CLXV. ON THE SUPERIOR VALUE OF SOLID ACCOMPLISHMENTS. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN CICERO AND LORD Cicero. CHESTERFIELD. Effe quam videri. SALL. ISTAKE me not. I know how to value M' the sweet courtefies of life. Affability, attention, decorum of behaviour, if they have not been ranked by philofophers among the virtues, are certainly related to them, and have a powerful influence in promoting focial happinefs. I have recommended them, as well as yourself. But I contend, and no sophistry fhall prevail upon me to give up this point, that, to be truly amiable, they niuft proceed from goodness of heart. Affumed by the artful to ferve the purposes of private intereft, they degenerate to contemptible grimace, and deteftable hypocrify. Cheft. Excufe me, my dear Cicero; I cannot enter farther into the controverfy at prefent. I have a hundred engagements at leaft; and fee yonder my little elegant French Compteffe. I promised her and myself the pleafure of a promenade. Pleafant walking enough in thefe elyfian groves. So much good company too, that if it were not that the canaille are apt to be troublefome, I should not much regret the diftance from the Thuilleries. But adieu, mon cher ami, for I fee Madame *** is joining the party. Adieu, adieu! Cic. Contemptible wretch! Cheft. Ah! what do I hear? Recollect that I am a man of honour, unused to the pity or the infults of an upstart, a novus homo. But perhaps your exclamation was not meant of me-If fo, why- Cic. I am as little inclined to infult as to flatter you. Your levity excited my indignation; but my compaf fion for the degeneracy of human nature, exhibited in your inftance, abforbs my contempt. Cheft. Cheft. I could be a little angry, but, as bienséance forbids it, I will be a philofopher for once.-A-propos, pray do you reconcile your, what fhall I call it-your unfmooth addrefs to thofe rules of decorum, that gentleness of manners, of which you fay you know and teach the propriety as well as myself? Cic. To confefs the truth, I would not advance the arts of embellishment to extreme refinement. Ornamental education, or an attention to the graces, has a connection with effeminacy. In acquiring the gentleman, I would not lose the spirit of a man. There is a gracefulness in a manly character, a beauty in an open and ingenuous difpofition, which all the profeffed teachers of the arts of pleafing know not to infuse. Cheft. You and I lived in a state of manners, as different as the periods at which we lived were distant. You Romans, pardon me, my dear, you Romans—had a little of the brute in you. Come, come, I must overlook it You were obliged to court plebeians for their fuffrages; and if fimilis fimili gaudet, it must be owned, that the greatest of you were fecure of their favour. Why, Beau Nafh would have handed your Catos and your Brutufes out of the ball-room, if they had fhewn their unmannerly heads in it; and my Lord Modish, animated with the confcious merit of the largest or smallest buckles in the room, according to the temporary ton, would have laughed Pompey the Great out of countenance. Oh, Cicero, had you lived in a modern European Court, you would have caught a degree of that undefcribable grace, which is not only the ornament, but may be the fubftitute of all thofe laboured attainments which fools call folid merit. But it was not your good fortune, and I make allow ances. Cic. The vivacity you have acquired in ftudying the writings and the manners of the degenerate Gauls, has led you to fet too high a value on qualifications which dazzle the lively perceptions with a momentary blaze, and to depreciate that kind of worth which can neither be obtained nor underflood without ferious attention, and fometimes painful efforts. But I will not contend with you on the propriety or impropriety of the out ward ward modes which delight a monkey nation. I will not spend arguments in proving that gold is more valuable than tinfel, though it glitters lefs. But I muft censure you, and with an afperity too, which, perhaps, your graces may not approve, for recommending 'vice as graceful, in your memorable letters. Cheft. That the great Cicero fhould know fo little of the world, really furprifes me. A little libertinifm, my dear, that's all; how can one be a gentleman without a little libertinism ? Cic. I ever thought that to be a gentleman, it was requifite to be a moral man. And furely you, who might have enjoyed the benefit of a light to direct you, which I wanted, were blameable in omitting religion and virtue in your system. Cic. What! fuperftitious too!