but such stuff, when alone in conversation with a gentleman. I beg then that I may hear no more of this, and as I am sure you can talk upon many more rational subjects, request your favour, to give me your opinion on some articles in this Hebrew Bible you see lying open on the table in this room. My father, sir, among other things he has taken great pains to instruct me in, for several years that I have lived with him in a kind of solitary state, since the death of my mother, whom I lost when I was very young, has taught me to read and understand this inspired Hebrew book; and says we must ascribe primaevity and sacred prerogatives to this language. For my part, I have some doubts as to this matter, which I dare not mention to my father. Tell me, if you please, what you think of the thing.

Miss Noel (I answered), since it is your command that I should be silent as to that flame your glorious eyes and understanding have lighted up in my soul, like some superior nature, before whom I am nothing, silent I will be, and tell you what I fancy on a subject I am certain you understand much better than I do. My knowledge of the Hebrew is but small, though I have learned to read and understand the Old Testament in the ante-Babel language.

T. AMORY.-The Life of John Buncle, Esq.

THE DEVILISH DISEASE OF PRIDE

EVER since our first fathers by infection took this morbum sathanicum, this devilish disease, pride, of the devil, such tinder is our nature, that every little spark sets us on fire; our nature hath grown so light that every little thing puffeth us up and sets us aloft in our altitudes presently. Yea, indeed, so light we are, that many times when the gifts are low, yet for all that the mind is as high as the bramble; low in qualities, God knoweth, yet had his mind higher than the highest cedar in Lebanon. But if we be but of mean stature once, but a thought higher than others our fellows, if never so little more in us than is in our neighbours, presently we fall into Simon's case, we seem to ourselves as he did, to be тis μéyas, no doubt some goodly great thing'. But if we come once

honour more than him?

to any growth indeed, then presently our case is Haman's case who but he ? Who was he that the King would Nay, who was there that the King could honour but he? he, and none but he. Through this aptness in us that we have to learn the devil's lesson, the devil's Discite a me, for I am proud-for so it is, by opposition of Christ's lesson, which is Discite a Me, quia mitis sum, because I am meek and gentle '- we are ready to corrupt ourselves in every good gift of God; in wisdom, in manhood, in law, in divinity, in learning or eloquence : every and each of these serveth for a stirrup to mount us aloft in our own conceits. For where each of the former hath, as it were, his own circuit-as wisdom ruleth in council, manhood in the field, law in the judgement-seat, divinity in the pulpit, learning in the schools, and eloquence in persuasion-only riches ruleth without limitation, riches ruleth with them all, ruleth them all, and overruleth them all, his circuit is the whole world. For which cause some think when he saith, 'Charge the rich,' he presently addeth, 'of this world,' because this world standeth altogether at the devotion of riches, and he may do what he will in this world that is rich in this world. So said the Wise Man long ago, Pecuniae obediunt omnia, all things answer money,' money mastereth all things; they all answer at his call, and they all obey at his commandment. Let us go lightly over them all; you shall see that they all else have their several predicaments to bound them, and that riches is only the transcendent of this world.

Wisdom ruleth in counsel-so do riches; for we see in the court of the great King Artaxerxes, there were counsellors whose wisdom was to be commanded by riches, even to hinder a public benefit, the building of the temple. Manhood ruleth in the war-so do riches, experience teacheth us it is so; it is said, it was they that won Daventer, and that it was they and none but they that drove the Switzers out of France, and that without stroke stricken. Law governeth in the seat of justice-so do riches; and oftentimes they turn justice itself into wormwood by a corrupt sentence, but more often doth it turn justice into vinegar by long standing and infinite delays ere sentence will come forth. Divinity ruleth in the church and pulpit-so do riches; for with a set of silver pieces,

saith Augustine, they brought Concionatorem mundi, 'the Preacher of the world,' Jesus Christ, to the bar, and the disciple is not above his Master. Learning ruleth in the schools-so do riches; and indeed there money setteth us all to school. For, to say the truth, riches have so ordered the matter there, as learning is now the usher; money, he is the master; the chair itself and the disposing of the chair is his too. Eloquence ruleth in persuasion, and so do riches. When Tertullus had laboured a goodly flowing oration against Paul, Felix looked that another, a greater orator, should have spoken for him, namely, that something should have been given him'; and if that orator had spoken his short pithy sentence, Tantum dabo, Tertullus' oration had been clean dashed. Tantum dabo is a strange piece of rhetoric; devise as cunningly, pen as curiously as you can, it overthrows all. Tantum valent quattuor syllabae, such force is there in four syllables.' Though indeed some think-it being so unreasonable short as it is, but two words-that it cannot be the rhetoric of it that worketh these strange effects, but that there is some sorcery or witchcraft in them, in Tantum dabo. And surely a great sorcerer, Simon Magus, used them to Peter; and it may well be so, for all estates are shrewdly bewitched by them. I must end, for it is a world to think and tell what the rich of the world may do in the world.

