advise you to fhun, is the Gamefter, in fome refpects not unlike the former. The gaming-table is his fhrine, and fortune his deity; nor does he ever speak or think of any other, unless by way of blafphemy, oaths, and curfes, when he has had a bad run át cards or dice. He has not the leaft notion of friendship; but would ruin his own brother, if it might be of any advantage to himself. He indeed profeffes himself your friend; but that is only with a defign to draw you in: for his trade is inconfiftent with the principles of honour or justice, without which there can be no real friendship. It should, therefore, be the care of every gentleman, not to hold any commerce with fuch people, whose acquaintance he cannot enjoy without giving up his eftate.

The next perfon, whom you ought to beware of, is the Drunkard; one that takes an unaccountable pleasure in fapping his conftitution, and drowning his understanding. He conftantly goes fenfelefs to bed, and rifes maukifh in the morning; nor can he be eafy in body or mind till he has renewed his dofe, and again put himself beyond the reach of reflection. I would, therefore, entreat you by all means to avoid an habit, which will at once ruin your health, and impair your intellects. It is a miffortune, that society should be efteemed dull and infipid without the affiftance of the bottle to enliven it: fo that a man cannot entirely refrain from his glafs, if he keeps any company at all. But Jet it be remembered, that in drinking, as well as in talking, we ought always to keep a watch over the doors of our • lips.'

A Lownger is a creature that you will often fee lolling in a coffee houfe, of fauntering about the ftreets, with great calmness, and a most inflexible ftupidity in his countenance. He takes as much pains as the Sot to fly from his own thoughts; and is at length happily arrived at the highest pitch of indolence, both in mind and body. He would be as inoffenfive as he is dull, if it were not that his idleness is contagious; for, like the torpedo, he is fure to benumb and take away all fenfe of feeling from every one with whom he happens to come in contact.

It were also beft to forbear the company of a Wrangler, or a perfon of a Litigious temper, This fometimes arifes,

not from any great fhare of ill-nature, but from a vain pride of fhewing one's parts, or skill in argumentation. It is frequently obferved of young Academics in particular, that they are very apt impertinently to engage people in a difpute, whether they will or not. But this is contrary to all the rules of goodbreeding, and is never practised by any man of fenfe that has feen much of the world. I have fometimes known a perfon of great faucinefs and volubility of expreffion confuted by the Argumentum Baculinum, and both his head and his fyllogifm broken at the fame time.

I need not point out to you the profligate Rake or the affected Coxcomb, as perfons from whofe company you can reap no fort of benefit. From the first the good principles already instilled into you will doubtlefs preferve you; and I am fure you have too much real fenfe not to defpife the abfurd fopperies of the latter. Noted Liars are no lefs to be avoided, as the common pefts of fociety. They are often of a mifchievous difpofition, and by their calumnies and falfe fuggestions take a pleasure in setting the moft intimate friends at variance. But if they only deal in harmless and improbable lyes, their acquaintance must frequently be out of countenance for them; and if we fhould venture to repeat after them, I am fure it is the way to be out of countenance for ourselves.

But above all I must advise you never to engage, at least not with any degree of violence, in any Party. Be not tranfported by the clamorous jollity of talking patriots beyond the fober dictates of reafon and justice; nor let the infinuating voice of corruption tempt you to barter your integrity and peace of mind for the paltry fatisfaction of improving your fortune. If you behave with honour and prudence, you will be regarded and courted by all parties; but if otherwife, you will certainly be defpifed by all. Perhaps indeed, if you fhould hereafter engage in elections, and fpend your own money to fupport an other's caufe, the perfon in whofe intereft you are may fhake you by the hand, and fwear you are a very honeft gentleman-juft as butchers treat their bull-dogs, who fpit in their mouths, clap them on the back, and then halloo them on to be toffed and torn by the horns of their antagonist. After having guarded you against the 2 A evil

