arms; there is no neceffity for fpeaking; they are only to groan at each other; they must vary the tones of exclamation and defpair through the whole theatrical gamut, wring their figures into every fhape of diftrefs; and when their calamities have drawn a proper quantity of tears from the fympathetic fpectators, they may go off in dumb folemnity at different doors, clasping their hands, or flapping their pocket-holes: this, which may be called a tragic pantomime, will anfwer every purpofe of moving the paffions, as well as words could have done, and it must fave thofe expences which go to reward an author. All modern plays that would keep the audience alive, muft be conceived in this manner; and, indeed, many a modern play is made up on no other plan. This is the merit that lifts up the heart, like opium, into a rapture of infenfibi lity, and can difmifs the mind from all the fatigue of thinking: this is the eloquence that fhines in many a long forgotten fcene, which has been reckoned exceffive fine upon acting; this the lightning that flathes no lefs in the Hyperbolical tyrant, who breakfasts on the wind,' than in little Norval, harmless as the babe unborn.' Adieu. as talents for villainy, attempted to evade the ordinances already eftablished; their practices, therefore, foon brought on a new law levelled against them; but the fame degree of cunning which ' had taught the knave to evade the former ftatutes, taught him to evade the latter alfo; he flew to new fhifts, while • justice pursued with new ordinances; till, however, he kept his proper diftance; and whenever one crime was. judged penal by the ftate, he left com Similar to this, there is a fpirit of mercy breathes through the laws of England, which fome erroneously endeavour to fupprefs; the laws, however, seem unwilling to punish the offender, or to furnish the officers of juftice with every means of acting with feverity. Thofemitting it, in order to practise fome who arreft debtors are denied the use of arms; the nightly watch is permitted to reprefs the diforders of the drunken citizens only with clubs; juftice, in fuch a · case, seems to hide her terrors, and permits fome offenders to escape, rather than load any with a punishment difproportioned to the crime. Thus it is the glory of an Englishman, that he is not only governed by laws, but that thefe are alfo tempered by mercy. A country reftrained by fevere laws, and thofe too executed with feverity, (as in Japan) is under the moft, terrible fpecies of tyranny: a royal tyrant is, generally dreadful to the great, but numerous penal laws grind every rank of people, and chiefly thofe leaft able to relift oppreffion, the poor. unforbidden fpecies of villainy. Thus the criminal, against whom the threat⚫enings were denounced, always escaped free; while the fimple rogue alone felt the rigour of juftice. In the mean time, penal laws became numerous; almost every perfon in the ftate, un, knowingly, at different times offended, and was every moment fubject to a malicious profecution. In fact, penal laws, instead of preventing crimes, are generally enacted after the commiffion; inftead of repreffing the growth of ingenious villainy, only multiply deceit, by putting it upon new fhifts and expedients of practiling with impunity. Such laws, therefore, refemble the guards which are fometimes impofed upon tributary princes, apparently in deed deed to fecure them from danger, but in reality to confirm their captivity. Penal laws, it must be allowed, fecure property in a ftate, but they alfo diminish perfonal fecurity in the fame proportion: there is no pofitive law, how equitable foever, that may not be fometimes capable of injuftice. When a law enacted to make theft punishable with death, happens to be equitably executed, it can at beft only guard our poffeffions; but when by favour or ig norance juftice pronounces a wrong verdict, it then attacks our lives, fince, in fuch a cafe, the whole community fuffers with the innocent victim; if therefore, in order to fecure the effects of one. man, I should make a law which may take away the life of another, in fuch a cafe, to attain a fmaller good, I am guilty of a greater evil; to fecure fociety in the poffeffion of a bauble, I render a real and valuable poffeffion precarious: and, indeed, the experience of every age may ferve to vindicate the affertion. No law could be more juft than that called Lefa Majeftatis, when Rome was governed by emperors. It was but reafonable, that every confpiracy against the administration should be detected and punished; yet what terrible flaughters fucceeded in confequence of it's enacting; profcriptions, ftranglings, poifonings, in almost every family of diftinction; yet all done in a legal way, every criminal had his trial, and loft his life by a majority of witneffes. And fuch will ever be the cafe, where punishments are numerous, and where a weak, vicious, but above all, where a mercenary magiftrate