time and thoughts in studying its political welfare, its interest, and its honour. Though this general taste for politics, from the highest to the lowest orders of the people, has afforded subjects for comic ridicule, yet, I cannot help considering it both as a proof of uncommon liberality, and as one of the firmest supports of civil liberty. It kindles and keeps alive an ardent love of freedom. It has hitherto preserved that glorious gift of God from the rude hand of tyranny, and tends, perhaps, more than any other cause, to communicate the noble fire of true patriotism to the bosoms of posterity. While we watch vigilantly over every political measure, and communicate an alarm through the empire, with a speed almost equal to the shock of electricity, there will be no danger lest a King should establish despotism, even though he were to invade the rights of his people at the head of his standing army.

But as zeal without knowledge is subversive of the purpose which it means to promote; it becomes a true friend to his country to endeavour to unite with the love of liberty the love of knowledge. It unfortunately happens, that political subjects are of so warm and animating a nature, that they not only appear to interest, in a very high degree, but to engross the attention. The newspapers form the whole library of the politician, the coffeehouse is his school, and he prefers the Gazette, and an acrimonious pamphlet, for or against the ministry, to all that was ever written by a Homer, or discovered by a Newton.

To be a competent judge either of political measures or events, it is necessary to possess an enlightened understanding, and the liberal spirit of philosophy; it is necessary to have read history, and to have formed right ideas of the nature of man and of civil society. But I know not how it happens, the

most ignorant and passionate are apt to be the most decisive in delivering their sentiments on the very complicated subjects of political controversy. A man, whose education never extended beyond writing and the four rules, will determine at once, and with the most authoritative air, such questions as would perplex the wisest statesman adorned with all human learning, and assisted by the experience and advice of the most cultivated persons in the nation. Even gentlemen, according to the common acceptation of that title, or those who have fortunes and have received the common instruction of the times, are seldom able to judge with propriety in politics, though they are usually inclined to dictate with passion. Is it possible that, from having learned only the first elements of Latin and French, and the arts of dancing, fencing, and fiddling in perfection, a man should be qualified, I do not say to sit as a Senator, but to expatiate, with sufficient judgment and intelligence, on the propriety and nature of any public transaction, or system of government? But he is worth an estate of a thousand a year, and therefore, though all his other merit, in kind and degree, may be like that of a master of the ceremonies, or that of a skilful groom and whipper-in, he thinks he has a right to give law to the neighbourhood in political conversation. His ideas are confined to narrow limits; and as his patriotism is for the most part spite, so his support of a ministry is, in some respects, self-interest. It must be so; for a man, whose mind is not enlarged and cultivated, cannot entertain so liberal a system of opinions as those of real patriotism.

But even among persons whose minds are sufficiently improved to distinguish, and pursue the good of man and of society, independently either of passion or of private advantage, the rage for politics

often proceeds too far, and absorbs all other objects. In vain does the hand of art present the picture or repeat the melody of music; for the eye is blind, the ear is deaf to all but the news and the newspaper. Poetry, philology, elegant and polite letters, in all their ramifications, display their alluring charms in vain to him, whose head and heart still vibrate with the harsh and discordant sounds of a political dispute at the tavern. Those books, whose tendency is only to promote elegant pleasures or advance science, which flatter no party and gratify no malignant passion, are suffered to fall into oblivion : while a pamphlet which espouses the cause of any political men or measures, however inconsiderable its literary merit, is extolled as one of the first productions of modern literature. But meagre is the food furnished to the mind of man by the declamation of a party bigot. From a taste for trash, and a disrelish of the wholesome food of the mind, and from the consequent neglect of solid learning, mere politicians are prevented from receiving valuable improvement; and the community, together with literature, is at last deeply injured. For when learning is little respected, it will naturally decline; and that the mental darkness, consequent on its decline, leads to the establishment of despotism, every one who has surveyed the pictures of mankind, as portrayed by the pencil of History, will immediately acknowledge. What did Athens and Rome retain of their ancient dignity when their learning and their arts were no more? That the light of learning should ever again be extinguished, may appear a visionary idea to an Englishman; but so it did to a Roman, in the days of Cicero. Notwithstanding the multiplication of books by the art of printing, both they and all value for them may vanish, together with the power of understanding them, if the fury of politics

should occasion a contempt for letters and for education, and should convert the leaders of a people into Goths and Vandals.

He who would add an elegance to politics, and distinguish his conversation on the subject from the vociferation of porters in an alehouse, should inspect the finished pieces of antiquity, and learn to view public acts and counsels in the light in which they appeared to those whom the world has long considered as some of the best and politest teachers of political wisdom. If he possesses not taste enough to relish the works of poetical imagination, let him confine himself to such authors as Thucydides and Xenophon, Polybius and Plutarch, Livy and Sallust. Politics will assume new grace by communicating with history and philosophy; and political conversation, instead of a vague, passionate, and declamatory effusion of undigested ideas, will become a most liberal exercise of the faculties, and form a mental banquet, at which the best and wisest of mankind might indulge their finer appetites with insatiable avidity. What can constitute a more rational object of contemplation than the noble fabric of society, civilized by arts, letters, and religion? What can better employ our sagacity than to devise modes for its improvement and preservation?

Not only the understanding, the taste, the temper of a people, but the spirit also, will be greatly improved by learning politics of the Greeks and Romans. No man of feeling ever yet read Livy without learning to detest slavery, and to glow with a love and emulation of public virtue. The Greek and Roman spirit cannot be too much encouraged by those who have a just idea of the dignity of a true Englishman, and desire to maintain it. And let it be remembered that the Athenians, in their

most glorious periods, were as much attached to politics and news as Britons ever were; but that they preserved, amidst the warmest contests, a refined taste and delicate passion for the politest learning and the profoundest philosophy.

No. CXXV.

On Buffoonery in Conversation.

IT is sweet, says the agreeable poet of Venusium, to lay aside our wisdom, and to indulge on a proper occasion a species of temporary folly. He, indeed, must be outrageously severe who would prohibit any pleasing mode of passing our leisure hours, while it is consistent with innocence, and the nature of a being eminently distinguished by the fine faculties of reason, fancy, memory, and reflection. Charming is the social hour when solidity of judgment is enlivened by brilliancy of wit, and the lively sallies of imagination by a sweet interchange of pensive gravity. Ease, freedom, and the unstudied effusion of the sentiments, which naturally arise in cultivated minds, form a very delightful recreation; and dismiss the mind to its serious employments with new alacrity. Those among the ancients, who were most celebrated for their wisdom, were remarkable for a cheerful and equable gaiety, and often diverted themselves, in their intervals of severer meditation, with jests and drollery. Who more cheerful than the gentle Socrates? Who more delighted with a joke than the dignified Cicero? But, at the same time, few were equally capable of maintaining a legitimate conversation in all its gravity and elegance. The conversations of Socrates, preserved by his eloquent