blown upon by common fame; or, if the sphere of his observations are a little larger than ordinary, will perhaps enter into all the incidents, turns, and revolutions in a game of ombre. When he has gone thus far, he has shown you the whole circle of his accomplishments; his parts are drained, and he is disabled from any further conversation. What are these but rank pedants? and yet these are the men who value themselves most on their exemption from the pedantry of colleges.

I might here mention the military pedant, who always talks in a camp, and is storming towns, making lodgments, and fighting battles, from one end of the year to the other. Every thing he speaks smells of gunpowder; if you take away his artillery from him, he has not a word to say for himself. I might likewise mention the law pedant, that is perpetually putting cases respecting the transactions of Westminster hall, wrangling with you upon the most indifferent circumstances of life, and not to be convinced of the distance of a place, or of the most trivial point in conversation, but by dint of argument. The state pedant is wrapt up in news, and lost in politics. If you mention either of the kings of Spain or Poland, he talks very notably; but if you go out of the Gazette, you drop him. In short, a mere courtier, a mere scholar, a mere anything, is an insipid pedantic character, and equally ridicu lous.

Of all the species of pedants, which I have mentioned, the book pedant is much the most supportable; he has at least an exercised understanding, and a head which is full though confused, so that a man who converses with him may often receive from him hints of things that are worth knowing,

and that he may possibly turn to his own advantage, though they are of little use to the owner. The worst kind of pedants among learned men are such as are naturally endued with a very small share of common sense, and have read a great number of books without taste or distinction.

The truth of it is, learning, like travelling, and all other methods of improvement, as it finishes good sense, so it makes a silly man ten thousand times more insufferable, by supplying a variety of matter to his impertinence, and giving him an opportunity of abounding in absurdities.

Shallow pedants éry up one another much more than men of solid and useful learning. To read the titles they give an editor, or collator of a manuscript, you would take him for the glory of the commonwealth of letters, and the wonder of his age; when, perhaps, upon examination, you find that he has only rectified a Greek particle, or laid out a whole sentence in proper commas.

They are obliged indeed to be thus lavish of their praises, that they may keep one another in countenance; and it is no wonder if a great deal of knowledge, which is not capable of making a man wise, has a natural tendency to make him vain and arrogant.

ADDISON.

BEATTIE'S SPORTIVE PARALLEL OF HIMSELF WITH GREAT MEN.

ABOUT a fortnight ago the hurry of my winter business began; and, at the same time, my malady recurred with more violence than ever, rendering me at once incapable of reading, writing, and thinking. Luckily I am now a little better, so as

to be able to read a page, and write a sentence or two, without stopping; which, I assure you, is a very great matter. My hopes and my spirits begin to revive once more. I flatter myself I shall soon get rid of this infirmity; nay, that I shall ere long be in the way of becoming a great man. For have I not head-aches, like Pope? vertigo, like Swift? gray hairs, like Homer? Do I not wear large shoes, (for fear of corns), like Virgil? and sometimes complain of sore eyes, (though not of lippitude), like Horace? Am I not at this present writing invested with a garment not less ragged than that of Socrates? Like Joseph the patriarch, I am a mighty dreamer of dreams; like Nimrod the hunter, I am an eminent builder of castles (in the air). I procrastinate, like Julius Cæsar; and very lately, in imitation of Don Quixote, I rode a horse, lean, old, and lazy, like Rozinante. Sometimes, like Cicero, I write bad verses; and sometimes bad prose, like Virgil. This last instance I have on the authority of Seneca. I am of small stature, like Alexander the Great; I am somewhat inclinable to fatness, like Dr. Arbuthnot and Aristotle; and I drink brandy and water, like Mr. Boyd. I might compare myself, in relation to many other infirmities, to many other great men; but if fortune is not influenced in my favour, by the particulars already enumerated, I shall despair of ever recommending myself to her good graces. I once had some thought of soliciting her patronage on the score of my resembling great men in their good qualities; but I had so little to say on that subject, that I could not for my life furnish matter for one well rounded period; and you know, a short ill-turned speech is very improper to be used in an address to a female deity.

BEATTIE.

ON THE LANGUAGE OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE.

IT is a striking beauty in our English Bible, that, though the language is always elegant and nervous, and for the most part very harmonious, the words are all plain and common; no affectation of learned terms, or of words of Greek or Latin etymology. I have sometimes amused myself with the simplicity and harmony of particular passages. Nothing can be more melodious than the following, which yet seems to be the effect of accident rather than of art: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth as a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not." Vir

gil himself would not versify the following passage, for fear of hurting its harmony; and yet every word is common, and there is not the least appearance of art in the composition: "My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come; and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away," Our critics have often affirmed, that the English tongue derives a great deal of its harshness from the multitude of its monosyllables: this passage may serve for a proof of the contrary; for here (if I reckon right) are eighty words, whereof sixty-eight are monosyllables; and yet will venture to say, that the Italian language itself is not susceptible of greater sweetness. Some of our

words of one syllable are certainly harsh, as which, such, scratch, &c.; but even these lose a great part of their disagreeable sound, when the words that come before and after them are properly modulated. BEATTIE.

THE EXPEDITION OF CHARLES V. AGAINST ALGIERS.

ON all these accounts, Charles adhered to his first plan, and with such determined obstinacy, that he paid no regard to the pope, who advised, or to Andrew Doria, who conjured him not to expose his whole armament to almost unavoidable destruction, by venturing to approach the dangerous coast of Algiers at such an advanced season of the year, and when the autumnal winds were so violent. Having embarked on board Doria's galleys at Porto-Venere in the Genoese territories, he soon found that this experienced sailor had not judged wrong concerning the element with which he was so well acquainted; for such a storm arose that it was with the utmost difficulty and danger he reached Sardinia, the place of general rendevous. But as his courage was undaunted, and his temper often inflexible, neither the remonstrances of the pope and Doria, nor the danger to which he had' already been exposed by disregarding their advice, had any other effect than to confirm him in his fatal resolution. The force, indeed, which he had collected was such as might have inspired a prince less adventurous, and less confident in his own schemes, with the most sanguine hopes of success. It consisted of twenty thousand foot, and two thousand horse, Spaniards, Italians, and Germans,