INCE genius is the chief requifite in all kinds of poetry, nothing can be more contrary to the very effence of it, than the adopting as beauties, certain arts which are merely mechanical, There are daily arifing many whimsical excellencies, which have no foundation in nature, but are only countenanced by the prefent mode of writing. With thefe it is as easy to fill our compofitions, as to dress ourselves in the fashion: but the writer who puts his work together in this manner, is no more a poet than his taylor. Such productions often betray great labour and exactness, but shew no genius: for those who fit down to write by rule, and follow dry receipts how poems hould be made,' may compofe their pieces without the least affiftance from the imagination; as an apothecary's prentice, though unable to cure any difeafe, can make up medicines from the phyfician's prefcription, with no more knowledge of phyfic than the names of the drugs, Thus the Mufe, that ought to fly, and afcend the brighteft heaven of invention,' walks in leading-strings, or is fupported by a go-cart. Among the many poetical tricks of this fort, none have been more fuccefffully practifed, or had more advocates and admirers, than a certain fantaftical conceit, called Alliteration: which is nothing more than beginning two, three, or perhaps every word in a line, with the fame letter. This method of running divifions upon the alphabet, and preffing particular letters into the

Juv.

fervice, has been accounted one of the first excellencies in verfification, and has indeed received the sanction of fome of our belt poets: but wherein the beauty of it confilis, is fomething difficult to difcover; fince Quarles or Withers might practife it with as much adroitnefs as Dryden or Spenfer. It is one of thofe modern arts in poetry, which require no fancy, judgment, or learning, in the execution: for an author may huddle the fame letters on each other again and again, as mechanically as the printer felects his types, and ranges them in whatfoever order he pleases.

This partial attachment to particular letters is a kind of contrast to the famous Odyffey of Tryphiodorus, where every letter in the alphabet was in it's turn excluded; and the Alliterator must be as bufily employed to introduce his favourite vowel or confonant, as the Greek poet to fhut out the letter he had profcribed. Nothing is esteemed a greater beauty in poetry, than an happy choice of epithets; but Alliteration reduces all the elegancies of expreffion to a very narrow compafs. Epithets are culled, indeed, with great exactness; but the clofeft relation they are intended to bear to the word to which they are joined, is that the initials are the fame. Thus the fields must be flowery, beauty must be beaming, ladies must be lovely; and in the fame manner muft the waves wind their watery way,' the blustering blafts blow, and locks all loofely lay, not for the fake of the poetry, but

but the elegance of the Alliteration, This beauty has also taken poffeffion of many of our tragedies; and I have feen ladies wooed and heroes killed in it; though I must own, I never hear an actor dying with deadly darts and fiery flames, &c. but it always puts me in mind of the celebrated pippin-woman in Gay's Trivia, whofe head, when it was fevered from her body, rolled along the ice crying, Pip, pip, pip,' and expired in Alliteration.

The fame falfe tafte in writing, that wings difplay'd and altars rais'd,' alfo introduced Alliteration; and Acroftics in particular are the fame kind of fpelling book poetry. It is, therefore, fomewhat extraordinary, that thofe fublime writers, who have difgraced their pages with it, did not leave this as well as the other barbarous parts of literature to the Goths in poetry; fince it is a whimsical beauty, below the practice of any writer, fuperior to him who turned the Eneid into Monkith verfes. Shakespeare, who was more indebted to nature than art, has ridiculed this low trick with great humour in his burlefque tragedy of Pyramus and Thibe. Befides that noted paffage

-With blade, with bloody blameful blade, He bravely broach'd his builing bloody breaft,

he before introduces a mock rant, which Bottom calls Ercles' vein; which is not only rank fuftian, but is alfo remarkable for it's Alliteration. To make all fplit the raging rocks, and fhivering fhocks fhall break the locks of prifon gates-and Phibbus car fhall ih ne from far, and make and mar the foolish fates." In this ftrange ftile have whole poems been written; and every learned reader will recollect on this occafion the Pugna Porcorum per P. Porcium Pelagium Poetam, which I with one of our poetafters would tranf late in the true fpirit of the original, and praife pigs and pork with all the beauties of Alliteration.

The advocates and admirers of this practice have afferted, that it adds figficance and ftrength of expreflion to their verses; but I fear this boafted energy feldom appears to the reader, The Alliteration either remains unregarded, or, if it is very ftriking, difguts those who perceive it, and is often in itfelf, from fuch a difagreeable clufter of the fame letters, harth and uncouth.

