LETTER XXIII.

LONDON, APRIL 9th.

AN Englishman once recommended to his son, who was about to travel, to go forty miles to see a man of letters, rather than five, to see a famous city. The republic of letters has lost nothing of its ancient liberality. 'It is only necessary to wish to see learned men, in order to be admitted to their society. I discovered this so soon, that I burnt most of my merchant-letters of introduction.

I am acquainted with a gentleman who seems to have studied mankind with considerable success. He is learned, intelligent and communicative: and what renders these qualities still more valuable, he is not an author. Of two men in all respects equal, one of whom is not an author, I prefer the company of him who has not written a book.* Mr. L. I im.. agine, is past fifty: this with me is a recommendation; his age and intelligence give him an authority, which, in general, I have no right to dispute, while my deference disposes him to confidence, and raises

*Those who have written books are sometimes more precise, but generally, dogmatical, angular and systematic.

us above rivalry. He invited me, sometime since, to visit St. Paul's, on some pleasant morning, and from its eminence to take a view of the city, for he had not overlooked it, he said, for more than twenty

years.

I waited on him yesterday morning, and was happy to find him disposed to dissipate the day. It will be a memorable occasion with me, and not uninteresting to you I shall therefore commemorate it with a long letter.

He observed, "He had always been fond of cultivating the society of foreigners, for this was a surer means of understanding the peculiarities of a people, than reading either their history, or the fictions of travellers. Those minutiæ, which distinguish the domestic character of one people from another, are either overlooked, or thought too trifling to claim the notice of the historian, while the traveller is equally ready to embellish or deform. Hence, one nation knows very little of another, except of their more prominent or excrescent features. You have heard, that the Englishman is a more downright, positive character, than the Frenchman; but you will understand this characteristic better, if you witness a conversation between them: the one will use the indicative, the other frequently the subjunctive, mode." He added, "No man can be acquainted

with foreigners, if they have their proper characters, without esteeming their nation more, than if he had never seen any individual of that nation. You, sir," addressing himself more particularly to me,

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esteem the English more than you did before you visited them." "That is very true, sir, but I esteem England less." "That distinction I expected you would make; but I would permit no other foreigner to make it; he should say, with you, he esteemed Englishmen, but admired England."

-I ought to have premised that Mr. L. is remarkably liberal, except when a subject is started which may possibly touch hard on England: and though a bitter dissenter, he is not less an Englishman.

He then asked me, if I took notes of whatever made new impressions? "Yes, sir," I replied, "I shall note the particulars of our present conversation." "I fear you will prove a severe judge." "Why so, sir?" "Your education and principles will lead you to brandish the scourge of satire, rather than wanton with the plume of panegyric: you regard society as a wilderness, which mocks at the pruning hook, and will only yield to the ploughshare. You ought not to speak of England, before you have observed the state of society on the continent." "In what respect, sir, do you think I shall suffer

my prejudices to bias me?" "Why, for instance, you cannot behold a nobleman's country seat with any pleasure the cottages of the tenants renew the feudal system: you cannot patiently see a fine equipage; the servants, before and behind, affect you with convulsions: nor can you contémplate his Majesty with any complacency; his guards revive the pretorian bands: in short, you are not pleased to see a rich man; for you immediately begin to calculate the number of poor, one rich man supposes. But, sir, your feelings carry you too far; so long as civil society exists, a large portion of mankind must be comparatively poor: riches and poverty are convertible terms, and the distinctions among men founded in nature as in a forest, you may observe a few trees, kings of the wood, many on an equality, and of respectable height, but a yet greater number, mere dwarfs, which nature stints, (and these in resentment grow crooked and knotty,) beside a great quantity of furze and underwood, which are found below the latter." "Nay, sir, you have no right to use this inanimate illustration: did these dwarfs, this furze, and this underwood, suffer,* by being overshadowed by these kings of the wood, your exposition were happy: beside, sir, nature, to whom you appeal, is not so capricious; you have coed

Dr. Darwin might allow this to be a successful elucidation.

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together, trees, furze and underwood, three different species: now we find in inanimate nature a certain deference to equality, among members of the same species. But, sir, if an Upas tree were to spring up on the equator, and threaten to overshadow the whole world, would not every tree of the wood, be interested to destroy the poisonous influence of this tyrant Upas? You carry your principles too far, sir." He smiled at my impetuosity.

In passing down Fleet Street, we saw, at a distance, a man of enormous and disproportionate body. "Do you see that man," said Mr. L. "who is approaching with such hard labour? Twenty years since, he was as healthy, active, and well proportioned as any man in London; but unfortunately, a distant relation left him a large fortune. This proved his ruin; he abandoned himself to indolence and high living, consequently to gout and grossness. The fat soon began to grow about his eyes, so that now, you see, he is almost blind; another twelvemonth, I expect, will hermetically seal both of his eyes."

Soon after, he pointed to a little court, which we passed, observing, "a man lived in a back apartment there, who could not give a better account of himsel for the last twenty years, than could the person we had just seen." I asked, who he might be?