is concerned in their execution; fuch a man defires to fee penal laws increafed, fince he too frequently has it in his power to turn them into instruments of extortion: in fuch hands, the more laws, the wider means, not of fatisfying justice, but of fatiating avarice. A mercenary magistrate, who is rewarded in proportion, not to his integrity, but to the number he convicts, mu be a perfon of the most unblemish ed character, or he will lean on the fide of cruelty; and when once the work of injustice is begun, it is impoffible to tell how far it will proceed. It is faid of the Hyena, that, naturally, it is no way ravenous; but when once it has tafted human flesh, it becomes the most voracious animal of the foreft, and continues to perfecute mankind ever after. A corrupt magiftrate may be confidered as a human Hyena; he begins, perhaps, by a private fnap, he goes on to a morfel among friends, he proceeds to a meal in public, from a meal he advances to a furfeit, and at last fucks blood like a vampyre. Not into fuch hands fhould the adminiftration of justice be entrusted, but to those who know how to reward as well as to punish. It was a fine faying of Nangfu the emperor, who, being told that his enemies had raised an infurrection in one of the diftant provincesCome, then, my friends,' faid he, follow me, and I promife you that we fhall quickly deftroy them.' He marched forward, and the rebels fubmitted upon his approach. All now thought that he would take the moft fignal revenge, but were furprized to fee the captives treated with mildness and humanity. 'How!' cries his firft minifter, is this the manner in which you • fulfil your promise? Your royal word was given that your enemies fhould ♦ be destroyed, and behold, you have 'pardoned all, and even careffed fome!' I promised,' replied the emperor, with a generous air, to defroy my enemies; I have fulfilled my word, for fee they are enemies no longer; I have made friends of them.' This, could it always fucceed, were the true method of deftroying the enemies of a ftate: well it were if rewards and mercy alone could regulate the commonwealth; but fince punishments are fometimes neceffary, let them at least be rendered terrible, by being executed but feldom; and let Justice lift her sword, rather to terrify, than revenge. Adieu, LETTER LXXXI. I FROM THE SAME. Have as yet given you but a short and imperfect defcription of the Ladies of England. Woman, my friend, is a fubject not eafily underftood, even in China; what, therefore, can be expected from my knowledge of the fex, in a country where they are univerfally allowed to be riddles, and I but a ftranger? To confefs a truth, I was afraid to begin the defcription, left the fex fhould undergo fome new revolution before it was finished; and my picture fhould thus become old, before it could well be faid to have ever been new. To-day they are lifted upon ftilts, to-morrow they lower their heels and raife their heads; their cloaths at one time are bloated out with whalebone; at prefent they have Jaid their hoops afide, and are become as flim as mermaids. All, all is in a ftate of continual fluctuation, from the Mandarine's wife, who rattles through the treets in her chariot, to the humble fempftrefs, who clatters over the pavement in iron-fhod pattens. -What chiefly diftinguishes the fex, at prefent, is the train. As a lady's qua lity or fashion was once determined here by the circumference of her hoop, both are now measured by the length of her tail. Women of moderate fortunes are contented with tails moderately long; but ladies of true taste and diftinction fet no bounds to their ambition in this particular. I am told the Lady Mayorefs, on days of ceremony, carries one longer than a bell-wether of Bantam, whofe tail, you know, is trundled along in a wheel-barrow. Sun of China, what contradictions do we find in this ftrange world! Not only the people of different countries think in oppofition to each other, but the inhabitants of a fingle island are often found inconfiftent with themfelves. Would you believe it? this very people, my Fum, who are fo fond of feeing their women with long tails, at the fame time dock their horfes to the very rump!!! But you may easily guefs that I am no way difpleafed with a fashion which tends to encreafe a demand for the com modities of the East, and is so very be neficial to the country in which I was born. Nothing can be better calcu lated to encreafe the price of filk than the prefent manner of dreffing. A lady's train is not bought but at fome expence; and after it has fwept the pub lic walks for a very few evenings, is fit to be worn no longer: more filk muft be bought in order to repair the breach; and fome ladies of peculiar economy are thus found to patch up their tails eight or ten times in a feafon. This unneceffary confumption may introduce poverty here, but then we shall be the richer for it in China. The man in black, who is a profeffed