you have a lodging, and need not encounter these hardships.

Johns. A man, sir, takes a pleasure in tasting the diversities of life, when he knows it is his option whether he shall do so or not.

Sav.

Your frame is robust. You will catch no harm, at any rate, from your present whim.

Johns. Why, sir, I love occasionally to aberrate from routine. It awakens and varies my ideas. The streets are almost silent just now. These large and opaque masses of building have nothing in their exterior to set the mind a-going; but they affect us, sir, because we know them to be pregnant with the workings of the human heart, from the cellar to the garret. There is no time when mankind so distinctly feel their happiness or misery, as before retiring to sleep. Action being then suspended, they have time to estimate its results, and to calculate what remains to be enjoyed or suffered.

Sav. I have some verses in my pocket which I composed this morning, and wrote on the back of a play-bill with a pen which I procured in a grocer's shop. If these lamps were not so dim, you should hear them read.

Johns. The ancients said of love, that he had been cradled on rocks, and suckled by tigers.

Sav. What of that?

Johns. It is astonishing under what unfavourable circumstances poetical enthusiasm, which is one of the finest movements of the soul, will sometimes thrive and fructify. I do not much wonder at Cervantes having written Don Quixote in prison; for it would appear that the assembling of humorous conceptions is a harsh and hardy operation of the mind, and not liable to interruption from slight inconveniences. We find humour among men, whom the rigours of their situation have entirely blunted to tenderness. Take, for instance, sailors and highwaymen.

Sav. What do you suppose to be the hardiest of all fac

ulties.

Johns. That of ratiocination, sir. But it requires to be supported. When I lived, as at one time I was obliged to do, upon four pence a day, I experienced frequent defalcation of mental activity.

Sav. Starvation may enfeeble the faculties, but in me it leaves the passions as active as ever. It leaves me still the same proud and uncontrollable Richard Savage.

Johns. Nature has probably ordered things in such a manner, that our personal energies shall be the last to suffer from bodily exhaustion. After dinner, sir, I generally feel inclined to meditation. Reading is then less agreeable to me, because of the trouble of holding the book to my eyes. Sav. When do you dine? Johns. Generally at three.

Sav. Heigho! you are a happy man. do credit to literature, when poor Savage

You will one day

Johns. Nay, sir, do not speak thus. 1 am but a harmless drudge, a word-hunter-little worthy of being envied. He that deludes his imagination with golden dreams of the dignity of literature, need only enter the garret of the lexicographer, and see him at his diurnal task, to be convinced that learning is honoured only in its results, and not in the person of the possessor.

Sav. Have you visited my Lord Chesterfield lately? Johns. Why, no, sir. I found that I was kept waiting for hours in the anti-chamber, while his lordship was engaged with such persons as Cibber.

Sav. Stupid scoundrel! Fellows like that get on well wherever they go.

Johns. And what if they do, sir? They are more gainly, sir, than we, because they are meaner. The man who approaches people like Chesterfield must not have any humours of his own. Now, sir, I am not one of those who can clear their foreheads, and look pleasant whenever occasion requires. I love to be as sour as I please. Mea virtute me involvo.

Sav. But surely Lord Chesterfield ought to make some distinction between

Johns. Chesterfield, I believe, does as we ourselves would do in his situation. He knows what it is to be a courtier, and he expects to be courted in his turn, for whatever he has to give.

Sav. Learning and worth ought

Johns. Nay, sir, do not talk stuff. Learning and worth may pace the streets, and reflect on their own merits till they are weary, but the world has other matters to think of, Personal qualities do not rise in society, unless their pos sessor has the art of making them subservient to the want of others. A man who appears at vanity fair, with a species of merchandise which every person can do without, will only be laughed at, if he gives himself airs,

SECTION LXXI.

EXTRACT FROM THE SPEECH OF MR. PITT, ON THE UNION WITH IRELAND.

WHILE I Combat this general and abstracted principle, which would operate as an objection to every union between separate states, on the ground of the sacrifice of independence, do 1 mean to contend that there is in no case just ground for such a sentiment? Far from it; it may become, on many occasions, the first duty of a free and generous people. If there exists a country which contains within. itself the means of military protection, the naval force necessary for its defence, which furnishes objects of industry sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants, and pecuniary resources adequate to maintaining, with dignity, the rank which it has attained among the nations of the world; if, above all, it enjoys the blessings of internal content and tranquillity, and possesses a distinct constitution of its own, the defects of which, if any, it is within itself capable of correcting; and if that constitution be equal, if not superior, to that of any other in the world, or (which is nearly the same thing) if those who live under it believe it to be so, and fondly cherish that opinion, I can well indeed understand that such a country must be jealous of any measure, which is to associate it as a part of a larger and more extensive empire.

