peevishness and resentment. Had his reply been a good-natured one, he had talent and self-possession enough to secure its being witty. As it is, there was more brutality in it, than any thing else; and, by the way, be it observed, that his biographers have not taken care to mention, that Lady Sunderland was as amiable a woman, as she had once been a handsome one.

Waller might have learnt the exquisite effect given to address by a sincere and amiable spirit, and how finely it can even satirize without losing its reputation, in the dialogue he overheard between James the First and Bishop Andrews,-for which we must refer to the poet's Life in Johnson.

For the address arising from good-nature, commend us to the famous Turenne. To extricate one's self from an awkward dilemma, is the most difficult of all points of behaviour; but to extricate another is the most delightful. Turenne did both, when he was slapped on the back by a servant, who protested that he "took him for Robert."-" Well,” said the good-humoured warrior, rubbing himself, "but if it had been Robert, you need not have hit him such a thump as that." This was worthy of the great man who chatted with La Fontaine about the old wits and poets, as he was on the road to one of his campaigns.

The poor priest that Henry the Fourth met on the road to Paris, was a capital instance of the address of self-possession, if the story is to be relied on. We confess it looks a little theatrical and "got up.' Henry, they say, with the usual quickness and superabundance of a royal will, asked him, all in a breath,-" Where he came from, where he was going, and what for?" To which the lucky priest replied (for it got him what he wanted)-"From Lyons-to Paris-a living." But the perfection of this quality (unless he was witty out of the very spleen of despair) was exhibited by the soldier, whom that scoundrel Des Adrets (a name, they say, never mentioned to this day in Dauphiny without horror) sentenced among other poor wretches to leap from the battlements upon his pikes. Having reproached him with making two or three offers to leap, and not doing it, "Monsieur Le Baron," replied the soldier, "with all your bravery, I defy you to take it in three." The man's life was saved. Now here was a fellow to throw a gallant colour over the worst cloud that could darken him;-an eye to shed rainbows. A woman would do better to go to her death with such a man, than to her wedding with generals whom we could name.

The two highest instances that we can call to mind of the address manifested by a sudden exercise of the intellectual faculty, are a comic and a serious one, both familiar, perhaps, with professed bookmen; but not so well known, we trust, as to render them unacceptable with readers of taste and spirit in general. In both instances the occasion was unlooked for, and the antagonist worthy. The hero of the first is the celebrated Dr. Barrow, author of the Sermons; a man of such admirable presence of mind, and genuine humanity, that having once to struggle with a fierce mastiff, and succeeding in throwing him down and lying upon him, it came into his head to put an end to his peril and the creature's life at once, by strangling him; but he forebore, upon reflecting that the dog had only done its duty in making the attack; and so continued to lie upon him, and call out, till the family (for it was not day-break) were roused up to his assistance. Between this admirable

person, and another person, no less admirable for his talents, but far inferior in the qualities that would secure him against a disadvantage, namely, the famous Lord Rochester, there happened a "keen encounter of wits," of which the following account is handed down to us:-" Meeting one day at court, while the Doctor was king's chaplain in ordinary, Rochester, thinking to banter him, with a flippant air, and a low formal bow, accosted him with, "Doctor, I am yours to my shoe-tie." Barrow, perceiving his drift, returned the salute, with, "My Lord, I am yours to the ground." Rochester, on this, improving his blow, quickly returned it, with, "Doctor, I am yours to the centre;" which was as smartly followed up by Barrow, with, "My Lord, I am yours to the antipodes." Upon which Rochester, disdaining to be foiled by a musty old piece of divinity, as he used to call him, exclaimed," Doctor, I am yours to the lowest pit of hell;" when Barrow, bowing to the floor with a profounder politeness than ever, replied, "There, my Lord, I leave you."

