It is only the manners of the world, of artificial fociety, which has engaged Arrogatus to contemplations which dif honour his heart. He views SUPERIOR1TY as a good, when in truth it is an evil, unless it beftows the excellencies which have raifed it for the fervice of mankind. It is an unmarketable commodity, and fpoils in the keeping, while the mind of the focial man is refreshed by the accidental pleatures and real praite which the GOOD offer to merit and virtue, not to fay any thing of that beft of bleffings which all can taste who choose, SELF SATISFACTION. I fhall make no observations on the character I have defcribed, drawn as it is from the life, except that it is thus that men, from being naturally focial, become forlorn. The good man and the real gentleman have little danger to apprehend from being kind and courteous. Few will offend the man they honour, because they know that the confequence will be that they muft Jote the portion of pleature and of benefit he affords them. They fet a value upon his words, regard his actions, and prize his advice. The ungrateful may, indeed, difappoint his wifhes, and forget his favours, but the greater part of mankind will keep him in temper with himself for their own fakes; and as he is wife enough to expect no more from them than their converfation, their talents, or their fer. vices, he will not be deceived. Now and then he will meet, too, with an ingenuous mind, which will be valuable to him, and on which he can rely, although he may not find it perfect. At any rate, we are all of us dependent on the other, and the crippled GREAT MAN is but a cripple after all. Mary are the blind, many the weak and infirm. Riches gives to the labourer, because wealth cannot exist without him; and the labourer, ignorant in every thing but what produces his daily bread, truts to the wants and luxury of his fuperiors for fupport. The WANTS of one in focial life are the means of beltowing a bleffing on another. The whole is an exchange that is ever buly for the good and ultimate happiness of man. CHARACTERISTICKS. No. VI. G.B. when he is lober, but that is but BRIOSUS is a very decent character very feldom. Ebriofus after his wine has all the appearance of liberality: any one who did not know him would think that he was the most hearty and fincere man in the world; his declarations of friend hip are fo trong, that he is not to be doubted; it is, however, the oftentatious language of a boatter of generosity, who has not the courage to do good. If he has a moment to weigh the matter, he cools very rapidly; nor does he ever make his profeffions of friend thip except before a third perfon: he has no private benevolence. Ebriofus is totally a dif ferent character drunk and fober: when drunk, he is amiable, liberal, and honeft; when fober, he is mean, felfish, and contemptible. An obferver of the human mind may, however, detect his real character through the difguife of intoxication; and the opinion, that a man displays his true character when drunk, is contradicted in his particular inftance. The fact is rather, that the convivialist performs, when he is in his cups, the part of Anacreon, and Anacreon is fuppofed to have been a jolly good fellow. Men in our times, too, copy parts from plays, instead of our plays copying men from nature; and it fometimes happens, that we prefer the "worler" to the better part of the dramatis perfonæ. Ebriofus has a wife, but the finds no benefit from his mind being tempered with generous wine. When he returns home, and begins to come to himfelf, he is the most unreasonable of human beings; and with his wife it always happens that he is fober enough to be fulky. INANUS INANUS is the principal figure at a ball or a rout: he ftands in the most extraordinary attitudes, and walks about the room on his tip-toes. He gapes with his mouth open, bows and nods, and talks a language that is indefinable. One instant he is at the card-table look. ing on; the next in the ball-room, where he ftands ftock ftill. One would fuppofe Inanus attentive to the figure, or to the grace of the dancers: but it is not fo; he does not even know what they are about, nor what he is about himfelf; he can fcarcely tell even where he is, or that he is at all. His ideas cannot be faid to be wandering, for he has no ideas; and when you deem Inanus in a state of reflection, he is all the time thinking of nothing. He is nevertheless admired by the ladies; for the dreffes in the fashion, ufes paint and perfumes, watches to help them to wine, and looks after the cakes and fweetmeats. Inanus is always invited, for he is infipid enough for the fashion, tame enough for the ladies, and harmJefs enough for the men. LAURENTIA is kind and courteous in her manners. She is affable, and receives her visitors with fmiles upon her face. She tells you that the is very glad to fee you, and that