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through the channel of my Editor, to beg that they may be honoured with the reception of the Mirror Club.

Like all other candidates for employment, none of them has been at a loss for reasons why his proposal should have the preference. One describes his house as in the most public, another recommends his as in the most private part of the town. One says, his tavern is resorted to by the politest company; another, that he only receives gentlemen of the most regular and respectable characters. One offers me the largest room of its kind; another the most quiet and commodious. I am particularly pleased with the attention of one of these gentlemen, who tells ne he has provided an excellent elbow-chair for Mr. Umphraville; and that he shall take care to have no children in his house to disturb Mr. Fleetwood.

I am sorry to keep these good people in suspence; but I must inform them, for many obvious reasons, that though my friends and I visit them oftener perhaps than they are aware of, it may be a considerable time before we find it convenient to constitute a regular club, or to make known, even to the master of the house which has the honour of receiving us, where we have fixed the place of our convention.

Mean time, as all of them rest their chief pretensions on the character of the clubs who already favour them with their countenance, and as the names of most of these clubs excite my curiosity to be acquainted with their history and constitution, I must hereby request the landlords who entertain the respective societies of the Capillaire, the Whin-bush, the Knights of the Cap and Feather, the Tabernaele, the Stoic, the Poker, the Hum-drum, and the Antemanum, to transmit me a short account of the origin and nature of these societies ;-I say the landlords, because I do not think myself entitled to desire such an account from the clubs themselves; and because

it is probable that the most material transactions carried on at their meetings are perfectly well known, and, indeed, may be said to come through the hands of the hosts and their deputies.

L

No. XLVII. TUESDAY, JULY 6.

Quid minuat curas, quid te tibi reddat amicum.

HOR.

THAT false refinement and mistaken delicacy I have formerly described in my friend Mr. Fleetwood, a constant indulgence in which has rendered all his feelings so acute, as to make him be disgusted with the ordinary societies of men, not only attends him when in company, or engaged in conversation, but sometimes disturbs those pleasures, from which a mind like his ought to receive the highest enjoyment. Though endowed with the most excellent taste, and though his mind be fitted for relishing all the beauties of good composition; yet, such is the effect of that excess of sensibility he has indulged, that he hardly ever receives pleasure from any of these, which is not mixed with some degree of pain. reading, though he can feel all the excellencies of the author, and enter into his sentiments with warmth, yet he generally meets with something to offend him. If a poem, he complains that, with all its merit, it is, in some places, turgid, in others languid; if a prose composition, that the style is laboured or careless, stiff or familiar, and that the matter is either trite or obscure. In his remarks, there is always some foundation of truth; but that exquisite sensibility which leads to the too nice perception of ble

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mishes, is apt to carry him away from the contemplation of the beauties of the author, and gives him a degree of uneasiness which is not always compensated by the pleasure he receives.

Very different from this turn of mind is that of Robert Morley, Esq. He is a man of very considerable abilities. His father, (possessed of a considerable fortune) sent him, when a boy, to an English academy. He contracted, from the example of his teachers, an attachment to ancient learning; and he was led to think that he felt and relished the classics, and understood the merits of their composition. From these circumstances, he began to fancy himself a man of fine taste, qualified to decide with authority upon every subject of polite literature. But, in reality, Mr. Morley possesses as little taste as any one I ever knew of his talents and learning. Endowed, by Nature, with great strength of mind, and ignorant of the feeeleness and weakness of human eharacter, he is a stranger to all those finer delicacies of feeling and perception which constitute the man of genuine taste. But, this notwithstanding, from the persuasion that he is a person of fine taste, he reads and talks with fancied rapture, of a poem, or a poetical description. All his remarks, however, discover that he knows nothing of what he talks about; and almost every opinion which he gives differs from the most approved upon the subject. Catched by that spiritwhich Homer's heroes are possessed of, he agrees with the greatest part of the world in thinking that author the first of all poets; but Virgil he considers as a poet of very little merit. To him he prefers Lucan; but thinks there are some passages in Statius superior to either. He says Ovid gives a better picture of love than Tibullus; and he prefers Quintus Curtius, as an historian, to Livy. The modern writers, particularly the French, he generally speaks of with ontempt. Amongst the English, he likes the style

of the Rambler better than that of Mr. Addison's Spectator; and he prefers Gordon and Macpherson to Hume and Robertson. I have sometimes heard him repeat an hundred lines at a stretch, from one of the most bombast of our English poets, and have seen him in apparent rapture at the high-sounding words, and swell of the lines, though I anr pretty certain that he could not have a distinct picture or idea of any one thing the poet meant. Though he has no ear, I have heard him talk with enthusiasm in praise of music, and lecture, with an air of superiority, upon the different qualities of the greatest masters in the art.

Thus, while Mr. Fleetwood is often a prey to disappointment, and rendered uneasy by excessive refinement and sensibility, Mr. Morley, without any taste at all, receives gratification unmixed and unalloyed.

The character of Morley is not more different from Fleetwood's, than that of Tom Dacres is from both. Tom is a young man of six-and-twenty, and being owner of an estate of about five hundred pounds ayear, he resides constantly in the country. He is not

a man of parts; nor is he possessed of the least degree of taste; but Tom lives easy, contented, and happy. He is one of the greatest talkers I ever knew ; he rambles, with great volubility, from subject to subject; but he never says any thing that is worth being heard. He is every where the same; and he runs on with the like undistinguishing ease, whether in company with men in high or in low rank, with the knowing or the ignorant. The morning, if the weather be good, he employs in traversing the fields, dressed in a short coat, and an old slouched hat with tarnished gold binding. He is expert at all exercises; and he passes much of his time in shooting, playing at cricket, or at nine-pins. If the weather be rainy, he moves from the farm-yard to the stable, or from

the stable to the farm-yard. He walks from one end of the parlour to the other, humming a tune, or whistling to himself; sometimes he plays on the fiddle, or takes a hit at back-gammon. Tom's sisters, who are very accomplished girls, now and then put into his hands any new book with which they are pleased; but he always returns it, says he does not see the use of reading, that the book may be good, is well pleased that they like it, but that it is not a thing of his sort. Even in the presence of ladies, he often indulges in jokes coarse and indecent, which could not be heard without a blush from any other person; but from Tom, for his way is known, they are heard without offence. Tom is pleased with himself, and with every thing around him, and wishes for nothing that he is not possessed of. He says he is much happier than your wiser and graver gentlemen. Tom will never be respected or admired; but he is disliked by none, and made welcome wherever he goes.

In reflecting upon these characters, I have sometimes been almost tempted to think, that taste is an acquisition to be avoided. I have been apt to make this conclusion, when I considered the many undescribable uneasinesses which Mr. Fleetwood is exposed to, and the many unalloyed enjoyments of Morley and Dacres; the one without taste, but believing himself possessed of it; the other without taste, and without thinking that he has any. But I have always been withdrawn from every such reflection, by the contemplation of the character of my much-valued friend Mr. Sidney.

Mr. Sidney is a man of the best understanding, and of the most correct and elegant taste; but he is not more remarkable for those qualities, than for that uncommon goodness and benevolence which presides in all he says and does. To this it is owing that his refined taste has never been attended with any other consequence than to add to his own happiness, and to

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