their hearts are at ease, and their actions encouraged by knowing that faithful fervice always obtains a reward for old age.

D)

I NEED not write a farther comment, or notes, to illuftrate the truth of what has been faid; to prove that the English nobility and gentry ruin their being well ferved, by a licentious and miftaken habit of fuffering their fervants to receive money from any other perfon but themfelves. In fact, the domeftic fcarce conceives himself the menial fervant of him who fupplies him with his daily bread and apparel, and in ge neral has little good-will towards him: »

very

FROM this one evil habit of giving money to fervants, the nobility of 'no Hation appear fo mean as the English; my lord looks on whilft his guest discharges the houfe, by paying the fervants; and no fervants are in any comparison fo infolent and inattentive in their service, be cause they know that it is not his lordship's hands from which they receive their money.

I

THE reformation of thefe abufes will arrive with the general reformation of the nation;

when

when the public funds being no more able to fupply the minifterial, demand, the whole takes a new turn, and the want of money brings purer, manners and more œconomy.

#

THIS is not fo far off as the day of judgment, to my eyes. The kingdom appears to me like those fruits which are extremely fair to the eye, and rotten at the core; the malady has be-, from the heart; or like a body, which has long lain interred and unmoved, which, appearing firm and substantial to the view, is fure to tumble into duft the very first shake which it receives.

gun

THO' an alien and fojourner in the land, I fincerely pray, that this may be prevented; there are yet an infinity of worthy people remaining amongst those who are neither the very highest nor very lowest; and indeed fome in the firft, tho' they are hindered from their country's fervice, and as it were exiled for their virtues. Adieu,

P

I am yours most affectionately.

LET

LETTER XXXII.

To the Reverend Father BATISTA GUARINI, at Rome.

Dear Sir,

T is not in medicine alone, that quackery

IT

takes place in this island above all others; it is in every other art and science; the painters even make their fortune in proportion, as they mix more or lefs of that with their profes fion and colours; fome chufe a new manner of

A

colouring, others of painting drapery, and one who would paint his figures upfide-down, would fucceed to a miracle; but laftly here is a prodigy arrived from Paris; a wonder who has carried all before him, and all this by dint of beards This man being extremely well acquainted withi the prevailing paffion of this nation, and their manner of reasoning, I which is, that if a man is extraordinary in any thing, he must be in all; has made the best use of a beard, that any man has made of it fince the days of Adam. He goes dreft in the Perfian or Turkish habit, with this type of wisdom reaching to his middle.

THIS fingularity of drefs has given him an air of fuperiority, and credit of being a fingular good painter; he has had double the price of all others; and yet, if it was not for his beard, he would not be a better painter, nay not fo good, as many who refide in London. Thus, whilft gets five and twenty guineas for a three quarters length; Soldé, who is as good at least as any in this kingdom, is glad to get half that

he

as

・

money: The first has as many as he can paint, and Soldé has not fo many as he ought. At prefent the people of England feem to be more captivated with what is new, than what is extraordinary; and are more pleased with fingularity in the person who produces any thing in arts and science, than with the production itfelf: it is this which has made this painter's performances fo valuable. They have measured the va lue of his works by the length of his beard, and conclude as much in favour of the excellency of the one as the longitude of the other; it is the rarity of a painter with a beard, that has drawn him the reputation of a great master in his art. This is the first time I have known beards being any thing but wisdom: If he painted

the type

of

in oil, I should imagine he made his brushes of his beard, and fucceeded by virtue of that advantage; but he paints in craions.

IN other parts of polite ftudies, the fame manner of thinking has often prevail'd; here is now an inftance of a thresher, a very honest man indeed, who was made a divine and librarian to the late queen at Richmond, because he had found out the method of threshing words into verses; the excellency of the work is not confider'd, it is the wonder of a peafant's being a poet, which gained him his living and honours, during which time. many others who were good poets, were starving without the least reward.

BESIDES this man, here is another mechanic, who is the candidate for the Laurel, after the prefent poet Laureat: This man has written a very indifferent tragedy, which has had great fuccefs, because it was the work of a bricklayer.

IN fact, this appears to me to be extremely mortifying to men of genius; their works are not attended with any esteem or honor, because they are the productions of men deftined to

ftudy,