayed together. You then told me of a certain Mr. Leeuwenboek, I think you called him, whofe microscope fhewed the circulation of frog's blood, the fcales of the fcales of fishes, the briftles of mites, and every other tiny thing in the world. Now,

my worthy landlord, Mr. G. R. has always such a glafs as Leeuwenhoek's in his noddle; every little thing is fo great to him, and he does little things, and talks of little things, with an air of fuch importance!-but I hate definitions; pictures are ten times better; and now for a few fketches of my winter-quarters, and of the good man under whose government I live.

I discovered, on my first entry into his house, that every thing was in exact order, and every place inviolably appropriated to its refpective ufe. The gentlemen were to put their hats and sticks in one corner, and the ladies their clogs in another. The very day of my arrival, I heard the family-apothecary get a fevere rebuke for violating the chastity of the clog-corner with his rattan. I have hitherto escaped much cenfure on this fcore: Luckily I have attracted the regard of Mr. R.'s youngest fifter, a grave, confiderate, orderly young lady. I don't know how it is, but I have often got into favour with thofe grave ladies.-God knows, I little deferve it. Mifs Sophia R. therefore keeps me right in many important particulars, or covers my deviations with some apology; or, if all won't do, I laugh, as is my way; Mr. R. calls me Rattlefcull; fays, he fhall bring me into order by and bye, and there's an end on't.

By that attention to trifles, for which, from his earliest days, he was remarkable, Mr. R. made himself commodious to fome perfons of confiderable influence, and procured many advantages, to which neither from birth nor fortune he was any wife entitled. He travelled in company with a gentleman of very high rank and diftinguished abilities, by whofe means he procured an introduction to many eminent men in foreign countries; and, when he returned from abroad, was often in the fociety of the eminent men of our own. But his brain, poor man! was like a gauze fearce, it admitted nothing of any magnitude: Amidst great men and great things, it took in only the duft that fell from them.

He was reading in the news-papers, the other morning, of the marriage of the Honourable Mifs W- to Sir H. S "Ah!" said he, "to

"think how time paffes! I remember her grand"father Lord W well; a great man, a very

great man. We met at Naples, and after"wards went to Parma together. I gave him "the genuine receipt for the Parmesan cheese, "which I went purposely to procure, while he 66 was examining fome ftatues and ancient "manuscripts. We were ever afterwards on "the most friendly footing imaginable. I was "with him a few mornings before the marriage ❝of Lord C. W, this very Mifs W's "father.