The other is a story told of Alamanni, the Italian poet, and has all the triumphant success of the former one, with the addition of a serious perplexity of situation, and great reasonableness of attack on the part of his assailant. Alamanni, besides being a poet, was a patriot; and in consequence of some ineffectual designs to restore the independence of the Florentine government, then usurped by the family of the Medici, was obliged to withdraw into France, where he was caressed and employed by Francis the First. Among other offices, he was sent on a mission to the Emperor Charles the Fifth; and it was in the presence of that monarch that he gave an instance of dignified self-defence and possession, not easily to be paralleled. The story is the more pleasant to read, inasmuch as it terminates with high credit to both parties. Alamanni, in some poems which he had written in praise of his benefactor, had been very severe upon Charles, at that time the antagonist of Francis, and formerly a coadjutor of the Medici. In one of his satirical strokes, he designated him as

"L'Aquila grifagna,

Che per più divorar due becchi porta."

The grasping eagle,

That wears two beaks the better to devour.

The Emperor had read the piece containing this attack; and when Alamanni, in whom he now beheld the author of it, stood before him, and pronounced a fine address, in which every paragraph began with the word Aquila, he listened with great attention, and at the end of it made no reply, but

L'Aquila grifagna,

Che per più divorar due becchi porta."

Imagine the silence in the hall of audience, and how all faces would turn from the Emperor to the poet. Alamanni was not disconcerted. He maintained the air of the ambassador, mixed, however, we may suppose, with something of a deferential recollection; and, without hesitating, replied as follows:-"Sir, when I composed these lines, it was as a poet, who is permitted to use fictions; but now I speak as an ambassador, who is bound in honour to tell the truth. I spoke then as a youth; I speak now as a man advanced in years. I was then swayed

by rage and passion, arising from the desolate condition of my country; but now I ani calm and free from passion." Charles rose from his seat, and laying his hand on the ambassador's shoulder, said, with great kindness, that he must no longer regret his country, having found such a patron as Francis; adding, that to a virtuous man every place is his country.

These are the energies and grandeurs of address. The liveliest may exhibit them on occasion, if they have virtue enough; virtue, in the proper sense of the word, being as necessary to the highest thoughts and deeds of every description, as a relish of what he describes is to the making of a poet. We cannot exhibit qualities in which we have no faith; but as the groundwork of all gallant virtue, and of every comfort that we can enjoy, is health, or a proper condition of the blood and animal economy (for though we may be good and gallant without it, we are but confusedly so, with but half the assurance, and little of the enjoyment), nature has ordained that no one property of our being shall, upon the whole, give so much delight, either to ourselves or to others, as a due possession of what are called animal spirits. It is commonly said, and as commonly felt not to be a true saying, that virtue is its own reward. Virtue will do for us what vice cannot; it will leave us in a fit state to receive comfort, if comfort arrive; and, at all events, it does not add to the burthen of what we suffer, provided it be a wise as well as humane virtue: but for giving substantial comfort, and a relish of what is about us, virtue will be found a very inefficient substitute for health, and justly so; for health, by a law of our frames, being the great and general requisite for enjoyment, even virtue is bound to consider nothing so much; so that where it is wanting, there has either been a want of virtue itself somewhere, in ourselves, or our progenitors, or those who influence our destiny; or, if the exercise of a virtue has brought it upon us (which is possible, and has happened in some illustrious instances), the same goodness and wisdom, which induces a sacrifice of the particular, for the sake of the general, will incite us, for the same reason, to supply as fast as possible the gap we have occasioned, and restore the healthy equilibrium. In whatever way, therefore, we look at the great questions of happiness and delight, and the grounds of them, and whether we look superficially or deeply, a proper balance between mind and body will be found to be the main point of all; and this is the reason of the universal prejudice (as some may unreasonably think it) which is instinctively held by the world in favour of those evidences of a lively and natural state of blood, called animal spirits. Children are full of them. Charming women are invested with them, like Venus with her Cupids. And where greater virtues are not demanded, or may not have occasion for showing themselves, or are no more thought of than virtues are thought of among innocent children playing in spring-time in the fields, this single quality becomes sufficient to please and interest, and will carry away the palm, a hundred to one, against natures more staid and doubtful. For besides the lighter pleasures afforded us, we have this greater chance for virtue itself, with natures of the livelier and franker sort,-that being good in themselves, they have a more natural tendency to good in general; being pleased with themselves, they have the greater desire to bestow pleasure; and being