There are many inftances, where Alliteration, though ftudiously introduced, renders the verfification rough and inharmonious; and I will appeal to the greatest lovers of it, whether the following line, where the repetition was fcarce intended, is one of the moft pleasing in all Virgil's works→→

Neu patria Validas in Vifcera Vertite Vires. Wound not with Vigour Vaft the Vitals of

the Veal.

It must be acknowledged, that there is fomething very mechanical in the whole construction of the numbers in most of our modern poetry. Sound is more attended to than fenfe, and the words are expected to exprefs more than the fentiment. There are fet rules to make verfes run off glibly, or drawl flowly on; and I have read many a poem with fcarce one tolerable thought in it, that has contained all thefe excellencies of verfification: for which reason I must confess myself no friend to those critics who analyse words 'and fyllables, and difcover latent beauties in every letter, when the author intended that the whole fhould be taken together. Poetry should feem at least to flow freely from the imagination, and not to be squeezed from the droppings of the brain. If we would endeavour to acquire a full idea of what we mean to describe, we should then of course express ourselves with force, elegance, and perfpicuity; and this native strength of expreffion would have more true energy than elaborate phrafes, and a quaint and studied combination of words and letters. Fine numbers are undoubtedly one of the chief beauties in poetry; but to make the found echo to the fenfe, we should make the fenfe our chief object. This appears to me to have been the manly practice of the ancients, and of our own Shakespeare, Milton, &c. who breathed the true fpirit of poetry, without having recourfe to little tricks and mean artifices which only ferve to difgrace it. A good writer, who would be above trifling even with a thought, would never purfue words, and play with letters, but leave fuch a childish employment for the small fry of rhymers, who amufe themselves with anagrams and crambo. The true poet trufts to his natural ear and strong conception, and knows that the verfification is adapted to the fentiment, with2 A 2

out

out culling particular letters, and ftringing them on his lines; as he is fure that his verfes are just measure, without fcanning them on his fingers.

There are almost daily published certain Lilliputian volumes entitled, Pretty Books for Children.' A friend of mine, who confiders the little rhymers of the age as only children of a larger growth, that amuse themselves with rhymes inftead of rattles, proposes to publish a small pocket volume for the ufe of our poetatters. It will be a Treatife on the Art of Poetry adapted to the meanest capacities, for which tubfcriptions will be taken, and fpecimens may be feen, at George's and the Bedford coffee-houses. It will contain full directions how to modulate the numbers on every occafion, and will inftruct the young fcribbler in all the modern arts of verfification. He will here meet with infallible rules, how to foften a line and Jull us to fleep with liquids and diph

thongs; to roughen the verse and make it roar again with reiteration of the letter R; to fet it hiffing with femi vowels; to make it pant and breathe fhort with an hundred heavy afpirates; or clog it up with the thickest double confonants and monofyllables: with a particular table of Alliteration, containing the choiceft epithets, difpofed into alphabetical order; fo that any fubitantive may be readily paired with a word beginning with the fame letter, which, (though a mere expletive) fhall feem to carry more force and fentiment in it, than any other of a more relative meaning, but more distant found. The whole to be illuftrated with examples from the modern poets. This elaborate work will be published about the middle of the winter, under the title of The Rhymer's Play-Thing; or, Poetafter's 'Horn-Book;' fince there is nothing ne ceffary to form fuch a poet, except teaching him his letters.

T

BER,

Yo

TO MR. TOWN,

OU obliged the world fome time ago with a few reflections on the Gentlemen of the Army: at the prefent juncture, a word or two on our SeaOfficers would not be unfeasonable. I do not mean, that you should prefume to direct them how to behave in their feveral stations, but rather to remark on their conduct and converfation in private life, as far as they are influenced by their maritime characters. There is a certain unfafhionable dye, which their manners often take from the falt-water, that tinctures their whole behaviour on shore. If you could affitt in blotting out there ftains, and give a new colour to their conduct, you would add grace and politeneis to their ordinary conversation, and would be of as much fervice to our naval commanders in this point, as he was to navigation in general, who firft invented the compafs.

