ing this refemblance, a delicacy of tafte is as much to be defired and cultivated as a delicacy of paffion is to be lamented, and to be remedied if poflible. The good or ill accidents of life are very little at our difpofal; but we are pretty much mafters what books we fhall read, what diverfions we fhall partake of, and what company we fhall keep. Philofophers have endeavoured to render happiness entirely independent of every thing external that is impoffible to be attained: but every wife man will endeavour to place his happiness on fuch objects as depend most upon himself; and that is not to be attained fo much by any other means, as by this delicacy of fentiment. When a man is poffeffed of that. talent, he is more happy by what pleafes his tafte, than by what gratifies his appeand receives more enjoyment from a poem or a piece of reafoning, than the moft expensive luxury can afford. tites; That it teaches us to fele our Company. Delicacy of tafte is favourable to love and friendship, by confining our choice to few people, and making us indifferent to the company and converfation of the great eft part of men. You will very feldom find that mere men of the world, whatever ftrong fenfe they may be endowed with, are very nice in diftinguishing of characters, or in marking thofe infenfible differences and gradations which make one man preferable to another. Any one that has competent fenfe, is fufficient for their entertainment: they talk to him of their pleafures and affairs with the fame franknefs as they would to any other; and finding many who are fit to fupply his place, they never feel any vacancy or want in his abfence. But, to make use of the allufion of a famous French author, the judgment may be compared to a clock or watch, where the most ordinary machine is fufficient to tell the hours; but the most elaborate and artificial can only point the minutes and feconds, and diftinguish the smallest differences of time. One who has well digefted his knowledge both of books and men, has little enjoyment but in the company of a few felect companions. He feels too fenfibly how much all the reft of mankind fall fhort of the notions which he has entertained; and his affections being thus confined within a narrow circle, no wonder he carries them further than if they were more general an! undistinguished. The gaiety and frolie of a bottle companion improves with him into a folid friendship; and the ardours of a youthful appetite into an elegant paffion. Hume's Effays. § 54. Detraction a deteftable Vice. It has been remarked, that men are generally kind in proportion as they are happy; and it is faid, even of the devil, that he is good-humoured when he is pleafed. Every act, therefore, by which another is injured, from whatever motive, contracts more guilt and expreffes greater malignity, if it is committed in those seasons which are fet apart to pleafantry and good humour, and brightened with enjoyments peculiar to rational and focial beings. Detraction is among thofe vices which the moft languid virtue has fufficient force to prevent; because by detraction that is not gained which is taken away. "He who filches from me my good name," fays Shakespeare, "enriches not himself, but makes me poor indeed." As nothing therefore degrades human nature more than detraction, nothing more di graces converfation. The detractor, as he is the loweft moral character, reflects greater difhonour upon his company, than the hangman; and he whofe difpofition is a scandal to his fpecies, fhould be more diligently avoided, than he who is fcandalous only by his offence. But for this practice, however vile, fome have dared to apologize, by contending the report, by which they injured an absent character, was true: this, however, amounts to no more than that they have not complicated malice with falfhood, and that there is fome difference between detraction and flander. To relate all the ill that is true of the bett man in the world, would probably render him the object of fufpicion and diftruft; and was this practice univerfal, mutual confidence and efteem, the comforts of fociety, and the endearments of friendship, would be at an end. There is fomething unspeakably more hateful in thofe-fpecies of villainy by which the law is evaded, than those by which it is violated and defiled. Courage has fometimes preferved rapacity from abhorrence, as beauty has been thought to apologize for prostitution; but the injuftice of cowardice is univerfally abhorred, and, like the lewdness of deformity, has no advocate. Thus hateful are the wretches who detract with caution, and while they perpetrate the wrong, are folicitous to avoid the reproach. They do not fay, that Chloe forfeited her honour honour to Lyfander; but they fay, that fuch a report has been spread, they know not how true. Thofe who propagate thefe reports, frequently invent them; and it is no breach of charity to fuppofe this to be always the cafe; because no man who fpreads detraction would have fcrupled to produce it: and he who fhould diffufe poifon in a brook, would fcarce be acquitted of a malicious defign, though he should alledge, that he received it of another who is doing the fame elsewhere. Whatever is incompatible with the higheft dignity of our nature, should indeed be excluded from our conversation: as companions, not only that which we owe to ourfelves but to others, is required of us; and they who can indulge any vice in the prefence of each other, are become obdurate in guilt, and infenfible to infamy. Rambler. § 55. Learning fhould be fometimes applied to cultivate our Morals. Envy, curiofity, and our fenfe of the imperfection of our present state, inclines us always to estimate the advantages which are in the poffeffion of others above their real value. Every one must have remarked what powers and prerogatives the