If he is invited to a wedding, he entertains the come pany all the while they are at dinner, with the happinefs of a fingle life. He afks a man, that is tired to death with a long journey, to go and take a walk with him. As foon as a thing is fold, he finds you out a chapman, that would have given twice as much for it.

He ftarts up in the midst of a company, and tells them a long ftory, of what every one is better acquainted with than himself. He will needs be managing another man's affairs, who is forced to be under his direction, because he does not know how to get rid of him. He is fo much a friend to every one who makes a feaft, that he comes and partakes of what he finds, without ftanding upon the forma lity of an invitation.

Ir the mafter of the house strikes his fervant before him, he tells a ftory of a boy of his own, whom he had beaten for the fame fault; upon which, fays he the unlucky rogue went away and hanged himself.

WHEN he is chofen umpire by two perfons, who have both a mind to accommodate matters, he raises new difficulties; and, after having fet them together by the ears, leaves them to end the business between themselves. When he is at a feaft, if he fees a man who is more grave than ordinary, and has not yet taken a chearful glafs, he finglès him out from the whole company, and defires he may have a dance with him.

XXVI.

HONOUR COMPARED WITH RELIGION.

TR

RUE honour, though it be a different principle from religion, is that which produces the fame effects. The lines of action, though drawn from different parts, terminate in the fame point. Religion embraces virtue, as it is enjoined by the laws of God; honour, as it is graceful and ornamental to human nature. The religions man, fears; the man of honour scorns to do an ill action. The latter, confiders vice as fomething that is beneath him; the former, as fomething that is offenfive to the Divine Being the one, as what is unbecoming; the other, as what is forbidden. Thus Seneca fpeaks in the natural and genuine language of a man of honour, when he declares, that were there no God to fee or punish vice, he would not commit it, because it is of fo mean, fo bafe, and fo vile a nature.

THE

HE family of Euphronius had left their retirement at Hart-hill, where

"Dead the vegetable kingdom lay,
"And dumb the tuneful."

His fire-fide, at Manchester, was furrounded by a young and fmiling circle; and the various labours

and

and incidents of the day, furnished topics of amufing conversation for the evening. Each, in fucceffion, was the little hero of his own important tale; and Sophron closed the entertainment, by repeating the geographical leffon which he had learned, and recounting his travels over the terraqueous globe.

ALL liftened with eager attention to the wondrous narration. He told them of the orange groves, and fpicy woods of Western and Eaftern India; defcribed the gold and filver mines of Peru; the rich diamonds. of Brazil and of Bengal; and the ivory tufks of the elephant, found in the forefts of Africa. In artless colours, he painted the dreary regions, and eternal fnows, of the northern and fouthern poles; and, when a general chill had feized his fympathetic audience, he prefented to their aftonifhed view, the clouds of fmoke, and torrents of liquid fire, difcharged by Hecla, Vefuvius, and Etna. Thefe impreffions of horror, were for a while fufpended, when he displayed the vast expanfe of the ocean, unruffled by a breath of wind, reflecting every where the azure fky, and crowded with myriads of fportive fifhes. But a ftorm fucceeds: the fwelling billows mount into the fky; the fhattered bark is borne aloft on the fummit of a wave, and then hurled into the gulph below, where fhe is dafhed against a treacherous rock, or fwallowed by the horrible abyfs.

ture.

SOPHRON proceeded to the history of animated naHe pictured the lion, which inhabits the horrid defarts of Zaara; pointed out the juft proportions of his make, in which ftrength is united with agility; his undaunted look; and tremendous roar, resembling distant thunder. The peaceable rhinoceros, that provokes not to combat, yet difdains to fly, even from the monarch of the foreft; the fierce C 4 tyger,

X

tyger, the favage and untameable hyena, and the artful crocodile, were each defcribed. Nor did he forget the camel, patient of hunger and thirft; the monftrous hippopotamus, found in the rivers Nile, Niger, and Zaara; and the ouranoutang, fo near in its approaches to the human form. The fcaly tribe of fishes he barely noticed; hut dwelt longer on the ftructure, properties, and habitudes of the feathered race. He particularly enlarged on the fongsters of the wood, who delight the eye, and charm the ear, by their varied plumage, and enchanting notcs. Thefe pleafing notes, he faid, are not more innate, than human language; but depend on the imitation of fuch founds, as the birds most frequently hear, and which their organs are adapted to perform. A young robin has been taught the fong of the nightingale; and a linnet, which belonged to a gentleman at Kenfington, almost articulated the words pretty boy. The common fparrow, taken from the nest when just fledged, and educated with the goldfinch and the linnet, acquires the mufic of each; and the powers of the mocking bird, are expressed by its very

name.

HERE Sophron concluded the history of his travels, of which this is only a brief relation. Alexis, Lucy, Emilia, and Jacobus, continued in mute attention, expecting farther wonders; and Euphronius felt his heart glow with affection and delight. You have given us, faid he to Sophron, a lively and just defcription of the globe, its productions, and brute inhabitants: but man, who, by the fuperiority of his mental powers, is the lord of the creation, and whose nature and character form the most interesting and important objects of enquiry, has been overlooked in your furvey. Climate, foil, laws, cuftoms, food, and other accidental differences, have produced an

astonishing

astonishing variety in the complexion, features, manners, and faculties of the human fpecies. The moft refined and polished nations may be distinguished from each other; and a river is fometimes the only boundary between two favage tribes, who are as diffimular in the tincture of their skin, as in the difpofition of their minds.--All these varieties, however, may be reduced to fix.

THE first is found under the polar regions, and comprehends the Laplanders, the Esquimaux Indians, the Samoeid Tartars, the inhabitants of Nova Zembla, the Borandians, the Greenlanders, and the people of Kamtfchatka. The visage of men in these countries, is large and broad; the nose flat and short; the eyes of a yellowish brown, inclining to blacknefs; the cheek-bones extremely high; the mouth large; the lips thick, and turned outwards; the voice thin and fqueaking; and the fkin of a dark grey colour. The people are fhort in ftature; the generality being about four feet high, and the talleft not more than five. Ignorance, ftupidity, and fuperftition, are the mental characteristics of the inhabitants of these rigorous climates. For, here

"Doze the grofs race. Nor-fprightly jeft, nor fong,
"Nor tenderness, they know; nor aught of life,
"Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without."

THE Tartar race, under which may be comprehended the Chinese, and the Japanese, forms the fecond great variety in the human fpecies. Their countenances are broad, and wrinkled, even in youth; their nofes fhort and flat; their eyes little, funk in the fockets, and feveral inches afunder; their cheekbones are high; their teeth of a large fize, and feparate from each other; their complexions olive-colourC 5

ed;