736,8001. and was 35 years in building. The half of the materials of Westminster Bridge are under water at low tide.

162. THE NECESSITY FOR SUBORDINATION

EXEMPLIFIED.

A state cannot be well constituted that is not composed of different orders. If all were of the same class, without distinction of power, rank, or profession, that condition would be absolute anarchy, and its result the most mischievous confusion. Each would demand pre-eminence, and exemption from the more severe labour; no one would exert his talents to produce convenience to another, and where is the man whose industry, time, and ingenuity are sufficient to supply all his own wants, and who is not obliged to have recourse to others for most of his comforts? Such a state of things could not even exist, but must fall into some other for the mere preservation of the society who should attempt to practise it.-If I would fill a bason with round balls, I cannot do so with balls of equal magnitude, but in the interstices of the larger I must place

smaller, and these will leave smaller intervals again which I cannot fill up with any but smaller balls, and so again of these, till I must use balls almost imperceptible so as to fill the void. And this may naturally illustrate the necessity of employing different classes of men, in a regular and easy gradation, to fill up the measure of a perfect state.

163. THE HEART CAPABLE OF ADMITTING OF CO-EXISTING YET VEHEMENT PASSIONS.

It has been asserted that the heart is inca pable of receiving more than one grand passion at the same time, but this is inaccurately stated, for it may nourish many eminent passions provided they are of different kinds. A man, indeed, could scarcely be desperately enamoured of two objects at the same moment; but he may be amorous, choleric, and vehemently addicted to gaming at the same time, while in his heart there may yet be room for compassion, humanity, and generosity. We may compare the human heart to a glass of water; this water will admit of different bodies

without much augmenting its volume. Saturate a certain quantity of water, in moderate heat, with three ounces of sugar, and when it will no longer receive that, there is still room in it for two ounces of salt of tartar, and after that for an ounce and a dram of green vitriol, nearly six drams of nitre, the same of sal ammoniac, two drams and a scruple of alum, and a dram and a half of borax. (See Grew's Experiments of the Solution of Salts in Water, aud Quincy's New Dictionary, Introduction, 'p. xv. note 2.) The different configuration of the constituent particles of each of these bodies is the reason of their insinuating themselves into the interstices of the water, which the particles of other bodies could not penetrate because of their peculiar conformation. It is thus with the heart of man; if the passions he vehemently feels are not naturally enemies, they may exist together in him without lessening or destroying each other.

164. ANECDOTE OF BARON VAN SWIEten. This gentleman, son of the celebrated physician of that name at the Court of

Vienna, told me that when he was at college, his father was very urgent with him. to apply to the study of the Greek tongue, and to impose upon him an obligation to that end, they always corresponded in Greek. Once in particular the young man wrote his father a remarkable fine Greek letter, requesting a remittance of money to pay a quarter's salary due to his ridingmaster. It happened that Dr. Van Swieten, who was also librarian of the Vienna public library, had been desired to collate for M. Meerman of the Hague a Greek manuscript of Theodorus which was in that library. M. Meerman was at that time compiling the collection published by him in 1771, under the title of Novus Thesaurus Juris civilis canonici, in seven volumes. Dr. Van Swieten had been so much pleased with his son's letter, that he preserved it very carefully; but, copying and collating the Greek manuscript for his friend, he also sent him his son's letter, having inadvertently made it up with the manuscript as if part of it. This letter did not a little puzzle the erudition of Meerman, yet, not doubting its being a

fragment of Theodorus, he published it at the end of his work, remarking, in a note, that a portion of the time of Theodorus' youth had been spent in acquiring the art of riding. Baron Van Swieten shewed me the letter, which is inserted at the end of the last volume. Some months after, being at the house of De Gosse, bookseller at the Hage, who had printed the work, I took the liberty of laughing at the editor's curious mistake. Faith, Sir, said he, the matter "does not concern me. Speak to M. Meer"man. He will satisfy you," pointing out M. Meerman, who was present, and listening to our discourse.

165. ABBÉ DE CHOISY.

The disguise of the Abbé de Choisy for several years, as a woman, was a very extraordinary circumstance; but the enterprises and adventures of gallantry undertaken under shadow of this disguise, as well as the impudent manner in which he published those adventures, were exceedingly scandalous. The Abbé was a man of fashion, rich, (particularly in church preferments)