Politics resemble religion; attempting to divest either of ceremony, is the most certain method of bringing either into contempt. The weak must have their inducements to admiration as well as the wise; and it is the business of a sensible government to impress all ranks with a sense of subordination, whether this be effected by a diamond buckle or a virtuous edict, a sumptuary law or a glass necklace.

This interval of reflection only gave my companion spirits to begin his description afresh; and, as a greater inducement to raise my curiosity, he informed me of the vast sums that were given by the spectators for places. "That the ceremony must be fine," cries he, "is very evident from the fine price that is paid for seeing it. Several ladies have assured me, they would willingly part with one eye, rather than be prevented from looking on with the other. Come, come," continues he, "I have a friend who, for my sake, will supply us with places at the most reasonable rates; I'll take care you shall not be imposed upon; and he will inform you of the use, finery, rapture, splendour, and enchantment of the whole ceremony better than I."

Follies often repeated lose their absurdity, and assume the appearance of reason. His arguments were so often and so strongly enforced, that I had actually some thoughts of becoming a spectator. We accordingly went together to bespeak a place; but guess my surprise, when the man demanded a purse of gold for a single seat! I could hardly believe him serious, upon making the demand. "Prithee, friend," cried I," after I have paid twenty pounds for sitting here an hour or two, can I bring a part of the coronation back ?”—“No, Sir.”—“ How long can I live upon it after I have come ?"-"Not long, Sir."-" Can a coronation clothe, feed, or fatten me ?"-" Sir," replied the man, "you seem to be under a mistake; all that you can bring away is the pleasure of having it to say, that you saw the coronation."

"Blast me!” cries Tibbs, "if that be all, there is no need of paying for that, since I am resolved to have that pleasure, whether I am there or no !"

I am conscious my friend, that this is but a very confused description of the intended ceremony. You may object, that I neither settle rank, precedency, nor place; that I seem ignorant whether Gules walks before or behind Garter; that I have neither mentioned the dimensions of a lord's сар, nor measured the length of a lady's tail. I know your delight is in minute description; and this I am unhappily disqualified from furnishing; yet, upon the whole, I fancy it will be no way comparable to the magnificence of our late emperor Whangti's procession, when he was married to the moon, at which Fum Hoam himself presided in person. Adieu.

LETTER CVI.

FUNERAL ELEGIES WRITTEN UPON THE GREAT,
RIDICULED.-A SPECIMEN OF ONE.

To the Same.

It was formerly the custom here, when men of distinction died, for their surviving acquaintance to throw each a slight present into the grave. Several things of little value were made use of for that purpose; perfumes, reliques, spices, bitter herbs, camomile, wormwood, and verses. This custom, however, is almost discontinued, and nothing but verses alone are now lavished on such occasions; an oblation, which they suppose may be interred with the dead, without any injury to the living.

Upon the death of the great, therefore, the poets and undertakers are sure of employment. While one provides the long cloak, black staff, and mourning coach, the other produces the pastoral or elegy, the monody or apotheosis. The

nobility need be under no apprehensions, but die as fast as they think proper, the poet and undertaker are ready to supply them; these can find metaphorical tears and family escutcheons at half-an-hour's warning; and when the one has soberly laid the body in the grave, the other is ready to fix it figuratively among the stars.

There are several ways of being poetically sorrowful on such occasions. Thebard is now some pensive youth of science, who sits deploring among the tombs; again, he is Thyrsis complaining in a circle of harmless sheep. Now Britannia sits upon her own shore, and gives a loose to maternal tenderness: at another time, Parnassus, even the mountain Parnassus, gives way to sorrow, and is bathed in tears of distress.

99

But the most usual manner is this: Damon meets Menalcas, who has got a most gloomy countenance. The shepherd asks his friend, whence that look of distress? to which the other replies, that Pollio is no more. "If that be the case then,” cries Damon, "let us retire to yonder bower at some distance off, where the cypress and the jessamine add fragrance to the breeze; and let us weep alternately for Pollio, the friend of shepherds, and the patron of every muse. -"Ah," returns his fellow shepherd," what think you rather of that grotto by the fountain side? the murmuring stream will help to assist our complaints, and a nightingale on a neighbouring tree, will join her voice to the concert." When the place is thus settled, they begin: the brook stands still to hear their lamentations; the cows forget to graze; and the very tigers start from the forest with sympathetic concern. By the tombs of our ancestors, my dear Fum, I am quite unaffected in all this distress: the whole is liquid laudanum to my spirits; and a tiger of common sensibility has twenty times more tenderness than I.

But though I could never weep with the complaining shepherd, yet I am sometimes induced to pity the poet,

whose trade is thus to make demi-gods and heroes for a dinner. There is not in nature a more dismal figure, than a man who sits down to premeditated flattery: every stanza he writes tacitly reproaches the meanness of his occupation, till at last his stupidity becomes more stupid, and his dulness more diminutive.

I am amazed, therefore, that none have yet found out the secret of flattering the worthless, and yet of preserving a safe conscience. I have often wished for some method by which a man might do himself and his deceased patron justice, without being under the hateful reproach of self-conviction. After long lucubration, I have hit upon such an expedient; and sent you the specimen of a poem upon the decease of a great man, in which the flattery is perfectly fine, and yet the poet perfectly innocent.

On the Death of the Right Honourable **** ̧ (1)

Ye muses, pour the pitying tear

For Pollio snatch'd away:

O, had he liv'd another year!
He had not died to-day.

O, were ye born to bless mankind
In virtuous times of yore,

Heroes themselves had fallen behind!

Whene'er he went before.

How sad the groves and plains appear,
And sympathetic sheep :

E'en pitying hills would drop a tear :
-If hills could learn to weep.

His bounty in exalted strain

Each bard might well display

Since none implor'd relief in vain!
That went reliev'd away.

And hark! I hear the tuneful throng

His obsequies forbid ;

He still shall live, shall live as long

-As ever dead man did.

(1) [In the same style of humour as the Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize. See vol. iv.]

LETTER CVII.

THE ENGLISH TOO FOND OF BELIEVING EVERY

REPORT

WITHOUT EXAMINATION.-A STORY OF AN INCENDIARY TO THIS PURPOSE.

To the Same.

It is the most usual method in every report, first to examine its probability, and then act as the conjuncture may require. The English, however, exert a different spirit in such circumstances; they first act, and when too late, begin to examine. From a knowledge of this disposition, there are several here, who make it their business to frame new reports at every convenient interval, all tending to denounce ruin, both on their contemporaries and their posterity. This denunciation is eagerly caught up by the public: away they fling to propagate the distress; sell out at one place, buy in at another, grumble at their governors, shout in mobs, and when they have thus for some time behaved like fools, sit down coolly to argue and talk wisdom, to puzzle each other with syllogism, and prepare for the next report that prevails, which is always attended with the same success.

Thus are they ever rising above one report, only to sink into another. They resemble a dog in a well, pawing to get free. When he has raised his upper parts above water, and every spectator imagines him disengaged, his lower parts drag him down again, and sink him to the nose; he makes new efforts to emerge, and every effort increasing his weakness, only tends to sink him the deeper.

There are some here who, I am told, make a tolerable subsistence by the credulity of their countrymen. As they find the public fond of blood, wounds, and death, they contrive political ruins suited to every month in the year. This month the people are to be eaten up by the French in flat