never read our books, they scarcely know even our letters, and yet they talk and reason just as we do." The truth is, the Chinese and we are pretty much alike. Different degrees of refinement, and not of distance, mark the distinctions among mankind. Savages of the most opposite climates have all but one character of improvidence and rapacity; and tutored nations, however separate, make use of the very same methods to procure refined enjoyment. The distinctions of polite nations are few; but such as are peculiar to the Chinese appear in every page of the following correspondence. The metaphors and allusions are all drawn from the East. Their formality our author carefully preserves. Many of their favourite tenets in morals are illustrated. The Chinese are always concise, so is he. Simple, so is he. The Chinese are grave and sententious, so is he. But in one particular the resemblance is peculiarly striking: the Chinese are often dull, and so is he. Nor has my assistance been wanting. We are told in an old romance of a certain knight-errant and his horse who contracted an intimate friendship. The horse most usually bore the knight, but in cases of extraordinary dispatch, the knight returned the favour, and carried his horse. Thus in the intimacy between my author and me, he has usually given me a lift of his Eastern sublimity, and I have sometimes given him a return of my colloquial ease. Yet it appears strange in this season of panegyric, when scarcely an author passes unpraised either by his friends or himself, that such merit as our philosopher's should be forgotten. While the epithets of ingenious, copious, elaborate, and refined are lavished among the mob like medals at a coronation, the lucky prizes fall on every side, but not one on him. I could on this occasion make myself melancholy, by considering the capriciousness of public taste, or the mutability of fortune: but, during this fit of morality, lest my reader should sleep, I'll take a nap myself, and when I awake tell him my dream. I imagined the Thames was frozen over, and I stood by its side. Several booths were erected upon the ice, and I was told by one of the spectators, that FASHION FAIR was going to begin. He added, that every author who would carry his works there might probably find a very good reception. I was resolved however to observe the humours of the place in safety from the shore, sensible that ice was at best precarious, and having been always a little cowardly in my sleep. Several of my acquaintance seemed much more hardy than I, and went over the ice with intrepidity. Some carried their works to the fair on sledges, some on carts, and those which Their were more voluminous were conveyed in wagons. temerity astonished me. I knew their cargoes were heavy, and expected every moment they would have gone to the bottom. They all entered the fair, however, in safety, and each soon after returned, to my great surprise, highly satisfied with his entertainment, and the bargains he had brought away. The success of such numbers at last began to operate upon me. If these, cried I, meet with favour and safety, some luck may perhaps, for once, attend the unfortunate. I am resolved to make a new adventure. The furniture frippery and fireworks of China have long been fashionably bought up. I'll try the fair with a small cargo of Chinese morality. If the Chinese have contributed to vitiate our taste, I'll try how far they can help to improve our understanding. But, as others have driven into the market in wagons, I'll cautiously begin by venturing with a wheelbarrow. Thus resolved, I baled up my goods, and fairly ventured; when, upon just entering the fair, I fancied the ice that had supported an hundred wagons before cracked under me, and wheelbarrow and all went to the bottom. Upon awaking from my revery with the fright, I cannot help wishing that the pains taken in giving this correspond. ence an English dress had been employed in contriving new political systems, or new plots for farces. I might then have taken my station in the world either as a poet or a philosopher, and made one in those little societies where men club to raise each other's reputation. But at present I belong to no particular class. I resemble one of those animals, that has been forced from its forest to gratify human curiosity. My earliest wish was to escape unheeded through life; but I have been set up for half-pence, to fret and scamper at the end of my chain. Though none are injured by my rage, I am naturally too savage to court any friends by fawning; too obstinate to be taught new tricks; and too improvident to mind what may happen: I am appeased, though not contented. Too indolent for intrigue, and too timid to push for favour, I am But what signifies what I am? A HARD WORLD FOR POETS. I FANCY the character of a poet is in every country the same, fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future, his conversation that of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool! of fortitude able to stand unmoved at the bursting of an earth quake, yet of sensibility to be affected by the breaking of a tea cup; such is his character, which considered in every light is the very opposite of that which leads to riches. The poets of the West are as remarkable for their indigence as their genius; and yet, among the numerous hospitals designed to relieve the poor, I have heard of but one erected for the benefit of decayed authors. This was founded by Pope Urban VIII., and called the Retreat of the Incurables, intimating, that it was equally impossible to reclaim the patients who sued for reception from poverty or from poetry. To be sincere, were I to send you an account of the lives of the Western poets, either ancient or modern, I fancy you would think me employed in collecting materials for an history of human wretchedness. Homer is the first poet and beggar of note among the ancients; he was blind, and sung his ballads about the streets; but it is observed, that his mouth was more frequently filled with verses than with bread. Plautus, the comic poet, was better off; he had two trades, he was a poet for his diversion, and helped to turn a mill in order to gain a livelihood. Terence was a slave, and Boethius died in jail. Among the Italians, Paulo Burghese, almost as good a poet as Tasso, knew fourteen different trades, and