he has been expecting you a long time: but he has an unhappy knack of entertaining you with the misfortunes and difgraces of her other friends; the never confiders that you are confidering that it will be your turn when you are abfent. Laurentia affects to be blunt, not recollecting that bluntnefs is always unamiable. She tells truths that are unwelcome, but refrains from telling those which are flattering. Laurentia is ugly with a hand fome face, and difagreeable with genteel manners: he is frequently rude at her own table, and always indifcreet. Laurentia cannot bear the lealt contradiction to her opinion; which if perfifted in with politeness, the answers with abufe. Laurentia is a mixed character between a fine lady and a fish-woman he is refined and coarfe, elegant and rude, accomplished and vulgar. ALCEA is always quarrelling with her husband Pylas, who, in his turn, is always quarrelling with her. Pylas is fond of drinking, and Alcea fond of fcolding, there is not any thing that mortifies either one or the other of them fo much as having no cause of offence one against the other. They are heartily vexed at being quiet, and completely out of temper with repofe. Their quarrels are ebullitions which ferve to keep them in health, and their difagreements are recreations. If they wrangle over night, they are the next day the best friends in the world; and if they go to bed in harmony, they are the next morning heartily out of temper with each other for having been so ftupid. Alcea loves her neighbours to pity her when he has been ill-treated by Pylas. She is very fond of telling her story, and threatens that the will leave him for his cruelty. The neighbours of Alcea pity and confole with her; they begin to lament that the mult feparate from her husband; they think, however, that it is for the best, and they recommend it as the only ftep that can be taken: the next day they expect to find her gone from her home, but are aftonished to see her and Pylas at breakfast together as if nothing had happened. They are talking of the reconciliation of the parties at an affembly the next night, when Arina enters, and inquires it they had heard of the unhappy Alcea, who had that day left her houfe. All are loud in their expreffions of concern at the event, and in reproaches against Pylas, when prefently Pylas and Alcea are announced. They are in perfect good humour with each other until after fupper, when Pylas drinks more wine than he ought, and abules Alcea for taking him to account for it. They get to high words; Moredius interferes to reconcile them. This makes them the more enraged. He declares he will have nothing further to say, and that they may quarrel as much as they pleafe: and this makes them friends. In short, both Pylas and Alcea know what they are about, and the parts they are to act. They are both fond of amufement, and their genius has fhowed them how they may pass their time without being tiresome one to the other. Pylas and Alcea do not wrangle exactly like lovers, but they love to wrangle, which is much about the fame thing. They would be unhappy if they were at peace, and wretched if they were not unhappy. G. B. THE THE LONDON REVIEW, AND LITERARY JOURNAL, FOR AUGUST 1806. QUID SIT PULCHRUM, QUID TURPE, QUID UTILE, QUID NON. Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, written by Himfelf: Containing an Account of his Life and Writings; interfperfed with Anecdotes and Characters of feveral of the most difiinguished Perfons in bis Time, with whom he has had Intercourse and Connexion. I vol. 4to. 1806. (Continued from page 42.) WE E now proceed, as we promi'ed in our laft, to take another view of the veffel commanded by Richard Cumberland, Efq., and, as well as our canvas will permit us, to fail after it. Our author feems to have come into office, at least with that affection for literature and ftudy, and that averfion to do what men call "pushing their fortunes;" an averfion ariling from principle and diffidence, generally the concomitants of genius, and therefore not always to be found in official fituations, that led him rather to wait till the great gate of preferment was open, than to creep in at the wicket. Upon those men who are by their talents calculated to afcend to the Temple of Fortune, by extraordinary exertions, he makes fome remarks, juft in many inftances, in others fevere, though perhaps equally true. The amufements or ideas of Lord Halifax, it appears, were claffical, and his domeftic habits fuch as do honour to his understanding. The conduct of Lady H. feems to have made a confiderable impreffion upon the mind of Mr. C.; at which we do not wonder, for it was indeed truly amiable. Of his father he speaks in terms fuch as the character of that very excellent man deferved. His filial piety could not upon this occafion exaggerate; for al though no one could have