-You have not then converfed with your fuperior, the philofopher of Ferney. I thank Heaven, I was born in the fame age with that great luminary. Prejudice had elfe, perhaps, chained me in the thraldom of my great grandmother. These are enlightened days, and I find I have contributed Something to the general illumination, by my pofthumous letters. Cic. Boaft not of them. Remember you were a father. Cheft. And did I not endeavour moft effectually to ferve my fon, by pointing out the qualifications neceffary to a foreign ambaffador, for which department I always defigned him? Few fathers have taken more pains to accomplish a fon than myself. There was nothing I did not condefcend to point out to him. Cic. True your condefcenfion was great indeed. You were the pander of your fon. You not only taught him the mean arts of diffimulation, the petty tricks which degrade nobility; but you corrupted his principles, fomented his paffions, and even pointed out objects for their gratification. You might have left the talk of teaching him fashionable vice to a vicious world. Example, and the corrupt affections of human nature, will ever be capable of accomplishing this unnatural purpose. But a parent, the guardian appointed by nature for an uninftructed offspring introduced into a dangerous world, who himself takes upon him the office of feduction feduction, is a moniter indeed. I also had a fon. I was tenderly folicitous for the right conduct of his education. I intrufted him indeed to Cratippus at Athens ; but, like you, I could not help tranfmitting inftructions dictated by paternal love. Thofe inftructions are contained in my book of Offices; a book which has ever been cited by the world as a proof to what a height the morality of the heathens was advanced without the light of revelation. I own I feel a conscious pride in it; not on account of the ability which it may difplay, but for the principles it teaches, and the good, I flatter myfelf, it has diffufed. You did not indeed intend your inftructions for the world; but as you gave them to a fon you loved, it may be concluded that you thought them true wisdom, and withheld them only because they were contrary to the profeffions of the unenlightened. They have been generally read, and tend to introduce the manners, vices, and frivolous habits of the nation you admired-to your own manly nation, who, of all others, once approached most nearly to the noble fimplicity of the Romans. Cheft. Spare me, Cicero. I have never been accuftomed to the rough converfation of an old Roman. I feel myfelf little in his company. I feem to fhrink in his noble prefence. I never felt my infignificance fo forcibly as now. French courtiers and French philofophers have been my models; and amid the diffipation of pleasure, and the hurry of affected vivacity, I never confidered the gracefulness of virtue, and the beauty of an open, fincere, and manly character. No. CLXVI. CONJECTURES ON THE DIFFE RENCE BETWEEN ORIENTAL AND SEP TENTRIONAL POETRY. T HE productions of the mind, like thofe of the earth, are found to have different degrees of vigour and beauty in different climates. In the more northern northern regions, where the nerves are braced by cold, those works are the commoneft, and attain to the greatest perfection, which proceed from the exertion of the rational powers, and the painful efforts of the judgment. The fciences, like the hardy pine, flourish on the bleakeft mountains; while the works of tafte and fancy seem to fhrink from the rude blast, with all the tendernefs of the fenfitive-plant, and to require the genial warmth of a nearer fun to give them their full luxuriance and maturity. Ariftotle, Newton, and Locke, were the natives and inhabitants of temperate regions. Experience indeed feems to prove, that all the mental powers exift in their greatest degree of strength and perfection among those who inhabit that part of the globe which lies between the tropic of Cancer and the Arctic circle. No complete and celebrated work of genius was ever produced in the torrid zone. But whether the diverfity of genius in countries nearer or remoter from the fun proceeds from natural causes, or from the adventitious circumftances of different modes of education, different views, and a different fpirit of emulation, it is certain that the productions of Eaftern and Northern genius are diffimilar. Some ingenious critics have indeed pointed out a refemblance between the Gothic and Oriental poetry, in the wild enthusiasm of an irregular imagination. And they have accounted for it, by fuppofing, with great probability, that in an emigration of the Afiatics into Scandinavia, the Eaftern people brought with them their national spirit of poetry, and communicated it to the tribes with whom they united. The refemblance, therefore in works produced fince this union, does not prove that the Northern and Oriental genius were originally alike. Thofe productions of either which are allowed to be original, and to bear no marks of imitation, have perhaps no other resemblance than that which commonly proceeds from the fimilar operation of fimilar faculties. It feems, indeed, that a caufe may be affigned for this diverfity of Northern and Oriental productions, without attributing it to an effential difference in the original conftitution of the human underftanding. The imagination is ftrongly affected by furrounding objects, and |