fequence was that as his earnings did not answer his fubfiftance, he was perpetually getting in debt. He was arrested, but at laft difcharged by his creditors, after fix months clofe confinement, because they found they could get nothing of him.

After this, writing a tolerable hand, he was retained for fome time by a gentleman as his amanuenfis, this gentleman perceiving he had fome abilities in the literary way, recommended him to fome bookfellers, and advised him to turn author he did fo, and while his patron lived made a good fubfittance, and even began to pay fome of his creditors; but this step only brought the rest upon him-however, as his patron had given him leave to addrefs his daughter, fuppofed to be worth 1000l. that circumstance kept them quiet for fome time; but he was a minor; her father dying, guardians were appointed; they gave confent to her marrying Camillo immediately, but when the come of age, brought in a fcandalous account wherein they made her debtor. In the mean time, fince her father's death, the book fellers had declined employing Camillo, who thought to fet up in his trade, but now his hopes were blafted. He had but one chance more

Mr. S -, an old gentleman of great generofity, employed him to tranffcribe fome little things for him. He interested himself in his affairs, and would have fettled his debts for him; but a fudden death removed him. Camillo had by this time three children by his wife, for whom he entertained the most tender affection.

ACCOUNT of a MODEST PLEA for the Property of Cory RIGHT. BY CATHARINE MACAULAY.

TH

HIS hafty performance, the author affures us, was written under a heavy oppreffion of fickness and languor of body, at a great distance from the capital, deprived of the advantage of feeing all the arguments adduced by council on this important fubject, or, indeed, any other argument but what the got from the news papers.

Her firft pofition is, that booksellers claim an equal privilege with the rest of their fellow citizens engaged in trade, to eat and drink, and, if in the good graces of dame Fortune, to leave eftates to their families; and the remarks, that, if it is fo very obvious as a noble Lord has endeavoured to make it appear, that no common-law right exifts for fecuring copy-right, the granting injunctions could only tend to deny to one party what the law entitled them to, and amuse the other to their greater ruin.

She thinks the high compliment paid to authors with the intention only of depriv

ing them of the honeft dear-bought reward of their literary labours, was rather flattering than fenfible. Literary fame alone will not purchase a fhoulder of mutton, or prevail with fordid butchers and bakers to 2bate one farthing in the pound of the exorbitant price which bread and meat at this time bear. An empty stomach is a bad attendant on fpleen and melancholy; and the best means of relieving a friend, opprefed with the two great evils of hunger and forrow, is to refresh his fpirits with proper nutriment for the body, before you attempt the adminiftering that balfam of confolation intended for the relief of his mind.

Pope was fo far from feafting upen literary fame, that he boafted of the happy independance he had obtained by the fale of his literary publications.

The names of Bacon, Newton, Milton, and Locke, and the player Shakespeare too, have been brought to prove that first-rate geniuses have laboured in the literary way from the fole motive of delighting and inftructing mankind. That Shakespeare was not one of thofe fublime characters who had no view to gain in his works, is obvi ous, Mrs. Macaulay thinks, from that abundance of low ribaldry to please a barbarous audience, which load and disgrace the moft excellent of his dramatic pieces; and though he did not fell or bequeathe his works, he never took the pains to correct a page of them for the benefit of the public.

The honours the philofopher Bacon acquir ed, were not in confequence of his fuperior genius, but as the reward of proftituting his talents to the interests of an arbitrary, ill-defigning court.

Locke did not go without his reward. Newton was gratified with a place and penfion.

But Milton, indeed, Mrs. Macaulay acknowledges, when his fortune was ruined in the cruth of his party, amused his diftreffed imagination with forming, for the delight and inftruction of mankind, a poem, whofe merit is of fuch magnitude, that it is impoffible for a genius inferior to his own to do juffice to the defcription.