faid more, it was impoffible for any of his friends to fay lefs. It would lead us confiderably beyond our limits were we to follow our author through the courfe of his ftudies. His free tranflation from the passage in the fecond act of the Troades paffed unnoticed, because we difliked the fentiment of the original; and the length of the Fragment founded on the Voyages of Vafco de Gama, though it has fome excellent, and few, we think, too exuberant ideas, will, as we do not wish to treat the public with fragments of fragments, be our belt excufe for its omiffion. The removal of his father from Stanwick to Fulham, forms, at this period, an epoch in the dull life of Mr. C.; for, dividing his time betwixt his bufirefs and his ftudies, his life, confidering his age, must have been regularly dull. By that event he found an afylum, as he terms it, in the house of his father: though, when we reflect on his political fituation, and the liberality of Lord H., we wonder that he could want one. In de cribing the inhabitants of Fulham and its vicinity, for local traits and characters, form a very amusing part of this work, he fays, "Bifhop Sherlock was yet living, and refided in his palace, but in the last ftage of bodily decay. The ruins of that luminous and powerful mind were ftill venerable, though his fpeech was almost unintelligible, and his features cruelly difarranged and distorted by the palfy; ftill his genius was alive, and his judgment difcriminative; for it was in this lamentable ftate that he per formed: "In the adjoining parish of Hammerfmith lived Mr. Dodington, at a fplendid villa, which he" (who was most amusingly eccentric)" by the rule of contraries ufed to call la Trappe, and his inmates and familiars the Monks of the convent: thele were, Mr. Windham, his relation, whom he made his heir, Sir William Breton, and Dr. Thompfon, a phyfician out of practice. Thefe gentlemen formed a very curious fociety of very oppofite characters in fhort, it was a trio confifting of a milanthrope, a courtier, and a quack. Mr. Glover, the author of Leonidas, was an occafional visitor, and not an inmate, as thofe above mentioned. How a man of Dodington's fort came to fingle out men of their fort, (with the exception of Mr. Glover,) it is hard to fay; but though his inftruments were never in unifon, he managed fo as to make mutic out of them all. He could make or find amufement in contrafting the fulienne's of a Grumbletonian with the egregious vanity and felf-conceit of an antiquated ccxcomb; and as for the Doctor, he was a Jack Pudding, ready to his hand at any time." Leaving the anecdote of the Muffin and the Ragamufin, which has been often repeated, we mult take a view of this extraordina y man at his magnificent feat at Ea bury, Dorfetfhire, whither Mr. C.. being now an ex-Secretary of an ex-State/man, went, and of which he gives an elegantly written, though in fome intances ludicrous, defcription. "Whatever Mr. Dodington's reve nue then was, he had the happy art of managing it with that regularity and economy that I believe he made more difplay at lefs colt than any man in the kingdom but himfelt could have done. His town-houfe in Pall-mall; his villa at Hammersmith; and the mansion above described, were fuch establishments as few nobles in the nation were poffeffed of." Yet this was the fenfibly fplendid ftile in which noblemen lived in the first part and middle of the laft century. In either of thefe he was not to be approached but through a fuite of apartments, and rarely feated but under painted ceilings and gilt entablatures. In his villa you were conducted through two rows of antique marble statues ranged in a gallery floored with the rarest marbles, and enriched with columns of granite and lapis lazuli. His faloon was hung with the finelt Gobelin tapestry, and he flept in a bed encanopied with peacocks' feathers, in the tile of Mrs. Montague. When he paffed from Pall-mall to la Trappe, it was always in a coach, which I could fufpect had been his ambassadorial equipage at Madrid, drawn by fix fat unweildy black horses, short docked, and of coloffal dignity. Neither was he lefs characteristic in apparel than in equipage: he had a wardrobe loaded with rich and flaring suits, each in itfelf a load to the wearer, and of thefe I have no doubt but many were coeval with his embally, and every birth-day had added to the stock. In doing this, he fo contrived as never to put his old dreffes out of countenance by any variations in the fashion of the new. In the mean time, his bulk and corpulency gave a full difplay to a valt expenfe of tiffue and embroidery, and this, when fet off by an enormous tye-periwig and deep-laced ruffles, gave the picture of an ancient courtier in his gaia habit, or QUIN in his stage drefs. Nevertheless, it must be confeffed, this ftile, though cut of date, was not out of character, but