vulgar imagine to be conferred by learning. A man of science is expected to excel the unlettered and unenlightened, even on occafions where literature is of no ufe, and among weak minds lofes part of his reverence by discovering no fuperiority in thofe parts of life, in which all are unavoidably equal; as when a monarch makes a progrefs to the remoter provinces, the rufticks are faid fometimes to wonder that they find him of the fame fize with themselves. Thefe demands of prejudice and folly can never be fatisfied, and therefore many of the imputations which learning fuffers from difappointed ignorance, are without reproach. Yet it cannot be denied, that there are fome failures to which men of study are peculiarly expofed. Every condition has its difadvantages. The circle of knowledge is too wide for the most active and diligent intellect, and while fcience is pursued with ardour, other accomplithments of equal ufe are neceffarily neglect. ed; as a small garrifon must leave one part of an extenfive fortrefs naked, when an alarm calls them to another. The learned, however, might generally fupport, their dignity with more fuccefs, if they fuffered not themselves to be mifled by fuperfluous attainments of qualification which few can underftand or value, and by skill which they may fink into the grave without any confpicuous opportunities of exerting. Raphael, in return to Adam's enquiries into the courfes of the stars and. the revolutions of heaven, counsels him to withdraw his mind from idle fpeculations, and, instead of watching motions which he has no power to regulate, to employ his faculties upon nearer and more interefting objects, the furvey of his own life, the subjection of his paffions, the knowledge of duties which must daily be performed, and the detection of dangers which muft daily be incurred. This angelic counsel every man of letters should always have before him. He that devotes himself wholly to retired study, naturally finks from omiffion to forgetfulnefs of social duties, and from which he to the general condition of mankind. must be sometimes awakened, and recalled Its Progrefs. Ibid. It had been obferved by the ancients, That all the arts and sciences arofe among free nations; and that the Perfians and Egyptians, notwithstanding all their eafe, opulence, and luxury, made but faint efforts towards thofe finer pleasures, which were carried to fuch perfection by the Greeks, amidst continual wars, attended with poverty, and the greateft fimplicity of life and manners. It had also been obferved, that as foon as the Greeks loft their liberty, though they encreased mightily in riches, by the means of the conquests of Alexander; yet the arts, from that moment, declined among them, and have never fince been able to raise their head in that climate, Learning was tranfplanted to Rome, the only free nation at that time in the universe; and having met with fo favourable a foil, it made prodigious fhoots for above a century; till the decay of liberty produced also a decay of letters, and fpread a total bar. barifm over the world. From these two experiments, of which each was double in its kind, and fhewed the fall of learning in defpotic governments, as well as its rife in popular ones, Longinus thought himself fufficiently juftified in afferting, that the arts and fciences could never flourish but in a free been followed by feveral eminent writers in government; and in this opinion he has our country, who either confined their view merely to ancient facts, or entertained too great a partiality in favour of that form of government government which is established amongst us. But what would thefe writers have faid to the inftances of modern Rome and Florence? Of which the former carried to perfection all the finer arts of fculpture, painting, and mufic, as well as poetry, though they groaned under flavery, and under the flavery of priests: while the latter made the greatest progrefs in the arts and fciences, after they began to lofe their liberty by the ufurpations of the family of Medicis. Ariofto, Taffo, Galileo, no more than Raphael and Michael Angelo, were not born in republics. And though the Lombard fchool was famous as well as the Roman, yet the Venetians have had the fmallest fhare in its honours, and seem rather inferior to the Italians in their genius for the arts and fciences. Rubens eftablifhed his school at Antwerp, not at Amfterdam; Drefden, not Hamburgh, is the centre of politenefs in Germany. But the most eminent inftance of the flourishing state of learning in defpotic governments, is that of France, which fcarce ever enjoyed an established liberty, and yet has carried the arts and fciences as near perfection as any other nation. The English are, perhaps, better philofophers; the Italians better painters and musicians: the Romans were better orators; but the French are the only people, except the Greeks, who have been at once philofophers, poets, orators, hiftorians, painters, architects, fculptors, and muficians. With regard to the stage, they have excelled even the Greeks, who have far excelled the English and in common life they have in a great measure perfected that art, the moft ufeful and agreeable of any, l'art de vivre, the art of fociety and converfation. If we confider the flate of sciences and polite arts in our country, Horace's obfervation with regard to the Romans, may, in a great measure, be applied to the British, ро Sed in longum tomen ævum Manferunt, hodieque manent veftigia ruris. The elegance and propriety of stile have been very much neglected among us. We have no dictionary of our language, and fcarce a tolerable grammar. The first lite profe we have, was wrote by a man who is ftill alive. As to Sprat, Locke, and even Temple, they knew too little of the rules of art to be esteemed very elegant writers. The profe of