enemy to this manner of ornamenting the tail, affures me there are numberless inconveniencies attending it, and that a lady dreffed up to the fashion is as much a cripple as any in Nankin. But his chief indignation is levelled at thofe who drefs in this manner, without a proper fortune to fupport it. He affures me, that he has known fome who would have a tail, though they wanted a petticoat; and others who, without any other pretenfions, fancied they be came ladies merely from the addition of three fuperfluous yards of ragged filk. I know a thrifty good woman,' continues he, who, thinking herself ob liged to carry a train like her betters, never walks from home without the uneafy apprehenfions of wearing it out too foon; every excurfion fhe makes gives her new anxiety; and her train is every bit as importunate, and 'wounds her peace as much as the bladder we fometimes fee tied to the tail of a cat,' Nay, he ventures to affirm, that a train may often bring a lady into the moft critical circumftances: "For should ⚫ a rude fellow,' fays he, offer to come up to ravifh a kifs, and the lady attempt to avoid it, in retiring the muit neceffarily tread upon her train, and thus fall fairly upon her back; by which means, every one knows-her cloaths may be spoiled." The ladies here make no fcruple to Jaugh at the fmallness of a Chinese flipper; but I fancy our wives at China would have a more real cause of laughter, could they but fee the immoderate length of an European train. Head of Confucius! to view a human being crippling herfelf with a great unweildy tail, for our diverfion! Backward the cannot go; forward the mult move, but flowy, and if ever the attempts to turn round, it must be in a circle not fmaller than that defcribed by the wheeling crocodile, when it would face an affilant. And yet, to think that all this confers importance and majefty! to think that a lady acquires additional respect from fifteen yards of trailing taffety! I cannot contain-Ha! ha! ha! This is certainly a remnant of European barbarity: the female Tartar, dreffed in sheep fkins, is in far more convenient drapery. Their own writers have fometimes inveighed against the abfurdity of this fashion; but perhaps it has never been ridiculed fo well as upon the Italian theatre, where Pafquarielo, being engaged to attend on the Countess of Fernambroco, having one of his hands employed in carrying her muff, and the other her lap dog, he bears her train majestically along, by ticking it in the waistband of his breeches. Adieu. LETTER LXXXII. A FROM THE SAME. Difpute has for fome time divided the philofophers of Europe; it is debated, whether arts and fciences are more ferviceable or prejudicial to mankind? They who maintain the caufe of literature, endeavour to prove their ufefulness, from the impoffibility of a large number of men fubfiiting in a small tract of country without them; from the pleafure which attends the acquifition; and from the influence of knowledge in promoting practical morality. They who maintain the oppofite opinion, display the happiness and inno. cence of those uncultivated nations who live without learning; urge the numerous vices which are to be found only in polished fociety; enlarge upon the oppreffion, the cruelty, and the blood which must neceffarily be thed, in order to cement civil fociety; and infift upon the happy equality of conditions in a barbarous itate, preferable to the unnatural fubordination of a more refined conftitution. This difpute, which has already given fo much employment to fpeculative indolence, has been managed with much ardour, and (not to fupprefs our fentiments) with but little fagacity. They who infift that the fciences are ufeful in refined fociety are certainly right, and they who maintain that barbarous nations are more happy without them, are right alfo; but when one fide, for this reafon, attempts to prove them as univerfally useful to the folitary barbarian, as to the native of a crouded commonwealth; or when the other endeavours to banish them as prejudicial to all fociety, even from populous ftates, as well as from the inhabitants of the wildernefs, they are both wrong; fince that knowledge which makes the happiness of a refined European, would be a tor ment to the precarious tenant of an Afiatic wild. Let me, to prove this, tranfport the imagination for a moment to the midit of a forett in Siberia. There we be hold the inhabitant, poor indeed, but equally fond of happiness with the most refined philofopher of China. The earth lies uncultivated and uninhabited for miles around him; his little family and he the fole and undifputed poffeffors. In fuch circumftances, Nature and Reafon will induce him to prefer a hunter's life to that of cultivating the earth. He will certainly adhere to that manner of living which is carried on at the smallest expence of labour, and that food which is moft agreeable to the appetite; he will prefer indolent, though