harmonized to well with the perfon of the wearer, that I remember when he made his firit fpeech in the House of Peers as Lord Melcombe, all the flathes of his wit, all the ftudied phrases and well-turned periods of his rhetoric, loft their effect fimply because the orator had laid afide his magifterial tye, and put on a modern bag wig, which was as much out of caftume upon the broad expante of his fhoulders as a cue would have been upon the robes of a Lord Chief Justice." With his paffion for pomp and plendor, it does not appear that Mr. D. pofleffed much difcrimina tive tive judgment with refpect to the polite arts. Though eminent for his claffical attainments, his graphic ideas appear to have been very circumfcribed. "Of pictures he seemed to take his eftimate only by their coft:" (It is probable his fculptures were collected from Cheer's manufactory :) "in fact, he was not poffeffed of any; but I can recollect his faying to me one day in his great faloon at Eaftbury, that if he had half a fcore pictures of a thoufand pounds a piece, he would gladly decorate his walls with them, in place of which, I am forry to fay, he tuck up immenfe patches of gilt leather, fhaped into bugle horns upon hang. ings of crimfon velvet, and round his ftate bed he difplayed a carpeting of gold and filver embroidery, which too glaringly betrayed its derivation from coat, waistcoat, and breeches, by the teftimony of button-holes, pockets, and loops, with other equally incontrovertible witnesses, fubpoenaed from the tailor's fhopboard. When he paid his court at St. James's to the prefent Queen upon her nuptials, he approached to kifs her hand decked in an embroidered fuit of filk, with blue waistcoat and breeches, which in the act of kneeling down forgot their duty, and broke loofe from their moorings, in a very indecorous and uncourtly man. ner. The character of Dodington, it has always ftruck us, was a ftrange com. pound of erudition, rhetorical talents, wit, vanity, and abfurdity, with a claf. fic taste and genius that would in fome refpects almost justify even the flattery of Thomfont: he had yet that egotifm that fometimes rendered his judgment fufpicious, his erudition useless, and his wit abortive. His fawning upon Formerly in Piccadilly, near Hyde Park Corner. "And thou, my youthful Mufe's early friend, In whom the human graces all unite, Pure light of mind and tenderness of heart, Genius and wifdom, the gay focial sense By decency chaftis'd, goodness and wit, In feldom meeting harmony combin'd; Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal For Britain's glory, liberty, and man; Dodington! attend my rural fong." Thomfon's Seafons-Summer. VOL. L. AUG, 1806. the Minifter, and, like Sir Pertinax Macfycophant, booing, upon all occa fions, to those whom he deemed his fuperiors, and again, from a fet of inferior beings retained for the purpofe, exacting that homage and flattery, and thofe compliances that he fo readily paid to thofe above him, are cer tainly drawbacks upon a reputation which might otherwife have ranked extremely high both in the political and literary worlds. When our author returned from Dor fetfhire, he was invited by his friends at Trinity College to offer himself as a candidate for the lay fellowship, vacant by the death of Mr. Titley, the Danish Envoy; which he obtained; but oba ferves, "I did not hold it long, for Providence had a bleffing in tore for me which was an effectual difqualification from holding any honours on terms of celibacy." "About this time I wrote my first legitimate drama, in five acts, and entitled it The Banishment of Cicero. I was led to this by the perufal of Middle. ton's account of his life, which afforded me much entertainment." In favour of this drama, he was ho noured with a letter from Bishop Warburton, who fays, "Yesterday I received a letter from the Primate-it gives me great fatisfaction, says he, that my opinion agrees with yours." The opinion of Dr. Warburton was, that Cumberland's fine dramatic poem' "was (like Mr. Mafon's), too good for a proftituce ftage." This play, though patronized by Lord Halifax, was refufed by Mr. Gar rick; in confequence of which, his Lordship forbore, for a length of time, to live in his former habits of good neighbourhood with him. "When I published this play, which I foon after did, I was confcious that I publifhed Mr. Garrick's juftification for refufing it, and I made no mention of the circumftance." As foon as Mr. C. obtained, through the patronage of Lord H., a small estab lifhment, as Crown Agent for the Province of Nova Scotia, he married Eliza beth, only daughter of George and Elizabeth Ridge. With this family, it appears, he had long been intimate, When Lord Halifax returned to Ad miniftration, and was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Mr. C. went with him to that country as Ulfter Secretary; R |