Mrs. Macaulay, after fome shrewd remarks on the arguments against the perpetuity of literary property, proceeds more feriously to confider the fubject in view. She begins with combating thofe popular complaints, which whether on true or falfe grounds, the fays, "have at various times, by authors and the public, been made against the booksellers. The public do not fufficiently refpect and love learning, to be eafily fatisfied with the price of books, and it is impoffible for a bookfeller to fatisfy the expectations of an unfuccessful author,

But

But however avarice (for avarice more or lefs governs all bodies of men) may formerly have occafioned booksellers to impofe on the wants of a neceffitous author in the purchase of a copy, or on the public in the fale of a literary work, there are at prefent too many in the trade for an author to be reduced to the neceffity of difpofing of a faleable copy for less than it is worth. Bookfellers alfo, in these times, understand their interest better than to give very bad editions of authors. We have in general better paper, better print, and more elegant editions of English authors, than I believe were ever known fince literature flourifhed in England; and, in regard to moderateness of price, books in these times, when every commodity, every material in the way of trade, pay such a high tax to the government; books I fay, are the cheapest article fold. This is fo notorious a truth to those enlightened, generous individuals, who understand the ufe of literature, and refpect learned and ingenious perfons, that they lament the frivolous tafte, which is fo generally prevailing, as to occafion both fexes to give with pleafure, to fee a farcical reprefentation on the ftage, or to revel at a masquerade, double, treble, and, in the last instance,often above ten times the fum which they grudge to bestow on an instructive book.

These enlightened, generous individuals, do, I fay, lament that thofe debauchers of the good fenfe and morals of the people, thofe dealers in (not to give them a harther name) trifling amusements, with dancers and fingers, fhould be fupported in all the high luxuries of pampered fenfe, and at the fame time enabled to pocket thousands obtained from the giddy, unthinking multitude, whilft those who are fit to inftruct and delight the intellectual sense of mankind, are driven to the greatest ftraits to obtain the neceffaries and decencies of life."

After lamenting the want of national generofity for the encouragement of learning, Mrs. Macaulay concludes her remarks with the folution of this important question: Is the rendering literary property common, advantageous er difadvantageous to the ftate of literature in this country? This, the thinks, is easily anfwered, that it will not only be difadvantageous, but ruinous, to the state of literature. If literary property becomes common, adds the,

we

can have but two kinds of authors; men in opulence, and men in dependence: and as in our days genius and learning, are too humble and too modeft to frequent the places of the great, fhe is afraid, that it is from dependent writers alone that we must expect all our future inAruction,

AN ESSAY ON NOVELTY.

HERE is no pasion more ftrongly

Tingrafted in our natures, than the love

of Novelty; which, from the beginning to the end of life, is that endless principle that keeps the mind in a continual gadding, and which, when not under the govern ment of a found judgment, is as much delighted with the newness of a trifling fashion, as with the most useful discovery in nature.

In every ftage of life, a certain degree of this paffion is highly neceffary; but in no other part fo intenfe and requifite as in our infancy. The fickleness in young minds; the continual fhifting from one thing to another; the ardent longings after new play-things, which no fooner attained, but grown familiar, are loathed and thrown afide; is all the effect of this paffion, and ftores the mind with that variety of ideas it fo quickly acquires in the first years of life. These ideas would come in but flowly, were the likings of children fteady, and were they not hurried by their curiofity from object to object.

I have been often amufed in confidering, how the necefficies of one ftage of life are frequently the vices of another; and have been pleafed to fee a child fall out with his coral, and cry for a new play-thing, when I have blushed to fee maturer years give indications of this giddinefs of defire, which, however neceffary in children to store the imagination, and to prevent too strong an attachment to particular things, yet at the age of manhood is the refult of an untutored difpofition. The acqnifition of original ideas is the bufinefs of childhood; to compound and arrange them, the work of riper years; and that eagerness after Novelty, and confequently ficklenefs, which at first ferved to enrich the fancy, now only dif turbs the judgment.

Hence the paffion for Novelty, altho' never intirely destroyed, yet naturally deeays; or if in due time it does not abate, it becomes a foible in the character, and fhould be brought under proper difcipline.

Whenever this bufy principle fo out-lives its occafions fo as to remain vigorous in old age, it is generally confined to a certain fet of objects; and from hence arise the various tribes of Novelty-hunters with which Society fwarms; fuch as news-mongers, fhell-gatherers,butter-fly-catchers, in fhort, most of the bufy enquirers into Nature, without the abilities to arrange, or invention to investigate her laws.

