Ah! who can paint the feelings of her mind? Fair gratitude fhall mark, with fmile ferene, 'There, where the crouded camp spread terror round, How fair the meads, where winding waters flow, And never-fading verdure ftill bestow! While ftretch'd beyond, wide cultur'd fields extend, The various charms that rife in rich array! There is an excellence in this poem which few writers attain to, and which, from a female pen especially, is not always expected-it is uncommonly correct. The two Odes which are fubjoined are evidently effufions of the fame elegant and inge nuous mind. ART. XIV. Advice from a Lady of Quality to her Children; in the laft Stage of a lingering Illness. Tranflated from the French, by S. Glaffe, D. D. F. R. S. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majefty. 2 Vols. Small 8vo. 5 s. fewed. Rivington, &c. 1779. THIS HIS work is recommended, in one of Pope Ganganelli's letters, as a complete treatise on education. Such refpectable teftimony to its merit has induced the Translator to put it into an English drefs. It is divided into twenty evening conferences, which a Lady of Quality is supposed to have had with her children, during the laft ftages of a lingering illness. The The Author feems no ftranger to the human heart, nor to those arguments by which it may be influenced. The precepts laid down are, in general, ftriking and judicious, and the language in which the Tranflator has clothed them, is fimple, concile, and elegant. Our Readers may form fome idea of the ftyle and spirit of this performance from the following extract, taken from the conference on Female Conduct : I have long wifhed, my dear daughter, for this opportunity of freely converfing with you on fubjects of the utmoft confequence to you. Your youth, the world into which you are going, the fnares which it lays, and the few days which I have yet to live, all induce me to open my heart to you, and to give you fome inftructions relative to your dangerous fituation." If you could poffibly entertain a doubt of my affection; the effort I am now making, when my foul is bowed down with fickness and forrow, and fees nothing before it but the horrors of the grave, muft needs convince you how earnestly I wish to secure your happinefs. My wishes will never be realized, but while you are careful to lay down proper rules for your conduct, and fuffer nothing afterwards to tempt you to break through them. If you are fo unhappy as to give yourself up to the distraction of the world, you will no longer be able to maintain the deminion over your own heart: you will live an utter ftranger to yourself; and there will not be a fingle day, which you will know how to dispofe of in a proper manner. The world is never to be satisfied; the more we bestow upon it, the more unreafonable are its demands. Your fex requires the utmost circumfpection; what among men is reputed a venial fault, is an abfolute crime with us. There are a thousand things faid and done in their company, which a 'woman ought neither to hear nor fee. I would wish that a young woman fhould be filent and modeft; and the world, diffipated as it is, expects the fame. Its judgment of us is very fevere; and it often fixes our character for life. If you are over-folicitous to please others, you will run into a ridiculous affectation: you must make yourself agreeable to every one you converfe with, without letting them fee that you are thinking about it. Nothing pleafes which is not natural. A woman, who fets herself to draw the attention and admiration of all upon her, will foon become an arrant coquette, if fhe is not one already. It is only a natural and virtuous behaviour, which will fecure to you efteem and approbation: if this fhould not fucceed, so much the worse for those you meet with. Whatever happens, this truth is indisputable; that one of the brightest ornaments of the fex is modefty and that a young lady can never appear to greater advantage, than when he is utterly divefted of affectation in her beha viour. : Do not confound the ideas of modefty and timidity; the one pleases, the other diftreffes; we cannot avoid being hurt, when we fee a young perfon confufed and difconcerted. There is fuch a thing as an ingenuous confidence, which should make you not un willing willing to speak, when the fubject requires it; and to fing or dance, when a proper opportunity prefents itfelf. If you are not vain, you will not be timorous to a fault. I fhall be very furry for you, if ever vanity takes poffeffion of your heart; for then, instead of being agreeable and communicative, you will be always unhappy in yourself, and your boldness will only ferve to make you ridiculous to others. A difdainful carriage is that of a perfon of mean talents, and a bad heart; people of quality are lefs apt to affume it, than thofe of an inferior rank. We feldom endeavour to fet ourselves off by pride, but when we have no other means of diftinguishing ourselves; this is a ridiculous affectation, which the world always laughs at, but never forgives: the more humiliating our behaviour is to others, the more pleasure do they take in letting us down. Affability will fupply the want of thofe qualities, which you do not poffefs: it is the beft apology that I know for little imperfections. Great allowances are always made for one who has no pride or pretenfions to fuperior merit: but felf love naturally raifes in us an oppofition to arrogance and prefumption. Many women have become the fubjects of fatire, only by their haughty behaviour. Your figure is not without its fhare of elegance; and the handsomer a lady is, the more ready people are to fufpect that he is vain. The education I have hitherto given you convinces me, that the toilette will not engage your chief attention; you ought to spend as much time at it, as is neceffary for your decent appearance in company. We mult not fly in the face of fashion, or make ourfelves remarkable by our fingularity: but there are certain trifles in dress, which we ought to defpife. Thofe, which make a woman a flave to her drefs, are fit only for fuch weak minds, as the prefent age, with all its attachment to trifles, hath not yet learnt to elleem.' As to the last remark, even we Reviewers, feldom as we fhew our thread-bare coats in the regions of elegance and fashion, know enough of the female world, to be fenfible of its truth. Our fair countrywomen will, we doubt not, profit by an argument which has the sanction of OUR AUTHORITY. ART. XV. Moral and Hiftorical Memoirs. 