all his education and English from a tutor of Berne, or a dancing-master of Picardy.

The English are a people of good sense; and I am the more surprised to find them swayed in their opinions by men who often from their very education are incompetent judges. Men who being always bred in affluence, see the world on one side, are surely improper judges of human nature; they may indeed describe a ceremony, a pageant, or a ball; but how can they pretend to dive into the secrets of the human heart, who have been nursed up only in forms, and daily behold nothing but the same insipid adulation smiling upon every face. Few of them have been in that best of schools, the school of adversity; and by what I can learn, fewer still have been bred in any school at all.

From such a description one would think, that a droning duke, or a dowager duchess, was not possessed of more just pretension to taste than persons of less quality; and yet whatever the one or the other may write or praise, shall pass for perfection, without further examination. A nobleman has but to take a pen, ink, and paper, write away through three large volumes, and then sign his name to the title-page, though the whole might have been before more disguising than his own roll, yet signing his name and title gives value

to the deed; title being alone equivalent to taste, imagination, and genius.

As soon as a piece therefore is published, the first questions are, Who is the author? Does he keep a coach? Where lies his estate? What sort of a table does he keep? If he happen to be poor and unqualified for such a scrutiny, he and his works sink into irremediable obscurity; and too late he finds, that having fed upon turtle is a more ready way to fame than having digested Tully.

The poor devil, against whom fashion has set its face, vainly alleges, that he has been bred in every part of Europe where knowledge was to be sold; that he has grown pale in the study of nature and himself; his works may please upon the perusal, but his pretensions to fame are entirely disregarded; he is treated like a fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws the audience. into raptures. The fiddler indeed may in such a case console himself by thinking, that while the other goes off with all the praise, he runs away with all the money: but here the parallel drops; for while the nobleman triumphs in unremitted applause, the author by profession steals off with-Nothing.

The poor, therefore, here, who draw their

is

pens auxiliary to the laws of their country, must think themselves very happy if they find, not fame but forgiveness; and yet they are hardly treated; for as every country grows more polite, the press becomes more useful; and writers become more necessary, as readers are supposed to increase. In a polished society, that man, though in rags, who has the power of enforcing virtue from the press, of more real use than forty stupid brachmans or bonzes, or guebres, though they preached never so often, never so loud, or never so long. That man, though in rags, who is capable of deceiving even indolence into wisdom, and who professes amusement while he aims at reformation, is more useful in refined society than twenty cardinals with all their scarlet, and tricked out in all the fopperies of scholastic finery.

LETTER LVII.

TO THE SAME.

A visitation dinner described.

As the man in black takes every opportunity of introducing me to such company as may serve to indulge my speculative temper, or gratify my curiosity, I was by his influence

lately invited to a visitation dinner. To understand this term, you must know, that it was formerly the custom here for the principal priests to go about the country once a year, and examine upon the spot whether those of subordinate orders did their duty, or were qualified for the task; whether their temples were kept in proper repair, or the laity pleased with their administration.

Though a visitation of this nature was very useful, yet it was found to be extremely trou blesome, and for many reasons utterly inconvenient; for as the principal priests were obliged to attend at court, in order to solicit preferment, it was impossible they could at the same time attend in the country, which was quite out of the road to promotion: if we add to this the gout, which has been time immemorial a clerical disorder here, together with the bad wine and ill-dressed provisions that must infallibly be served up by the way, it was not strange that the custom has been long discontinued. At present, therefore, every head of the church, instead of going about to visit his priests, is satisfied if his priests come in a body once a year to visit him; by this means the duty of half a year is dispatched in a day. When assembled, he asks each in his turn how they have behaved, and are liked; upon which, those who have

neglected their duty, or are disagreeable to their congregation, no doubt accuse themselves, and tell him all their faults; for which he reprimands them most severely.

The thoughts of being introduced into a company of philosophers and learned men (for such I conceived them) gave me no small pleasure; I expected our entertainment would resemble those sentimental banquets so finely described by Xenophon and Plato; I was hoping some Socrates would be brought in from the door, in order to harangue upon divine love; but as for eating and drinking, I had prepared myself to be disappointed in that particular. I was apprised that fasting and temperance were tenets strongly recom, mended to the professors of Christianity and I had seen the frugality and mortification of the priests of the east: so that I expected an entertainment where we should have much reasoning, and little meat..

Upon being introduced, I confess I found no great signs of mortification in the faces or persons of the company. However, I imputed their florid looks to temperance, and their corpulency to a sedentary way of living. I saw several preparations indeed for dinner; but none for philosophy. The company seemed to gaze upon the table with silent expectation; but this I easily excused.. Men of wisdom,,