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Am amufed, my dear Fum, with the labours of fome of the learned here. One fhall write you a whole folio on the diffection of a caterpillar; another fhail fwell his works with a defcriptioh of the plumage on the wing of a butterfly; a third fhall fee a little world on a peach leaf, and publish a book to defcribe what his readers might fee more clearly in two minutes, only by being furnished with eyes and a microscope.

I have frequently compared the understandings of fuch men to their own glaffes. Their field of vifion is too contracted to take in the whole of any but minute objects; they view all nature bit by bit; now the probofcis, now the attennæ, now the pinnæ of a flea. Now the polypus comes to breakfast upon a worm; now it is kept up to fee how long it will live without eating; now it is turned infide outward; and now it fickens and dies. Thus they proceed, laborious in trifles, conftant in experiment, without one fingle abstraction, by which alone knowledge may be properly faid to encrease; till, at laft, their ideas, ever employed upon minute things, contract to the fize of the diminutive object, and a fingle mite fhall fill the whole mind's capacity.

Yet, believe me, my friend, ridiculous as thefe men are to the world, they are fet up as objects of esteem for each other. They have particular places appointed for their meetings; in which one fhews his cockle-fhell, and is praised by all the fociety; another produces his powder, makes fome experiments that refult in nothing, and comes off with admiration and applaufe; a third comes out with the important difcovery of fome new procefs in the skeleton of a mole, and is fet down as the accurate and fenfible; while one still more fortunate than the reft, by pickling, potting, and pre

ferving monfters, rifes into unbounded reputation.

The labours of fuch men, inftead of being calculated to amufe the public, are laid out only in diverting each other. The world becomes very little the better or the wifer, for knowing what is the peculiar food of an infect that is itself the food of another, which in it's turn is eaten by a third but there are men who have ftudied themselves into an habit of investigating and admiring fuch minutiæ. To thefe fuch fubjects are pleafing, as there are fome who con tentedly fpend whole days in endeavour. ing to folve ænigmas, or disentangle the puzzling sticks of children.

But of all the learned, thofe who pretend to investigate remote antiquity, have leaft to plead in their own defence, when they carry this paffion to a faulty excefs. They are generally found to fupply by conjecture the want of record; and: then by perfeverance are wrought up into a confidence of the truth of opinions, which even to themselves at first. appeared founded only in imagination.

The Europeans have heard much of the kingdom of China: it's politeness, arts, commerce, laws, and morals, are, however, but very imperfectly known among them. They have even now in their Indian warehouse numberless utenfils, plants, minerals, and niachines, of the ufe of which they are entirely ignorant; nor can any among them even make a probable guefs for what they might have been defigned. Yet, though this people be fo ignorant of the prefent real ftate of China, the philofophers I am defcribing have entered into long, learned, laborious disputes, about what China was two thoufand years ago. China and European happiness are but little connected even at this day; but European happiness and China two thousand

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thousand years ago have certainly no connection at all. However, the learned have written on and purfued the fubject through all the labyrinths of antiquity; though the early dews and the tainted gale be paffed away, though no footsteps remain to direct the doubtful chace, yet ftill they run forward, open upon the uncertain fcent, and though in fact they follow nothing, are earneft in the purfuit. In this chace, however, they all take different ways. One, for example, confidently affures us, that China was peopled by a colony from Egypt. Sefoftris, he obferves, led his army as far as the Ganges; therefore, if he went fo far, he might ftill have gone as far as China, which is but about a thousand miles from thence; therefore he did go to China; therefore China was not peopled before he went there; therefore it was peopled by him. Be fides, the Egyptians have pyramids; the Chinese have in like manner their porcelane tower; the Egyptians used to light up candles upon every rejoicing, the Chinese have lanthorns upon the fame occafion; the Egyptians had their great river, fo have the Chinese; but what ferves to put the matter paft a doubt is, that the ancient kings of China and thofe of Egypt were called by the fame names. The Emperor Ki is certainly the fame with King Atoes; for, if we only change K into A, and i into toes, we fhall have the name Atoes; and with equal eafe Menes may be proved to be the fame with the Emperor Yu; therefore the Chinese are a colony from Egypt.

Bitt another of the learned is entirely different from the laft; and he will have

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the Chinese to be a colony planted by Noah juft after the deluge. First, from the vaft fimilitude there is between the name of Fohi, the founder of the Chinefe monarchy, and that of Noah, the preferver of the human race: Noah, Fohi, very like each other truly; they have each but four letters, and only two of the four happen to differ. But to ftrengthen the argument, Fohi, as the Chinese chronicle afferts, had no father. Noah, it is true, had a father, as the European Bible tells us; but then, as this father was probably drowned in the flood, it is just the fame as if he had no father at all; therefore Noah and Fohi are the fame. Just after the flood, the earth was covered with mud; if it was covered with mud, it must have been incruftated mud; if it was incrustated, it was cloathed with verdure; this was a fine, unembarraffed road for Noah to fly from his wicked children; he therefore did fly from them, and took a jour ney of two thousand miles for his own amufement; therefore Noah and Fohi are the fame.