L. ANDREWES.-Sermons.

A STUDY IN THREE STYLES

His son seems weaker in his understanding and more gay in his temper; but his gaiety is that of a foolish, overgrown schoolboy, whose mirth consists in noise and disturbance. He disdains his father for his close attention to business and love of money; though he seems himself to have no talents, spirit, or generosity to make him superior to either. His chief delight appears to be tormenting and ridiculing his sisters, who, in return, most heartily despise him. Miss Branghton, the eldest daughter,

1 See note.

She

is by no means ugly; but looks proud, ill-tempered, and conceited. She hates the city, though without knowing why; for it is easy to discover she has lived nowhere else. Miss Polly Branghton is rather pretty, very foolish, very ignorant, very giddy, and, I believe, very good-natured.... Mrs. Selwyn is very kind and attentive to me. is extremely clever: her understanding, indeed, may be called masculine; but unfortunately her manners deserve the same epithet; for, in studying to acquire the knowledge of the other sex, she has lost all the softness of her own. In regard to myself, however, as I have neither courage nor inclination to argue with her, I have never been personally hurt at her want of gentleness, a virtue which nevertheless seems so essential a part of the female character, that I find myself more awkward and less at ease with a woman who wants it than I do with a man.

MADAME D'ARBLAY.-Evelina.

II

EVEN the imperious Mr. Delvile was more supportable here than in London: secure in his own castle, he looked around him with a pride of power and possession which softened while it swelled him. His superiority was undisputed his will was without control. He was not, as in the great capital of the kingdom, surrounded by competitors; no rivalry disturbed his peace, no equality mortified his greatness; all he saw were either vassals of his power, or guests bending to his pleasure; he abated therefore, considerably, the stern gloom of his haughtiness, and soothed his proud mind by the courtesy of condescension..

'It is rather an imaginary than an actual evil, and though a deep wound to pride, no offence to morality. Thus have I laid open to you my whole heart, confessed my perplexities, acknowledged my vainglory, and exposed with equal sincerity the sources of my doubts and the motives of my decision. But now, indeed, how to proceed I know not. The difficulties which are yet to encounter I fear to enumerate, and the petition I have to urge I have scarce courage to mention. My family, mistaking ambition

for honour, and rank for dignity, have long planned a splendid connexion for me, to which, though my invariable repugnance has stopped any advances, their wishes and their views immovably adhere. I am but too certain

they will listen to no other. I dread, therefore, to make a trial where I despair of success. I know not how to risk a prayer with those who may silence me by a command.' MADAME D'ARBLAY.-Cecilia.

III

He was assaulted, during his precipitated return, by the rudest fierceness of wintry elemental strife; through which, with bad accommodations and innumerable accidents, he became a prey to the merciless pangs of the acutest spasmodic rheumatism, which barely suffered him to reach his home, ere, long and piteously, it confined him, a tortured prisoner, to his bed. Such was the check that almost instantly curbed, though it could not subdue, the rising pleasure of his hopes of entering upon a new species of existence that of an approved man of letters; for it was on the bed of sickness, exchanging the light wines of France, Italy, and Germany, for the black and loathsome potions of the Apothecaries' Hall, writhed by darting stitches, and burning with fiery fever, that he felt the full force of that sublunary equipoise that seems evermore to hang suspended over the attainment of long-sought and uncommon felicity, just as it is ripening to burst forth into enjoyment!

If beneficence be judged by the happiness which it diffuses, whose claim, by that proof, shall stand higher than that of Mrs. Montagu, from the munificence with which she celebrated her annual festival for those hapless artificers who perform the most abject offices of any authorized calling, in being the active guardians of our blazing hearths? Not to vainglory, then, but to kindness of heart, should be adjudged the publicity of that superb charity which made its jetty objects, for one bright morning, cease to consider themselves as degraded outcasts from society.

MADAME D'ARBLAY.-Memoirs of Dr. Burney.