in the habit of displaying themselves, they have the more unequivocal testimony of a good conscience, and of having nothing to conceal. Virtue is more delightful in their hands, because it is borne with a suitable grace and cheerfulness; and vice is not so vicious, because we cannot attribute to it its worst and most deliberate qualities. As to the charge of foppery, which is so often made against people of animal spirits, and to which their open self-satisfaction undoubtedly subjects them, four things might as well be considered before the accusation is harshly or hastily brought; first, whether the self-satisfaction is more than proportionate to the satisfaction which every body else feels according to the measure of the happiness within him; whether the possessor makes others more satisfied with themselves, and is therefore more inclined to share the pleasures arising from self-love, than his accuser; whether he is really so vain as his accuser, and does not more willingly acknowledge merits above his own, and a greater variety of them; and lastly, whether the accusation is not made out of pure spleen and jealousy.

Women have been charged with having a natural inclination for coxcombs. The charge is idle, and itself a coxcombry. Let the solemn fops that make it, see if they can succeed. The truth is, that where a woman likes a coxcomb, she does not like him on that account, but because he mingles with his folly those lively and more agreeable qualities, which nature has made to be liked by every body. She likes the cheerfulness of his blood, the flow of his conversation, the spirit of his mien and behaviour,-evidences of a nature capable of entertaining and of protecting her. Let a man have these, and be no coxcomb, and she will prefer him to one that is. If she prefers a coxcomb to a formalist, or to one whose egotism is so great, as to drown and make desolate his commonest behaviour, in the despair of acting up to his excessive notion of himself, she is wise, and has only chosen the happier fop.

We will conclude this paper with a copy of verses by Sir John Vanbrugh, in which the reader may take the portrait of the officer, either for the airy coxcomb, properly so called, or for a portrait of Sir John himself, who was a captain with a feather in his hat. In either case, it will give a relish to the perusal, if we suppose one of the graver fops just mentioned looking on.

But prate, and talk, and play the fool.
He said, 'twas wealth gave joy and mirth,
And that to be the dearest wife

Of one, who labour'd all his life
To make a mine of gold his own,

And not spend sixpence when he'd done,
Was heaven upon earth.

When these two blades had done, d'ye see,
The Feather (as it might be me).
Steps out, Sir, from behind the screen
With such an air and such a mien,-
Look'ye, old gentleman,-in short,
He quickly spoil'd the statesman's sport.
It proved such sunshine weather,
That, you must know, at the first beck
The lady leap'd about his neck,
And off they went together.

Vanbrugh was a good fellow, and besides his feather, had "books," and "morals" too for that matter. "Garth, Vanbrugh, and Congreve," said Pope, (and Tonson, the bookseller, who was sitting by, and knew them all well, agreed with him) "were the three most honesthearted, real good men, of the poetical members of the Kit-Kat Club." A feather may carry it against formality, as it ought to do; but a feather on a head full of wit and generosity will beat all other feathers, let the sullen say what they will. Nor, we will venture to affirm, whatever the sullen or the superficial may think to the contrary, was there ever a sound and generous head, feathered or not, that had not its counterpart in the other sex, ready to believe in its honest eyes, and take its pains and its pleasures into her bosom, if it had but the luck to meet with her.

FAIR IDA.

A Ballad.

"His boat is on the waters-hark!

I hear the splashing oar,

What though the wave be wild and dark,

I'll venture from the shore;

Love hath a light for deep midnight,

A compass for the sea,

For him I'll fear not ocean's might,

He is my all to me.

"And must I leave my father's hall,
Where I was gently bred,

And climb'd the knee and lisp'd to all,
Unconscious what I said—
Where doatingly a mother's eye-
(Alas that it is closed!)

Gazed on me in my infancy

And watch'd while I reposed!

"Yes-there's a dearer home for me
Within a lover's arms;

And there my head shall cradled be
In safety from alarms.