maker can supply it; and your hosier can furnish you with a pair of calves, that may put an Irishman to the blush. An irregularity in your shape can be made invisible by your tailor, or at least by the artist near the Haymarket, who daily gives notice, that he makes steel stays for all those who are inclined to be crooked. There are various beautifying lotions and cosmetics, that will cure spots and freckles in the complexion, and combs and unguents, that will change red hair to the finest brown. Do you want an eye? Taylor will fill the vacant socket with as bright a piercer, as the family of the Pentweazles can boast. Or is your mouth deficient for want of teeth? Paul Jullion, to use his own phrase, will rectify your head, and will fix a set in your gums as even and as white, as ever adorned the mouth of a chimney-sweeper. These, and many other inventions no less curious and extraordinary, have been devised; and there are no operations, however painful, which have not been submitted to with patience to conquer personal deformities. I know a gentleman, who went through the agony of having his leg broke a second time, because it had been set awry; and I remember a lady, who died of a cancer in her breast, occasioned by the application of repelling plasters to keep back her milk, that the beauty of her neck might not be destroyed. I most heartily wish the same resolution was discovered in improving the disposition. Tully, in that part of his Offices where he speaks of grace, tells us that it is destroyed by any violent perturbations either of the body or mind.' It is a pity, that mankind cannot be reconciled to this opinion; since it is likely, they would spare no pains in cultivating their minds, if it tended to adorn their persons. Yet it is certain, that a man makes a worse figure with an ignorant pate, than an unpow dered peruke; and that knowledge is a greater ornament to the head, than a bag or a smart cocked hat; that anger sits like a blood-shot in the eyes, while good-nature lights them up with smiles, and makes every feature in the face charming and agreeable. The difficulty of being convinced that we want this social turn, is the grand reason that so little pains are taken to acquire and perfect it. Would a man once be persuaded of any irregularity in his temper, he would find the blemishes of the mind more easily corrected and amended, than the defects and deformities of the body: but alas! every man is, in his own opinion, sensible and good-humoured. It is, indeed, possible to convince us, that we have a bad complexion or an awkward deportment, which we endeavour to amend by washes and a dancingmaster : but when the mind is accused, self-adulation, the most fatal species of flattery, makes us cajole ourselves into a belief, that the fault is not in our own disposition, but in that of our companions; as the mad inhabitants of Moorfields * conclude all that come to visit them out of their senses. This foolish flattery it is, that makes us think ourselves inflexibly in the right, while we are obstinately wrong, and prevents our receiving or communicating any pleasure in society. A whimsical person complains of the fickleness of his acquaintance, and constantly accuses them of fancy and caprice; and there never was an instance of a positive untoward man, that did not continually rail at the perverseness and obstinacy of the rest of the world. A modern buck damns you for a sullen fellow, if you refuse a pint bumper, and looks upon you as a sneaking scoundrel, if you decline enter * The place where Bedlam then stood, since taken down, and re-built in St. George's Fields. ing into any of his wild pranks, and do not choose to lie all night in the round-house. The untractable humourist, while he disgusts all that are about him, conceives himself to be the person affronted, and laments that there is no harmony in the conversation, though he is himself the only one that plays out of tune. It is true, indeed, that the eye sees not itself:' but when this blind partiality is carried so far, as to induce us to believe those guilty of the folly, who make us sensible of it, it is surely as absurd as to imagine, that the hare-lip or carbuncled nose a man sees in the glass, belongs to the figure in the mirror, and not to his own face. Perfection is no more to be expected in the minds of men than in their persons. Natural defects and irregularities in both must be overlooked and excused. But then equal attention should be paid to both; and we should not be anxious to clothe the person, and at the same time let the mind go naked. We should be equally assiduous to obtain knowledge and virtue, as to put on lace and velvet; and when our minds are completely dressed, we should take care that good-nature and complacency influence and direct the whole; which will throw the same grace over our virtues and good qualities, as fine clothes receive from being cut according to the fashion. In order to acquire these good qualities, we should examine ourselves impartially, and not erect ourselves into judges, and treat all the rest of mankind like criminals. Would it not be highly ridiculous in a person of quality to go to court in a ruff, a cloak, a pair of trunk hose, and the habit worn in the days of Queen Elizabeth, and while he strutted about in this antiquated garb, to accuse all the rest of the world of being out of the fashion? I cannot conclude better than with a passage from Swift's Tale of a Tub, where the strict analogy between the clothing of the mind and the body is humorously pointed out. "Man" says he, "is a Micro-Coat. As to his body there can be no doubt; but examine even the acquirements of his mind, you will find them all contribute in their order towards furnishing out an exact dress. To instance no more; is not Religion a cloak, Honesty a pair of shoes worn out in the dirt, Self-love a surtout, Vanity a shirt, and Conscience a pair of breeches, which, though a cover for lewdness as well as nastiness, is easily slipped down for the service of both ?" No. 76. THURSDAY, JULY 10, 1755. Vomeris huc et falcis honos, huc omnis aratri VIRG. ÆN. vii. 635. The sithe neglected, and forgot the plough, His grandsire's rusty sword he longs to wield, THE British Lion, who has for a long time past been a passive couchant beast, or at most been heard to growl and grumble, now begins to roar again. His tremendous voice has roused the whole nation, and the meanest of the people breathe nothing but war and revenge. The encroachments of the French on our colonies are the general topic of conversation, and the popular cry now runs, New England for ever! Peace or war has been the sub→ ject of bets at White's, as well as the debates at the Robin Hood; and "a fleet roasting, new world's new dress, the colonies in a rope," &c. were, last Sunday, the subjects of a prayer and lecture at the Oratory in Clare-market. The theatres, also, before they closed the season, entertained us with several warlike dramas: The Press-Gang was exhibited at Covent-Garden; and at Drury-Lane, the same sea that rolled its canvass billows in pantomime at the beginning of the season to carry Harlequin to China, was again put in motion to transport our sailors to North America. At present the streets ring with the martial strains of our ballad-singers, who are endeavouring, like Tyrtæus of old, to rouse their fellow-countrymen to battle; while all the polite world are hurrying to Portsmouth to see mock fights, and be regaled with pickled pork and sea biscuit on board the Admiral. This posture of affairs has occasioned politics, which have been long neglected as studies useless and impertinent, to become once more fashionable. Religion and politics, though they naturally demand our constant attention, are only cultivated in England by fits. Christianity sleeps among us, unless roused by the apprehensions of a plague, an earthquake, or a Jew-Bill; and we are alarmed for a while at the sudden news of an invasion or a rebellion; but, as soon as the danger is over, the Englishman, like the soldier recovered from his fright, occasioned by Queen Mab's drumming in his ear, "swears a prayer or two, and sleeps again." To preach up public spirit, is, at some seasons, only blowing a dead coal; but at others, an accidental blast kindles the embers, and they mount into flame in an instant. The reign of politics seems at present to be re-commencing. Our news |