8vo. 5 s. Boards. Dilly. TH 1779. HESE mifcellaneous Effays (one of which, On unreftrained power, has already been noticed with approbation in our Review for July 1778,) contain a great variety of useful reflections on men and manners, which are evidently the refult of a judicious and attentive obfervation of the world, and are manifeftly written with the laudable defign of ftemming the torrent of fashionable follies, and reftoring that fimplicity of manners and integrity of character, the prefent decline of which is too justly lamented by all wife and good men. The Author's remarks are illuftrated and confirmed by a great variety of pertinent hiftorical facts. Nothing feems wanting to render this Mifcellany as pleafing as its general defign is useful, but a greater greater attention to correctness and elegance of ftyle, with refpect to which we are forry to remark, that the Author has difcovered a great degree of negligence. We felect the following Effay on Converfation, partly on account of its brevity, but principally because it contains many ufeful remarks on a fubject, which, perhaps more than molt. others, needs the correction and improvement of philofophy. One of the greatest alleviations of the cares and troubles of life, is the amusement and relaxation we receive from the fatisfactions of converfation. They heighten the enjoyments of the table, which without their feafoning would be merely fenfual, and are a grateful interruption of our ferious and interefted purfuits. They excite a mutual defire to please, fofter benevolence, friendship, and good humour; they brighten wit, exercife memory, and gently folicit all the powers of fancy, imagination, and reafon. Were it neceffary to define converfation, it might be called the free and perfonal communication of our opinions and fentiments on domeftic, political, or literary fubjects; for fuch are the topics to which Cicero feems to confine this intercourfe, and to which perhaps it ought to be reftrained. Hence, it is only in civilized countries, and among the learned and polished part of mankind, that any thing can fubfift deferving the name of converfation. In the convivial meetings of favage life, the fubject of difcourfe can be little but the incidents of hunting and the chace, or the events of irregular incurfion, attack, or defence. In communities alfo, where the arts and sciences have made but inconfiderable progrefs, it must be very circumfcribed and limited. Even in highly polifhed ftates, none can be faid (with propriety) to converfe, but those who have been fortunate in a liberal education, whofe thoughts are raised above the common and vulgar cares and purfuits of life, and whofe minds have been adorned and enlarged by reading, by company, and by travel. The more a man knows, the more he has feen, the more various and extenfive his curiofity, and information, and knowledge of human affairs, the more qualified and capable he is of entertaining and interefting in fociety and good company. In reading the accounts by fenfible travellers of thofe countries, where science and letters are in a manner unknown or ne glected, and whereby the forms and corruption of the government, the attention of the community and individuals, is eftranged from public affairs, one pities the languor and liftleffness of focial and private entertainments. The enjoyments of the company feem entirely fenfual. It is the palate, the fenfes only, that are excited and gratified, not the understanding and the fancy, the tafte and the heart. The parties are enlivened, neither by wine nor by coffee: the one cannot give them them clearness of apprehenfion, because they have no materials for thought; the other fupplies them not with fluency of expreffion, because they have nothing to communicate. It humbles and gives one pain, to fee human reafon fo greatly degraded, and funk to a level with animal nature, The famous traveller Della Valle (whom a noble curiofity and love of knowledge conducted through Turkey, Perfia, and a great part of India) gives a very natural defcription of fuch a fort of affembly or entertainment. It is during his stay at Hamadun in Perfia. As it is long, I refer the reader to it. Let it fuffice to observe, there was plenty of every thing, the provifions and cookery of the country, wine, coffee, &c. but hardly a word paffed, all was duinefs and filence. Non fi diceva mai una parola, e ftavano tutti in filentio." In reading those two beautiful pictures of Grecian manners, the banquets of Plato and Xenophon, I have often wondered that fo polite and learned a nation as Greece, nay, that a company of philofophers, fhould be obliged to have recourfe for , entertainment to the petulance and extravagance of buffoons, the unnatural poftures and attitudes of finging boys and dancing girls. Yet we find this to have been a frequent practice even at Athens. It is alluded to in Plato's banquet, and Xenophon's; three of the principal characters are Philip, a fort of buffoon or merry Andrew, a finging and dancing or posture-girl, and a boy that plays on the Aute. If fuch helps to entertainment and cheerfulness were thought neceffary in fo polished a nation as Greece, and even admitted to the tables of philofophers, it is the lefs furprifing they fhould be so much in request where science and letters have made but little progress. Every body knows how neceffary a character what they called a fool or dwarf, was during feveral ages at all the great tables of modern Europe; and even fo lately as the times of our first Charles, all perfons of fenfe, moderation, and good nature, highly cenfured the morofe and unbecoming severity of Bishop Laud to the fatirical Archy. In countries where the topics of conversation are ftill more confined, the company is either abfolutely filent (as we saw just now in Perfia), or have recourfe to a variety of games, of chance, or of skill, in order to banish languor, and keep attention awake. La Loubere tells us, that the Šiamefe (a civilized people) carry to fuch excefs their passion for play, that they commit to the hazard of the die, not only their whole property, but their perfonal liberty, and even in fpite of natural affection, that of their wives and children. The fame has been faid of the ancient Germans, and of feveral favage and barbarous nations, made known to us by the difcovery of America. The inhabitants of thefe lefs equal governments and forms of fociety, are driven to thefe fatal expedients in order to amufe |