When mere curiofity is the motive of a perfon's enquiries into the productions of Nature, however he may be dignified by the fpecious name of a Naturalist, he is in

quift

quifitive to no purpofe; his fearch is merely after Novelty, not after improvement; for not diftinguishing the great and useful works of Nature from the plays the affects in varrying the colour of a butterfly or a tulip, every difcovery is of equal importance to him; and though he may be acquainted with the external appearance of all Nature, he knows no one part of her intimately, but is as a traveller who rides post thro' a country.

The man who in this manner heaps up knowledge, if with the leaft degree of propriety it can be termed Knowledge, is neither better nor wifer than he who, to an extreme old age, spent a life in purchafing furniture, which, no fooner bought than packed up into garrets, ferved neither for ufe nor ornament. Indeed the heads of these "children of a larger growth" may justly be deemed as lumber-rooms, where the refufe of understanding and knowledge are indifcriminately jumbled together, and where it foon lofes its value even to the poffeffor, as it lofes its novelty.

To confider the ardor, vehemence, and toil that men employ in their pursuits, one would judge the enquiries to be of the greatest importance; but if we turn to the objects of thefe purfuits, we see them as they are, ferious trifles; an infect; a muffel-fhell; a weed, or a flower.

It is not long fince I met with an oration which, upon looking into, I imagined had been a panegyric upon Hercules or Thefeus, or fome fuch monfter-killer of antiquity. The Hero's traverfing the globe from eaft to weft, from north to fouth, through heats, and colds, and ftorms, was emphatically defcribed, and the dangers he was expofed to worked up in the highest colours; fometimes fcorched on the burning plains of Africa, fometimes almoft perished with the piercing cold of Lapland; fometimes impending from the brow of a steep rock, which nodded horrid over the fwelling ocean, the winds, and rains, and waves bursting upon him fometimes in the deep caverns of the earth, difimal in gloom! From all this pomp I expected to hear of the Nemean lion, the Hydra, the Eyrmanthean boar, and the bringing Cerberus from Hell. But

portance, to render the means confiderable; and where newness merely is the end of our pursuits, the labour of the means only heightens the ridicule.

What is more ridiculous than to fee a Florist, at four every morning, hanging over a tulip with as much anxiety as an Alchymift waits the happy moment of projection? Why all this affiduity to catch the inftant of its blowing, merely to obferve whether it opens with a ftreak more or less than he had yet feen? He who thus grows over a flower, leads a life of very little higher vegetation than the flower itself.

A

The contemplation of the relation each part of the univerfe bears to the whole; how mere vegetation through various degrees rifes almoft to life, and feems of kindred to the lowest sensation; the gradation, again, of fenfative beings, from the Infect to the Man himself, and regarding every thing as part of an infinite fcale; is undoubtedly worthy of a Philosopher. flower, a worm, a butterfly, may afford matter of enquiry to the wifeft man, if, enlarging his views, he does not reft there; and if from the curious ftructure of a gnat he is carried to the contemplation of a Supreme Being, and an admiration of that Almighty Wifdom which, ftretching itself from the smallest atom through infinite variety, actuates, impels, and orders the whole fyftem of things. In this light he will fee the uniform operations of Nature, and that the cementing power which keeps the great planets in their orbs, Ilkewife combines the smallest particles of matter; and that a Cæfar grew from an egg, as well as the most inconfiderable infect. His enquiries in this view will render him the wifer and the better man; and from confidering how each clafs of lower animals conftantly operate in their proper fphere, he will learn, that to do good to his fellow-creatures, and to direct all his toil and ftudy to the prefervation of fociety, is the only way of anfwering the great end of Creation.

A MOST SINGULAR CHARACTER.

R. Stckly was a Gentleman of a very ancient family, and of an eftate of a thousand pounds a year. In his youth he was bred to the law; and he poffelfed fufficient abilities to have made a progrefs in it. Being once put into motion, he was extremely apt to continue fo; and when at reft, he hated moving. By this difpofition, when he was prevailed on by his companions to pafs an evening in gaiety, he never defired to change the manner of living, and would have perfifted in it for ever, if he could have prevailed on them to continue with him; being then as eccen

tric and as inclined to motion as a comet. In like manner, when he had once become fedentary by two or three days tarrying at his chambers, he hated the thoughts of being put into action again, and was always with difficulty brought abroad; like a heavy stone which has lain fome time in one place on the ground, and formed itfelf a bed, out of which it is not easily ie

moved.