Bacon, Harrington, and Milton, is altogether ftiff and pedantic; though, their fenfe be excellent. Men in this coun try, have been fo much occupied in the great difputes of religion, politics, and philofophy, that they had no relish for the minute obfervations of grammar and criticism. And though this turn of thinking must have confiderably improved our fenfe and our talent of reafoning beyond thofe of other nations, it must be confeft, that even in thofe fciences above mentioned, we have not any ftandard book which we can tranfmit to pofterity: and the utmost we have to boast of, are a few effays towards a more just philofophy: which, indeed, promife very much, but have not, as yet, reached any degree of perfection. Ufelefs without Tafe. A man may know exactly all the circles and ellipfes of the Copernican fyftem, and all the irregular fpirals of the Ptolemaic, without perceiving that the former is more beautiful than the latter. Euclid has very fully explained every quality of the circle, but has not, in any propofition, faid a word of its beauty. The reafon is evident. Beauty is not a quality of the circle. It lies not in any part of the line, whofe parts are all equally diftant from a common centre. is only the effect which that figure operates. upon the mind, whofe particular fabric or ftructure renders it fufceptible of fuch fentiments. In vain would you look for it in the circle, or feek it, either by your fenfes, or by mathematical reafonings, in all the properties of that figure. It The mathematician, who took no other pleasure in reading Virgil but that of examining Eneas's voyage by the map, might understand perfectly the meaning of every Latin word employed by that divine author, and confequently might have a dif tinct idea of the whole narration; he would even have a more diftin&t idea of it, than they could have who had not studied so exactly the geography of the poem. He knew, therefore, every thing in the poem. But he was ignorant of its beauty; because the beauty, properly speaking, lies not in the poem, but the fentiment or taste of the reader. And where a man has no fuch delicacy of temper as to make him feel this fentiment, he must be ignorant of the beauty, though poffeffed of the fcience and underftanding of an angel. Hume's Essays. Its Obftructions. So many hindrances may obstruct the acquifition of knowledge, that there is little reafon for wondering that it is in a few hands, hands. To the greater part of mankind the duties of life are inconfiftent with much ftudy, and the hours which they would spend upon letters must be ftolen from their Occupations and their families. Many fuffer themselves to be lured by more fprightly and luxurious pleafures from the fhades of contemplation, where they find feldom more than a calm delight, fuch as, though greater than all others, if its certainty and its duration be reckoned with its power of gratification, is yet eafily quitted for fome extemporary joy, which the prefent moment offers, and another perhaps will put out of reach. It is the great excellence of learning that it borrows very little from time or place; it is not confined to feafon or to climate, to cities or to the country, but may be cultivated and enjoyed where no other pleasure can be obtained. But this quality, which conftitutes much of its value, is one occafion of neglect; what may be done at all times with equal propriety, is deferred from day to day, till the mind is gradually reconciled to the omiffion, and the attention is turned to other objects. Thus habitual idlenefs gains too much power to be conquered, and the foul fhrinks from the idea of intellectual labour and intenseness of meditation. That thofe who profefs to advance learning fometimes obftruct it, cannot be denied; the continual multiplication of books not only diftracts choice, but difappoints enquiry. To him that has moderately stored his mind with images, few writers afford any novelty; or what little they have to add to the common stock of learning is fo buried in the mafs of general notions, that, like filver mingled with the ore of lead, it is too little to pay for the labour of feparation; and he that has often been deceived by the promife of a title, at laft grows weary of examining, and is tempted to confider all as equally fallacious. Idler. § 56. Mankind, a Portrait of. Vanity bids all her fons to be generous and brave,--and her daughters to be chafte and courteous.- But why do we want her instructions?--Afk the comedian, who is taught a part he feels not.—— Is it that the principles of religion want ftrength, or that the real paffion for what is good and worthy will not carry us high enough? God! thou knoweft they carry us too high we want not to be--but to feem. Look out of your door,-take notice of that man; fee what difquieting, intriguing, and fhifting, he is content to go through, merely to be thought a man of plain-dealingthree grains of honesty would fave him all this trouble:alas! he has them not.—— Behold a fecond, under a fhew of piety hiding the impurities of a debauched life': -he is just entering the houfe of God: would he was more pure-or lefs pious!-but then he could not gain his point. Obferve a third going almoft in the fame track, with what an inflexibie fanctity of deportment he fuftains himself as he advances! every line in his face writes abstinence; every ftride looks like a check upon his defires: fee, I beseech you, how he is cloak'd up with fermons, prayers, and facraments; and fo bemuffled with the exter nals of religion, that he has not a hand to fpare for a worldly purpofe; he has armour at leaft-Why does he put it on? Is there no ferving God without all this? Muft the garb of religion be extended fo wide to the danger of it's rending? Yes, truly, or it will not hide the fecret-— and, What is that? at all. That the faint has no religion --But here comes GENEROSITY: giving-not to a decayed artift-but to the arts and fciences themselves.