As the converfation of thofe fair

weather foplings, many of whom may be met with in the three regiments of guards, is ufually flat and infipid, that of our fea officers is turbulent and boisterous and as a trip to Paris has perhaps over-refined the coxcomb in red, a voyage round the globe frequently brutalizes the feaman, who comes home fo rough and unpolished, that one would imagine he had not vifited any nation in the world, except the Savages, or the Hottentots. The many advantages he has received from having feen the cuf toms and manners of fo many different people, it is natural to fuppofe, would render his converfation very defireable, as being in itself particularly instructive and entertaining; but this roughness, which clings to the feaman's behaviour like tar to his trowfers, makes him unfit, for all civil and polite fociety. He behaves at an affembly as if he was upon deck; and his whole deportment manifeftly betrays, that he is, according to the cominon phrafe, quite out of his element. Nor can you collect any more

+

from

from him concerning the feveral nations he has visited, than if he had been during the whole time confined to his cabin and he seems to know as little of them, as the fine gentleman of his travels after the polite tour, when he has, for the fake of improvement, rid poft through ali Europe,

That our ordinary feamen, who are many of them draughted from the very loweft of the populace, fhould be thus uncivilized, is no wonder. The common failor's education in Tottenham Court, or at Hockley in the Hole, has not qua lified him to improve by just reflections on what he fees during his voyage; and going on board a man of war is a kind of university education, fuitably adapt ed to the principles imbibed in the polite feminaries which he came from. A common failor too is full as polite as a common foldier; and behaves as genteelly to a Wapping landlady, as the gentleman foldier at a futtling houfe. But furely there ought to be as much difference in the behaviour of the commander and his crew, as there is in their fituation and it is beneath the dignity of the British Flag to have an Admiral behave as rudely as a Swabber, or a Commodore as foul-mouthed as a Boat fwain..

It may perhaps be alledged in excufe, that the being placed among fuch a boisterous set of people as our common failors, muft unavoidably wear off all politenefs and good manners: as it is remarkable, that all thofe who are employed in the care of horses, grow as mere brutes as the animals they attend; and as we may often obferve thofe juftices, whose chief business is the examination of highwaymen, houfe-breakers, and ftreet-walkers, become as vulgar and foul-mouthed as a pick-pocket. As there may be fome truth in this, the commander should therefore be still more. on his guard to prefave the gentleman in his behaviour; and like the fea itself, when the storm is over, grow smooth and calm. It is accounted a piece of humour on the Thames to abuse the other paffengers on the water; and there are certain fet terms of abufe, which fly to and fro from one boat to another on this occafion. A wag might perhaps amufe himself with this water-language in his voyage to Vauxhall, but must be a very filly fellow indeed, to think of carrying the joke on shore with him.

In the fame manner fome roughness may perhaps be neceffary to keep the crew in ordert but it is abfurd for an officer to retain his harfhnefs in polite company; and is in a manner tying his friends up to the yard-arm, and difciplining his acquaintance with the catof-nine-tails.

But the worst part of this maritime character is a certain invincible contempt, which they often contract for all mankind, except their fellow-feamen. They look on the rest of the world as a fet of fresh-water wretches, who could be of no fervice in a ftorin or an engagement; and from an unaccountable obiti. nacy, are particularly deaf to any propofals of new improvements in navigas tion, though experience daily teaches them the great ufe of the difcoveries already made, and how much room there is for more. They have no notion how ftudious men can fit at home, and devise charts and inftruments to direct them in their courte; they defpife thofe ingenious perions, who would affift them in their undertakings; while they confider them with the utmoft contempt, as going round the world in their closets, and failing at fea in their elbow-chairs. It is no lefs fhameful than true, that the Ventilator, one of the most beneficial. inventions that ever was devifed, was first offered to the fervice of our men of war, and rejected. It was first ufed in foreign fhips, then by our merchantmen, and latt of all among our men of war, to whofe ufe it was first recommended. This is a strong proof of that fatal obftinacy, which our fea.commanders are too apt to contract; and as a further inftance of it, I have been told of an Admiral's indignation on this fubject venting itself in the following manner: 'A pack of blockheads,' faid he, fit poring, and pretend to make

improvements for our ufe. They tell 'you,that they discover this,and discover that; but I tell you they are all fools. -For instance now, they fay the world is round; every one of them fays the world is round;-but I have 'been all round the world, and it is as flat as this table.'

The unpolished behaviour of our fea officers is in a great measure owing to their being often fent to fea very young, with little or no education beyond what they have received at the academy of Woolwich or Portsmouth. A lad of

good