When he left London, he retired into the country, filled with the project of perfecting the perpetual motion. This naturally kept him much at home in pursuit of this study and as no one in the town had refolution enough to reafon with him on the affair, or was of importance enough to make him change his defign, that habit of perfifting in one way kept him at home entirely. During the courfe of more than thirty years, he never came abroad but once, which was, when he was obliged to take the oaths of allegiance to King George the First. That was the only time he changed his thirt, garments, or haved himself, the whole time of his retirement. He was a very little man, and at once the most nafty and cleanlieft perfon alive; washing his hands twenty times a day, and neglecting every other part. During this confinement, he never had his bed made. After he had given over all hopes of fuccefs in the perpetual motion, he took pleasure in obferv. ing the work and policy of ants, and stocked the whole town so plentifully with that infect, that the fruits in the gardens were devoured by them.

During the reign of the immortal Queen Anne, whenever the Duke of Marlborough opened the trenches against any city in Flanders, he broke ground at the extremity of a floor in the houfe, and made his approaches regularly with his pick-axe, gaining work after work, which he had chalked out on the ground, according to the town in the middle of his floor at B-def-d, the fame day his Grace was mafter of it in Flanders; and every city coft him a new floor.

During his time of this ftay within doors, he never fat on a chair; and when he chofe to warm himself, he had made a pit before the fire, into which he leapt, and thus fat on the floor.

He fuffered no one to see him but the heir of his estate, his brother and fifter; the Erft never but when he feat for him, and that very rarely; the other fometimes once a year, and fometimes feldomer-when he was cheatful, talkative, and a lover of the tattle of the town.

His family confifted of two fervant-maids, one of them flept in the house the other not. Nothwithstanding, this fingularity and apparent avarice, he was by no means a April, 1774.

lover of money; for, during this whole time, he had never received nor asked for any rent from any of his tenants; and those who brought him money he would often keep at an inn more than a week, pay all their expences, and fend them back a gain without receiving a fhilling.

He lived well in his houfe, and frequently gave to the poor; always eat from farge joints of meat, and never faw any thing twice at his table; and at Christmas he divided a certain fum of money amongst the neceffitous of the town.

He feemed to be afraid of two things only; one, being killed for his riches; the other, being infected with a difeafe; for which reafon he would fend his maid fometimes to borrow a half crown from his neighbours, to hint he was poor; and always received the money which was paid him, in a bafon of water, to prevent taking infection from thofe who paid him.

He never kept his money under lock and key, but piled it up on the fhelves, before the plates in his kitchen. In his chamber, into which no fervant had entrance during the time of his tarrying at home, he had two thousand guineas on the top of a low cheft of drawers, covered with duft, and five hundred lying on the floor where it lay five-and-twenty years. This laft fum a child had thrown down, which he was fond of playing with, by over-fetting a table that stood upon one foot; the table continued in the same situation alfo. Thro' this money he had made two paths, by kicking the pieces upon one fide; one of which led from the door to the window; the other from the window to the bed.

When he quitted the Temple in London, he left an old portmanteau over the portal of the ante-chamber, where it had continued many years, during which time the chambers had paffed through many hands, when, at laft, the Gentleman who poffef fed them ordering his fervants to pull it down, it broke by being rotten, and out fell four or five hundred pieces of gold, which were found to belong to him from the inclofed papers: this he had never examined after. It is generally fuppofed, alfo, that he had put fome thoufands of pounds into the hands of a Banker, or lent them to fome Tradefman in London, without taking any memorandum from the perfon; and which are loft to his heirs, as he would never fay to whom he lent them, through fear, perhaps, left he should hear it was loft; which fome minds can bear to fufpect, tho' not to know pofitively. After more than thirty years living a reclufe, he was at laft found dead in his bed, covered with lice. And thus ended the life of this whimsical Being,

LAND