-See,- he builds not a chamber in the wall apart for the prophets; but whole schools end colleges for thofe who come after. LORD! how they will magnify his name!-'tis in capitals already; the first-the higheft, in the gilded rent-roll of every hofpital and afylum One honett tear fhed in private over the unfortunate, is worth it all. What a problematic fet of creatures does fimulation make us! Who would divine that all the anxiety and concern fo visible in the airs of one half of that great affembly fhould arife from nothing elfe, but that the other half of it may think them to be men of confequence, penetration, parts, and conduct?-What a noife amongst the claimants about it? Behold humility, out of mere pride-and honefty almost out of knavery:-Chastity, never once in harm's way;and courage, like a Spanish foldier upon an Italian stage-a bladder full of wind. -Hark! that, the found of that trumpet,-let not my foldier run 'tis fome good Chriftian giving alms. O FITY, thou gentleft of human paffions! $57. Manors; their Origin, Nature, and Manors are in substance, as ancient as the Saxon conftitution, though perhaps differing a little, in fome immaterial circumftances, from thofe that exift at this day: juft as was observed of feuds, that they were partly known to our ancestors, even before the Norman conqueft. A manor, manerium, à manendo, because the ufual refidence of the owner, feems to have been a district of ground held by lords or great perfonages; who kept in their own hands fo much land as was neceffary for the use of their families, which were called terræ dominicales, or demefne lands; being occupied by the lord, or dominus manerii, and his fervants. The other tenemental lands they diftributed among their tenants; which, from the different modes of tenure, were called and diftinguished by two different names. First, book land, or charter land, which was held by deed under certain rents and free-fervices, and in effect differed nothing from free focage lands; and from hence have arifen all the freehold tenants which hold of particular manors, and owe fuit and fervice to the fame. The other species was called folk land, which was held by no affurance in writing, but diftributed among the common folk or people at the pleasure of the lord, and resumed at his discretion; being indeed land held in villenage, which we shall prefently defcribe more at large. The refidue of the manor being uncultivated, was termed the lord's wafte, and ferved for public roads, and for common of pasture to the lord and his tenants. Manors were formerly called baronies, as they fill are lordships: and each lord or baron was empowered to hold a domestic court, called the court-baron, for redreffing mifdemeanors and nuifances within the manor, and for fettling disputes of property among the tenants. This court is an infeparable ingredient of every manor; and if the number of fuitors fhould fo fail, as not to leave fufficient to make a jury or homage, that is, two tenants at the leaft, the manor itfelf is loft. Before the ftatute of quia emptores, 18 Edward I. the king's greater barons, who had a large extent of territory held under the crown, granted out frequently fmaller manors to inferior perfons to be held of themselves; which do therefore now continue to be held under a fuperior lord, who is called in fuch cafes the lord paramount over all these manors: and his feigniory is frequently termed an honour, not a manor, efpecially if it hath belonged to an ancient feodal baron, or hath been at any time in the hands of the crown. In imitation whereof, thefe inferior lords began to carve out and grant to others ftill more minute estates to be held as of themselves, and were fo proceeding downwards in infinitum; till the fuperior lords obferved, that by this method of fubinfeudation they loft all their feodal profits, of wardships, marriages, and efcheats, which fell into the hands of these mefne or middle lords, who were the immediate fuperiors of the terretenant, or him who occupied the land. This occafioned the statute of Westm. 3. or quia emptores, 18 Edw.I. to be made; which directs, that upon all fales or feoffments of land, the feoffee fhall hold the fame, not of his immediate feoffer, but of the chief lord of the fee, of whom fuch feoffer himself held it. And from hence it is held, that all manors exifting at this day must have exifted by immemorial prefcription; or at least ever fince the 18th Edw. I. when the ftatute of quia emptores was made. For no new manor can have been created fince that ftatute: because it is effential to a manor, that there be tenants who hold of the lord, and that ftatute enacts, that for the future no fubje&ts fhall create any new tenants to hold of himself. Now with regard to the folk land, or eftates held in villenage, this was a species of tenure neither ftrictly feodal, Norman, or Saxon; but mixed and compounded of them all: and which alfo, on account of the heriots that attend it, may seem to have fomewhat Danish in its compofition. Under the Saxon government there were, as Sir William Temple fpeaks, a fort of people in a condition of downright fervitude, ufed and employed in the moft fervile works, and belonging, both they, their children, and effects, to the lord of the foil, like the rett of the cattle or flock upon it. These feem to have been those who held what was called the folk land, from which they were removable at the lord's pleasure. On the arrival of the Normans here, it feems not improbable, that they, who were ftrangers to any other than a feodal state, might give fome fparks of enfranchisement to fuch wretched perfons as fell to their fhare, by admitting them, as well as others, to the oath of fealty; 3 K which |