yet died because he could get employment in none. Tasso himself, who had the most amiable character of all poets, has often been obliged to borrow a crown from some friend, in order to pay for a month's subsistence: he has left us a pretty sonnet, addressed to his cat, in which he begs the light of her eyes to write by, being too poor to afford himself a candle. But Bentivoglio, poor Bentivoglio! chiefly demands our pity. His comedies will last with the Italian language; he dissipated a noble fortune in acts of charity and benevolence; but, falling into misery in his old age, was refused to be admitted into an hospital which he himself had erected. In Spain, it is said, the great Cervantes died of hunger; and it is certain, that the famous Camoens ended his days in an hospital. If we turn to France, we shall there find even stronger instances of the ingratitude of the public. Vaugelas, one of the politest writers, and one of the honestest men of his time, was surnamed the Owl, from his being obliged to keep within all day, and venture out only by night, through fear of his creditors. His last will is very remarkable: after having bequeathed all his worldly substance to the discharging his debts, he goes on thus: "But, as there still may remain some creditors un paid, even after all that I have shall have been disposed of, in such a case, it is my last will, that my body should be sold to the surgeons to the best advantage, and that the purchase should go to the discharging those debts which I owe to society; so that if I could not, while living, at least when dead, I may be useful." Cassander was one of the greatest geniuses of his time, yet all his merit could not procure him a bare subsistence. Being by degrees driven into an hatred of all mankind from the little pity he found amongst them, he even ventured at last ungratefully to impute his calamities to Providence. In his last agonies, when the priest intreated him to rely on the justice of Heaven, and ask mercy from Him that made him: "If God," replies he, "has shown me no justice here, what reason have I to expect any from Him hereafter?" But, being answered, that a suspension of justice was no argument that should induce us to doubt of its reality; "Let me intreat you," continued his confessor, "by all that is dear, to be reconciled to God, your father, your maker, and friend." "No," replied the exasperated wretch, " you know the manner in which He left me to live; and," pointing to the straw on which he was stretched, "you see the manner in which He leaves me to die!" 66 But the sufferings of the poet in other countries is nothing when compared to his distresses here: the names of Spenser and Otway, Butler and Dryden, are every day mentioned as a national reproach; some of them lived in a state of precarious indigence, and others literally died of hunger. At present the few poets of England no longer depend on the great for subsistence; they have now no other patrons but the public, and the public, collectively considered, is a good and a generous master. It is indeed too frequently mistaken as to the merits of every candidate for favour; but, to make amends, it is never mistaken long. A performance indeed may be forced for a time into reputation, but, destitute of real merit, it soon sinks; time, the touchstone of what is truly valuable, will soon discover the fraud, and an author should never arrogate to himself any share of success, till his works have been read at least ten years with satisfaction. A man of letters at present, whose works are valuable, is perfectly sensible of their value. Every polite member of the community, by buying what he writes, contributes to reward him. The ridicule, therefore, of living in a garret might have been wit in the last age, but continues such no longer, because no longer true. A writer of real merit now may easily Le rich, if his heart be set only on fortune; and, for those who have no merit, it is but fit that such should remain in merited obscurity. He may now refuse an invitation to dinner, with out fearing to incur his patron's displeasure, or to starve by remaining at home. He may now venture to appear in com pany with just such clothes as other men generally wear, and talk even to princes with all the conscious superiority of wisdom. Though he cannot boast of fortune here, yet he can bravely assert the dignity of independence. - Citizen of the World. A NOCTURNAL MEDITATION. THE clock just struck two; the expiring taper rises and sinks in the socket, the watchman forgets the hour in slumber, the laborious and the happy are at rest, and nothing wakes but meditation, guilt, revelry, and despair. The drunkard once more fills the destroying bowl, the robber walks his midnight round, and the suicide lifts his guilty arm against his own sacred person. Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiqui ty, or the sallies of contemporary genius, but pursue the solitary walk where Vanity, ever changing, but a few hours past walked before me; where she kept up the pageant, and now, like a froward child, seems hushed with her own importunities. What a gloom hangs all around! the dying lamp feebly emits a yellow gleam; no sound is heard but of the chiming clock or the distant watch-dog. All the bustle of human pride is forgotten: an hour like this may well display the emptiness of human vanity. There will come a time when this temporary solitude may be made continual, and the city itself, like its inhabitants, fade away, and leave a desert in its room. What cities as great as this have once triumphed in exist ence, had their victories as great, joy as just and as unbounded, and, with short-sighted presumption, promised themselves immortality! Posterity can hardly trace the situation of some. The sorrowful traveller wanders over the awful ruins of others; and as he beholds he learns wisdom, and feels the transience of every sublunary possession. Here, he cries, stood their citadel, now grown over with weeds; there their senate-house, but now the haunt of every noxious reptile; temples and theatres stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruin. They are fallen, for luxury and avarice first made them feeble. The rewards of the State were conferred on amusing, and not on useful members of society. Their riches and opulence invited the invaders, who, though |