precarious luxury, to a laborious, though permanent competence; and a knowledge of his own happinefs will determine him to perfevere in native barbarity. In like manner, his happiness will incline him to bind himself by no law. Laws are made in order to fecure prefent property; but he is poffeffed of no preperty which he is afraid to lofe, and defires no more than will be fufficient to fuftain fuftain him to enter into compacts with others, would be undergoing a voJuntary obligation without the expe&tance of any reward. He and his counfrymen are tenants, not rivals, in the fame inexhauflible forett; the encreased poffeflions of one by no means diminifhes the expectations arifing from equal affiduity in another; there are no need of laws, therefore, to reprefs ambition, where there can be no mischief attending it's most boundless gratifications. Our folitary Siberian will, in like manner, find the fciences not only entirely ntelets in directing his practice, but difgufting even in fpeculation. In every contemplation, our curiofity must be firft excited by the appearances of things, before our reafon undergoes the fatigue of investigating the causes. Some of thofe appearances are produced by experiment, others by minute enquiry; fome arise from a knowledge of foreign climates, and others from an intimate ftudy of our own. But there are few objects, in comparifon, which prefent themfelves to the inhabitant of a barbarous country; the game he hunts, or the tranfient cottage he builds, make up the chief objects of his concern; his curiofity, therefore, muft be proportionably lefs; and if that is-diminished, the reafoning faculty will be diminished in proportion. Befides, fenfual enjoyment adds wings to curiofity. We confider few objects with ardent attention, but those which have fome connection with our wishes, our pleasures, or our neceffities. A defire of enjoyment firft interefts our paffions in the purfuit, points out the object of investigation, and reafon then comments where fenfe has led the way. An encrease in the number of our enjoyments, therefore, neceffarily produces an encrease of scientific research; but in countries where almost every enjoyment is wanting, reafon there feems deftitute of it's great infpirer, and fpeculation is the bufinefs of fools when it becomes it's own reward. The barbarous Siberian is too wife, therefore, to exhauft his time in queft of knowledge, which neither curiofity prompts, nor pleasure impels, him to purfue. When told of the exact admeasurement of a degree upon the equator at Quito, he feels no pleafure in the account; when informed that fuch a difcovery tends to promote navigation and commerce, he finds himself no way interested in either. A difcovery which fome have purfued at the hazard of their lives, affects him with neither aftonishament nor pleafure. He is fatisfied with thoroughly understanding the few objects which contribute to his own felicity, he knows the propereft places where to lay the feare for the fable, and difcerns the value of furs with more than European fagacity. More extended knowledge would only ferve to render him unhappy; it might lend a ray to fhew him the mifery of his fituation, but could not guide him in his efforts to avoid it. Ignorance is the happiness of the poor. The mifery of a being endowed with fentiments above it's capacity of fruition, is most admirably defcribed in one of the fables of Locman the Indian moralift. An elephant that had been peculiarly ferviceable in fighting the battles of Wiftnow, was ordered by the god to wish for whatever he thought proper, and the defire should be attended with immediate gratification. The elephant thanked his benefactor on bended knees, and defired to be endowed with the reafon and the faculties of a man. Wiftnow was forry to hear the foolish requeft, and endeavoured to diffuade him from his mifplaced ambition; but finding it to no purpose, gave him at last fuch a portion of wifdom as could correct even the Zendavefta of Zoroafter. The reafoning elephant went away rejoicing in his new acquifition; and though his body still retained it's ancient form, he found his appetites and paffions entirely altered. He first confidered, that it would not only be more comfortable, but alfo more becoming, to wear cloaths; but, unhappily, he had no method of making them himself, nor had he the ufe of fpeech to demand them from others; and this was the first time he felt real anxiety. He foon perceived" how much more elegantly men were fed than he, therefore he began to loath his ufual food, and longed for thofe delicacies which adorn the tables of princes; but here again he found it impoffible to be fatisfied; for though he could eakly obtain flesh, yet he found it impoffible to drefs it in any degree of perfection. In fhort, every pleasure that contributed to the felicity of mankind, ferved only to render him more miferable, as he found himself utterly deprived of the power |