Another fect of literati, for they all pafs among the vulgar for very great fcholars, affert, that the Chinese came neither from the colony of Sefoftris, nor from Noah, but are defcended from Magog, Melhec, and Tubal, and therefore neither Sefoftris, nor Noah, nor Fohi, are the fame.

It is thus, my friend, that indolence affumes the airs of wifdom; and while it toffes the cup and ball with infantine folly, defires the world to look on, and calls the ftupid paftime Philofophy and Learning, Adieu.

HEN the men of this country are once turned of thirty, they regularly retire every year at proper intervals to lie in of the spleen. The vulgar, unfurnished with the luxurious comforts of the foft cushion, down bed, and easy-chair, are obliged, when the fit is on them, to nurfe it up by drinking, idlenefs, and ill-humour. In fuch difpofitions, unhappy is the foreigner who happens to cross them; his long chin,

tarnished coat, or pinched hat, are fore to receive no quarter. If they meet no foreigner however to fight with, they are in fuch cafes generally content with beating each other.

The rich, as they have more fenf bility, are operated upon with greater violence by this diforder. Different from the poor, inkead of becoming more ins folent, they grow totally unfit for oppofition. A general here, who would

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have faced a' culverin when well, if the fit be on him, thall hardly find courage to fouff a candle. An admiral, who could have oppofed a broadfide without Thrinking, thall fit whole days in his chamber, mobbed up in double night 3 caps, fhuddering at the intrufive breeze, and diftinguishable from his wife only by his black beard and heavy eyebrows.

In the country, this diforder moftly attacks the fair-fex; in town it is most unfavourable to the men. A lady, who has pined whole years amidst cooing doves and complaining nightingales in rural retirement, fhall refume all her vivacity in one night at a city gaming-table; her husband who roared, hunted, and got drunk at home, fhall grow fplenetic in town, in proportion to his wife's good-humour. Upon their arrival in London, they exchange their diforders. In confequence of her parties and excurfions, he puts on the furred cap and fearlet ftomacher, and perfectly resembles an Indian husband; who, when his wife is fafely delivered, permits her to tranfact bufinefs abroad, while he undergoes all the formality of keeping his bed, and receiving all the condolence in her place.

But thofe who refide conftantly in town, owe this diforder moftly to the influence of the weather. It is impoffible to defcribe what a variety of tranfmutations an Eaft wind fhall produce; it has been known to change a lady of fashion into a parlour couch; an alder. man into a plate of custards; and a difpenfer of justice into a rat-trap. Even philofophers themselves, are not exempt from it's influence; it has often converted a poet into a coral and bells, and a patriot fenator into a dumb-waiter.

Some days ago, I went to vifit the man in black, and entered his houfe with that chearfulness which the certainty of a favourable reception always infpires. Upon opening the door of his apartment, I found him with the moft

To this he made no reply; but groaning, and still holding the flute to his lip, continued to gaze at me for fome moments very angrily, and then proceeded to practife his gammut as before. After having produced a variety of the most hideous tones in nature; at laft, turning to me, he demanded, whether I did not think he had made a furprizing progrefs in two days? You fee, continues he, I have got the Ambusheer already; and as for fingering, my mafter tells me, I fhall have that in a few leffons more. I was fo much astonished with this inftanee of inverted ambition, that I knew not what to reply, but foon difcerned the caufe of all his abfurdities; my friend was under a metamorphofis by the power of spleen, and flute-blowing was unluckily become his adventitious paffion.

In order, therefore, to banish his anxiety imperceptibly, by feeming to indulge it, I began to defcant on the fe gloomy topics by which philofophers often get rid of their own pleen, by communicating it; the wretchedness of a man in this life, the happiness of fome wrought out of the miseries of others, the neceffity that wretches fhould expire under punishment, that rogues might enjoy affluence iu tranquillity; I led him on from the inhumanity of the rich to the ingratitude of the beggar from the infincerity of refinement to the fiercenefs of rufticity; and, at laft, had the good fortune to reftore him to his ufual ferenity of temper, by permitting him to expatiate upon all the modes of human mifery.

Some nights ago," fays my friend, fitting alone by my fire, I happened to look into an account of the detec ⚫tion of a set of men called the Thief

takers. I read over the many hide" ous cruelties of thofe haters of mankind, of their pretended friendship to wretches they meant to betray, of their fending men out to rob, and then

fometimes interrupting the narrative, by crying out "Yet thefe are men!" As I went on, I was informed that they had lived by this practice feveral years, and had been enriched by the price of blood-" And yet," cried I, "I have been fent into this world, and

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