But, sir, if, on the other hand, it should happen that there be a country which, against the greatest of all dangers that threaten its peace and security, has not adequate means of protecting itself without the aid of another nation; if that other be a neighbouring and kindred nation, speaking the same language, whose laws, whose customs and habits are the same in principle, but carried to a greater degree of perfection, with a more extensive commerce, and more abundant means of acquiring and diffusing national wealth, the stability of whose government-the excellence of whose constitution, is more than ever the admiration and envy of Europe, and of which the very country of which we are speaking can only boast an inadequate and imperfect resemblance ;-under such circumstances, I would ask, what conduct would be prescribed by every rational principle of dignity, of honour, or of interest? I would ask, whether

Great Britain is not precisely the nation, with which, on these principles, a country situated as Ireland is, would desire to unite? Does an union, under such circumstances, by free consent, and on just and equal terms, deserve to be branded as a proposal for subjecting Ireland to a foreign yoke? Is it not rather the free and voluntary association of two great countries, which join, for their common benefit in one empire, where each will retain its proportional weight and importance, under the security of equal laws, reciprocal affection, and inseparable interests, and which want nothing but that indissoluble connexion to render both invincible?

"Non ego nec Teucris Italos parere jubebo

Nec nova regna peto; paribus se legibus ambæ
Invictæ gentes æterna in fœdera mittant."

An

What has been the result of the union in Scotland? union, give me leave to say, as much opposed, and by much the same arguments, prejudices, and misconceptions, as are urged at this moment: creating too the same alarms, and provoking the same outrages, as have lately taken place in Dublin. Look at the metropolis of Scotland; the population of Edinburgh has been more than doubled since the union, and a new city added to the old.

Sir, I hope the zeal, the spirit, and the liberal and enlarged policy of this country, has given ample proof that it is not from a pecuniary motive that we seek an union. If it is not desirable on the grounds I have stated, it cannot be recommended for the purpose of taxation; but to quiet any jealousy on this subject, here again let us look to Scotland: Is there any instance where, with forty-five members on her part, and five hundred and thirteen on ours, that part of the united kingdom has paid more than its proportion to the general burthens? Is it then, sir, any ground of apprehension that we are likely to tax Ireland more heavily when she becomes associated with ourselves?

But, sir, in addition to this, if we come to the details of this proposition, it is in our power to fix, for any number of years which shall be thought fit, the proportion by which the contribution of Ireland to the expenses of the state shall be regulated; that these proportions shall not be such as would make a contribution greater than the necessary amount of its own present necessary expenses as a separate kingdom; and even after that limited period, the proportion of the whole contribution from time to time might be made to

depend upon the comparative produce, in each kingdom, of such general taxes as might be thought to afford the best criterion of their respective wealth.

SECTION LXXII.

ADAM SMITH-HIGHLAND LAIRD.....Blackwood's Magazine.

Adam Smith. AND what is the name of your estate, Mr. Macrurah? Is it an extensive one?

Macrurah. The name is Coilanach-goilach, which means the roaring of the wind upon a hill. It is supposed to contain from twelve to nineteen hundred acres; but we do not know, for that is not our way of measuring.

Smith. What then is your way of measuring? for 1 thought there had been only one.

Mac. Why, our method is grand and ingenious. It is thus: Every highland gentleman maintains a large band of pipers. When he wishes to measure his estate, a piper is placed at the northern boundary, who plays as loudly as he is able, and the rest having left him, march southward as far as they can hear the sound of the pipes. There they stop; and another piper is left, who plays as loud as the first. In the meantime, the rest march forward again, till the sound of the second piper is barely heard, and at this station a third piper is left, and so on, till there is a chain of pipers extending from the northern to the southern boundary of the estate. The same thing is done from east to west,-and the dimensions are ascertained by the number of pipers employed.

Smith. Upon my word, Mr. Macrurah, this method is a noble and ingenious one. It is quite feudal. But how do you manage with the pipers, when they come home to dinner after their walk? Is not their maintenance expensive? Mac. Not at all. We make them play during the whole time of dinner.

Smith. The bag-pipe is a species of music I never could relish; and therefore, if 1 were dining at the house of a chieftain, it would not cost me much regret, to find they were employed in measuring his territories.

Mac. Well, it is otherwise with me. The exploits of Fingal Mac-coul are meat and drink to me. But when the schoolmaster comes to dine with me, he looks as if he were